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This chapter introduces the question of whether ordinary individuals have non-trivial individual essences: essential properties that are not only necessary but also sufficient for their identities in all possible worlds. It argues that the issue is important, for if there are no such non-trivial individual essences for ordinary individuals, we are forced to choose from what may seem to be an unpalatable list of options: either the identities of these individuals across possible worlds can be ‘bare’ identities, or their transworld identities can be ‘extrinsically determined’, or — unless we abandon de re modal claims about such individuals entirely — we must interpret those de re modal claims in terms of counterpart theory rather than identity across possible worlds. Two arguments for non-trivial individual essences are considered. The first is an ‘indiscernibility argument’ that is related to an argument presented by Robert Adams for ‘primitive thisness’. The second is based on an argument presented by Graeme Forbes. The distinction between ‘trivial’ and ‘non-trivial’ individual essences is explained, and the relation between the theses that there can be ‘bare’ transworld identities and that there can be ‘haecceitistic’ (non-qualitative) differences between possible worlds is discussed.

This chapter discusses the relation between representation and learnability in different approaches to reduplication. We show that Correspondence Theory (McCarthy and Prince 1995) and Raimy (2000) both increase the representational possibilities for phonological theory but that only the Raimy (2000) approach has a natural simplicity metric which helps constrain the hypothesis space a language learner is confronted with. The least complex representation that maps to a surface reduplicated form in the Raimy (2000) theory can be identified based on the number of segments and precedence links. This unique least complex representation can then serve as the null hypothesis for a learner who will only consider more complex representations if confronted with positive evidence. Correspondence Theory on the other hand does not have any natural complexity metric to distinguish between phonetically identical but representationally distinct candidates which leads to an explosion in the hypothesis space for the learner. We conclude that the Raimy (2000) approach to reduplication is more representationally constrained than the Correspondence Theory approach and thus should be preferred.

Complex words can be divided into different kinds of morphemes such as roots and affixes. Natural languages show a number of formal operations to make new words: affixation, compounding, conversion, reduplication, and phonetic modification. Languages differ considerably in the way they make use of these possibilities. They can be classified according to the indices of synthesis and fusion. Thus, morphology plays an important role in linguistic typology.

This chapter presents a semantic classification of co-compounds based on the semantic relationship between parts and whole, drawing mainly on material from central Eurasian languages. A distinction between basic and non-basic co-compounds is made, and how different types of co-compounds can develop from each other diachronically is discussed. Several phenomena similar to co-compounds are discussed, viz. appositional compounds, ideophone compounds, reduplication, and echo-words, and how these are related to co-compounds is considered. Co-compounds are an ideal field for the study of lexico-semantic relationships and processes in real language use. It is argued that synonymy has usually to be considered as contextual synonymy rather than complete synonymy. The chapter discusses how the meaning of parts of co-compounds are sharpened in the context by contextual sharpening processes, such as pair sharpening and synonymic sharpening. Characteristic contexts motivating the use of co-compounds, such as generalization, non-referentiality, and distributivity, are explored.

This introductory chapter provides essential background for the analyses developed in the subsequent chapters of the book. The first section defines the scope of the book, introducing the types of prosodic morphemes to be discussed (reduplication, word minimality, templatic morphology, hypocoristics). The next two sections discuss how prosodic morphology has been of interest to recent theories of phonology and morphology. In phonology, prosodic morphology illustrates theories of segmental and prosodic shape markedness. In morphology, prosodic morphology challenges the Item-and-Arrangement approach that is most easily modeled in constituency trees. The final sections present a critical overview of recent work on prosodic morphology within Optimality Theory and outline the new theory developed in the book.

