Rules and analogy in Russian loanword adaptation and novel verb formation

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Rules and analogy in Russian loanword adaptation
and novel verb formation
Vsevolod Kapatsinski Indiana University Dept. of
Linguistics Cognitive Science Program Speech
Research Lab vkapatsi_at_indiana.edu
LSA 2007
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Russian stem extensions

• -i- event ? eventi happen
• -a- eat ? ita eat
• Source The Big Dictionary of Youth Slang, 2003
• Borrowed verbs
• New verbs formed from nouns

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Which stem extensions are more productive?
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The questions

• How can we predict the choice of the stem
  extension?
• Is one extension applied by default?
• Predicted by the Dual Mechanism Model (Pinker and
  Prince 1988, 1994)
• Locality effects
• Analogical vs. schema-based accounts?
• Do parts of the root adjacent to the root-suffix
  boundary influence suffix choice more than more
  distant parts of the root?
• Do parts of the root that are not adjacent to the
  root-suffix boundary influence the choice of the
  suffix?
• Unexpected under the Rule-Based Learner (Albright
  and Hayes 2003)

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Part I. Defaultness
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Phonotactic influencesIts not all phonotactic
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Phonotactics do not explain all the variation

• Can analogy to existing words predict the stem
  extension taken by a borrowed verb?
• Analogy
• The borrowed verb will take the stem extension of
  the majority of its neighbors.
• Verbs are neighbors if their roots share at least
  2/3 of their phonemes

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Analogical predictions
kam
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Similarity effect
N598
N1085
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Final consonant as a predictor
KAM

kajM xaM kuM groM toM weM shtorM skoroM KiM duM xr
oM


Not just Place b ? i (41/54) p ? a (36/57)
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Analogy vs. Final consonantBreakdown by stem
extension
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When analogy makes no prediction

• In 8.5 of verbs, analogy makes no prediction
• Numbers of nieghbors taking each stem extension
  are equal
• OR
• No neighbors
• What determines stem extension choice then?

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N98 (5.5)

• When there are equal numbers of neighbors rooting
  for a and -i, coronals are not associated with
  either stem extension
• What about verbs that have no neighbors?

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Number of neighbors0
N59 (3)
When there are no neighbors, coronals are always
followed by -i
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Interim Summary

• Analogy accounts for 87 of the data excluding
  velars
• Analogy performs better than specifying the final
  consonant
• Analogy predicts i better than it predicts a
• (70 vs. 93)
• When there are no neighbors, coronals are always
  followed by -i

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An issue for the Dual Mechanism Model

• Pinker and Prince (1988, 1994)
• One suffix should be more productive than the
  other suffix with novel lexical items that are
  not similar to existing ones
• -i gt a after coronals
• ? -i is the default
• This suffix is applied by default. Hence, analogy
  should be less able to predict when this suffix
  will occur.
• Analogy is less able to predict occurrence of a
• ? -a is the default
• Possible accounts
• Analogy
• Associations between parts of the root and
  suffixes
• Associations should be stronger when the distance
  between the suffix and the part of the root is
  small

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Part II.Locality
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Do neighbors that dont share the final C matter?

• Albright and Hayes (2003)
• The only segment strings that can be associated
  with a suffix are uninterrupted segment strings
  that include the final segment
• Weaker version
• Suffixes can be associated with adjacent
  phonological chunks more strongly than with
  non-adjacent ones

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Testing the hypothesis of lack of non-local
dependencies
KAM
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Adjacent dependencies are stronger
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Combining predictors

• If we know
• What do most neighbors sharing final C take?
• What do most words with this final C take?
• Do we need to know
• What do most neighbors that do not share final C
  take?

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Final consonant vs. final-sharing neighbors
Previously sharing just the final C was not
enough to be considered neighbors
KAM
loM groM weM greM Etc.
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Non-local dependencies still important

• Logistic Regression
• Final C ?2 31.0
• Neighbors sharing final C ?2 329.8
• Neighbors not sharing final C ?2 181.7
• ? Local dependencies are stronger
• All predictors are significant at plt.0005
• ? Non-local dependencies do exist

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Conclusion

• Huge similarity effects for both stem extensions
• All productive suffixes sensitive to similarity
• But, after coronals
• -a is less predictable than i based on analogy
• -i is more productive than a when there are no
  analogical models nearby
• ?Defining attributes of a DMM default are
  dissociable (cf. Kapatsinski 2005)

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Conclusion

• -a is less predictable than i based on analogy
• Possible reason
• There are more i verbs than a verbs in the
  lexicon
• Possible analogical solution
• Thus, a given neighbor is more likely to bear i
  than it is to bear a
• Thus, occurrence of an a neighbor is more
  salient than occurrence of an i neighbor

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Conclusion

• After coronals
• -i is more productive than a when there are no
  analogical models nearby
• -i and a are equally productive when there are
  as many neighbors bearing i as neighbors bearing
  -a
• Interpretation
• Use analogy whenever possible
• if both alternatives have equal support, then
  they are equally acceptable
• if no analogical models, use phonotactics

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Conclusion

• Analogy or schemas?
• Activate similar words?
• Activate sublexical chunks associated with
  suffixes?
• Locality effects support the schematic account
  (cf. Albright and Hayes 2003)
• Dependencies between adjacent segments are easier
  to learn than dependencies between non-adjacent
  ones (e.g., Hudson Kam and Newport 2005)
• While adjacent dependencies are stronger,
  non-adjacent dependencies seem to also play a
  role in suffix choice (contra Albright and Hayes
  2003).

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• Thank you!

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Acknowledgements

• N.I.H. for financial support through a training
  grant to David Pisoni and the Speech Research Lab
• Tessa Bent, Adam Buchwald, Joan Bybee, and
  Susannah Levi for helpful discussion

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References

• Albright, A., and B. Hayes. 2003. Rules vs.
  analogy in English past tenses A computational/
  experimental study. Cognition 90, 119-61.
• Bybee, J. L. 1985. Morphology A study of the
  relation between meaning and form. Benjamins.
• Bybee, J. L. 1995. Regular morphology and the
  lexicon. Language and Cognitive Processes, 10.
  425-455.
• Kapatsinski, V. M. 2005. Characteristics of a
  rule-based default are dissociable Evidence
  against the Dual Mechanism Model. In S. Franks,
  F. Y. Gladney, and M. Tasseva-Kurtchieva, eds.
  Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 13 The
  South Carolina Meeting, 136-46. Michigan Slavic
  Publications.
• Pinker, S., and A. Prince. 1988. On language
  and connectionism Analysis of a parallel
  distributed processing model of language
  acquisition. Cognition, 28, 73-193.
• Pinker, S., and A. Prince. 1994. Regular and
  irregular morphology and the psychological status
  of rules of grammar. In S. D. Lima, R. L.
  Corrigan, and G. K. Iverson, eds. The reality of
  linguistic rules, 321-51. Benjamins.

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Breakdown by place of articulation of final C
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Extracting the dependencies

• For a dependency between a part of the root and a
  suffix to be formed, many roots must share the
  same sublexical chunk and the same stem extension
• Is this the case?
• What are the major schemas?
• Are they all local?

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Separate networks for a and i verbs
kam
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The most connected a verbsmin number of
neighbors 20
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The most connected i verbsmin number of
neighbors 35
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Adding some less connected i verbs(min of
neighbors 20)
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Conclusion

• There are large clusters of verbs in the lexicon
  in which all verbs are similar to each other in
  exactly the same way, which could give rise to
  schema formation.
• Many of such schemas would not involve sharing
  segments that are adjacent to the suffix.