16.3268, Review: Morphology: M üller, Gunkel & Zifonun (2004)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-3268. Sat Nov 12 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.3268, Review: Morphology: Müller, Gunkel & Zifonun (2004)

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1)
Date: 12-Nov-2005
From: Veena Dixit < veena at cse.iitb.ac.in >
Subject: Explorations in Nominal Inflection 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 16:11:13
From: Veena Dixit < veena at cse.iitb.ac.in >
Subject: Explorations in Nominal Inflection 
 

EDITORS: Müller, Gereon; Gunkel, Lutz; Zifonun, Gisela
TITLE: Explorations in Nominal Inflection 
SERIES: Interface Explorations
PUBLISHER: Mouton de Gruyter
YEAR: 2004
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-3410.html 

Veena Dixit, Center For Indian Language Technology, Department of 
Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, 
Bombay.

This is the tenth volume in the series 'Interface Explorations' edited by 
Artemis Alexiadou and T. Allen Hall. The volume contains a collection 
of eleven articles with a scholarly introduction. The articles are based 
on the talks given at the workshop 'Feature Distribution in the Noun 
Phrase', part of the 24th annual DGfS conference in Mannheim 
(February 27 - March 1, 2002) and at the workshop 'Inflectional 
Paradigms: Primitives and Structures' at IDS, Mannheim (May 23-24, 
2003). The articles draw examples from over 45 typologically diverse 
languages.

SYNOPSIS

As the nominal inflection is considered in this volume to be an 
interface between morphology and syntax, the articles remain focused 
either on the syntactic component or on the morphological component. 
The major morphosyntactic features, namely, case, gender, inflection 
class and number are discussed. The emphasis changes from article 
to article. A number of theoretical approaches are discussed. They 
are, Distributed Morphology, Optimality Theory, Minimalist Program, 
Lexical Approach, Inferential Approach, and mixed Lexical-Inferential 
Approaches.

EVALUATION BY PAPER

Introduction, Gereon Müller, Lutz Gunkel, & Gisela Zifonun: The 
introduction opens with examples of determiner inflection in German 
and noun inflection in Russian & German. This leads to a discussion 
on nominal inflection as an interface phenomenon focusing on 
inflection classes along with the syncretism and underspecification in 
the German language. The issues regarding morphosyntactic features 
such as, linkage between morphology and syntax in nominal inflection 
and how morphology has direct impact on syntax are discussed. 
Theories of Inflection are put in four major classes based on the views 
towards the inflectional markers and the information rendered by 
them. There are Incremental Theories, Realizational Theories, Lexical 
Theories and Inferential Theories. Different approaches like 
Minimalist, Optimality are discussed with reference to the features 
based on above referred four classes of inflectional theories, null 
suffix, position of inflectional markers in syntax and status of such 
markers in lexicon. The notion of paradigm as seen in various 
approaches is delineated to supplement this discussion. The 
introduction ends with a brief note on the contributions made to this 
book.

Comment: The authors have not discussed the theory of Whole Word 
Morphology in the context of the classification of Inflectional Theories. 
Whole Word Morphology has its application in the field of 
unsupervised Natural Language Processing Tasks.

Inflectional Class, Gender and DP Internal Structure, Artemis 
Alexiadou: This paper discusses the relations between nominal 
features like gender and inflection class. The question whether these 
give rise to a functional projection in the extended context of the noun 
or not is scrutinized. The writer poses that the gender and the 
inflection class features are not syntactically active. He argues that 
phenomenon such as noun movement and noun ellipsis in his view 
appears to be related to the status of gender and class markers. Noun 
ellipsis seems to be related to the presence of morphological gender 
agreement between nouns and the adjectives modifying them. In the 
course of the argument he considers different parameters like ellipsis, 
class markers, gender, number, case, adjective-noun agreement and 
theme vowel. The argument is supported with the examples from 
Spanish, Greek, Italian, Hebrew and French.

