COUNTER-BLEEDING

1. (Syntax) Relation between ordered rules whose order is designed to avoid an effect of bleeding. | Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, 2007
2. (Grammar) Bleeding is a rule interaction where application of a rule R₁ destroys the context for the application of a rule R₂. Counter-bleeding describes an interaction where a bleeding relation that could show up between two rules is not found on the surface: a rule applied although its context was destroyed by another rule. | Fabian Heck and Anke Assmann, 2013
3. (Examples)
    ○ The application of glide formation as the first process would bleed the application of vowel elision, and since the reverse order leads to correct forms, the interaction of these processes is that of counter-bleeding. | Mehdi Fattahi and Yasaman Choubsaz, 2017
    ○ Different types of Merge must be distinguished. Simply ordering Merge relative to Agree is not sufficient. There is empirical evidence suggesting that Merge operations, when triggered by the same head H, apply at different points of the derivation within a single language. We can see this once Merge is interleaved with Agree: Some Merge operations apply before Agree (feeding or bleeding it), while others apply after Agree (counter-feeding or counter-bleeding it):
   1.  Merge ≻ Agree ≻ Merge
   
    | Doreen Georgi, 2014
    ○ There is a fundamental ordering restriction in Chomsky (1957) on the relation between the rule associating an affix with a verb (familiarly known as Affix Hopping) and the pair of rules responsible for the insertion of supportive do in circumstances where Affix Hopping has failed to apply. This is explicitly a bleeding order, and is also a counter bleeding order. | Howard Lasnik, 2013
    ○ There are two types of phonological opacity, those created by counter-feeding orders and those created by counter-bleeding orders (Kiparsky 1971, 1973). In the case of counter-bleeding orders, we find cases of non-surface apparent opacity. That is, there are surface forms in which some rule has applied, but the reason for its application is no longer apparent or present on the surface. This type of opacity occurs in a nonstandard dialect of Modern Hebrew. | Susannah V. Levi, 2000

COUNTER-BLEEDING OPACITY

1. (Phonology) Refers to the cases when the reason for the application of some phonological process P is not obvious on the surface form. In serialist terms, it is said that in such a case the process P is rendered opaque by the later application of some process Q. According to McCarthy (1999), counterbleeding opacity can be schematically represented as follows:

   Non-Surface-Apparent or Counter-Bleeding Opacity (from McCarthy 1999)
      UR      ABC#
      B→D/_C   ADC#
      C→E/_#     ADE#
      SR      ADE#

    On the scheme above, the context of the first process was destroyed by the application of the second process. Therefore, if we disregard intermediate stages of derivation, the first process will appear to have applied out of context, i.e. /B/ appears to turn into [D] before [E].
    Let’s now consider a real-life example of counterbleeding opacity. McCarthy (1999) presents a case of Yokuts language, where the interaction of long vowel lowering and closed syllable shortening gives rise to non-surface-apparent generalization.
   1. Yokuts Vowel Alternations (from McCarthy 1999)
      a. Vowels are shortened in closed syllables:
        /panaː/  panal   cf. panaːhin  'might arrive/arrives'
        /hoyoː/  hoyol  cf. hoyoːhin  'might name/names'
      b. Long high vowels are lowered:
        /ʔiliː/   ʔileːhin    'fans'
        /cʼuyuː/  cʼuyoːhun   'urinates'
      c. Vowels shortened in accordance with (a) are still lowered:
        /ʔiliː/   ʔilel    'might fan'
        /cʼuyuː/  cʼuyol  'might urinate'
   