This chapter provides a critical evaluation of Generalized Template Theory (GTT), developed within Optimality Theory, to explain canonical morpheme shape. The central proposal of GTT is that prosodic morphemes have a restricted repertoire of prosodic shapes because they draw on the canonical shapes of a restricted repertoire of morphological categories. General theoretical principles correlate particular morphological categories (Stem, Root, Affix) with particular prosodic constituents. The central prosody-morphology correlation in this approach is between the stress foot and the morphological Stem (via the Prosodic Word in the Prosodic Hierarchy: the Stem=Prosodic Word Homology). The first two sections of this chapter define GTT and illustrate its strengths with examples showing the processes of reduplication, word minimality, templatic morphology, and hypocoristics drawn from a variety of languages. The third and final section discusses the empirical problems with the GTT, which motivate the alternative approach developed from Chapter 3.

This chapter argues for a morpheme-based alternative to the version of the Generalized Template Theory (GTT) of prosodic morpheme shapes critiqued in Chapter 2. In this approach (MBT), canonical shapes do not fall out from the Prosodic Hierarchy. Instead, the basic prosody-morpheme correlation is between the morpheme (Root or Affix) and the syllable. Lexical morphemes (Roots) tend to be branching syllables while affixes tend to be simplex syllables because lexical morphemes license more complex structure than non-lexical morphemes. Derived morphological constructions (Stems) tend to be minimally longer than single morphemes, as morphological branching is optimally matched by (disyllabic) prosodic branching. The first section of the chapter presents the general theoretical motivations for this alternative. The remaining sections provide detailed analyses of processes like reduplication, word minimality, templatic morphology, and hypocoristics, showing how the approach works and how it solves the problems discussed in Chapter 2.

This chapter discusses the remaining problems for the Generalized Template Theory (GTT), both the version developed in this book and other versions. One problem is that canonical shapes in some languages can be minimally smaller than a syllable (e.g., a single segment) or maximally larger than a disyllable (e.g., maximally four syllables). Neither of these shapes is definable as a target for prosodic morphology. Another problem is that GTT assumes that prosodic morphemes can be unambiguously assigned to a particular morphological category. However, a non-branching monosyllable can realize either a Root or an Affix if phonotactic constraints do not allow branching syllables in a particular language. For reasons like this, it is not always possible to determine the morphological category of a prosodic morpheme. These problems for future research are acknowledged, while emphasizing the gain in empirical coverage of the morpheme-based version of GTT.

This chapter presents a series of case studies. The first three—Ndebele and Kinande unintensive reduplication and Asheninca Campa intensive reduplication—were chosen because they have been extensively analyzed in very different frameworks. McCarthy and Prince (1995) claimed that derivational phonology is an inadequate framework for understanding the complexities of Asheninca Campa intensive reduplication. Inkelas and Zoll (2000) claimed that Ndebele unintensive reduplication demonstrates that apparently duplicated phonological material is not in fact the result of copying in the phonology. It is shown that both of these claims are unfounded. The chapter also includes three prominent examples from Raimy (2000) (from Tohono O’odham plural reduplication, Temiar continuative reduplication, and Chaha intensive reduplication) to let readers assess the differences with and similarities to his analysis. A fairly thorough treatment of Sanskrit verbal reduplication is also provided so readers can make a similar assessment with respect to Steriade’s (1988) well-known analysis of perfect and intensive reduplication in Sanskrit.

This chapter discusses four types of reduplication in Yoruba, a Niger-Congo language of Nigeria: Agentive reduplication, infixing reduplication, distributive reduplication, and gerundive reduplication. In agentive reduplication, both consonants and vowels are copied intact, including vowel height, nasality, and tone. Total reduplication can be analyzed using two basic approaches: One is to consider one half of the reduplicated form as the “base” and the other half as the “reduplicant”; and the other is to attribute reduplication more directly to the morphology. The two approaches can derive the Yoruba agentives, but they exhibit a number of pronounced differences.

This chapter offers an overview of the problems, and possible solutions, associated with the metaphysics of incarnation. The chapter describes the major problem of incoherence—the charge that no individual could be both divine and human, because this would involve instantiating inconsistent properties at the same time. The chapter distinguishes between metaphysical and linguistic solutions to this and similar problems, before offering a summary of the major kinds of metaphysical models of the incarnation that have been suggested, and relating the views of the other contributors to this volume to those models.

