Linguistics Commons^™

Hierarchical Data And The Derivational Relationship Between Words, Andrew R. Hippisley, Mariam Tariq, David Chang

Linguistics Faculty Publications

Databases that are currently being developed for repositories of digital linguistic information typically fall into the strictly relational category. We present work on an object-relational database which allows for the representation of hierarchical relationships. This has particular benefits for the storage and access of morphological data in the system of word formation. A model that makes use of inheritance hierarchies elegantly captures the relationship between a root, its derivative, and its derivative, and so on. We report on the experimental Node DataBlade, a software bundle that extends the functionality of the object-relational database system Informix (Brown 2001) by supporting the …

Suppletion, Frequency And Lexical Storage., Andrew R. Hippisley

Linguistics Faculty Publications

Suppletion impacts on theories of the lexicon, language change and language acquisition, and for this reason “is of considerable interest” (Mel’čuk 2000: 511). An observation often made is that there exists a relationship between suppletion and frequency (c.f. Bybee 1995, Greenberg 1996). A lexeme where there is a suppletive relationship between its word-forms usually falls within the group of higher frequency items. Because the relation is with high frequency, suppletion sheds light on the mental lexicon. High frequency words correlate with quick processing speeds, for example lexical decision times, suggesting a memory effect: the more frequently an item is accessed, …

Basic Blue In East Slavonic, Andrew R. Hippisley

Linguistics Faculty Publications

Russian’s second BLUE term goluboj ‘light blue’ constitutes a well-known exception to the Berlin and Kay basic color-term typology. If other Slavonic languages do not have a second BLUE term, then the special position of Russian requires explanation; if there is evidence pointing to two basic terms for BLUE, we have a second set of data for investigating the evolution of this unusual color system. The languages genetically closest to Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, are examined. Findings of the list task, a simple and elegant test for psychological salience of color terms, provide strong evidence that Ukrainian and Belarusian have …

Training Teachers Of Slavic Lctls: Student Profiles And Program Design, Mark Richard Lauersdorf

Linguistics Faculty Publications

This article focuses on the differences between Slavic LCTL and Russian "language teaching situations" in the specific areas of student constituency and basic program structure, and the importance of considering these differences in developing teacher training programs that include teachers of Slavic LCTLs. Emphasis is placed on how the realities of the typical Slavic LCTL program point to the need to train graduate student-teachers in the specific skills of course/program design and development in order to prepare them more adequately for their teaching tasks. The results of a Fall 1996 survey of second-year Polish and Czech students and instructors are …

Inheritance Hierarchies And Historical Reconstruction: Towards A History Of Slavonic Colour Terms, Andrew R. Hippisley, Gerald Gazdar

Linguistics Faculty Publications

The last decade has witnessed an interest in inheritance hierarchies for the representation of linguistic knowledge. An obvious application is to historical reconstruction of a language family, but this is largely unexplored territory. We demonstrate the merits of such an approach with a default inheritance treatment of the colour terms of Slavonic: Slavonic because it is uncontroversially a genetic unit, and colour terms both because of their universality and because of the tight constraints on a language's colour term inventory (Berlin & Kay 1969, and subsequent work). In section I we discuss the colour terms of Slavonic and introduce Berlin …

Beyond Mystification: Reconnecting World-System Theory For Comparative Education, Thomas Clayton

Linguistics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Russian-English Collocational Dictionary Of The Human Body, By Lidija Iordanskaja And Slava Paperno, Andrew R. Hippisley

Linguistics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Approaching Second: Second Position Clitics And Related Phenomena, By Aaron L. Halpern And Arnold M. Zwicky, Gregory Stump

Linguistics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Indexed Stems And Russian Word Formation: A Network Morphology Account Of Russian Personal Nouns, Andrew R. Hippisley

Linguistics Faculty Publications

Recent lexeme-based models have proposed that a lexeme carries an inventory of stems on which morphological rules operate. The various stems in the inventory are associated with different morphological rules, of both inflection and derivation. Furthermore, one stem may be selected by more than one rule. For this reason stems in the inventory are labeled with indexes, rather than being directly associated with a particular morphological function. It is claimed that an indexed-stem approach captures generalizations in the morphological system that would otherwise be missed. We argue that such an approach provides for greater generalization in the Russian morphological system. …

Kultúrna Slovenčina Administratívno-Právnych Textov Zo 16. Storočia „Čo S Fonológiou A Morfológiou?“, Mark Richard Lauersdorf

Linguistics Faculty Publications

It is generally accepted that the present-day Slovak standard language was codified in its basic form in the mid 19th century by the Slovak scholar Ľudovít Štúr. A similar, but unsuccessful, attempt to create a standard Slovak language was made by Anton Bernolák in the late 18th century. There is not general agreement, however, on the degree or type of standardization, or better, normalization, exhibited by Slovak texts in the pre-codification period (15th-18th centuries). The present study outlines a new methodological framework for the investigation of the issue of standard language development in early pre-codification Slovak texts, providing selected phonological …

Declarative Derivation: A Network Morphology Account Of Russian Word Formation With Reference To Nouns Denoting 'Person'., Andrew R. Hippisley

Linguistics Faculty Publications

Studies on derivational morphology often assume a procedural view, emphasizing the journey from morphologically simple to morphologically complex word. We present a declarative approach with the focus on the relationship between two morphologically connected words.  This more static approach enables us to better locate the generalizations present in a derivational system.  We test this approach on a specific body of data, namely the formation of nouns denoting ‘person’ in Russian.

