Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy: zero affixes

[Martha McGinnis]

Here is a response to Martha McGinnis's queries.

1.  Non-pronunciation of nodes

Alluding to my rejection of a zero morpheme-as-affix realizing [present,
non-3rd-singular], MMcG asks:

>How are
>we to represent the fact that the Tense node is pronounced in some cases,
>and isn't in others?  MH says that non-pronunciation has the same status as
>a given particular pronunciation (i.e., it's a zero Vocabulary item), while
>AC suggests that non-pronunciation has a different status from particular
>pronunciations....
>As MH pointed out, null realization of syntactic nodes
>can occur in the absence of stem changes, e.g. pro-arguments in Japanese,
>say _0 wakar-u_ (understand-past) "I/you/he/she/they understood".

This seems to me to be a question for the syntactician rather than the
morphologist.  How are we to represent the fact that traces are not
pronounced, or big-PRO, or little-pro (in Principles-and-Parameters terms)?
That is not a question that morphological theory is generally expected to
answer -- and rightly so.  In a DM-style analysis whereby all
morphosyntactic features are in principle located in bundles at terminal
nodes in syntactic trees (though possibly subject to merger, fusion and
fission in Morphological Structure), the variety and incidence of terminal
nodes where nothing phonologically overt gets inserted is quite high,
relative to some other styles of analysis.  It doesn't follow that some of
these nodes *must* have an affix asserted at them, despite appearances
(i.e. a phonologically empty affix) -- that is, it doesn't follow *unless
one makes it follow*, through one's definition of 'morpheme'.  But then the
presence or absence of an affix ceases to be an empirical issue.

As to whether _Wakaru_ 'I understood' involves a feature bundle [1
singular] that is realized by a zero affix, I take no position.  I simply
question the usefulness of a style of analysis under which such a feature
bundle *must* be deemed to be realized by an affix or pronoun or whatever,
even if there's nothing there phonologically.

>I'm curious as to how strict AC wants to be about ruling out zero
>Vocabulary items.

I don't want to rule them out in principle.  For example, I suspect a good
case can be made for a zero affix on a form like Russian _knig_ 'of the
books' (genitive plural).  This cell in the paradigm of the lexeme KNIGA is
highly marked in morphosyntactic terms (by contrast with e.g. nominative
singular _knig-a_); all the other cells have an overt suffix; and this cell
too had one in the not-too-distant past.  All I am arguing is that the case
for a zero affix on _cut, sang_ etc. is weak, being based mainly on a
terminological fiat.

2.  Learning, bare stems, and the No Blur Principle (NBP).

MMcG questions the role of the NBP in inflection-class learning, and asks:
>Suppose that a child learns
>that an affix A is the default realization of a class marker [rather, of a
>morphosyntactic cell] on stems of
>type X. This means that A can appear on several classes of X (e.g. class I,
>II, III).  According to the NBP, any other realization of that [cell], say
>B, will uniquely identify the class it realizes [rather, the class to
>which lexemes carrying it belong], (e.g., just
>class IV); this is supposed to be useful (necessary?) for acquiring the
>system of class markers [rather, inflectional affixes].
>
>	I	II	III	IV	V	VI
>	A	A	A	B	--	--
>	[Table 1]

>However, in addition to learning class markers A, B, etc., the child must
>also learn which classes lack (overt) class markers (V, VI).  Otherwise,
>s/he will use the default affix A for these classes.  Even supposing that
>there are no zero affixes, why is it not a problem for the learner that the
>unaffixed forms don't all belong to one class?  Why is this less of a
>problem than the problem that would arise if forms with affix B didn't all
>belong to one class?

This is a nice question, and I don't think the evidence is yet available to
give a complete answer.  A research project for someone, then!

