Paradigm Completion for Derivational Morphology

The generation of complex derived word forms has been an overlooked problem in NLP; we fill this gap by applying neural sequence-to-sequence models to the task. We overview the theoretical motivation for a paradigmatic treatment of derivational morphology, and introduce the task of derivational paradigm completion as a parallel to inflectional paradigm completion. State-of-the-art neural models, adapted from the inflection task, are able to learn a range of derivation patterns, and outperform a non-neural baseline by 16.4%. However, due to semantic, historical, and lexical considerations involved in derivational morphology, future work will be needed to achieve performance parity with inflection-generating systems.Comment: EMNLP 201

A broad-coverage distributed connectionist model of visual word recognition

In this study we describe a distributed connectionist model of morphological processing, covering a realistically sized sample of the English language. The purpose of this model is to explore how effects of discrete, hierarchically structured morphological paradigms, can arise as a result of the statistical sub-regularities in the mapping between word forms and word meanings. We present a model that learns to produce at its output a realistic semantic representation of a word, on presentation of a distributed representation of its orthography. After training, in three experiments, we compare the outputs of the model with the lexical decision latencies for large sets of English nouns and verbs. We show that the model has developed detailed representations of morphological structure, giving rise to effects analogous to those observed in visual lexical decision experiments. In addition, we show how the association between word form and word meaning also give rise to recently reported differences between regular and irregular verbs, even in their completely regular present-tense forms. We interpret these results as underlining the key importance for lexical processing of the statistical regularities in the mappings between form and meaning

Derivational morphology in the German mental lexicon: A dual mechanism account

The Dual Mechanism Model posits two different cognitive mechanisms for morphologically complex word forms: decomposition of regulars into stems and exponents, and full-form storage for irregulars. Most of the research in this framework has focused on contrasts between productive and non-productive inflection. In this paper, we extend the model to derivational morphology. Our studies indicate that productive derivation shows affinities with both productive and non-productive inflection. We argue that these results support the linguistic distinction between derivation and inflection, particularly as it is represented in realization-based models of morphology

Introduction

This monograph is aimed at the examination of derivational networks across European languages. The concept of a derivational network is not new. The first ideas of network regularities and the network organization of derivational morphology can be traced back to the 1960s in relation to the Dokulilean tradition in word-formation. Unfortunately, apart from an outline of general principles, very little has been done in the field since. In recent years, however, we have been witnessing a growing interest in derivational paradigms and larger derivational systems based on them.This article has been supported by the Spanish State Research Agency (SRA, Ministry of Economy and Enterprise) and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (Ref. FFI2017-89665-P)

Derivation of Czech verbs and the category of aspect

The present paper deals with the changes of the category of grammatical aspect during derivation of verbs from other verbs in Czech. After summarizing the main issues of the long-standing debate over aspect in Czech, formation of aspectual pairs is presented as an integral part of derivation of Czech verbs. The category of aspect was used as an important feature in modelling verb-to-verb derivation in a language data resource capturing the derivational morphology of Czech. Verbs in the database are organized according to a simple set of criteria.Odvozování českých sloves a kategorie vidu  (shrnutí)Příspěvek se zabývá změnami v kategorii slovesného vidu, k nimž dochází během odvozování sloves od sloves v češtině. Po stručném shrnutí základních bodů aspektologických diskuzí nad videm českého slovesa je tvoření vidových protějšků prezentováno jako integrální součást derivace českých sloves. Ve shodě s tímto pohledem je kategorie vidu využita jako důležitý rys při modelování slovesné derivace v databázi zachycující derivační morfologii češtiny. V příspěvku představujeme sadu kritérií, na jejichž základě byla slovesa v databázi organizována.Odvozování českých sloves a kategorie vidu (shrnutí)Příspěvek se zabývá změnami v kategorii slovesného vidu, k nimž dochází během odvozování sloves od sloves v češtině. Po stručném shrnutí základních bodů aspektologických diskuzí nad videm českého slovesa je tvoření vidových protějšků prezentováno jako integrální součást derivace českých sloves. Ve shodě s tímto pohledem je kategorie vidu využita jako důležitý rys při modelování slovesné derivace v databázi zachycující derivační morfologii češtiny. V příspěvku představujeme sadu kritérií, na jejichž základě byla slovesa v databázi organizována

Nominalization – lexical and syntactic aspects

The main tenet of the present paper is the thesis that nominalization – like other cases of derivational morphology – is an essentially lexical phenomenon with well defined syntactic (and semantic) conditions and consequences. More specifically, it will be argued that the relation between a verb and the noun derived from it is subject to both systematic and idiosyncratic conditions with respect to lexical as well as syntactic aspects

Hungarian Gyerekestül versus Gyerekkel (‘with [the] kid’)

The paper analyzes the various uses of the Hungarian -stUl (‘together with’, ‘along with’) sociative (associative) suffix (later in the paper referred to simply as “sociative”), as in the example gyerekestül. As opposed to its comitative-instrumental suffix -vAl (‘with’), the - stUl suffix cannot express instrumentality. The paper aims to demonstrate the difference in use between the comitative-instrumental -vAl and the -stUl suffix in contemporary Hungarian, and to illuminate the historical emergence of the suffix as well as its grammatical status. It is argued on the basis of Antal (1960) and Kiefer (2003) that -stUl cannot be analyzed as an inflectional case suffix (such as the -vAl suffix, or -ed, -ing, or the plural in English), but should rather be categorized as a derivational suffix (such as English dis-, re-, in-, -ance, - able, -ish, -like, etc.). The paper also tries to shed light on the hypothetical cognitive psychological distinction between the comitative and the sociative. It is suggested that the sociative is based on the amalgam image schema which is derived from the LINK schema of the comitative. The ironical reading of the sociative is an implicature in the sense of Grice (1989) and Sperber and Wilson (1987). Psycholinguistic experimentation is proposed to follow up on the mental representation of the sociative

To describe or to make a description: How Uzbek verbal morphology handles borrowings

In the field of contact linguistics, how susceptible certain lexical categories are to borrowing is a major topic of discussion. Verbs, in particular, have been a subject of controversy for several decades. This study seeks to add to that discussion by consulting Uzbek as a test case. As a Turkic language with agglutinating morphology and a language that has been subject to influence from several prestige languages, Uzbek has a wealth of borrowed vocabulary available to be analyzed and a verbal system that allows for relatively easy dissection to see which processes borrowings may need to undergo in order to function as verbs in the target language. Using two online Uzbek-English dictionaries, verbs that included various derivational morphemes were obtained and analyzed to see if there was evidence of verbs being borrowed into the language. Upon completion of this analysis, it was determined that Uzbek does not borrow verbs. Instead, its rich derivational morphology allows for a highly productive system of transforming adjectives and nouns into verbs, meaning that there is no reason to borrow verbs themselves