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Tore Nesset, University of Troms (tore.nesset_at_hum.uit.no, http://uit.no/humfak/3345/78) ... Peripheral forms in the paradigm show a stronger tendency to ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Paradigm Structure:


1
Paradigm Structure The /a/ ? /aj/ Shift in
Russian Verbs and Cognitive Linguistics Tore
Nesset, University of Tromsø (tore.nesset_at_hum.uit.
no, http//uit.no/humfak/3345/78)
  • 1. The Problem
  • Do inflectional paradigms have internal
    structure?
  • What is the structure of Russian verbal paradigms?
  • 5. Statistics
  • Data unevenly distributed Only verbs with 15
    examples for at least 3 forms analyzed (relevant
    cells boldfaced in table).
  • 7. Analysis Extensions or entrenchment?
  • Cognitive linguistics has two mechanisms that
    account for asymmetries in categories Extensions
    from prototypes and different degrees of
    entrenchment.
  • The hierarchy correlates with markedness
    semantically marked forms have higher /aj/ .
  • On the assumption that markedness can be
    described in terms of extensions from a prototype
    (Janda 1995), extensions are pivotal in the
    structure of Russian verb paradigms.
  • What is the role of entrenchment (frequency)?
  • Test case Verbs with high frequency non-finite
    forms and low frequency finite forms. Does /aj/
    correlate with frequency or markedness?
  • The table below shows no correlation with
    frequency, thus suggesting that extensions are
    more important than frequency for the structure
    of Russian verb paradigms.

Paradigm as a structured network
Paradigm as an unstructured list
  • 2. Hypothesis Language Change as Evidence
  • Peripheral forms in the paradigm show a stronger
    tendency to regularize than central forms.
  • Test Case The Russian /a/ ? /aj/ Shift
  • Unproductive verb suffix /a/ ? productive /aj/
  • /kapljut/ ? /kapajut/
  • ????? ?????? ???? ?? ?????? ?? ???????.
  • (Goncarov 1859 with /a/ suffix)
  • ????? ? ?? ??????.  (Bitov 1969 with /aj/
    suffix)
  • Ideal test case
  • Well documented (e.g. Krysin 1974, Andersen 1980)
  • Searchable in electronic corpora
  • Russian verbs have large paradigms with
    potentially complex structure.
  • 4. My Database
  • Investigated 30 verbs where suffix shift is
    expected.
  • Only non-prefixed verbs examined so far.
  • Data from The Russian National Corpus
  • Balanced corpus of 120 million words
  • Searchable on the internet (http//ruscorpora.ru)
  • My database contains 12,000 examples.
  • Data from boldfaced cells yield the following
    diagram
  • Problem The Active Participle
  • Some verbs have high /aj/ paralleling
    non-finite forms (e.g. vnimat 81)
  • Some verbs have low /aj/ paralleling finite
    forms (e.g. bryzgat(sja) 15)
  • Tentative explanation
  • Participles are non-finite forms for which we
    expect high /aj/ .
  • Formally, the active participle is closely
    related to finite forms, for which low /aj/ is
    expected.
  • Diverse behavior may be due to these conflicting
    forces.
  • 9. Conclusions
  • Suffix shift is compatible with implicational
    hierarchy
  • ? Russian verb paradigms have internal structure.
  • Hierarchy correlates with semantic markedness
  • ? Extension relations are more important than
    entrenchment.
  • 10. Further questions
  • Does prefixation influence the /a/ ? /aj/ shift?
  • Does the postfix -sja influence the /a/ ? /aj/
    shift?
  • Does polysemy influence the /a/ ? /aj/ shift?

6. Analysis Implicational Hierarchy
  • The diagram above shows that /aj/ increases
    from left to right.
  • The /a//aj/ variation is compatible with an
    implicational hierarchy (left).
  • The hierarchy
  • confirms the hypothesis about regularization in
    peripheral forms (cf. Section 2).
  • suggests that Russian verb paradigms have
    internal structure.

Gerund ? Imperative ? Other finite ? 1
singular ? 3 plural ? 3 singular
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