The Adjectival Suffix [-al]: Testing Some Phonological Considerations of Stress Behavior

This paper proposes some phonological considerations to account for the stress behavior of adjectival [-al]. It aims at disclosing where this suffix gains and where it loses the property of stress non-neutrality/ neutrality. The paper is primarily motivated by Lee s (2001) phonological considerations, which tend to be too unpractical to explain why [-al] behaves stress neutrally in some adjectives and stress non-neutrally in other ones of similar syllable structures. Motivation also lies behind the confusion the researcher, as a non-native specialist of English, gets as a result of classifying this suffix by morphological and phonological works as generally non-neutral. The findings of analyzing adjectival [-al] in three syllable types of roots show that the stress behavior of this suffix (i.e. neutral and/ or non-neutral) is not a matter of root length or stress location on this root, nor is it a matter of being a nominal or adjectival [–al]; this suffix is phonologically conditioned by the internal syllable structure of the roots. The findings also show that adjectival [-al] is a quantity sensitive suffix, which agrees with Bauer (1983), Katamba (1989), Booij (1998) and Trevian (2007), for example. The process of non-neutrality of [-al], to add another finding, happens in two steps: (1) fusion in the last syllable of the root, and (2) vowel and syllable changes in the roots.