Del i serien Cambridge Studies in Linguistics

Inflectional Defectiveness

Inbunden, Engelska, 2015

AvAndrea D. Sims

1 839 kr

Beställningsvara. Skickas inom 7-10 vardagar. Fri frakt för medlemmar vid köp för minst 249 kr.

Finns i fler format (1)

Häftad

609 kr

Skickas inom 7-10 vardagar

Paradigmatic gaps ('missing' inflected forms) have traditionally been considered to be the random detritus of a language's history and marginal exceptions to the normal functioning of its inflectional system. Arguing that this is a misperception, Inflectional Defectiveness demonstrates that paradigmatic gaps are in fact normal and expected products of inflectional structure. Sims offers an accessible exploration of how and why inflectional defectiveness arises, why it persists, and how it is learned. The book presents a theory of morphology which is rooted in the implicative structure of the paradigm. This systematic exploration of the topic also addresses questions of inflection class organization, the morphology-syntax interface, the structure of the lexicon, and the nature of productivity. Presenting a novel synthesis of established research and new empirical data, this work is significant for researchers and graduate students in all fields of linguistics.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2015-11-12
Mått160 x 237 x 24 mm
Vikt640 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieCambridge Studies in Linguistics
Antal sidor332
FörlagCambridge University Press
ISBN9781107045842

Tillhör följande kategorier

Språkvetenskap och lingvistik inom Språk och ordböcker

List of tables; List of figures; List of abbreviations; Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Defining inflectional defectiveness; 3. On the causes of inflectional defectiveness; 4. Productivity, defectiveness, and syncretism; 5. Principal parts, predictability, and paradigmatic gaps; 6. Irreducible gaps and the morphologization of defectiveness; 7. On learnability and the dynamic organization of the lexicon; 8. The implicative structure of the paradigm and other concluding thoughts; Appendix. Information-theoretic and other probability-based measures of inflectional structure.

'Sims' study is an important contribution to our understanding of inflectional systems. It is a very wide-ranging survey of defectiveness and makes a compelling case for treating it as an important and often very systematic property of inflectional systems. At the same time the book provides a clear and readable survey of the key features of the information-theoretic word-and-paradigm model, and shows how defectiveness can provide a strong motivation for that model.' Andrew Spencer, University of Essex