Three types of linearization and the temporal aspects of speech*

William Idsardi, University of Maryland, College Park

Eric Raimy, University of Wisconsin, Madison

1.0 The road to PF

Linearization is a commonly used term in many domains of linguis-
tic theory. The purpose of this paper is to clarify what linearization
is by demonstrating that it is not a monolithic nor unified operation.
Instead, linearization occurs as a by-product of the necessary con-
version of representations from one grammatical module to another.
The transfer of a representation from one module to another re-
quires a conversion in content since different modules traffic in dif-
ferent representations and concomitant computations. As a starting
point, we assume the grammatical organization in (1).

(1) Organization of the grammar

Narrow syntax

spell-out

PF/SM CI

Within the model in (1) we argue that there are three distinct places where
linearization occurs. All forms of linearization occur after the representa-
tion has left the narrow syntax and occur as part of the externalization
(Berwick and Chomsky forthcoming) of language. This means that the
model in (1) is oversimplified and requires more detail between the spell-
out and the phonetic form/sensory-motor areas (PF/SM). At the spell-out
point, we must note that the representation built by the narrow syntax is
sent off to the conceptual-intention areas (CI) prior to any type of lineari-
zation. The split in the path of the representation marks the beginning of
the externalization and linearization of the syntactic object.
There are three types of linearization and they are associated both
with a particular grammatical submodule and the addition (and possible
removal) of specific types of relationship between atoms of representa-
tion. The narrow syntax (Chomsky 2007) module remains intact and only
utilizes hierarchical relationships created by merge (external or internal)

1
between syntactic elements. The narrow syntax ships off representations
to the CI interface and the morphosyntax module. The representations in
the morphosyntax module are distinct from the representations in the nar-
row syntax because in addition to hierarchical relationships there are now
adjacency relationships present (Marantz 1988, Embick and Noyer 2001).
This is the first type of linearization to occur and we define the addition of
adjacency relations as immobilization. At this point, the morphosyntactic
representation contains hierarchical and adjacency relations among mor-
phosyntactic features but there is as yet no phonological content present.
Spell-out is the process which exchanges morphosyntactic features for
phonological representations. The linearization aspect of spell-out is that
the hierarchical and adjacency relations from the morphosyntax are traded
for precedence relations among phonological segments. Morphopho-
nological representations consist only of phonological and morphological
material so they are limited to segments, precedence relations, any pro-
sodic structure projected from the segments and morphological diacritics.
Finally, morphophonological representations will be serialized into
phonological representations which conform to a strict linear ordering
(e.g. asymmetric and non-reflexive) and only contain phonological mate-
rial and diacritics. For the purposes of this paper, we will equate the
phonological representation with PF and assume that there are further
complex transformations in the phonetic modules which result in a repre-
sentation interpretable at the SM interface. (2) summarizes the nature of
representation in these four modules.

(2) The path from narrow syntax to PF

Module Characteristics
Narrow syntax hierarchy, no linear order, no phonological content
LINEARIZATION-1 = Immobilization
Morphosyntax hierarchy, adjacency, no phonological content
LINEARIZATION-2 = Spell-out
Morphophonology no hierarchy, directed graph, phonological content
LINEARIZATION-3 = Serialization
Phonology no hierarchy, linear order, phonological string

We will demonstrate the distinctions in linearization based on

each module by analyzing a single example of Echo Reduplication (ER)
in Kannada (Lidz 2001). ER in Kannada provides a rich example that
demonstrates the necessary representational aspects of each grammatical
module. The layout of this chapter is as follows. Section 2 discusses our

2
assumptions about narrow syntax and what aspects of the ER pattern
should be accounted for in this module. Sections 3 through 5 repeat the
process of providing our assumptions and what aspects of ER need to be
accounted for by the morphosyntax, morphophonology and phonology
respectively. Section 6 provides a conclusion and discusses how a lineari-
zation based approach to linguistic representations provides insights into
the atemporal aspects of language as identified by Lashley (1951).

2.0 The syntax of ER

Kayne (1994), The antisymmetry of syntax, is the culmination of a re-
search program to remove linear order from the narrow syntax. This line
of inquiry about syntactic representations begins with Barss and Lasnik
(1986) and continues with structural analyses (Larson 1988, Pesetsky
1995 among others) which remove the need for linear order in the explica-
tion of various constructions. Therefore, linear order is superfluous in syn-
tax. The strongest version of these proposals is Kayne's (1994) Linear
Correspondence Axiom in (3).