In the incarnation, did the Logos simply add a human nature to its divine nature, as classical defenders of the incarnation traditionally claim? Or did the Logos temporarily give up or set aside those divine properties that are inconsistent with humanness, as kenotic defenders of the incarnation claim? The chapter constitutes a defence, at the metaphysical level, of the second option. Such terms as substance, property, person, nature, and others are explored. After explaining one possible kenotic theory of the incarnation, various objections are considered.

This chapter examines the descriptive problems of reduplication that have been observed in the languages of the world and offers an explicit formalism that provides a unified account of the different kinds of reduplicative systems described in the literature. It argues that there are only three kinds of reduplication: simple, partial, and augmented. Simple reduplication copies a single sequence of segments in a word, while partial and augmented reduplication copy a single sequence of segments. Partial and augmented reduplication are examples of simple reduplication, in which deletions (partial reduplication) or additions (augmented reduplication) occur at the edges of the copied strings. The chapter proposes a framework where brackets are inserted around a segment sequence by readjustment rules linked to a morpheme that is perhaps otherwise phonetically null. In this approach, reduplications sometimes interact with other rules of the phonology or morphology. An account of metathesis is implicit in the formalism for partial reduplication.

There are several neurological conditions that have particular relevance for the understanding of the neurobiology of the self. Patients with these disorders have neurological perturbations of the self in which brain dysfunction creates a transformation of personal significance. This chapter considers select neuropathological disorders of the self that can be grouped into two related conditions: delusional misidentification syndromes (DMS) and delusional reduplication syndromes (DRS). It focuses on the relationship between these two syndromes and the broader syndrome of confabulation, and explores how brain pathology creates misidentification or reduplication of the body and self, other persons, and places of personal significance. The chapter investigates (1) the clinical features of these syndromes; (2) the manner in which these specific conditions differ from other more general neuropathological disorders; (3) the neuroanatomical substrates of these conditions; and (4) possible explanations for these disorders.

Offers the Strawson Argument for the claim, (1), that the most basic beliefs about the spatial world have their contents only in virtue of their standing in certain relations with perceptual experiences. Only an experiential presentation of the particular mind‐independent thing in question suffices to tie down knowledgeable reference to spatial particulars in the face of the permanent epistemic possibility of massive qualitative reduplication of any sector of the physical world elsewhere in the universe. So the possibility of beliefs about mind‐independent particulars depends upon the most basic such beliefs’ standing in certain content‐fixing relations with perceptual experiences of the objects in question.

‘Representations & Primitive Operations’ begins with a discussion of the organization of phonological structures such as features, segments, and syllables. It then presents a theory of phonological rule application and morphological concatenation based on formalization of the primitive operations search, copy, and delete, illustrated with examples of affixation, reduplication, harmony, and other phonological rules. The possible evolutionary origins of these primitive operations are also discussed.

This chapter develops the theory of prosodic adjustment. It discusses heavy-syllable prefixal reduplication in the related Austronesian languages Mokilese, Ponapean, Agta, and Ilocano. It examines the range of variation in juncture insertion coupled with the range of variation in prosodic adjustment, and shows that there is a good fit between the attested reduplication patterns and the predictions of Distributed Reduplication (DR).

There is somewhat more difference in the ways inflectional suffixes occur in Singapore English when compared to the usage found in traditional varieties of English such as those of Britain or America. This chapter considers inflectional suffixes such as -ed in the past-tense form of the verb and -s in both the third-person singular present-tense form of the verb and the plural form of the noun. It also discusses other syntactic issues such as the occurrence of the modal verbs will and would, the occasional omission of the copula verb be, the use of the perfective, the meaning of till, relative pronouns, reduplication of words, invariant utterance-final tags, the incidence of extra prepositions, and finally the occurrence of null-subject structures.