Aspectual phase heads in Muskogee verbs.

Current phasal models of words differ from one another in two main ways: which heads are phasal and whether a phase head allows higher heads to access its complement. Through an investigation of verbs in Muskogee, this paper argues that in some languages, words have functional phase heads that divide them into two domains and that block all higher heads from access to morphemes. Specifically, Muskogee verbs contain aspectual phase heads (Asp₀), which separate the verb into a sub-aspectual, VP-level domain—Phase One (Φ1)—and a superaspectual, InflP-level domain—Phase Two (Φ2). As previous work on Muskogee has shown, Φ1 (the 'Stem' in previous literature) and Φ2 form separate domains both in phonology, affecting stress and tone patterns, and in temporal semantics. This paper makes the novel observation that morphemes in Φ1 and Φ2 do not interact with each other in rules of allomorphy or allosemy, despite widespread interaction within each domain. An Asp₀ phase head that follows the strong PIC₁ accounts for the lack of interaction between Φ1 and Φ2. Categorizers, which are typically taken to be phase heads, behave differently from Asp₀ in Muskogee, though their phasal status is unclear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]