Book Description

Abstract: A central question within morphological theory is whether an adequate description of inflection necessitates connections between and among inflectionally related forms, i.e. paradigmatic structure. Researchers have recently shown that paradigmatic models are capable of describing periphrasis and paradigmatic gaps, but have failed to provide evidence that an adequate description of gaps requires reference to paradigmatic structure. In this dissertation I argue that crucial evidence that paradigmatic structure underpins gaps is to be found in speakers' reactions to inflectional defectiveness. I show through a series of experiments and distributional statistics that gaps in the genitive plural of Modern Greek nouns and the first person singular non-past of Russian verbs arose from speakers' insecurity over competition between paradigmatic patterns of inflection. The appearance of the gaps can thus be adequately explained only with reference to the inflectional paradigm. I formalize this approach in a Word and Paradigm model incorporating multidimensional inheritance hierarchies. At the same time, historical causation is not to be confused with synchronic structure. The distributional patterns of the Modern Greek and Russian gaps resemble those which previous researchers have used to posit that gaps are optimal failures -- synchronically epiphenomenal to productive word formation processes. However, a detailed analysis of speakers' reactions to the Greek and Russian data shows gaps and productive inflectional forms to pattern differently. I interpret this to mean that the Greek and Russian gaps have become disassociated from their original causative factors, leaving the former as idiosyncratic facts of their respective languages. This conclusion throws previous gaps-as-epiphenomena accounts into doubt. This dissertation makes a substantive contribution on three levels. First, it adds a new type of evidence to the body of research on paradigmatic gaps by exploring speakers' resolution strategies, beliefs about language structure, and how those beliefs shape defective inflection. Second, it suggests that paradigmatic predictability is a significant force in morphological systems, in ways that are not typically acknowledged even by paradigm-based models. Finally, while the historical development of gaps may be well motivated, the synchronic reality can be very different. This supports viewing language as a series of small-scale, overlapping generalizations.