Greville G. Corbett

The Slavonic languages

P.Cubberley, University of Melbourne, A.Schenker, Yale University, K. Polanski, Katowice, D.Huntley, University of Toronto, E.Scatton, SUNY, V.A.Friedman, University of North Carolina, D.Short, University of London, G.Stone, University of Oxford, R.A.Rothstein, University of Massachusetts, and R.Sussex, University of Queensland

The agreement hierarchy

Consideration of the problem of alternative agreement forms (§ 1) leads us to postulate a hierarchy of agreement positions (§ 2) which allows us to make predictions as to the possibility and relative frequency of semantic as compared to syntactic agreement. The hierarchy is justified by data from a variety of languages which permit alternative agreements (§ 3). Confirming evidence comes from a study of the instances where agreement in case and person is required in different languages (§ 4). The status of the hierarchy and the type of prediction it makes are discussed. It is suggested that the hierarchy determines the main divisions of a measure called SYNTACTIC DISTANCE and that other factors (word order, distance between controller and agreeing element, depth of stacking) determine relative degrees of distance within these main divisions (§ 5). The basic claim of the paper is that as syntactic distance increases so does the likelihood of semantic agreement.

Network morphology: A DATR account of Russian nominal inflection.

In this paper we introduce a declarative approach to inflectional morphology, which we call Network Morphology, using the lexical representation language DATR. We show that we can account for a range of (Russian) data, for which previously various rule types were required, and can provide a more satisfying analysis than was previously available. First we outline the essential data (section 2), highlighting the problems they present. Section 3 introduces the basic tenets of Network Morphology. This draws heavily on DATR, which we present in outline in section 4. Next we reconsider the Russian declensional classes from this new perspective (section 5). We show how the approach described overcomes long-standing problems in an elegant fashion; the complexity of the data suggests that the approach adopted has implications well beyond Russian. We then tackle the complex problem of animacy in Russian, which exemplifies interesting regularities extending across declensional classes (section 6).

Heads in grammatical theory

List of contributors 1. Introduction Norman M. Fraser, Greville G. Corbett and Scott McGlashan 2. The head of Russian numeral expressions Greville G. Corbett 3. The phonology of heads in Haruai Bernard Comrie 4. Patterns of headedness Ronnie Cann 5. Head-hunting on the trail of the nominal Janus Andrew Radford 6. The headedness of noun-phrases: slaying the nominal hydra John Payne 7. Head- versus dependent-marking: the case of the clause Nigel Vincent 8. Heads in discourse: structural versus functional centricity Johanna Nichols 9. Heads in head-driven phrase structure grammar Robert D. Borsley 10. Heads and lexical semantics Scott McGlashan 11. Heads, parsing and word-order universals John A. Hawkins 12. Do we have heads in our minds? Richard A. Hudson 13. Heads, bases and functors Arnold M. Zwicky References Index.

The Morphology/Syntax Interface: Evidence from Possessive Adjectives in Slavonic

P[ossessive] A[djective]s in Slavonic, formed from nouns via suffixation, show unusual syntactic behavior. In Upper Sorbian, the form of attributive modifiers, relative pronouns, and personal pronouns can be controlled by the syntactic features of the noun underlying the PA. Control of attributive modifiers gives rise to phrases in which word structure and phrase structure do not match. The fact that the underlying noun is available for syntactic purposes suggests that PA formation is an inflectional process, while other factors (such as change of word-class membership) point just as clearly to a derivational process. It thus appears that any sharp differentiation between inflectional and derivational morphology must be abandoned. Data presented from all thirteen Slavonic languages, based on extensive work with native speakers, show that the control possibilities of the PA vary considerably. However, control of the attributive modifier is possible only if control of the relative pronoun is also possible, and that in turn only if control of the personal pronoun is possible. This result is subsumed under the constraints of the Agreement Hierarchy.

Colour terms in Russian: reflections of typological constraints in a single language

One of the milestones in typological studies is Berlin & Kays (1969) account of basic colour terms, which has produced a steady stream of research of various types. Berlin & Kay summarized their work as follows. In sum, our two major findings indicate that the referents for the basic color terms of all languages appear to be drawn from a set of eleven universal perceptual categories, and these categories become encoded in the history of a given language in a partially fixed order (1969: 4–5).

Agreement: the range of the phenomenon and the principles of the Surrey Database of Agreement

Agreement is approached from the analytical decisions required for constructing a typological database. The Surrey Database of Agreement provides detailed, highly structured information on the agreement systems of fifteen genetically diverse languages. The range of material included and the criteria for inclusion are set out here. There is then detailed discussion of the difficult cases, in particular the dividing line between agreement markers and pronominal affixes. The criteria relevant to this distinction are in part drawn from the literature and in part new. The aim is that the criteria adopted should be fully clear, so that linguists of different persuasions can use the database for their varying purposes.

Gender, Animacy, and Declensional Class Assignment: A Unified Account for Russian

In an earlier paper we introduced Network Morphology, an approach to inflectional morphology which relies heavily on the notion of default inheritance (Corbett & Fraser 1993), and showed how a complex set of data pertaining to the inflectional morphology of Russian nominals could be handled in this framework. We extend that analysis here to include a range of phenomena which, we believe, has not previously been described in a single formally explicit framework. The key concept underlying our analysis is that of default inheritance. We introduce this below, together with a lexical knowledge representation language called DATR, which we use to make our analysis fully explicit.2 In Section 3 we describe our approach to gender assignment in Russian; animacy assignment is dealt with in Section 4; and declensional class assignment in Section 5.

Dalabon pronominal prefixes and the typology of syncretism: a Network Morphology analysis

This paper has three goals. First we wish to elucidate the complex paradigms of Dalabon. In languages like Dalabon, which encode information about multiple pronominal arguments on adjacent slots on the verb, the two slots are frequently merged. The resultant set of combinations typically lies somewhere between an irregular paradigm and a set of forms derivable by combining subject and object elements according to some set of rules. These paradigms are potentially vast — in Dalabon, which has a rich set of person, number and kinship categories in its pronoun system, there are 102 possible subject/object combinations, each of which further distinguishes six tense/aspect/mood categories. Most languages of this type reduce the number of forms by widespread identities of form within the paradigm. However, it is not always clear whether the formal collapse is accidental homophony or principled syncretism.

Defaults in Arapesh

Abstract Network Morphology is a formally explicit approach to morphology which distributes information across a network in which generalizations can be optimally expressed. Generalizations become available in specific cases by the operation of default inheritance. In this paper we explore the notion of ‘default’ in morphology by means of a Network Morphology analysis of the noun classes and genders of Arapesh — a language which relies on a sophisticated understanding of defaults for a satisfactory treatment (Aronoff, 1992). Our work lends support to Aronoffs account of the Arapesh data. It also reveals a confusion in use of the term ‘default’ by linguists. In one usage of the term, the (‘normal case’) default is that which applies in the absence of blocking information; in the other, the (‘exceptional case’) default is that which applies when some exceptional factors prevent normal processes from applying and necessitate the adoption of some ‘last resort’ solution. Under one reading the default equates with the unmarked case; in the other, it is the marked case which is picked out by the same term.