Inflection Classes and Economy, James P. Blevins: The basic issues 
regarding inflection class raised in this paper are as follows. 
* Which elements of a morphological system are assigned to inflection 
classes? 
* Which principles govern class assignment? 
* How are classes distinguished? 
* Is there any bound on the number of possible classes within a given 
system? 
* Why do these classes play no role in agreement or other 
grammatical process? 

In the word-and-paradigm model, full word forms are assigned to 
inflectional paradigm, which are in turn grouped into inflection classes. 
The attempt is to locate the answers in terms of 'economy', word and 
paradigm economy, affix and paradigm economy, and lexical 
economy.  The economy of an inflectional system rests on patterns of 
interpredictability. The 'Paradigm Economy Principle' and 'No Blur 
Principle' are targeted in the discussion. These principles account for 
the relation between the 'leading form' and other members of the 
paradigm. The paper concludes that there is no need for dedicated 
stem-based or affix-based economy principles; recognition of words 
and paradigms as the basic components of a morphological system 
can resolve the problems arising from shared sources.

Left of Number, Animacy and Plurality in German Nouns, Peter 
Eisenberge & Ulricke Sayatz: The paper is descriptive in nature. It 
talks about the order of suffixes in the maximally inflected form. It 
establishes the hierarchy of suffixes in German Language as follows. 
(verb / noun stem-masculine/feminine/neuter-± animacy) > (-er/-ler- 
masculine- +agent) (-ling/-in- masculine/neuter- +sex-marked) (-
schaft/-tum- feminine/neuter- +collective) > (-chen/-lein- neuter- 
+diminutive) (plural markers- no gender- +plural). 

Verb and noun stems are referred to as 'gender-inherent' while plural 
markers are marked as 'gender-determined' and others are called 
as 'gender-determiner'. Similarly the hierarchy of abstract nouns 
derived from verbs as well as adjectives is established. Further, the 
quest on whether these hierarchies are structured only by plurality is 
examined. The interdependence of countability and plurality is 
demonstrated in terms of semantic features [± bounded] and [± 
internal structure]. In short, plurality value is judged with respect to the 
Animacy hierarchy. 

Comment: A more detailed discussion about the nature of abstract 
nouns and the way they are related to plurality would have been 
apposite.

Feature Sharing in DPs, Peter Gallmann: The paper attempts to prove 
the validity of the following hypotheses. Firstly, 'Syncretism in affix 
paradigms is the result of two independent regularities'. The first 
regularity consists in that the constraints determine the features which 
may be combined in phrase heads. The second regularity would be 
that the formal expression of the available feature bundles obeys the 
Principle of Maximal Paradigmatic Contrast. The paper is chiefly 
concerned with markedness and faithfulness constraints on 
morphosyntactic features. The manner in which the affix paradigms 
are stored in the mental lexicon is considered as the base for the 
Principle of Maximal Paradigmatic Contrast. Secondly, the distribution 
of the strong and weak declension of German adjectives depends on 
the percolation of case features in the NP, and so does the 
distribution of noun forms with and without case suffixes. The paper 
demonstrates the interaction of co-occurrence constraints and 
percolation constraints. The writer foresees the 'visibility constraints' 
determining morphosyntax of DPs which are not discussed in the 
paper due to 'space constraint'.

A Typological Schema for Noun Phrases in German, Pawel Karnowski 
& Jürgen Pafel: It is correctly stated that typology based discussion 
provides an opportunity to bring to the fore elementary questions 
without committing to any particular syntactic framework.  The 
issue 'What is typology' and the related terms like schema, slot, field 
and position are explained before the discussion commences. It 
introduces the typological schema, (Z   Def.   X Nom   Y), for noun 
phrase in German. The number and the nature of the slots in a 
typological schema are determined by the restrictions the elements 
filling the slots have to comply with. The restrictions concerning Z 
(field), Def. (position) and Noun (position) are formulated as three 
generalizations. The schema and the restrictions are further 
discussed in detail with exhaustive illustrations. The paper 
acknowledges that the typological theory of German noun phrases is 
inspired by the typological theory of German sentences. The 
proposition advanced is that a noun phrase in German is well formed 
with respect to word order if and only if it is constructed in accordance 
with above referred schema and its restrictions. The writers propose 
to supplement this schema in future with the suitable restrictions for 
the X-field and the Y-field and make the theory descriptively more 
adequate.

