Declarative Morphology 385

Declarative Morphology

Fi

M Neef, Technische Universitat Braunschweig,

Braunschweig, Germany

� 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Defining Properties of DeclarativeApproaches to Grammar

The declarative paradigm of linguistic research arosefrom discontent with transformational generativegrammar in the early 1980s. The defining propertyof a declarative theory is its nonderivational charac-ter. The grammaticality of a linguistic expression isexplained with reference to a single level of represen-tation only (monostratality). Explanation is achievedby constraints that force a surface representation of acertain type to have a specific property. As opposedto constraints in optimality theory, declarative con-straints are unviolable and unordered. A declarativeconstraint is a true generalization about a certainaspect of a linguistic expression. As a consequence,declarative constraints are first of all construction-specific and, naturally, language-specific (notwith-standing the possibly universal character of someconstraints). Moreover, declarative theories are ex-plicit in the sense that they are falsifiable, as far astheories about language, which, by its very nature,shows a certain number of irregularities, can be fal-sified. Terms related to declarative grammar areunification grammar and constraint-based grammar.The declarative paradigm stems from computationallinguistics and places its main emphasis on work onsyntax (generalized phrase structure grammar, GPSG,Gazdar et al., 1985; head-driven phrase structuregrammar (HPSG), Pollard and Sag, 1994) and onphonology (declarative phonology, Scobbie et al.,1996), in addition to morphology.

gure 1 Russian nominal infections: excerpt from network.

Morphology and Lexical Organization

Generative grammar employs procedural rules toexplain regular linguistic knowledge but declarativestatements to deal with irregular knowledge. In orderto standardize these modes of description, it seems tobe natural to extend the techniques for the represen-tation of irregular knowledge to cover regular aspectsalso. There are a number of declarative approaches tolexical organization, with ‘lexical’ meaning ‘having todo with words.’ These approaches are largely basedon work in knowledge representation in the field ofartificial intelligence.

Network Morphology

In network morphology (Corbett and Fraser, 1993),linguistic information is organized as a complexnetwork consisting of different hierarchies. Knowl-edge concerning individual items is located at thebottom of the hierarchy while more general aspectsof knowledge are distributed among several nodesfurther up in the hierarchy. In this way, nontermi-nal nodes describe sets of linguistic units that haveshared properties. The central device in networkmorphology is default inheritance. The example ofRussian nominal inflection in Figure 1 illustratesthe way this device works (cf., Corbett and Fraser,1993: 126).

This excerpt of the whole network of the Russianlexicon consists of nodes connected by branches.A node is a named location at which specific factsare stored. The top node comprises informationshared by all nouns, for example, the fact that theform of the locative singular of each noun is a nounstem plus -e. The intervening nodes denote declen-sional classes, that is, subclasses of nouns that sharespecific inflectional properties. Node N0 capturesinformation shared by nouns of the zakon type andof the v’ino type, whereas information that distin-guishes these types is linked to the lower nodes N1

and N4. The bottom line of the hierarchy containslexical entries in the generative sense, that is, lexemesdeprived of all redundant or predictable informa-tion. With regard to the lexeme v’ino, relevant infor-mation concerns the form of the stem (which is vin)and the meaning of the item.

Inheritance goes top down in the hierarchy. Defaultinformation of higher nodes is inherited to the lowernodes except if information of the same type is notedboth on the higher and on the lower node. In thiscase, the special information on the lower nodeis more relevant. The noun soldat ‘soldier,’ for exam-ple, inflects for all categories like class N1 exceptfor the genitive plural, which is soldat instead of

Figure 2 German bar-adjectives: excerpt from the hierarchical lexicon.

386 Declarative Morphology

soldatov. This irregular feature connected to the ter-minal node soldat overrides the information concern-ing the genitive plural specified at its mother node.Thus, default inheritance is nonmonotonic.

A new lexeme can be inflected correctly if it isintegrated into the relevant network. In the case ofnouns, all that has to be known about the new lexemein order to derive the full declensional paradigm isits part of speech, the form of the stem, and the declen-sional class it belongs to. The focus of research innetwork morphology is inflection, based on the notionof paradigm, but work on derivational morphologyexists as well. Network morphology is expressed inthe formally explicit DATR language. Relatedapproaches are to be found in Daelemans (1987),Domenig (1989), and Cahill and Gazdar (1999).

Type-Based Morphology

Type-based morphology (Riehemann, 1998) isintegrated into the HPSG framework in which alllinguistic knowledge is expressed by feature struc-tures. These feature structures are true but partialdescriptions of properties of linguistic objects. Par-tial descriptions combine by unification to yieldcomplete descriptions of linguistic objects. Featurevalues percolate along the head-projection line inhierarchically structured inheritance trees. Inheri-tance is strictly monotonic. Riehemann bases herassumptions on the notion of the existing lexicon,that is, the actual store of words of a competentspeaker.

Figure 2 shows Riehemann’s treatment of produc-tive derivational morphology using the example ofGerman -bar adjectives (adapted from Riehemann,1998: 64). The bottom line of this hierarchy containsfinite sets of lexical items, except for the first element,which denotes a variable for potential regular -baradjectives. The properties of these potential wordsderive completely from the information specified athigher nodes in the hierarchy. For example, potential

regular -bar adjectives have a transitive verb as theirbase (whereas irregular items may be based on dativeverbs, preposition verbs, intransitive verbs, or evennonverbs). Semantically, they share a feature of pos-sibility with most verb-based items. Other chunks ofinformation are inherited from nodes further up inthe hierarchy (which are omitted in Figure 2). Theitem essbar shows that Riehemann regards complete-ly regular but already existing words as elements ofthe lexicon.

