Jackendoff and Audring (2020): The Texture of the Lexicon #

This file formalizes the Relational Morphology of [JA20], in which morphological motivation is shared structure recorded by nondirectional relational links between fully specified lexical entries, not inheritance from an abstract base. The mixed-direction pairs of Objection 10 to inheritance, Section 3.4.4, are the test: assassin and assassinate build the second on the first in phonology and the first on the second in semantics, so no acyclic inheritance hierarchy holds both demands (assassin_cycle), though default inheritance itself computes as the taxonomy of Figure 3.5 intends (ostrich_overrides), while a sister link with a coindex per shared part carries both, (41) (assassin_pairs), and reads the same transposed (assassin_pairs_symm). Bumped up a level, Section 4.8.2, the link between the -ism and -ist schemas, (47), pairs every ideology's noun with its adherent's, whatever the base and the ideology (ismist_pairs), the open-ended relation the book illustrates with Trumpism. Ablaut, Section 5.3, is a sister link off the syllabic nucleus: the general schema (25) pairs exactly the stems and pasts that are the same except at the nucleus (ablaut_pairs_iff), the sing/sang subschema (26) is a special case of it (ablaut_pairs_of_nucleusPair) whose pairs are nucleus contrasts (contrast_of_nucleusPair), and the German present-tense schema (45) has the same phonological shape. The cells (45) serves, the second and third singular present, are a morphome, Section 5.4.4: the syncretism class of the special stem of sprechen is a value conjunction of no feature of the paradigm (spricht_morphome). The Same Verb Problem, Section 5.6, is a shared morphosyntax-phonology pivot without a shared semantics: two lexemes selecting the same pivot inflect alike at every cell (realize_eq_of_sameVerb), which pairs the two draws of (60) and take with take part, (57) to (59), and separates the homophones ring and wring. Structural Intersection, Section 7.8.1, is the meet: the schema (6) is the intersection of its three sisters (5) (ishSchema_body_eq_inf), is the most they have in common (instantiates_ishSchema_iff), and absorbs a newly encountered sister (ishSchema_inf_foolish).

Implementation notes #

Lexical entries and schemas are slot-indexed descriptions over a flat carrier, a constant above ⊥ and a variable at ⊥; a relational coindex is a variable subscripting a slot of each entry, which a paired instantiation fills alike (ConstructionMorphology.Schema.InstantiatesAt). The containment of the semantics of assassinate in that of assassin, (41), is rendered as a shared slot.
The zero exponence of the present and the infinitive of walk, (19), the double coindexation of Section 4.3, appears as a syncretism of the paradigm (walk_syncretism).
The cycle theorem renders the paradox of Objection 10 through the well-foundedness of an inheritance hierarchy; the book argues from the above-and-below paradox and makes no well-foundedness claim.
The syllables and the -ish adjectives are the CLDF forms of Data/Forms/JackendoffAudring2020.json, read as slot-indexed segments by Data.Forms.Form.slots; a syllable's positions are onset, nucleus and coda.
The correspondence between a schema's variable coindices and the constant coindices of its instances, left unformalized in Section 4.13.2, is the subscripting of ConstructionMorphology.Schema.InstantiatesAt; a productive variable is one marked open over and above its attested fillers.

References #

Open and closed variables, (17) and (18) #

The toponym patterns (17): a name and the type of a geographical feature, the name an open variable and the feature type a closed one, whose fillers are learned pattern by pattern; in (18d) the and of are constants.

Jackendoff and Audring (2020): The Texture of the Lexicon #

Implementation notes #

References #

Open and closed variables, (17) and (18) #

Default inheritance and override, Figure 3.5 #

Sister words #

Sister schemas #

Ablaut as a link off the nucleus #

The present-tense cells of (45) as a morphome #

The Same Verb Problem #

The regular paradigm #

Structural Intersection #