floating (adj.)

In GENERATIVE LINGUISTICS, a term referring to an element which has no fixed association with a place in a DERIVATION. In particular, flotation is used in some models of NON-LINEAR PHONOLOGY with reference to a unit which is not ASSOCIATED to some higher level of PROSODIC structure (i.e. it is not prosodically LICENSED). For example, LATENT CONSONANTS (e.g. French LIAISON) have no SKELETAL slot, and are therefore floating, whereas fixed consonants are ANCHORED. A floating tone is one which has been separated from a SYLLABLE following the application of a phonological RULE, and now has no association with any particular TONE-bearing unit in the representation. The term ‘docking’ is sometimes used to refer to the process whereby a floating unit is reattached to a REPRESENTATION: for example, a floating tone would ‘dock’ with a syllable if it were assigned to a VOWEL already carrying a tone or to a toneless vowel. In AUTOSEGMENTAL PHONOLOGY, the term floating trace is used with two applications: to a MORPHEME whose UNDERLYING representation is composed of SEGMENTS only on a tonal TIER; and to a segment which, at a given point in a DERIVATION, is not ASSOCIATED with any vowel (as a consequence of a vowel becoming DELETED).

The term is also used in GENERATIVE SYNTAX for an element which is able to move from one position to another in a SENTENCE STRUCTURE. The best-known examples are ‘floating QUANTIFIERS’ like all and both, as in Both the cars have been painted/The cars have both been painted.