No abstract
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.One sometimes finds gaps in the morphological systems of languages, such as the lack of a Isg. non-past in certain Russian verbs. In some Arabic dialects, verbs with identical final radicals are defective: they lack forms where conflicts between rules would yield a phonetically uncomfortable configuration. For some Hungarian verbs in the ik-class which have a stem-final cluster, the grammar disallows epenthesis, so that these verbs lack the paradigms which would normally be formed by a consonantal suffix. However, though such defectiveness is often confined to individually specified words, Halle's extreme views of morphology (1973) cannot be accepted.* Grammars are complex machineries serving the purpose of communication. However, all structures above a certain degree of complexity tend to become independent entities, with internal laws and regularities of their own, not necessarily governed by the purpose for which they have been created. For a machinery as flexible, changeable, and self-improving as grammar, the conflict between serving a purpose and obeying inherent laws may never grow truly critical. Yet grammars also have their weak points, resulting from internal limitations and impairing communication-to a bearable extent. Thus the surface expression complex may have GAPS where one would expect certain forms or configurations to appearbut where, as it happens, they are not acceptable. ARBITRARY LEXICAL GAPS exist for which, at best, only partial and non-conclusive justification may be found (such as avoidance of homophony). Elsewhere, one may suggest reasonable explanations for the gaps, explanations based entirely on the internal properties of the grammar; such expected but prohibited configurations are the object of the theory of SURFACE CONSTRAINTS (cf. Perlmutter 1970). Other gaps result from CONFLICTS BETWEEN RULES or from the FAILURE OF RULES TO COVER ALL POSSIBLE CASES.1 In the following, I shall deal with cases which we expect to be produced by morphology, but which are not attested on the surface. For a wider perspective, I shall also present a case of morphosyntactic conflict between two case-government rules, which creates a gap on a higher plane. GAPS IN MORPHOLOGY AND MORPHOSYNTAX1.1. THE ENGLISH ABSOLUTE SUPERLATIVE. Consider a common type of absolute superlative in English: a most interesting book, a most easy solution. Note that the graded superlative would be formed by means of the most ... for the first adjective, * I am very grateful to Arnold M. Zwicky for making extensive comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Most of his suggestions are incorporated in this version. Naturally, he is not responsible for any errors or disputable points still remaining.
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