Open AccessAtomistic and holistic exponence in Information-Based Morphology
Author(s) -
Berthold Crysmann,
Olivier Bonami
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
proceedings of the international conference on head-driven phrase structure grammar
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1535-1793
DOI - 10.21248/hpsg.2017.8
Subject(s) - morphology (biology) , realisation , inflection , content (measure theory) , word (group theory) , swahili , computer science , association (psychology) , epistemology , linguistics , cognitive science , artificial intelligence , mathematics , philosophy , psychology , biology , paleontology , mathematical analysis , physics , quantum mechanics
In this paper we discuss two contrasting views of exponence in inflectional morphology: the atomistic view, where content is associated individually with minimal segmentable morphs, and theholistic view, where the association is made for the whole word between complex content and constellations of morphs. On the basis ofdata from Estonian and Swahili, we argue that an adequate theory of inflection should be able to accomodate both views. We then show thatthe framework of Information-based Morphology (Crysmann and Bonami, 2016) is indeed compatible with both views, thanks to relying on realisation rules that associate m units of forms with n units of content.