<OT> New Posting: ROA-893

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 893-0107

Analogy: The relation between lexicon and grammar

Iwona Kraska-Szlenk <i.kraska at uw.edu.pl>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=893


Abstract:
This work examines the mechanism of analogy in the context
of language use and from the theoretical perspective of
a formal model of Optimality Theory. I will argue that language
usage criteria, such as type and token frequency, underlie
an abstract concept of grammar, but are not entirely synonymous
with it. In the present proposal, the two are interrelated
through a system of extended correspondence constraints,
whose ranking with respect to each other and to markedness
constraints represents phonologization of language use.
I mostly concentrate on inflectional paradigms, since this
is the area least understood from the theoretical perspective.
The study stresses an active role of the lexicon in shaping
a language grammar. Due to the dynamic character of lexicon-gramm
ar interaction, analogical changes are not only interpretable,
but to some extent predictable on the basis of historical
and synchronic data.


The work is organized as follows. Chapter 1 presents a brief
summary of the earlier research on analogy and an outline
of the present model. Chapters 2-4 provide empirical evidence
for the role of frequency in analogy using synchronic and
diachronic evidence of a detailed case study of three vocalic
alternations in Polish declensional paradigms: the e~o/a
alternation (ch. 2), the o~u alternation (ch. 3) and the
e~zero alternation (ch. 4). Chapter 5 discusses the correlation
between analogy and semantic distance, which leads to observed
asymmetries between inflection and derivation, as well as
between nouns and verbs. The data come from Polish, as well
as from modern Arabic dialects, including Moroccan, for
which the present analysis is contrasted with that of McCarthy
(2005). The following two chapters treat cases of pseudo-analogy,
when stem leveling comes as a by-product rather than a goal
itself. One of such conditioning factors is a size of a
linguistic unit vis-a-vis its frequency ('Zipf's laws'),
illustrated with the material of Swahili prefixal morphophonology
and an example of leveling in a verbal paradigm of sub-standard
Polish (ch. 6). Apparent analogy caused by hypercorrection,
or 'revealing of the underlying representation', is exemplified
with the data of a historical change in Yiddish and a similar
sporadic change in Polish (ch. 7). The final chapter 8 contains
some comments on other theoretical issues, such as the problem
of unidirectionality of analogical mapping in derivational
morphology (illustrated with English stress) and the role
of the 'template' in phonology.

Comments: 
Keywords: analogy, leveling, Polish, Arabic, Swahili
Areas: phonology, morphology
Type: Manuscript

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=893