(3) Linear Correspondence Axiom: d(A) is a linear ordering of T.

Kayne (1994:49) states:

“[T]he LCA is the source of all the major properties of phrase struc-
ture that have been attributed to X-bar theory…It follows that to de-
clare the LCA inapplicable to some level of representation–say, LF–
would be to declare inapplicable to that level of representation all the
restrictions on phrase structure familiar from X-bar theory…”

Many have already noted that Kayne's version of the LCA is too strong
and must be reinterpreted. For example, internal merge (Chomsky 2007)
creates syntactic objects which violate the LCA. Anytime internal merge
operates, a symmetrical relationship will be created and this violates the
LCA. Any model of syntax which adopts a copy theory of movement con-
tains this conflict between syntactic movement and the LCA.
Kayne's proposals on antisymmetry are usually interpreted as in-
dicating syntactic structure determines and fixes linear order. This is one
way to interpret linear relationships being inert in the narrow syntax. An-
other way to interpret the inertness of linear order in syntactic representa-
tions is proposed by Chomsky (2007) and Berwick and Chomsky (forth-

3
coming). Chomsky (2007) suggests that Merge (internal or external) does
not encode linear order thus only hierarchy is represented in the narrow
syntax. Consequently, the “LCA can plausibly be interpreted as part of the
mapping to the SM interface” (Chomsky 2007:10). Berwick and Chomsky
further develop this idea stating, “…ordering is restricted to externaliza-
tion of internal computation to the sensorimotor system, and plays no role
in core syntax and semantics…” (Berwick and Chomsky, to appear: 9).
The complete removal of linear order from the narrow syntax
highlights the importance of a modular approach to ordering effects. Each
distinct grammatical module will alter the characteristics of the represen-
tation to suit the particular computations that need to be accomplished.
Distributed Morphology (Halle and Marantz 1993, 1994) is particularly
suited to demonstrating the distinct representational aspects of different
modules. Perhaps the most important aspect of DM in our understanding
of how linearization is achieved is the principle of Late Insertion. Late
Insertion proposes that no phonological material is present in the narrow
syntax or morphosyntax modules. If precedence relations (Raimy 2000)
which encode linear order are fundamentally phonological in nature then
adopting the DM position of Late Insertion derives directly the inertness
of linear order in the narrow syntax. The importance of the relationship
between Late Insertion and linear order has been overlooked previously.
We can now turn to the examples of ER in Kannada (Lidz 2001)
that we will use to demonstrate the different stages of linearization. We
assume the general analysis of Kannada and ER from Lidz (2001, 2004)
and Lidz and Williams (2006). (4) presents examples of ER which show
the basic surface linear order (SOV/S-C-H) and the possible variations in
the extent of the reduplicated material in ER. Note that the phonological
material which indicates what the syntactic base for reduplication is is
indicated in square brackets while the actual repeated (and partially pho-
nologically prespecified material) is underlined.

(4) ER in Kannada (Lidz 2001:388-389)

a. baagil-annu [much]-gich-id-e anta heeLa-beeDa
door-ACC close-RED-PST-1S that say-PROH
'Don't say that I closed the door or did related things'

b. baagil-annu [much-id-e]-gich-id-e anta heeLa-beeDa

door-ACC close-PST-1S-RED that say-PROH
'Don't say that I closed the door or did related things'

4
c. nannu [baagil-annu much-id-e] giigilannu muchide
anta heeLa-beeDa
I-NOM door-ACC close-PST-1S RED
that say-PROH
'Don't say that I closed the door or did related activities'

d. [baagil-annu] giigilannu much-id-e

door-ACC RED close-PST-1S
'I closed the door and related things'

The syntactic analysis of ER should account for the syntactic phenomena

(and by implication through CI the semantic phenomena) and only the
syntactic and semantic phenomena. Consequently, the tree in (5) is neces-
sary and sufficient to capture the syntactic aspects of (4a-c).

(5) ER syntax for embedded VPs in Kannada (hierarchy only)

…

CP

C IP
ER
DP I'
subj
I vP
tns/#
DP v'
subj
v VP

V DP
!much baagil-annu

The important syntactic aspects of (5) are that by placing the ER mor-
pheme in C a first pass at whether ER is allowed in an embedded clause
(Lidz 2001:388) is achieved and that the semantic scope of the ER reading
is correct. (4a-c) all have the syntax of (5) even though there are different
surface realizations of ER. The differences in the repeated regions among
(4a-c) do not cause any difference in the interpretation of the examples.

