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We design an FST-driven computational method to calculate the minimal number of nominal forms—the principal parts—one must know to be able to fully inflect a lexeme in standard Finnish. To do this, we model the nominal inflection pattern as an FST according to the KOTUS inflectional classes. Our results show that knowing five forms always suffices to uniquely determine a nominal’s inflectional class, and to subsequently correctly inflect all the remaining forms. This contrasts with most sources in the literature that tend to assume seven forms are needed.

Although the definition and usage of the term ‘morphome’ differs in the academic literature, the original definition of a morphome by Aronoff (1994) is that it is a function which determines the distribution of form within the inflectional paradigm and beyond. More importantly, however, morphomes suppose the existence of what Aronoff terms ‘a morphomic level’ which embodies an empirical claim about the structure of language: ‘the mapping from morphosyntax to phonological realization is not direct but passes through an intermediate level’ (Aronoff in Morphology by itself, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1994:25). This is a strong claim concerning all types of morphological exponence. In this article, after an analysis of Aronoff’s model of morphology, I draw upon the distinction which Blevins (J. Linguist. 42:531–573, 2006) makes between constructive and abstractive models of morphology. I note that the introduction of a morphomic level merely constitutes an incorporation of a partial paradigmatic dimension into a constructive model of morphology. With reference to a semantically and phonologically unmotivated distribution of allomorphy in Romance I argue that although the introduction of the morphomic level is beneficial, since it can formalise systematic and ‘psychologically real’ homonymies in synchronic grammars in a way which is not merely coincidental, a constructive morphomic theory of morphology does not present significant advantages over abstractive theories as regards the formalisation of the synchronic facts and presents disadvantages as regards the motivation of diachronic tendencies which this particular distribution of allomorphy shows cross-linguistically. I argue that these historical tendencies support a more paradigmatic theory of morphology inherent in abstractive models, which consider the word as the basic unit of analysis and word formation a matter of analogical deduction based on the predictable capacity of stored exemplar paradigms and principal parts.

The Natchez dependent verb has four principal parts or root shapes, which encode the number of that verb's subjects and objects. This system of root shapes is created by an abstract system of suffixation, the rules for which are complicated but completely regular. However, the occurrence of these principal parts in natural texts suggests that the semantics of the system are far more complex than previously understood, and that in addition to marking objects as singular and plural, the system also marks objects for dual number.[Keywords: Natchez, dual number, morphology, semantics, verb formation]

International audience; This paper contributes to addressing the Paradigm Cell Filling Problem (PCFP) in inflectional paradigms, as defined by Ackerman et al. (2009). We define a method for extending the use of conditional entropy to address the PCFP to prediction based on multiple paradigm cells. We apply this method to French and European Portugese and show that, on average, knowledge of multiple paradigm cells is dramatically more predictive than knowledge of a single cell. Moreover, this new entropy measure proves useful in studying principal parts systems, which correspond to sets of predictors yielding a null entropy. Using a graded measure allows us to highlight the relevance of non-categorical or “good enough” principal parts systems.

The case-number suffixes of the Western Nilotic language Nuer (Frank 1999) display a remarkable combination of formal simplicity and distributional complexity, which is manifested in: (i) a seemingly erratic form-function mapping that precludes attributing a consistent meaning to the suffixes, and (ii) a wealth of inflection classes only barely differentiated from each other. The suffixes looks as if they were rule-generated, but behave as if they were memorized. I advance a model of inflection combining principal parts, implicational rules, and default inheritance, in which the bulk of the complexity is attributed to the lexical stem, revealing the underlying systematicity behind suffix assignment.