One needs to distinguish between two tasks:
(a) learning what a given affix (A or B in Table 1) means, and
(b) learning which class a given lexeme belongs to.
>>From the point of view of learning task (a), classes V and VI in Table 1
present no problem, because in the cell in question they carry no affix.
(I'm assuming there is no evidence for a 'real' zero affix here, as in
_knig_.)  In this respect Table 1 contrasts directly with Table 2:

	I	II	III	IV	V	VI
	A	A	A	--	B	B
	[Table 2]

That's why Table 2 can't be learned by using the same strategy as for Table
1: Table 2 contains two blurred affixes, A and B, so fulfilling learning
task (a) in respect of Table 2 is predicted by the NBP to be impossible or
at least difficult.

But what about task (b) in respect of Table 1?  In particular, which
lexemes go in class V and which go in class VI?  Let's suppose that, for a
different cell (cell 2), class V lexemes carry a class-identifier, E:

	I	II	III	IV	V	VI
Cell 1	A	A	A	B	--	--
Cell 2	C	D	C	C	E	C
	[Table 3]

Once the child has spotted that C is the class-default affix for cell 2,
she 'knows' that affix E must be a class-identifier, i.e. that all lexemes
with E are inflected alike (at least affixally), and differently (in at
least cell 2) from any lexeme with C.  So she 'knows' that classes V and VI
are distinct.

It is conceivable, though, that V and VI differ in that V has in cell 2 not
a class-identifying affix but no affix at all:

	I	II	III	IV	V	VI
Cell 1	A	A	A	B	--	--
Cell 2	C	D	C	C	--	C
	[Table 4]

This poses more of a problem for learning task (b).  Let's suppose that
neither V nor VI has any class-identifier in any other cell (cell 3, 4,
etc.).  Then there seems to be nothing for the child to cotton on to for
the purpose of 'fixing' the membership of V and VI.  So it is tempting to
hypothesize that such a pattern could never arise, i.e. that every class
must have a class-identifying affix in at least one cell.  This represents
a tightening of the NBP as presented in my _Language_ article, so it will
be nice if it is true.  Is there evidence to support it?

At first sight, German nouns seem to count against.  In Table 4 on page 745
of _Language_ 70 (1994), classes II (Ziegel) and IX (Dorn) are represented
as both lacking a class-identifier, and differing only in that, in the
Nondative Plural, II has a blank while IX has the class-default suffix
_-(e)n_.  But, as I note on that page, the Plural blank of class II should
probably regarded as a phonologically conditioned variant of the _-e_
suffix of class I/III (Tag).  If so, this counterexample is taken care of.

There is still a problem with English verbs, however, as represented in
Table 5 on page 746.  If we ignore the minuscule and (for me) obsolete
class V (_crow, dive_), _-en_ becomes the class-default Past Participle
suffix.  But then class III (_give_) and class IV (_show_) exemplify the
pattern that concerns us, i.e. no class-identifiers, and differentiation
only by a blank versus a class-default affix in one cell (Past _gave--_,
PastPrt _give-n_ versus _show-ed, show-n_).

If the strengthened version of the NBP is too strong, then, the problem of
fulfilling task (b) in respect of patterns like Table 4 above remains.  But
notice one fact about the English examples: the suffixless Past form _gave_
is by no means unmarked for [past], because its ablauted vowel is peculiar
to it.  So perhaps it is stem alternation of this kind that renders
inflection class systems learnable in circumstances where some class (or,
perhaps, more than one class) has no class-identifying affix.  The fact
that stem alternation as such is not relevant to blur avoidance need not
entail that it is irrelevant to determining inflection class membership.
(Recall my comment in my previous positing that, at least in German verbs,
stem alternation seems to lend itself well to description in terms of
Wurzel-style implicative paradigm structure conditions, which involve
lexical specification.)  This possibility raises the whole fascinating but
complex issue of the relationship between affixal and nonaffixal
inflection.  All the more important, then, that the distinction between the
two kinds of inflection should not muddied through a proliferation of zero
affixes!


Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy
Associate Professor
Department of Linguistics, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800,
Christchurch, New Zealand
phone (work) +64-3-364 2211; (home) +64-3-355 5108
fax +64-3-364 2969
e-mail a.c-mcc at ling.canterbury.ac.nz
http://www.ling.canterbury.ac.nz/adc-m.html