5
(4a-c) all have the '…and did related things' reading where 'close' is in the
scope of ER so 'related things' are connected to 'door closings' (e.g. latch-
ing, locking, pulling down of shades, etc.) (Jeff Lidz, p.c.). As long as the
verb is part of the reduplication pattern, this interpretation obtains regard-
less of how much is actually reduplicated. Since there is variation in the
reduplication pattern but not in the semantics of the patterns, we will ac-
count for this variation in the morphosyntax and not in the narrow syntax.
In contrast, in (4d) the verb is not in the (semantic) scope of ER.
This means that the 'related things' are connected to the DP 'doors' such as
windows but all events are closings (Jeff Lidz, p.c.). This is a semantic
distinction that must be captured in the narrow syntax, inducing a differ-
ent CI representation. Consequently for (4d), we will base generate the ER
morpheme down in DP as in (6).

(6) ER syntax for DPs in Kannada

…

CP

C IP

DP I'
subj
I vP
tns/#
DP v'
subj
v VP

V DP
!much
D NP
ER !baagil

By base generating the ER morpheme inside DP, it will not have semantic
scope over the verb and thus derives the different semantic interpretations
between (4a-c) and (4d).
The narrow syntax only encodes hierarchical relationships and
these relations must determine the relevant semantics for the CI module.

6
All other aspects of the examples in (4) such as the linear order of SOV or
the variation in reduplicated regions in (4a-c) are not determined by the
narrow syntax nor should they be.

3.0 The morphosyntax of ER

Operations in the morphosyntax will account for some aspects of linear
word order and the variation in the ER patterns. The interface between the
narrow syntax and the morphosyntax imposes adjacency relations (Sproat
1985, Embick and Noyer 2001) in the representations. Immobilization is
the process that adds adjacency information to hierarchical information
and adjacency is indicated by * in (7) (following Sproat 1985).

(7) Immobilized tree for ER in embedded VPs

…
CP

C * IP
RED
DP * I'
subj
I * vP
tns/#
DP * v'
subj
v * VP

V * DP
!much !baagil

Immobilization does not create a complete linear order because mirror

images of hierarchical adjacency structures are equivalent but not all or-
derings of syntactic elements are admissible as shown in (8).

(8) Equivalency under adjacency

a. [A * [B*C]] = [[B*C]*A] = [[C*B]*A] = [A*[C*B]] " [C*A*B]
b. [CP ER *[IP Ø *[I' tns/# *[vP Ø *[v' v*[VP !much *[DP !baagil]]]]]]]
c. [CP [IPØ *[I' [vP Ø *[v' [VP [DP !baagil]* !much]* v]]* tns/#]]* ER]
Adjacency information added by immobilization is required to properly
define the operation of morphological merger (Marantz 1988). The mor-

7
phosyntax can also perform other operations such as addition of mor-
phemes, fusion, fission and impoverishment (Halle and Marantz 1994).
None of these processes are relevant to the aspects of ER that we are fo-
cusing on.
The morphosyntax can also perform the operation of lowering
(Embick and Noyer 2001). Lowering the ER morpheme from its base
generated position of C will account for the variation in what is redupli-
cated in (4a-c). We will set aside the ER pattern in (4d) because it is base
generated low in the DP and thus does not appear to lower any further.
Since lowering occurs in the morphosyntax after the narrow syntax, the
movement of the ER morpheme will not affect its semantic interpretation.
This is exactly what we want, given the equivalent readings of (4a-c).
To account for the variation in what is reduplicated in (4a-c), we
will allow lowering to move the ER morpheme in three distinct ways.
There is an inverse relationship between how much material is redupli-
cated and how far down the tree the ER morpheme is lowered. This rela-
tionship holds because of how cyclic spell-out operates in that only the
parts of the tree that have been spelled-out prior to the spell-out of the ER
morpheme are eligible to be repeated. Thus, the morphosyntactic scope of
the ER morpheme determines what can be repeated as part of the redupli-
cation pattern. (9) indicates where the ER morpheme moves to and what is
repeated as part of the reduplication pattern.

