Formalizing the connection between opaque and exceptionful generalizations

Abstract

This paper proposes an account of an opaque generalization (Canadian Raising; Chambers 1973) in terms of indexed constraints in OT (Pater 2000, 2010). This approach formalizes the idea, championed in previous work on Canadian Raising (Mielke et al. 2003; Pater 2014) and opacity more broadly (Lubowicz 2003; Sanders 2003, 2006), that opaque generalizations have a stronger connection to the lexicon and/or exceptionality than to the grammar proper. These previous approaches tend to yield non-restrictive accounts of opaque generalizations (ones that do not easily extend the pattern to novel items), which I show also holds for an account of opaque Canadian Raising in terms of constraints indexed to whole morphemes (Pater 2000, 2010). To counter this, I propose so-called extended indexation: a blend of segmentally local indexation (Temkin-Martínez 2010; Rubach 2013, 2016; Round 2017) and binary indexation (Becker 2009) that goes back to the account for exceptions from  Chomsky and Halle (1968). I show that this kind of indexation offers a restrictive account of opaque Canadian Raising, compatible with the fact that Raising is productive (Idsardi 2006).