    In a serialist model, the Yokuts data can be captured by counterbleeding order of shortening and lowering rules. Consider the following:
   2. Yokuts Serial Derivation (from McCarthy 1999)
        UR     /ʔiliː-l/
        Lowering  ʔileːl
        Shortening  ʔilel
   
    | Olga Tihonova, 2009
2. (Phonology) Phonological opacity is often the result of the counterfeeding or counterbleeding order of two or more phonological rules, which is called counter-feeding opacity or counter-bleeding opacity. An example of both can be seen in the future-marking suffix -en in the Yokutsan languages. Its vowel is supposed to be an underlying high vowel, though it surfaces as a mid vowel. Vowel rounding always applies before vowel lowering. Due to this order of phonological rules, the interaction of the suffix vowel with rounding harmony is opaque. There is still vowel harmony between the suffix vowel and a preceding high vowel as these vowels agree in roundedness, while a vowel with the feature [−high] would usually be exempt from rounding harmony. As a result of counter-bleeding opacity, the apparent motivation for the vowel harmony has disappeared here. Moreover, as a result of counter-feeding opacity, it cannot be told from the surface structure of the suffix vowel why it fails to harmonize in rounding with preceding mid vowels (Backović 2011). | Wikipedia, 2025

COUNTER-FEEDING

1. (Syntax) Relation between ordered rules whose order is designed to avoid an effect of feeding. | Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, 2007
2. (Grammar) Feeding describes an interaction where the application of a rule R₁ provides the context for the application of a rule R₂. Counter-feeding is a term for an interaction where the feeding relation that could, in principle, apply between two rules does not arise. On the surface, it looks like a rule did not apply although its context was created by the application of another rule. | Fabian Heck and Anke Assmann, 2013
3. (Examples)
    ○ Lenition processes involving voicing of intervocalic voiceless plosives and spirantization of intervocalic voiced plosives typically apply in a counter-feeding interaction (Gurevich 2004), that is the voiceless plosives surface as voiced ones, but do not partake in the modification the underlying voiced plosives are subject to: they are not further modified so as to be realized as voiced fricatives. | Haike Jacobs, 2019
    ○ Two phonological variables that have been identified as stereotypes of the Northern Greek variety are the raising of unstressed mid and high vowels and the palatalization of the dental sonorants /l/ and /n/ (Newton 1972). In the first instance, when the mid vowels /e/ and /o/ appear in unstressed syllables, they are raised and become /i/ and /u/ respectively, while the high vowels /i/ and /u/ are deleted in the same environment. The two processes are in counter-feeding order, so that mid vowels that are raised do not become deleted. | Panayiotis A. Pappas, 2014
    ○ Koutsoudas, Sanders and Noll point out nine logical possibilities for ordering in a theory which accepts extrinsic ordering, involving feeding and bleeding (cf. Kiparsky 1968) and counter-feeding and counter-bleeding (where counter-feeding refers to an ordering of some pair of rules such that if the order were reversed, they would be in a feeding relationship; similarly, counter-bleeding refers to a relationship which holds such that if the order were reversed it would be a bleeding relation.) | Lyle Campbell, 1973

COUNTER-FEEDING OPACITY

1. (Examples)
    ○ This paper proposes an OT account of diachronic and synchronic Romance lenition based on the theory of Comparative Markedness. The analysis, contrary to previous analyses, allows for a straightforward description of synchronic allophonic lenition processes where voicing and spirantization take place simultaneously without loss of contrast. The comparative markedness analysis of lenition not only allows for a parallel OT description of counter-feeding opacity in synchronic Gran Canarian, Corsican and Sardinian lenition, but moreover makes understandable why sound change should start out in a counter-feeding fashion. | Haike Jacobs and Robbie van Gerwen, 2006
    ○ The key observation is that post-alveolar fricatives [š] derived by First Velar Palatalization (FVP) do not become pre-palatal (/x/→š, *ś/_i). But underlying fricatives /š/ do so in the same environment. This is known as counter-feeding opacity (Kiparsky 1973): a phonological process—in Polish, Nominal Strident Palatalization (NSP)— fails to apply to "derived" forms of the language. In Polish, it does not apply to [š] derived by FVP.
    In rule-based phonology, counter-feeding opacity is accounted for by rule ordering. In Polish, it has been postulated that NSP precedes FVP (Rubach 1984). Thus, forms derived by FVP do not undergo NSP. | Anna Łubowicz, 2003
    ○ One of the most interesting aspects of the Comparative Markedness theory is the unification of several phenomena traditionally thought to be unrelated. Grandfathering effects, Derived Environment Effects, and counterfeeding opacity all turn out to be different facets of the same phenomenon, due to the presence of new and old markedness in the system. | Lev Blumenfeld, 2003