(9) Variation in Echo Reduplication

reduplicated form C head lowers to
a. much-gich (4a) V
b. muchide-gichide (4b) V with I
c. baagil-annu much-id-e giigilannu muchide (4c) I

(10) shows the morphosyntactic tree that results from the succes-
sive lowering of the ER morpheme all the way down to the V head. As
part of this movement the ER morpheme will lower from C to I, from I to
v and finally from v to V. In the final position of sister to the V head, only
the V head is in the morphosyntactic scope of the lowered ER morpheme.
The position of the ER morpheme in the morphosyntactic tree determines
when the ER morpheme will be spelled-out as phonological material.
Consequently, only previously spelled-out morphemes (now phonological
material) are eligible to be repeated as part of the reduplication pattern.
The dotted box in (10) identifies what parts of the tree will have been

8
spelled-out when the ER morpheme is spelled out. How much of the
phonological material that is already spelled-out is actually repeated is
dependent on morphophonological issues that will be dealt with in the
next section.

(10) Successive ER to V lowering to produce (4a)/(9a)

…

CP

C * IP
ER
DP * I'
subj
I * vP

C I DP * v'
ER subj
v * VP

C v V * DP
ER baagil-annu
C V
ER !much

(11) presents the final morphosyntactic structure for the ER pat-

tern where the verb root plus suffixes is repeated as in (4b/9b). The lower-
ing process that produces this pattern is very similar to the one that pro-
duces the tree in (10). The difference between the two morphosyntactic
structures is that in (11) the ER morpheme first lowers to I and then the
ER morpheme and I head are lowered together as a complex to v. Finally,
the whole v+I+ER morpheme complex is lowered to V. The end result is a
head-adjoined complex consisting of ER+I+v+V in (11) as opposed to
simply an ER+V complex in (10). Another difference between (10) and
(11) is how much phonological material is potentially part of the redupli-
cation pattern. Because the I and v heads lower to C along with the ER
morpheme, they are eligible to be part of the ER pattern. In contrast, the I

9
and v heads are not eligible to be copied as part of the ER pattern in (10)
because they have not been lowered.

(11) ER lowering to I and I+ER lowering to V to produce (4b)/(9c)

…

CP

C * IP
RED
DP * I'
subj
I * vP

C I DP * v'
subj
v * VP

I v V * DP
baagil-annu
C I v V
!much
I v

C I

The final ER pattern that we will explicate with a morphosyntac-

tic tree is the pattern where the entire VP including object is repeated in
(4c/9c). This pattern is also produced via a lowering process but the ER
morpheme only lowers to I and no further. (12) presents this tree and as
before the dotted box indicates what parts of the tree are spelled-out at the
time the ER morpheme is. From one viewpoint, the material available for
repetition in (11) and (12) are the same in that I, v, V and the object
should all be spelled-out. The difference between (11) and (12) is in the
morphosyntactic structure which will determine the order in which the
morphemes are spelled-out. This order will be discussed in the following
section on morphophonology.

10
(12) ER lowering to I to produce (4c)/(9c)
…

CP

C * IP
ER
DP * I'
subj
I * vP

C I DP * v'
ER subj
v * VP

V * DP
!much baagil-annu

The relevant morphosyntactic aspects of ER in Kannada have

now been discussed. The morphosyntax has produced three distinct repre-
sentations via different applications of lowering for the morphophonology
to interpret. The important aspect of these morphosyntactic representa-
tions is that they determine the order in which morphemes will be spelled-
out. Thus, different morphosyntactic representations will provide different
derivations of how the ER examples are converted to phonological repre-
sentations.

4.0 The morphophonology of ER

The morphophonology module converts the morphosyntactic representa-
tion to a phonological representation through vocabulary insertion (Em-
bick and Noyer 2001) through cyclic spell-out of the morphosyntactic
tree. Cyclic spell-out determines the order in which the morphemes are
traded for phonological material via vocabulary insertion.

4.1 Aspects of phonological representations

Memorized phonological forms are abstract in that they consist of bundles
of distinctive features and precedence relationships between these bundles
with both features and precedence relationships able to be manipulated
(Raimy 1999, 2000). The phonological content of the encyclopedia of

11
morphemes for Kannada in (13) is based on proposals in Raimy (2000) in
that phonological representations contain precedence relations and are
autosegmental (Goldsmith 1976). There are three novel symbols in these
representations; # is the precedence symbol A # B means A precedes B,
# is the 'start' symbol which indicates the beginning of a representation
and % is the 'end' symbol which indicates the end of a representation. All
three of these new symbols are required to specify what a well formed
morphophonological representation is.

