The algebraic structure of morphosyntactic features
The most common way of separating homophony from syncretism — which is a basic challenge for any inflectional analysis: to distinguish between accidental and systematic form-identity — is attributing only the latter to a coherent feature combination instantiating a natural class. Features predetermi...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Septentrio Academic Publishing
2015-04-01
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| Series: | Nordlyd: Tromsø University Working Papers on Language & Linguistics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlyd/article/view/3414 |
| _version_ | 1811275794868076544 |
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| author | Sebastian Bank |
| author_facet | Sebastian Bank |
| author_sort | Sebastian Bank |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The most common way of separating homophony from syncretism — which is a basic challenge for any inflectional analysis: to distinguish between accidental and systematic form-identity — is attributing only the latter to a coherent feature combination instantiating a natural class. Features predetermine which form-identities can or cannot be analyzed as natural-class syncretism. Hence, they are crucial for the restrictiveness and predictions of morphological grammar. However, most current theoretical frameworks (e.g.] Anderson 1992, Corbett & Fraser 1993, Halle & Marantz 1993, Stump 2001) do not make explicit their assumptions regarding the formal status of features. They miss out on state-of-the-art formalisms to introduce feature notations like Formal Concept Analysis (FCA, going back to Wille 1982, Ganter & Wille 1999) which provides a formal model of conceptualization in general. In this paper, I will show how FCA provides an all-embracing terminology to reproduce, visualize, and compare feature systems from different morphological frameworks, enables more precise and consistent morphological analyses, and crucially serves to rule out excessively powerful notations where the feature combinatorics are decoupled from the distributional facts they represent. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T23:45:19Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-e1d739cc8acb4d44ae6328089d6573fd |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1503-8599 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T23:45:19Z |
| publishDate | 2015-04-01 |
| publisher | Septentrio Academic Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Nordlyd: Tromsø University Working Papers on Language & Linguistics |
| spelling | doaj.art-e1d739cc8acb4d44ae6328089d6573fd2022-12-22T03:11:53ZengSeptentrio Academic PublishingNordlyd: Tromsø University Working Papers on Language & Linguistics1503-85992015-04-0141210.7557/12.34143182The algebraic structure of morphosyntactic featuresSebastian Bank0University of LeipzigThe most common way of separating homophony from syncretism — which is a basic challenge for any inflectional analysis: to distinguish between accidental and systematic form-identity — is attributing only the latter to a coherent feature combination instantiating a natural class. Features predetermine which form-identities can or cannot be analyzed as natural-class syncretism. Hence, they are crucial for the restrictiveness and predictions of morphological grammar. However, most current theoretical frameworks (e.g.] Anderson 1992, Corbett & Fraser 1993, Halle & Marantz 1993, Stump 2001) do not make explicit their assumptions regarding the formal status of features. They miss out on state-of-the-art formalisms to introduce feature notations like Formal Concept Analysis (FCA, going back to Wille 1982, Ganter & Wille 1999) which provides a formal model of conceptualization in general. In this paper, I will show how FCA provides an all-embracing terminology to reproduce, visualize, and compare feature systems from different morphological frameworks, enables more precise and consistent morphological analyses, and crucially serves to rule out excessively powerful notations where the feature combinatorics are decoupled from the distributional facts they represent.https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlyd/article/view/3414featuresFormal Concept Analysissyncretismmorphology |
| spellingShingle | Sebastian Bank The algebraic structure of morphosyntactic features Nordlyd: Tromsø University Working Papers on Language & Linguistics features Formal Concept Analysis syncretism morphology |
| title | The algebraic structure of morphosyntactic features |
| title_full | The algebraic structure of morphosyntactic features |
| title_fullStr | The algebraic structure of morphosyntactic features |
| title_full_unstemmed | The algebraic structure of morphosyntactic features |
| title_short | The algebraic structure of morphosyntactic features |
| title_sort | algebraic structure of morphosyntactic features |
| topic | features Formal Concept Analysis syncretism morphology |
| url | https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlyd/article/view/3414 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT sebastianbank thealgebraicstructureofmorphosyntacticfeatures AT sebastianbank algebraicstructureofmorphosyntacticfeatures |