Blocking and paradigm gaps

Abstract

Gaps in morphological paradigms are often explained in terms of blocking: generating one form is blocked by the existence of a paraphrase. Another way of thinking about paradigm gaps dissociates their existence from competition between forms. Unlike in competition-based approaches, systematic gaps can be seen as true gaps; the system might not generate a certain form, but this form is not considered in comparison to others. Adopting this latter approach, we argue that inflectional paradigms are neither morphosyntactic primitives nor the result of competition. This claim is supported by data from two unrelated languages. For Hebrew, we demonstrate that a passive gap is not the result of competition with analytic paraphrases. For Latin, we show that a cyclic, syntax-based approach is superior to a theory that generates nonactive verbs in the lexicon and has them compete against each other. Systematic paradigm gaps are thus argued to result from syntactic structure building, without competition regulating independent morphological constructions.

Appendices

Appendix A: Latin idioms

If analytic and synthetic forms are equally Expressive, then a synthetic nonactive perfect and an analytic nonactive perfect must mean the same thing: either both are interpreted literally or both are interpreted idiomatically. Given an idiom in the analytic nonactive perfect, we can ask whether the synthetic form retains the idiomatic reading of the analytic one. For instance, Caesar was famously reported to have said alea iacta est, (61), upon crossing the Rubicon, meaning ‘the die is cast/thrown’, with the idiomatic reading ‘we have passed the point of no return’.¹² Does the idiomatic meaning exist in the imperfect, (62)?¹³

• (61)

  

• (62)

  

We do not know for certain. Various complications surround this specific phrase, including that Caesar might have been translating from Greek and that the original quote might have been in the imperative. We have found one occurrence of the imperfect string alea iaciē-bā-t-ur in what seems like a literal sense, but the existence of the literal reading does not preclude the existence of an idiomatic reading.¹⁴ Some of the classicist scholars we have consulted do think that the idiomatic reading should hold in the imperfect, but there is no consensus on this issue or clear evidence either way.

Another potential datapoint would be the expression acta est fabula, where the literal meaning is ‘the play is done’ and the idiomatic meaning can be taken to mean ‘well that’s the end of it’, even when not necessarily talking about a play. We would then ask whether the same idiomatic meaning would hold for the passive past imperfect fabula agēbātur. If there is a difference to be found between analytic and synthetic forms in Latin as well, it would constitute an additional argument against a competition-based analysis.

Appendix B: Deponency

Deponent verbs have been treated in a number of different theoretical frameworks, as succinctly reviewed by Müller (2013). We contrast these proposals briefly. Müller (2013) divides accounts of deponency into a number of classes, three of which can be straightforwardly applied to Latin. Property deponency has been discussed in the main text on the basis of Embick (2000) and related work, and will not be repeated here.

In form deponency, active verbs are referred to passive morphology, bypassing regular active morphology (Stump 2006). This approach seems plausible, but it does not explain defectivity (Baerman 2007; Müller 2013): the fact that the normal function of passive morphology is no longer available. That is to say, the morphology of Latin deponents does not mark a contrast between active and non-active verbs. Something additional would have to be said in order for this kind of system to be complete. Müller (2013) acknowledges this much for his own OT proposal, speculating that an output-output correspondence constraint could be invoked. In any case, this family of analyses is not demonstrably superior to the one sketched in the main text.

Morphomic deponency accords with the Blocking analysis of Kiparsky (2005) discussed above, and extends to cover Sadler and Spencer (2001) and Hippisley (2007) as well. These approaches correlate morphomic “active” morphology with active syntax and morphomic “non-active” morphology with non-active syntax. Deponents are special in that they do not let the morphological non-active marking be correlated with syntactic non-active. The drawbacks of this approach were highlighted in the main text.