COUNTERCYCLIC ADJUNCTION
(Syntax) Let us briefly illustrate the crucial property of countercyclic operations, i.e. the capability of expanding the tree at a non–root position. Thus, a transition from (1a) to (1b) is countercyclic.

1. a. [ A ] [ B C ]
   b. [ [ B A ] C ]

2. a. * She_i denied the claim that Mary_i fell asleep
   b. * She_i liked the book that Mary_i read
   c. * Which claim that Mary_i fell asleep did she_i deny
   d. Which book that Mary_i read did she_i like

COUNTERCYCLICITY

1. (Syntax) Countercyclic operations allow structure building at any node in the tree instead of just at the root, i.e., they allow the capability of expanding the tree at a non-root position. | Hans-Martin Gärtner and Jens Michaelis, 2008
2. (Phonology) A key property that distinguishes between competing architectures of phonology is whether phonology is assumed to be cyclic (Chomsky and Halle 1968, Brame 1974, Mascaró 1976, Kiparsky 1982, 2000, Orgun 1997, Bermúdez-Otero 1999, Sande, Jenks, and Inkelas 2020, a.o.) or not cyclic (Benua 1997, Albright 2002, Kager 1999, McCarthy 2007, a.o.). Cyclic here means that phonological computation does not apply in one fell swoop, but in multiple cycles applying to morphosyntactic domains of increasing size. Cyclic process application is usually tied to the adoption of the cyclic principle (Chomsky, Halle, and Lukoff 1956), which states that a process that applies to a smaller domain applies before a process that applies in a larger domain. In addition, the No-Look-Ahead Principle states that a process in a smaller cycle is completely oblivious to material that is external to it. These two principles together derive the No-Countercyclicity Hypothesis:

   No-Countercyclicity
    a. If a process P applies in a cyclic domain D_i , it must transparently enable, block or influence (feed, bleed or shift) a process Q that applies in a cyclic domain D_i+x .
    b. If a process Q applies in a cyclic domain D_i , it cannot transparently enable, block or influence (thus must counterfeed, counterbleed or countershift) a process P that applies in a cyclic domain D_i−x .

    Countercyclic process interactions are thus interactions that violate the No-Countercyclicity Hypothesis, i.e. either interactions where a process germane to a bigger domain feeds or bleeds a process bound to a smaller domain (transparent countercyclicity) or where a process bound to a smaller domain counterfeeds or counterbleeds a process with a larger morphosyntactic scope (opaque countercyclicity). Consequently, the potential existence of countercyclic interactions is a very useful tool for evaluating the hypothesis that phonology is cyclic. | Daniel Christoph Gleim, 2024

COUNTERFACTUAL
(Grammar) Counterfactual constructions convey the speaker's belief that the actualization of a situation was potential—possible, desirable, imminent, or intended—but did not take place, i.e. it did not belong to the actual world. Counterfactuals have mostly been studied in formal-semantic frameworks; a few studies have explored counterfactuals from a functional perspective (see Olguín Martínez and Lester 2021, Van Linden and Verstraete 2008, Verstraete and Luk 2021).
 Counterfactuals are typically associated with counterfactual conditionals:

1. If I had known that, I wouldn't have appointed him.

• Clauses that are structurally similar to the main clause of a counterfactual conditional, or
• Clauses that could be regarded as a counterfactual conditional with an elided main clause.

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