Prosodic words in cyclic derivation: the strange case of Murrinhpatha compound verbs

Abstract

Lexical compounding generally works by adjoining a second lexeme either directly to the stem of the first lexeme (as in [sabre-[tooth]]-s), or to the whole inflected form of the first lexeme (as in [milk-[teeth]] ). Murrinhpatha presents a third distinct type, where the adjoined lexeme is attached to a prosodic edge, which may occur either before or after various inflectional affixes, rather than attaching to a fixed morphosyntactic host. “Prosodic compounding” of this type has not been previously attested in natural language. However, I argue that in Stratal Phonology (Bermúdez-Otero 2016), where prosodic constituents are formed and reformed on distinct morphological strata, we may formulat..