(13) Partial Kannada encyclopedia

roots semantics phonology
/baagil/ !door ##b#a#X#g#i#l#%
/much/ !close # # m # u # c # h1 # %
/doDDa/ !large ##d#o#D#X#a#%

affixes semantics phonology

/annu/ Accusative {_%} # a # n # X # %
/id/ Past {_%} # i # d # %
/e/ 1S {_%} # e # %

reduplication semantics phonology

/gi/ 'and stuff…' {_%} # g # i #{1st V _}

The phonological representations in (13) do not fully indicate autoseg-

mental structure. Each segment in (13) should be interpreted as a bundle
of distinctive features with the specific content being indicated by the
segment symbol and a separate X-slot. Precedence relations only occur
among the X-slots themselves which means ordering relationships be-
tween distinctive features/segments are derived from the X-tier only. As
part of autosegmental representations, 'long' segments are represented by a
fully specified segment (e.g. bundle of distinctive features associated with
an X-slot) followed by an empty X-slot as in (14) which the phonology
component later further modifies.

(14) Autosegmental representation of 'long' segments

b a g i l feature bundles
| | | | |
# # X # X # X # X # X # X #% X-tier

12
 An additional feature of the morphophonological representations
is that there is a fundamental representational distinction between 'roots'
and 'affixes'. A root can be defined as a morphophonological representa-
tion which is a connected graph (Chartrand 1977:41-42) between # and %.
An affix can be defined as a morphophonological representation which is
not connected between # and %. The affixes in (13) are identifiable by the
anchor point (Raimy 2009) which is contained in their representation. An-
chor points are indicated in (13) by a phonological environment enclosed
in curly brackets. Raimy (2009) provides a constrained theory of possible
anchor points and the only two anchor points relevant for our discussion
are {_%} which is 'the last segment' (i.e. the segment which points to %)
and {1st V _} which is 'the segment after the first vowel'. Because affixes
contain at least one anchor point which will always replace either # or %,
affixes are by definition not connected.
A further morphophonological distinction is encoded in differ-
ences among types of affixes. Concatenative morphology (e.g. prefixes
and suffixes) can be defined in the present theory as morphophonological
representations which contain a single anchor point. Because anchor
points must replace either # or %, any morphophonological representation
containing a single anchor point will contain either # or %. If the affix
contains # then it is a prefix because the phonological material will occur
before the phonological material it attaches to. If the affix contains % then
it is a suffix because it will occur after the phonological material it has
attached to. If an affix contains two anchor points thus replacing both #
and % then it is some sort of non-concatenative morphology such as in-
fixation, reduplication or root-and-template morphology.

4.2 Linear order and precedence in morphophonology

Strict linear order is not introduced by spell-out which is simply vocabu-
lary insertion (Embick and Noyer 2001) done in a cyclic manner ordered
by the morphosyntactic structure. Phonological roots need to be linearly
ordered before or after phonological material and need to acquire this or-
dering information directly from the morphosyntactic representation.
Morphosyntactic trees have been immobilized and thus contain adjacency
relations, *, and part of spell-out is the conversion of adjacency to prece-
dence. We assume that this conversion process is parameterized in the
spell-out process because of our rejection of the strong interpretation of
Kayne's LCA (see section 2). We also follow a Lidz and Idsardi (1998)
approach to 'chain interpretation' where multiple copies of a (mor-

13
pho)syntactic feature are spelled-out as phonological material or as pho-
nologically null based on their structural position in the chain and not a
Nunes (2004) 'LCA satisfaction' approach.
Affixes, as opposed to roots, contain inherent precedence infor-
mation based on the presence of at least one anchor point. A well-formed
phonological representation must have all anchor points 'discharged' by
concatenating to the segment which satisfies the anchor point's structural
description. The requirement for a well formed representation will over-
ride any precedence information imposed by morphosyntactic adjacency.
Cyclic spell-out will order vocabulary insertion based on the hier-
archical structure of the morphosyntactic representation. Ordering is de-
rived from the category status (maximal vs. minimal projections) and c-
command. The lowest maximal projection (i.e. one which does not c-
command any other maximal projections) undergoes vocabulary insertion
first. If there are multiple minimal projections (i.e. heads) within a maxi-
mal projection, the head of the maximal projection is spelled out first.
(15) presents the derivation for the ER pattern from (4d) where
only the object (and none of the verb complex) is reduplicated. This pat-
tern results from the ER morpheme being base generated in the D head
and how cyclic spell-out operates. The tree structure in (15a) indicates
that the NP is lower than the DP so vocabulary insertion will within the
NP prior to vocabulary insertion in the DP. Within the NP, there are the N
head !baagil and the ACC head which has been inserted into the NP as
part of the morphosyntax. Because both !baagil and ACC are heads, the
N head !baagil will undergo vocabulary insertion first because it is the
head of the NP. This creates the order of vocabulary insertion in (15b-d).

