The stratal structure of Kuria morphological tone

Abstract

Marlo et al. (2015) claim that Kuria verbal tone morphology undermines three well-established principles of locality and modularity: (1) Phonological Locality: the assumption that rules and constraints may only evaluate a small window of phonological objects; (2) Cyclic Locality: the stratal organization of morphophonology into stems, words and phrases; and (3) Indirect Reference: the claim that phonological rules and constraints cannot directly access morphosyntactic information. Sande et al. (2020) turn this claim into an argument for a new model of the morphosyntax–phonology interface, Cophonologies by Phase, which erases the separation between phonology and morphology and abandons standard locality domains in favour of syntactic phases. In this article, I show that the conclusions of both articles are unfounded: the Kuria data follow naturally from an analysis based on autosegmental tone melodies in a version of Stratal Optimality Theory which embraces all three restrictions, Phonological and Cyclic Locality and Indirect Reference, the latter implemented by Coloured Containment Theory. I argue that this approach obviates the technical and conceptual objections raised by Marlo et al. against a tone-melody analysis of Kuria, and makes more restrictive predictions about possible systems of tonal morphophonology compared to construction phonology frameworks.