After introducing Network Morphology, the declarative framework within which we base our account, and the Russian data we will be investigating, we provide as theoretical background to our proposed analysis …

The Question Of 'Cultural Language' And Interdialectal Norm In 16th Century Slovakia: A Phonological Analysis Of 16th Century Slovak Administrative-Legal Texts, Mark Richard Lauersdorf

Linguistics Faculty Book Gallery

There is not general agreement among scholars on the degree or type of standardization, or better, normalization, exhibited by Slovak texts before the 18th-19th century codifying efforts of Anton Bernolák, Ľudovít Štúr and their followers. Indeed, disagreement on this issue is greater the earlier the time period under consideration. The present study focuses on the 16th century and the degree and type of standardization/normalization exhibited in a corpus of 152 administrative-legal texts (judicial and municipal records, official correspondence, account books, etc.) from all four major Slovak dialect regions – Moravian, West, Central and East Slovak. The author examines the textual …

Russian Noun Stress And Network Morphology, Dunstan Brown, Greville Corbett, Norman Fraser, Andrew R. Hippisley, Alan Timberlake

Linguistics Faculty Publications

We present a network morphology analysis of Russian noun stress. Nouns have a default fixed stem stress, but some nouns have nondefault stress that may deviate in a way that is determined by the form’s position within the paradigm: different declensions prefer particular patterns as their nondefault choices. Membership of a particular declension, it is argued, constrains the rang eof possible stress patterns. Stress is represented as a hierarchy with limited deviation in terms of number and, less often, case. Indices in the declension hierarchy are addressed to nodes in the stress hierarchy. These indices correspond to rank orderings that …

Russian Expressive Derivation: A Network Morphology Account, Andrew R. Hippisley

Linguistics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Conflict In Russian Genitive Plural Assignment: A Solution Represented In Datr, Dunstan Brown, Andrew R. Hippisley

Linguistics Faculty Publications

Inflectional endings are assigned in languages by general principles, but these can come into conflict. We address the question of how such conflict is resolved. A particularly complex example is the Russian genitive plural, where we find that with soft-stem nouns there is a conflict between exponent assignment according to declension class and a default exponent assignment for soft-stem nouns. What is specially interesting is that the conflict here can be resolved by reference to subsystems over and above the paradigm, such as stress. We present an explicit account of the conflict and its mediation by basing our study on …

Review Of Deconstructing Morphology: Word Formation In Syntactic Theory, By Rochelle Lieber, Gregory Stump

Linguistics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

How Peculiar Is Evaluative Morphology?, Gregory Stump

Linguistics Faculty Publications

Many languages possess morphological rules which serve to express diminution or augmentation, endearment or contempt; examples are the Breton rule relating potr 'boy' to potrig 'little boy', the Shona rule relating chibikiso 'cooking tool' to zichibikiso 'huge cooking tool' and the Italian rule relating poeta 'poet' to poetastro 'bad poet'. Because of the possibility of interpreting diminution and augmentation in affective rather than purely objective terms (Wierzbicka, 1980: 530°.; Szymanek, 1988: io6ff.), morphological expressions of diminution or augmentation are not always discrete from those of endearment or contempt; that is, diminutives and augmentatives are frequently used as expressions of endearment …

Non-Local Spirantization In Breton, Gregory Stump

Linguistics Faculty Publications

Among the most striking morphosyntactic characteristics shared by the Celtic languages are their elaborate consonant mutation systems. It is clear from the most cursory inspection that in such systems, the range of possible syntactic relations between mutation triggers and their targets is subject to principled limits. In a recent paper, Zwicky (1984) has hypothesized that trigger-target relations are universally restricted by the constraint in (1): (1) The trigger determining a rule feature for a morphophonemic rule must be adjacent to the affected word and c-command it (Zwicky, 1984:389).

Maithili Verb Agreement And The Control Agreement Principle, Gregory Stump, Ramawatar Yadav

Linguistics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Two Approaches To Predictive Indeterminacy, Gregory Stump

Linguistics Faculty Publications

In formal analyses of productive systems of stem gradation, it is commonly assumed (1) that each alternating stem possesses a single, basic grade form from which its other grade forms may be derived, and (ii) that all basic forms belong to the same grade; certain languages, however, present predictively indeterminate systems of gradation, for which these assumptions are not apparently valid. Two approaches to the analysis of such systems are discussed here: the first approach, exemplified by Anderson’s (1976) Analysis of initial consonant gradation in Fula, allows both assumptions (i) and (ii) to be maintained at the expense of an …

Directionality And The Processing Of Contracted Auxiliaries, Gregory Stump

Linguistics Faculty Publications

In a recent paper on the status of morphology in a generative theory of grammar, Zwicky (1982a) has argued “that processes of cliticization and readjustment together constitute a component of grammatical description in any language, a component related to others by strict principles of precedence…that syntactic rules, as a set, can feed or bleed rules of cliticization/readjustment (but not vice versa)” (Zwicky 1982b:51). Here, I shall consider the question of whether such an assumption of strict directionality can be maintained in a theory of language processing, in which generative rules of syntax and cliticization are replaced with rules of parsing …

Interpretive Gapping In Montague Grammar, Gregory Stump

Linguistics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.