(15) Derivation of ER: baagilannu giigilannu

a. …
DP

D NP
ER
N ACC
!baagil

b. spell-out !baagil 'door'

##b#a#X#g#i#l#%

14
c. spell-out ACC ({_%} # a # n # X # %)

##b#a#X#g#i#l#%

a#n#X

d. spell-out ER ({_%} # g # i #{1st V _})

##b#a#X#g#i#l#%

a#n#X

g#i

(15b) is the first application of vocabulary insertion where the root

!baagil is spelled-out. The ACC morpheme is spelled-out next which pro-
duces (15c). ACC is a suffix so it contains the 'last segment' anchor point.
When the ACC morpheme undergoes vocabulary insertion, the anchor
point calculates which segment satisfies the structural description of 'last
segment'. The 'last segment' is the /l/ of /baXgil/ because at this point in
the derivation, it is the only segment which precedes %. Finally, (15d)
shows the spell-out of the ER vocabulary item. ER has two anchor points
and segmental material. The begin anchor point specifies that /gi/ follows
the 'last segment'. Each anchor point makes its own calculation on what
phonological material is presently available. The bare X slot which is the
end of the ACC morpheme is now the 'last segment' according to this cal-
culation because it immediately precedes % and transitively follows the
other segment which immediately precedes % (/l/ of !baagil). The other
anchor point in (15d) specifies that /gi/ precedes the 'segment after the
first vowel'. There is no ambiguity in this calculation. This completes the
spell-out of the morphosyntactic structure in (15a).

4.3 Derivations of Echo Reduplication

The example in (15) demonstrated how the morphosyntactic structure de-
termines the order of spell-out for morphemes. Consequently, different
morphosyntactic structures will produce different derivations even if they
are composed of identical morphemes. Section 3 presented how the dif-
ferent surface patterns of ER in (4a-c) were accounted for by different

15
applications of lowering in the morphosyntax. We will now show how
these different morphosyntactic representations produce different morpho-
logical representations based on when different morphemes undergo vo-
cabulary insertion.
(16) is a simplified version of the representation in (10) where
only the verb root is repeated as part of ER. This morphosyntactic repre-
sentation focuses on when particular morphemes undergo vocabulary in-
sertion.

(16) Spell-out of (14a)

…

I'

I …

C I VP
ER tns/#
V * DP
baagilannu
C V
ER !much

Because of the head-head structure underneath the V head node, these two
morphemes will be spelled-out prior to the interpretation of the adjacency
relationship between the V complex and its DP object. The V head will
undergo VI first and then the ER morpheme will concatenate to it (in an
analogous manner to [15d]) which produces the morphophonological
structure in (17).

(17) Spell-out and concatenation of C+V complex

##m#u#c#h#%

g#i

16
At the point in the spell-out of the morphosyntactic structure in (16)
where the VP node is reached there are two separate morphophonological
representations because both the C+V complex (17) and the DP (15c) will
have been spelled-out. Both of these representations are connected within
themselves so they must be ordered in relation to each other. This is
where the spell-out process converts adjacency relations into precedence
relations. Kannada has surface S-C-H order so the adjacency relationship
between V and DP in (16) will be converted to one of precedence where
the morphophonological representation of the DP, (15c), will precede the
representation in (17). This produces the representation in (18).

(18) Linear order from adjacency

##b#a#X#g#i#l#%

a#n#X

##m#u#c#h#%

g#i

The final step in the complete spell-out of (16) is the vocabulary insertion
of the I complex which consists of C+I. The I head is actually a complex
of tense and number features which can be represented as in (19a). The C
head does not add any phonological material because the foot of the mor-
phosyntactic chain it is part of has already been spelled-out, (17), (see
Lidz and Idsardi 1998 for some proposals for how syntactic chains are
interpreted). The morphophonological representation of the I complex in
(19a) contains an anchor point which specifies it as a suffix (i.e. {_%}
'follows the last segment').

