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Abstract: This dissertation investigates morphological dependencies: correlations between two lexically specific patterns, such as selection of inflectional affixes. Previous work has established that such correlations exist in the lexicon of morphologically rich languages (Ackerman et al., 2009; Wurzel, 1989), but has not systematically tested whether speakers productively extend these patterns to novel words. I present a series of corpus and nonce word studies—in Hungarian, Czech, and Russian—testing whether speakers vary their selection of suffixed forms of novel words based on the forms of that word that are presented to them. In all three cases, speakers vary their responses in accordance with the provided stimuli, demonstrating that they have learned and productively apply morphological dependencies from the lexicon. I present a theoretical account of morphological dependencies that can account for my experimental results, based on the sublexicon model of phonological learning (Allen & Becker, 2015; Becker & Gouskova, 2016; Gouskova et al., 2015). In this model, speakers index lexically specific behavior with diacritic features attached to underlying forms in lexical entries, and learn generalizations over sublexicons defined as words that share a feature. These generalizations are stored as constraints in phonotactic grammars for each sublexicon, enabling speakers to learn phonological and morphological dependencies predicting words that pattern together. This model provides a unified treatment of morphological dependencies and generalizations that are phonological in nature. My studies show a wide range of learned effects, not limited to those that follow an organizational principle like paradigm uniformity. The sublexicon model assumes that speakers can learn arbitrary generalizations without restrictions, giving it needed flexibility over more restrictive models which rely on notions of morphophonological naturalness.
Keywords: inflectional affixes, nonce word study, lexical productivity, morphological dependencies, diacritic features, dissertations
Published in RUNG: 04.03.2024; Views: 298; Downloads: 6
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Keywords: Slovenian, morphology, verbs, verbal prefixes, lexical prefixes
Published in RUNG: 26.09.2022; Views: 1057; Downloads: 0
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Abstract: The goal of this dissertation is to empower the field of formal loanword research by (a) incorporating insights from sociolinguistic research into formal models and (b) highlighting morphological (and morphosyntactic) integration in the field which is presently dominated by data from phonological borrowing. The emergent loanword model enables defining the interface of source and target languages. It is applicable to data from phonological, morphological and morphosyntactic integration, which are viewed as entangled aspects of a single broad process: lexicalisation, viewed as the creation of a new lexical entry based on a foreign surface form. This aspect of the model implies a certain telicity, not unlike the existing adaptation models (Chapter 2). However, while these latter models see loanword processes as moving towards becoming indistinguishable from native items, the integration model will have as its endpoint the creation of a fully functional RL lexical entry (sometimes very distinguishably non-native). Since loanwords display processes which make reference to various levels (individual and communal, synchronic and diachronic etc.), the model is comprised of two different apparatuses able to capture different aspects of loanword behaviour without losing sight of what they exclude. The more diachronic apparatus of the model will concentrate on the ways in which properties of the initial code switch are preserved in the process of integration into the lexicon (shared by the language community), which involves the creation of paradigms, the assignment of morphosyntactic features, etc. We will present strong evidence that borrowing is to be seen as lexicalisation based on a surface form, guided by a force which militates against the introduction of new versions of the incoming form – Lexical Conservatism. The more synchronic apparatus will be more suitable for viewing the regularities which are part of borrowers’ knowledge: the inter-language mappings, which emerge within the community and which contain instructions for converting SL structures into RL structures. The dissertation chapters are organised as follows. Chapter 1 presents the most important findings of sociolinguistic research into loanwords. Chapter 2 reviews research done by generative phonologists in the field usually termed loanword adaptation. In Chapter 3 research into lexical stratification is reviewed. In Chapter 4 the main ingredients of the model proposed in this dissertation are discussed. Chapter 5 considers the cases of morphosyntactic integration. In Chapter 6 the inter-language mappings are introduced and discussed. Chapter 7 brings an interim summary and announces the four subsequent chapters, which bring four case studies, in which the proposed model is put to use to account for larger data sets. Chapter 8 presents an account of consonant gemination in loanwords. Chapters 9 discusses a-epenthesis in Serbo-Croatian from the contact perspective. Chapter 10 brings an account of verb borrowing and aspect in Serbo-Croatian. In Chapter 11 the Latinate nominalisations in Serbo-Croatian are analysed from the perspective of our model. Chapter 12 concludes this dissertation. This book will be of interest for researchers in the fields of language contact, phonology, morphology and the structure of the lexicon, as well as Serbo- Croatian linguistics.
Keywords: Loanword integration, Loanword adaptation, Lexicon stratification, Loanword morphology, Special Faithfulness, Lexical Conservatism, Inter-language mappings
Published in RUNG: 09.02.2018; Views: 4022; Downloads: 308
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Abstract: Serbo-Croatian deverbal nouns in -VV.je show a striking dichotomy along three apparently unrelated dimensions - productivity, semantic transparency and prosodic faithfulness to the base. Nominalisations from imperfective verbs display full productivity, semantic transparency, and a prosodic pattern attested in the paradigm of the verb. Those from perfective verbs are derived only from a subset of S-C perfective verbs, semantically non-transparent, and display a prosodic pattern unattested in the paradigm of the verb. We argue that this match across different dimensions has a role in delimiting the domain of the paradigm of the verbal lexeme, and, consequently, in delimiting the verbal domain. We show that a prosodic pattern different from all the patterns attested in the verb's paradigm marks that the morphological complex containing the stem of the verb is a new separate lexeme. Our analysis has consequences for the theory of paradigms. We employ Lexical Conservatism (Steriade 1997) to model different levels of relatedness in the lexicon, making clear predictions on how forms converge and diverge overtime. Our model derives a coconut-like architecture of the lexicon, whose soft core contains paradigmatic derivations, and the outer layers involve the domains of increasingly constrained productivity, idiosyncratic semantics and new prosodic shapes.
Keywords: Deverbal Nominalisations, Lexical Conservatism, Paradigm, Productivity, Prosodic Faithfulness, Semantic Transparency. Link do revije: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1418/78407#
Published in RUNG: 07.02.2018; Views: 3702; Downloads: 0
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