基本説明
This is the first volume devoted to the theory and typology of gaps in inflectional paradigms. This volume addresses these issues from historical, statistical and theoretical approaches, and by using studies from a range of languages.
Full Description
An important design feature of language is the use of productive patterns in inflection. In English, we have pairs such as 'enjoy' ‾ 'enjoyed', 'agree' ‾ 'agreed', and many others. On the basis of this productive pattern, if we meet a new verb 'transduce' we know that there will be the form 'transduced'. Even if the pattern is not fully regular, there will be a form available, as in 'understand' ‾ 'understood'. Surprisingly, this principle is sometimes violated, a phenomenon known as defectiveness, which means there is a gap in a word's set of forms: for example, given the verb 'forego', many if not most people are unwilling to produce a past tense.
Although such gaps have been known to us since the days of Classical grammarians, they remain poorly understood. Defectiveness contradicts basic assumptions about the way inflectional rules operate, because it seems to require that speakers know that for certain words, not only should one not employ the expected rule, one should not employ any rule at all. This is a serious problem, since it is probably safe to say that all reigning models of grammar were designed as if defectiveness did not exist, and would lose a considerable amount of their elegance if it were properly factored in.
This volume addressed these issues from a number of analytical approaches - historical, statistical and theoretical - and by using studies from a range of languages.
Contents
Introduction: Defectiveness: typology and diachrony
Failing one's obligations: defectiveness in Rumantsch reflexes of DEBERE
Defectiveness as stem suppletion in French and Spanish verbs
Defective paradigms of reflexive nouns and participles in Latvian
Relative acceptability of missing adjective forms in Swedish
Defective verbal paradigms in Hungarian: description and experimental study
On morphomic defectiveness: evidence from the Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula
The search for regularity in irregularity: defectiveness and its implications for our knowledge of words
Ineffability through modularity: gaps in the French clitic cluster
Interactions between defectiveness and syncretism