(19) Spell-out of the I complex in (6)

a. the I-complex
{_%} # i # d # %

17
b. final morphophonological representation

##b#a#X#g#i#l#%

a#n#X

i#d#%

##m#u#c#h#% e

g#i

The anchor point in (19a) will override the adjacency relationship be-
tween the I complex and its vP complement. This produces the representa-
tion in (19b) where the tns/# complex from (19a) follows the /h/2 of
!much because it is the 'last segment'. The morphophonological represen-
tation in (19b) corresponds to the surface ER pattern of baagilannu much-
gich-ide from (14a).
The explication of how the morphosyntactic representations in
(14) and (16) undergo vocabulary insertion as part of spell-out demon-
strate all of the important segmental aspects of how the morphopho-
nological module interprets a morphosyntactic representation. Conse-
quently, we only need to discuss the differences of when particular mor-
phemes are spelled-out to account for the remaining two ER patterns. (20)
presents the relevant chunk of morphosyntactic representation from (14b).

(20) ER pattern baagilannu muchide-gichide

…

v V
!much
I v

C I
ER tns/#

18
The morphosyntactic tree in (20) indicates that both the C, I and v heads
have lowered to the V head as a single complex. The morphophonological
result of this representation will be that the complex I head will be as in
(21a) when the ER morpheme is concatenated to the tns/# structure from
(19a).

(21) Morphophonological representation for (20)

a. the C+I complex
{_%} # i # d # %

g # i # {1st V_}

b. ER pattern baagilannu muchide-gichide

##m#u#c#h#%

i#d#%

g#i

(21b) is the result of concatenating (21a) to the verb root !much. The ad-
jacency relation between the V and DP nodes will be converted to placing
the structure in (15c) before the one in (21b). This resulting representation
corresponds with the ER pattern where the verb root with its tns/# suffixes
repeated.
The final ER pattern which needs to be accounted for is from
(14c) where the entire verb structure and its complement is reduplicated.
This pattern results from the ER morpheme only lowering to the I head
and no further. The important aspects of the morphosyntactic tree for this
example is presented in (22a) and (22b) shows the morphophonological
structure of the VP which will be spelled out when the C+I complex is
spelled-out and concatenated.

19
(22) ER pattern baagilannu muchide giigilannu muchide
a. morphosyntax
…

I'

I * vP

C I baagilannu#much

b. morphophonological structure of VP
##b#a#X#g#i#l#%

a#n#X

##m#u#c#h#%

The morphophonological structure of the C+I complex in (22a) is identi-

cal to (21a). When this structure is concatenated to the one in (22b), the
structure in (23) is produced and it corresponds to the surface ER pattern
of baagilannu muchide giilgannu muchide.

(23) ER pattern baagilannu muchide giigilannu muchide

##b#a#X#g#i#l#%

a#n#X

##m#u#c#h#%

i#d#%

e
g#i

To conclude this section, the operation of spell-out converts mor-

phosyntactic representations to morphophonological representations
through vocabulary insertion. The morphosyntax provides the order in
which morphemes under go vocabulary insertion and converts adjacency

20
relationships to precedence relationships. Specific aspects of morphopho-
nological representations provide the basis for phonological differences
between roots and affixes and between concatenative and non-
concatenative morphology. The most important aspect is that four distinct
morphophonological representations result from the four distinct morpho-
syntactic representations in (14). These morphophonological representa-
tions are interpreted by the phonology.