On Decomposing Inflection Class Features: Syncretism in Russian 
Noun Inflection, Gereon Müller: Inflection class features are more 
abstract and differ from other morphological features. These features, 
unlike gender, number and case, are not grounded in any way, they 
are not independently motivated and they do not seem to play any 
role in syntax. There is a general tendency to either avoid inflection 
class features in analysis of noun inflection or to accept them as an 
imperfection in grammar design. The writer refuses to agree with 
either of the views. He argues that inflection class features can be 
decomposed into more primitive features. Such decomposition offers 
explanation for instances of trans-paradigmatic syncretism. The 
decomposed inflection class features play a role in morphology that is 
analogous to the role played by uninterpretable features in syntax. 
Being uninterpretable in the syntactic component, inflection class 
features drive morphological operations that delete the class features 
before syntax is reached. Hence these features are not instances of 
imperfection. He claims that this reasoning provides an argument 
against late insertion in a minimalist grammar. The writer presents the 
main paradigms of noun inflection in Russian and shows that inflection 
class features are necessary to account for them. He further illustrates 
the decomposing of both case and inflection class features into more 
primitive features. The primitive features like ([± subj(ect)], [± gov
(erned)], [± obl(ique)]) for case features and ([± alpha] and [± beta]) for 
inflection class features are proposed. This is claimed to be useful to 
account for most of the instances of intra-paradigmatic and trans-
paradigmatic syncretism in interaction with the Specificity condition. He 
argues that inflection class features can be seen as the triggers of 
inflection with portmanteau markers. 

Comment: The primitive features used to decompose inflection class 
features are more abstract than those used for case features.

A Factorial Typology of Number Marking in Noun Phrases: The 
Tension between Economy and Faithfulness, Albert Ortmann: This 
paper is the result of work done on capturing the various empirical 
and theoretical aspects of number marking restricted by language 
economy. It aims to establish a factorial typology of plural morphology 
in the framework of Optimality theory. This paper highlights the 
typological aspects of plural marking in the DP. The major parameters 
that the factorial typology accounts for are as follows.
* DP-internal number agreement vs. non-redundant plural marking as 
the result of the relative ranking of MAX constraints and an Avoid 
constraint,
* Lexical vs. phrasal plural markers,
* Sensitivity to such concepts as specificity and animacy in DP plural 
marking. 

The parameters that determine cross-linguistic variation with respect 
to the distribution of number markers over the constituents of the noun 
phrase are described. After introduction of constraints on the 
economic number agreement approach, analysis of the above 
mentioned main parameters of variation is developed. Discussion is 
supported with examples from Hungarian, Georgian, German, 
Tagalog, Persian and Turkish. An overview of the subtypes that result 
from the various possible rankings of the involved constraints is 
provided. The paper ends with a summary of partial rankings 
established for the languages analyzed in the paper.

Feature Checking, Case, and Agreement in German DPs, Wolfgang 
Sternefeld: The paper aims to reanalyze the phenomenon that certain 
morphological case markings of German nouns can or must be 
dropped under specific syntactic conditions. The phenomenon is 
studied in terms of Optimality Theory as well as (Minimalist) Checking 
Theory.  It concludes that the observed phenomena are more 
adequately described in terms of the conditions regarding the shape 
of certain suffixes than in terms of their grammatical contents. This 
paper talks about the other side of the issue.

