Palatalization and the Syntactic Structure of Ukrainian Verbs
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2025 |
| Type | Requested lectures |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | In this talk, I analyze the morphology of finite forms (present tense) of Ukrainian verbs, focusing on the interaction between roots and suffixes. The goal is to account for why different roots select different suffixes, giving rise to distinct verbal classes. The finite forms of Ukrainian verbs fall into two classes distinguished by suffixes. Additionally, class 2 roots show alternation in 1sg and 3pl. The analysis of these alternations reveals that they are systematic and productive. This indicates that the alternations result from a phonological process of palatalization. Two types of palatalizers are identified – a strong one and a weak one – which differ in how they affect a subset of consonants (specifically sibilants and dentals). These phonological facts reveal a richer morphological situation in class 2. This allows to posit a different syntactic structure for class 1 and class 2 roots, formally accounting for them. I further show how finite forms of both classes can be derived using the universal functional sequence and the syntactic operations of Nanosyntax (Starke 2009, De Clercq et al. 2025). |
| Related projects: |