5.0 The phonology of ER

The phonology module converts the morphophonological representation
into a fully specified and completely linearly ordered phonological repre-
sentation that can be interpreted by the phonetics module. Given the mor-
phophonological representations derived in the previous section, there are
four aspects that the phonology must deal with: 'long' segment interpreta-
tion, the 'Enunciative vowel' (Bright 1972), serialization of graph to linear
string and the ordering of these processes. Due to space considerations,
none of these issues can be dealt with in detail. We will only discuss each
in a very brief manner.
The empty X-slot used to indicate length will be filled via auto-
segmental spreading from the preceding segment. The 'Enunciative vowel'
is the vowel that surfaces at the end of the ACC morpheme and is inserted
based on morphologically determined environments (Aronoff and Sridhar
1983). These two processes must be ordered with respect to serialization.
Insertion of the enunciative vowel occurs before linearization and long
segment interpretation occurs after linearization. The evidence for this
ordering is based on over and normal application of the relevant processes
in ER. See Idsardi and Raimy (in prep) for a full discussion of these is-
sues.
Serialization (formally named with the overloaded term lineariza-
tion, Raimy 1999, 2000) maps the morphophonological directed graph
into a linear string. Idsardi and Shorey (2007) and McClory and Raimy
(2007) provide derivational algorithms to serialize morphophonological
graphs. For the purposes of this chapter, serialization will cause any seg-
ments that occur in a transitive symmetrical precedence relation (i.e.
within a loop) to be repeated once. The main result of section 4 was to
produce different morphophonological graphs that differ as to what seg-
ments formed 'the loop'. From these different precedence graphs, seriali-
zation correctly produces the different surface patterns of ER. These seri-
alized representations are then passed onto the phonetics module.

21
6.0 Temporal aspects of speech
In this chapter we have attempted to present a fairly complete example of
a mapping from narrow syntax that contains no serial ordering informa-
tion to a completely serialized (i.e. nonreflexive, asymmetric) representa-
tion that can be interpreted by the sensory-motor interface. Our main ar-
gument is that linearization actually consists of three separate processes
which map independently necessary representations from one grammati-
cal module into independently necessary representations of another
grammatical module. Immobilization adds adjacency relations to the hier-
archical structure of narrow syntax as the representation is mapped into
the morphosyntax. Spell-out maps the adjacency and hierarchy structure
of the morphosyntax into a precedence graph which only contains
phonological material and no hierarchical relations. Serialization takes the
morphophonological precedence graph and maps it into a linear string of
segments which is legible by the phonetics module. Further computation
occurs to convert the serialized phonetic representation into a motor-
control legible representation.
Although we are sure that improvements can be made to our
analysis of all the grammatical aspects of Kannada that we have pre-
sented, the overall arc of this analysis is the important aspect of this paper.
Strict linear order is not present until the later stages of a derivation when
the representation is sent to the phonetics module. Prior to this point, each
grammatical module transforms the type of representation that is being
computed on and the type of representation should be the source of type
of explanation.
The research program on linearization and serial order in syntax is
a recent development but other areas of cognitive science have identified
the problem of serial order previously. Lashley (1951:114) identifies the
question of how temporally integrated behavior results or is encoded in
the brain as “… both the most important and also the most neglected prob-
lem of cerebral physiology.” Part of the evidence that Lashley considers
when formulating this problem is different word orders in different lan-
guages. He concludes,

“The individual items of a temporal series do not in themselves

have a temporal 'valence' in their associative connections with
other elements. The order is imposed by some other agent.”
(Lashley 1951:116)

22
This view is congruent with Berwick and Chomsky's (forthcoming) idea
that linear order is introduced as part of the externalization of language
and not a feature of the narrow syntax. The convergence of two vastly
different views can be construed as independent evidence in favor of the
general research program on linearization. The removal of linear order in
narrow syntax provides the basis for a deeper investigation on how lan-
guage is represented in the brain. A further benefit of this research pro-
gram is that by separating the narrow syntax from the externalization of
language, we gain a foothold on understanding why many aphasias can
disrupt the input and/or output of language but apparently leave core con-
ceptual structure intact. It is only in an approach to linear order in gram-
mar where different modules with corresponding representations and as-
pects of linear order exist that these insights into how language operates in
the brain can be obtained.

Notes
*
We would like to thank Jeff Lidz and Norbert Hornstein for discussing the syn-
tactic aspects of this talk. Paul Grobstein has also influenced the ideas on serial
order in the brain present here. All mistakes of interpretation and fact are our re-
sponsibility alone. Aspects of this work were supported by a grant awarded to
Eric Raimy by the Graduate School at UW-Madison supported by the Wisconsin
Alumni Research Fund.
1
The digraph 'ch' in !much 'close' is a voiceless lamino-post alveolar affricate
(Sridhar 1990:293). We have separated the digraph into two segments for graphic
convenience although this is not likely the most accurate phonological representa-
tion of this phone. No aspect of the present analysis is affected by this simplifica-
tion.
2
See note 1 above.

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