Found:
Morphemic Tier Hypothesis (MTH)
PHONOLOGY/MORPHOLOGY: a hypothesis first introduced into the theory of Autosegmental phonology in McCarthy (1981) which entails the claim that every morpheme making up a word is assigned a separate tier, i.e., a separate and autonomous level of representation. This hypothesis is mainly proposed to circumvent the No-Crossing Constraint which says that association lines may not cross. EXAMPLE: the Arabic word katab is made out of the triliteral root ktb 'write', the perfective active morpheme a, and the template CVCVC. If the morphemes ktb and a were represented at a single tier, association of these morphemes to the template CVCVC would result in a violation of the No-Crossing Constraint, as is shown in (i). By representing them at autonomous tiers as in (ii), this problem is solved:
(i) * C V C V C * C V C V C | | | | | | | k a t b k t b a (ii) a / \ C V C V C | | | k t b
LIT. | Goldsmith, J. (1990) McCarthy, J. (1986) McCarthy, J. (1981) Spencer, A. (1991) |