When prosody follows syntax: verbal stems in Czech

This paper examines syntactic and prosodic constituency within a verbal stem in Czech. Working in the frameworks of Nanosyntax and Strict CV, I argue that syntax-to-prosody mapping is direct to the extent that prosodic domains correspond to particular syntactic constituents. On the basis of two vocalic alternations, namely vowel-zero alternations in verbal prefixes and roots and alternations in vowel length in roots and theme suffixes, I show that the perfective verbal stem represented by a linear string prefix-root-theme is parsed into three prosodic constituents, [prefix-root], [root-theme] and [prefix-root-theme]. These prosodic domains correspond to three syntactic constituents: VP and a lower and higher projection of the theme suffix respectively. The crucial point of the syntactic analysis is that the prefix undergoes phrasal movement: it is generated next to the root in VP and when the theme is added, it moves to its specifier. In the [prefix-root] constituent, the vocalization pattern of the prefix is established. The constituents comprising theme suffixes are prosodic domains in which a general rule (called the infinitival template) operates; this rule in effect lengthens underlying long vowels in monosyllabic infinitives.