\n
Morphological paradigms sometimes display systematic identity (or syncretism<\/em>) between cells that
\nshare no syntactic properties. Such phenomena are widespread enough to have generated new
\ndescriptive technologies: e.g. the rule of referral (Zwicky 1985, Stump 2001), the morphome
\n(Aronoff 1992) and the thematic space (Bonami and Boyer 2001, for stem syncretism). All these
\ndevices were proposed in the belief that any pair of paradigm cells is as likely as any other to have
\nidentical exponents.
<\/P><\/p>\nI show that syncretism is frequently predictable when phonology is factored in: cells that are on the
\nsurface strictly identical, without syntactic reason, are the ones that whose underlying
\nrepresentations single them out as being very similar<\/em>, in some local respect. Familiar data showing
\nthis is the obligatory identity between English past tense and past participles when both end in t<\/em> or d<\/em>
\n(sat\/sat; rid\/rid; built\/built; burnt\/burnt; said\/said<\/em>). There is variation, but no paradigm internal
\ncontrast between forms like burnt~burned<\/em> or lit~lighted<\/em>. Pairs not ending in t\/d<\/em> tend to be distinct in
\nstrong verbs (wrote\/written; swelled\/swollen; dove\/dived<\/em>) showing that it\u0092s the local similarity
\nbetween final alveolar stops that triggers syncretism. What we need then is a mechanism that
\ngenerates global identity between forms that are underlyingly distinct but similar, i.e. hypothetical
\ninputs like burnt\/burned<\/em>.
<\/P><\/p>\nMost of this talk is about the Latin syncretism that inspired the morphome (Aronoff 1994; Matthews
\n1974) and the related hypothesis of an autonomous morphological component. The stem of many
\nLatin deverbal derivatives (e.g. agent nouns like laudator<\/em> \u0091praiser\u0092) is always identical to that of the
\npassive-perfect participle (laudatus<\/em> \u0091praised\u0092). I show that local similarity is the critical factor here
\ntoo, in ways reminiscent of the English case. The Latin pattern is more revealing because stem
\nsyncretism violates here an otherwise general condition linking the referent of a deverbal derivative
\nto the argument structure of verb forms containing the same stem as the derivative: if the latter are
\npassive, the former must refer to a passive subject. The full picture suggests exactly the opposite of
\nAronoff\u0092s conclusions: syncretism is not arbitrary, and cannot be analyzed in an autonomous
\ncomponent. Rather, it involves an interaction of phonological constraints seeking identity of similar
\nforms with conflicting preferences on the proper exponence of syntactic structures.<\/P><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaker: Donca Steriade (MIT) Title: Constraint Interactions derive Morphomic Identity Time: Thursday 10\/21, 12:30—1:45pm Location: 32-D461 Morphological paradigms sometimes display systematic identity (or syncretism) between cells that share no syntactic properties. Such phenomena are widespread enough to have generated new descriptive technologies: e.g. the rule of referral (Zwicky 1985, Stump 2001), the morphome (Aronoff 1992) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-talks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1869"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1871,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869\/revisions\/1871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}