| ROA: | 352 |
|---|---|
| Title: | MOT: Sketch of an OT approach to morphology |
| Authors: | Kevin Russell |
| Comment: | 115 pages. PDF file is one-up, PS file is two-up |
| Length: | 15 |
| Abstract: | MOT: Sketch of an OT approach to morphology draft, July 24, 1999 Kevin Russell University of Manitoba This sketch presents a unified framework for analyzing morphological phenomena within Optimality Theory (called, for want of a better term, MOT). OT has been successful at coming up with non-derivational accounts of individual modules of grammar, especially syntax and phonology. But the relationship between modules is still usually assumed to be derivational -- for example, the output of syntax serves as the input to phonology or morphology. In contrast to this, MOT is based on the following ideas: - An OT grammar evaluates all sub-representations (e.g., phonology, syntax, semantics) in parallel. - An OT grammar can impose interface constraints on which phonological, syntactic, and semantic representations can co-occur with each other. - The information of "lexical entries" is nothing more than specialized versions of such interface constraints. - There is no need for the "lexicon" to contain pieces of representation, such as partial syntactic nodes or phonological underlying representations. The sketch shows how such a framework can shed light on many of the problem cases of morphological theory. Some of the topics discussed are: the default mapping between syntactic categories and inflection classes (as argued by Aronoff 1993), regular and irregular inflection, prosodic morphology (exemplified by Yawelmani), truncatory morphemes (e.g., navig-ate-able -> navig-able), phonological underspecification, haplology, head operations, and a synthesis of realizational and word-syntax approaches to morphology. |
| Type: | Paper/tech report |
| Area/Keywords: | |
| Article: | Version 1 |