On the Organization of the Lexicon
R. Lieber, 1980
This study attempts to broaden the theory of morphology in two respects. First, it is argued that both inflectional and derivational morphology should be performed within the lexicon, and, in fact, that they require the same sorts of formal processes. Second, an attempt is made to constrain the interaction of morphological rules, and thereby to limit the notion of "possible word".
A theory of the organization of the lexicon is proposed. The lexicon consists of a list of all unanalyzable terminal elements and their lexical entries. Inflectional stem variants are listed, with relationships among them expressed by means of devices called morpholexical rules. In the lexical structure subcomponent, terminal elements are inserted into binary branching unlabled trees subject to subcategorization restrictions on affixes. Lexical trees are labeled by means of general feature percolation mechanisms. The mechanics of lexical structure are illustrated with an analysis of the Latin verb paradigms; exactly the same mechanisms needed for producing derived words in Latin are also needed for producing inflected words. The subject of morphological conversion is considered in Chapter 3: it is argued that most phenomena usually treated with a zero-affixation analysis cannot be so analyzed. An alternative, non-directional analysis of conversion is proposed.
The third subcomponent of the lexicon consists of a block of string dependent morphological rules, some of which must have transformational power. The properties of these rules, as illustrated by reduplication rules in Tagalog and umlaut processes in German, are shown to follow from constraints placed on other subcomponents of the morphology.
Thesis Supervisor: Morris Halle
Title: Ferrari P. Ward Professor of Modern Languages and Linguistics
Table of Contents
Introduction 8
Footnotes 18
Chapter 1 Inflectional stem allomorphy and the lexicon 19
1 Compounding in German 20
1.1 German noun classes 20
1.2 Lexical classes and morpholexical rules 24
1.3 Compounding and stem allomorphy 29
2 Old English strong verbs 34
2.1 Vowel gradation in Old English strong verbs 34
2.2 OE nominalizations in "i 41
3 Farther afield 44
3.1 Latin 44
3.2 Tagalog 51
4 Conclusion 53
Footnotes 55
Chapter 2 The organization of the lexicon 59
1 A morphological framework 61
1.1 The permanent lexicon 61
1.1.1 Lexical entries 62
1.1.2 Category classes, lexical classes and the nature of
morpholexical rules 67
1.2 Lexical structure 75
1.3 Lexical transformations and string dependent rules 104
1.4 Lexical semantics 109
2 Latin verb paradigms 118
2.1 Latin phonology 119
2.2 Morphology of the Latin verbs 133
2.2.1 Morpholexical classes 140
2.2.2 Inflectional affixes 146
2.3 More Latin paradigms 163
2.4 Latin prefix verbs 167
3 Morphological productivity 175
Footnotes 181
Chapter 3 Morphological conversion 187
1 Against zero affixation 188
2 Against any directional rule of conversion 195
3 Conversion as a redundancy rules in the permanent lexicon 198
4 The semantics of conversion 203
5 The scope of conversion 206
6 Diversion on root and suffix allomorphy and truncation rules 217
7 Zero-affixation: possible real cases 225
Footnotes 232
Chapter 4 String dependent word formation and lexical transformation 234
1 On restricting the power of word formation rules 236
2 Reduplication as a transformation 246
2.1 Properties of reduplication 247
2.2 The locality of reduplication 253
2.3 Reduplication summary 270
3 Umlaut 272
3.1 Umlaut as a morphological process 273
3.2 Two possible reanalyses of umlaut 281
3.3 Umlaut and inflection 293
3.3.1 Nouns 294
3.3.2 Verb paradigms 297
3.3.3 Adjectives 303
3.4 Umlaut and conversion 305
3.5 Umlaut summary 308
4 Theoretical speculations 311
Footnotes 318