Feminine vs. Non-Feminine Noun Phrases in German, Rolf Thieroff: 
This paper examines and confirms the Gallmann's Suffix Corollary 
(German),Nominal words are underspecified with respect to case 
unless they are preceded by an adjectivally inflected word-form with 
case suffix within its DP. This is supported by extensive examples from 
the language. Further, the predominance of Feminine morphology in 
German language is shown while considering 'Functional Verb 
Constructions', 'Measure Constructions', and Prepositions Governing 
the Genitive and the Dative'. The dominance of Feminine morphology 
extends to the syntax of the noun phrase in general. This is examined 
and confirmed considering Accusative and Dative Singular, Genitive 
Singular and Dative Plural. The reason for the dominance of Feminine 
morphology is located in its weakness, i.e., the feminine noun phrase 
cannot mark case on the noun. It is accepted that there is a possibility 
that the opposite process exists, i.e., the adoption of non-feminine 
morphology by feminine morphology as in the instance of genitive 
marker-s overtaken by feminine proper nouns from masculine nouns. 
Categories and Paradigms. 

On Underspecification in Russian Declension, Bernd Wiese: An 
uneconomic complexity of homonymous endings is claimed as an 
artifact of uneconomic descriptions. It is argued that the distribution of 
markers over forms or cells in paradigms is structured. A tangled web 
of many-to-many relations between form and function can be reduced 
to a rather well organized common structure that underlies 
declensional paradigms. The categorization can be assigned to the 
endings to account for their functional unity and for their diversity of 
application. Categorization refers to bundles of categories. The 
approach is classificatory rather than being feature-based. A brief outline 
of an analysis of Russian pronominal declension based on a conception 
of underspecified paradigms is provided. The conception developed is 
extended to nouns. A brief on types of syncretism focuses on the 
Russian genitive-accusative. Instead of dealing with syncretism in 
terms of a combinatorial system of syntactic or semantic features, the 
present investigation is based on a detailed inspection of formal 
markers, i.e., endings, as they are used to distinguish word forms of 
paradigms. A limited inventory of pairs of inflectional endings and 
categorizations is established.

Is There Any Need for the Concept of Directional Syncretism?, Dieter 
Wunderlich: The directional syncretism is favored as it can be 
formalized by a grammatical rule (rule of referral) that operates on 
paradigms. Wunderlich doubts whether directional syncretism is an 
adequate concept. He claims that rules of referral are undesirable for 
theoretical reasons. It is shown that A/N syncretism is most naturally 
captured by underspecification and the syncretism, which is subject to 
animacy (accusative-nominative of inanimate nouns), can be captured 
by the interaction of lexical entries with well motivated constraints. 
G.sg/N.pl syncretism of Russian nouns is captured as symmetrical. 
The paper concludes that all syncretism should be regarded as a 
matter of lexical information supplemented by a set of constraints that 
determine the choice between inflected forms. The concept of lexical 
economy makes it plausible that independent grammatical features 
may share their exponents. 

Comment: By making available the dimension of acquisition to 
understand syncretism makes the study multifaceted.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The book is primarily meant for research scholars, working in the area 
of inflectional morphology. A good grounding in the subject is a 
prerequisite for reading. The technical issues are handled in a 
scholarly manner. The focus is on inflectional classes and their 
properties. It is studied from various angles offering various answers 
to the question. Many of the issues raised in the book merit further 
discussion. Each paper contains an exhaustive list of references 
which can serve as a resource for other researchers. The reader may 
well wish that she/he should have been a participant of the base 
workshops and the discussions. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Veena Dixit is engaged in research on less-studied and resource-poor 
language, Marathi, the state language of Maharashtra State of India. 
She is a significant contributor to the development of Morphology Rule-
based spellchecker for Marathi. At present she is working on Rule-
based Part-of Speech Tagger for Marathi. She has presented her 
work in national and international conferences.





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