Interestingly, Riehemann does not assume the exis-tence of heads in word structure. In a complex word,the basic root is represented explicitly, whereas theaffix is not. Information about affixes is captured infeatures of complex stems.

(1)

[ [les]V bar]A ‘readable’

Traditional affixes are kept within abstract schemasthat comprise specific phonological, morphological,syntactic, and semantic information. These schemasare also regarded as morphological constructions.Subregular patterns emerge if a word that does notbelong to the productive core of the schema is takenas the model for a new word. In this way, type-basedmorphology allows us to deal with semiproductivemorphological data, as well as with conversion andnonconcatenative morphology. Sketches of alterna-tive models are Krieger (1994) and Kathol (2000).

Morphology and Phonology

A second group of declarative theories of morphologyfocuses on the relation of morphology to phonology.To a certain extent, the two types of approachescomplement one another. This holds especially fortype-based morphology and sign-based morphology.

Sign-Based Morphology

Sign-based morphology (Orgun, 1996) employsconstituent structures for complex words, explicitly

Figure 3 English ee nouns.

Declarative Morphology 387

relying on HPSG-style notations. Root morphemes,taken from the lexicon, form the terminal nodes inthe diagram. By allowing all features (including pho-nological ones) percolate to higher nodes, all nodesare signs (i.e., pairings of form and meaning). Non-terminal nodes may be subject to constraints. A wordis well-formed if all nodes in a tree are well-formed.Whereas compounds show traditional binary branch-ing, derived words are treated as nonbranchingstructures.

For example, Figure 3 shows the morphologicalconstruction of English ee nouns (cf., Orgun andInkelas, 2001: 124). The sign at the bottom indicatesthe base, some verb. The information of the baseconcerning form and meaning percolates to thedominating node. A phonological function j relatesthe form of the derived word to the form of itsbase. This phonological function may be the samefor all morphological constructions, but may be dif-ferent as well. In this case, the morphological con-struction is associated with a specific phonologicalfunction, called a cophonology. In effect, this canbe regarded as affix- or construction-specific pho-nology. The affix itself is not taken as an elementof the cophonology but as an argument of this func-tion in order to guarantee that the cophonologies ofa language do not differ too much from one anoth-er. Orgun (1998: 213) regards nondeclarative opti-mality theory as a suitable phonological sister theoryto sign-based morphology.

Word Design

Based on a structuralist conception of the lexicon asa list of irregularities, word design (Neef, 1996) takesmorphological categories (or constructions) as the

subject of morphology, thus covering (regular) in-flectional and derivational categories that are tradi-tionally conceived as affixes. All information thatis connected with a specific morphological category issaid to be morphological. Hence, any condition onthe form of a derived or inflected word is of this type,in particular both the form of the affixes themselvesand all kinds of conditions on the sound structure.The role of phonology in this conception is to ex-plain the general sound regularities holding for allwords of a language. The mode of application ofword design is exemplified using the English nounplural that is characterized by the properties in (2)(Neef, 2001).

(2)

BASE: noun stem FORM: i. Design condition of segmental

ending [Z]

ii. Design condition of difference

from the stem

MEANING: ‘plurality’

Every morphological category has a base of a spe-cific type. This may be a stem, a different morpholog-ical category, or a phrase. Due to the Main Principleof Morphology, instances of morphological cat-egories are similar to their bases in all aspects exceptin those ones explicitly stated in the descriptionof the morphological category (formalizable asnonmonotonic feature percolation). Minimally, amorphological category is associated with some se-mantic effect. Furthermore, there can be a changeconcerning the part of speech (as is often the casewith derivational morphology) and the form (exceptfor zero inflection and conversion). Formal changesare captured in design conditions. The first conditionin (2) demands that every (regular) plural form has toend in [Z], that is, in an alveolar fricative underspe-cified for voicing. This segment is voiced if the pho-nology permits it and voiceless otherwise. Becausevoiced obstruents are phonologically not allowedwhen following a voiceless obstruent in the syllablecoda, the plural of cat is [kæts] whereas the plural ofdog is [dAgz]. The second condition in (2) forbids theplural of rose being [roz] despite the adequate seg-mental ending because a stem and plural must notsound the same. The phonology allows schwa epen-thesis to yield the form [rozez], thereby fulfilling bothdesign conditions. Because different morphologicalcategories may be subject to the same design condi-tions, morphology can be seen as containing a poolof conditions that individual categories make use ofin different ways.

Research in word design concentrates on themorphology of German, especially inflection andderivational types that are theoretically disputed

388 Declarative Morphology

(circumfixation, conversion). Currently, word designhas not been formalized. Its phonological partnertheory is a declarative approach that is looselyconnected to declarative phonology. Morphologi-cal approaches that strictly adhere to declarativephonology are Ogden (1999) and Walther (1999a,1999b).

See also: Computational Linguistics: History; Declarative

Approaches to Phonology; Declarative Models of Syntax;

Generative Grammar; Pragmatics: Optimality Theory;

Sign-Based Morpology.

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driven by the salience of some of the possible inter-pretations. This salience can be caused by a greaterfrequency of a certain meaning or by its simplicity,but ultimately it rests on knowledge of social andcultural conventions or the cognitive principles thatgovern our thinking. Default Semantics concerns suchcognitive defaults.