In the modern Abazin language the names are not сhange by the cases, don’t have the grammatical category of mood, and that’s why the grammatical relations of the subject (and object along with it) and predicate are recorded with assistance of class-personal affixes. The subject, direct and indirect object and their corresponding indicators (subject, direct and indirect objects) coincide (conform) in the person, number and class in the absolute majority of cases. However, there are cases, when such stable, double-sided connection between the basic structure-forming parts of the sentence is violated. The article deals with description of these cases. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n2s4p137

Certainly one of the marks of an educated speaker of English is the ability to distinguish between "lie" and "lay," but an astonishingly small percentage of Americans comes to college with that ability. Surely, then, driving home the distinction with the help of the parallel German opposition liegen/legen is worth a ten-minute digression. Since students are geared to learning principal parts of German verbs, a good way to begin is to ask for volunteers to give the principal parts of "lie" and "lay." Having thus confirmed that there is indeed a problem, one can clarify the difference by asking what hens do and what one should let sleeping dogs do. For reinforcement, the teacher can have the students complete the following sentence: "I am not going to take that down." By this time everyone should realize that these are actually two distinct verbs. The time is then ripe to present the mnemonic crutch: "To lie" means to recline, "to lay" means to place. The former never takes a direct object, the latter always does. The students should be made to understand that if they say "lay" in the present tense without an object, they have used the wrong verb. The contrastive pairs sitzen/setzen and stehen/stellen are also useful in explaining the difference between intransitive and transitive verbs.

AS ANY schoolteacher knows full well, the verb drink is an irregular English verb which has the three principal parts, drink, drank, drunk. These forms, infinitive, preterite, and past participle, and only these, the schoolteacher will tell you, are correct. Moreover, the handbooks, presumably written by experts, will agree with the teacher (or vice versa) and so will the dictionaries and the grammars, even those written by authors who consider themselves enlightened liberals.

IN THEIR TREATMENT of noun inflection our textbooks for the study of German are burdened with over-systematization. In these books the inflectional structure of the noun is divided into the 'strong declension' (which is in turn subdivided into three classes-really declensions), the 'weak declension,' and the 'mixed declension.' For each of these five declensions, paradigms are cited that represent the two or three genders concerned and which, where conditions permit, illustrate the presence or absence of vowel mutation, and also certain other variations of type, with four cases for the singular and four for the plural. Usually there is also given some information as to what kinds of nouns belong in each category-information which, except as it concerns the 'first class strong,' is mostly unsatisfying, and which in any event is more readily assimilable if presented gradually or if acquired through the process of analogy. Often five, or the greater part of five, lessons are devoted to the presentation of the declensions.' The encounter with these convinces the learner, at the very outset, that German has indeed a complicated system of inflection. When the student has learned all the paradigms, together with the accompanying details, he feels that he knows the noun, and unfortunately for him the teacher is too often of the same opinion. And yet, when this system has been mastered, the learning of the noun, even for the most elementary purposes, has been only begun. For the acquired knowledge has but trivial value if the student does not know to which declension this, that, and the other noun belongs. The correct placement of the great majority of nouns-numerous as they are-must be learned for one word at a time. From this there is no escape. The student needs to know the principal parts of all the nouns encountered, or at least those of the more important ones, which are to form his active vocabulary. But this is not at all a hopeless task. For, after all, only a relatively small number of nouns has to be learned during the first

1. In the better known South Dravidian languages, the verb system is such that two principal parts, or two stems, suffice as a basis on which the whole system may be built. The second stem is in general derivable from the first by the addition of a suffix *-ior a suffix containing a dental stop (sometimes disguised by morphophonemic alternations), and is the basis for the past tense alone, or, in some of the languages, for present-future and past tenses, or for other combinations of forms. On the first stem are built all the remaining positive forms and the negative forms. Vocalic alternation within the stems, either of quality or of quantity, is very rare, but in the extremely few verbs where it occurs tends to be persistent throughout the history of all the languages; e.g. the verb 'see' has stems *kan-, *kantin Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Coorg, and Toda, while Kota shows variation between ka-nand kanin the first stem, with leveling begun but not yet completed, or perhaps completed but with the disturbing long vowel reappearing by loan from other languages of the group. Likewise, any deviation from the suffixes given above as forming the second stem is rare. When there is deviation from this norm of two stems with vowels identical and the second stem formed from the first as stated, the verb is irregular. Of the handful of such verbs, two are the subject of this paper, namely the verb meaning 'come' and the verb paired with it in form in South Dravidian languages and variously recorded as meaning 'give' or 'bring.' A comparative study is made with the objects of setting up Proto-Dravidian forms and finding an origin for the irregularities. The study will introduce from my field-notes, most of which are still unpublished, material for Toda, Kota, Coorg, and Kolami,1 and