Defective Paradigms: Missing Forms and What They Tell Us

Deponency and Morphological Mismatches edited by Matthew Baerman, Greville G. Corbett, Dunstan Brown & Andrew Hippisley

Deponency is a mismatch between form and function in language that was first described for Latin, where there is a group of verbs (the deponents) which are morphologically passive but syntactically active. This is evidence of a larger problem involving the interface between syntax and morphology: inflectional morphology is supposed to specify syntactic function, but sometimes it sends out the wrong signal. Although the problem is as old as the Western linguistic tradition, no generally accepted account of it has yet been given, and it is safe to say that all current theories of language have been constructed as if deponency did not exist.

In recent years, however, linguists have begun to confront its theoretical implications, albeit largely in isolation from each other. There is as yet no definitive statement of the problem, nor any generally accepted definition of its nature and scope

This volume brings together the findings of leading scholars working in the area of morphological mismatches, and represents the first book-length typological and theoretical treatment of the topic. It will establish the important role that research on deponency has to play in contemporary linguistics, and set the standard for future work.

This is the first volume devoted to the theory and typology of gaps in inflectional paradigms.

An important design feature of language is the use of productive patterns in inflection. In English, we have pairs such as `enjoy' ~ `enjoyed', `agree' ~ `agreed', and many others. On the basis of this productive pattern, if we meet a new verb `transduce' we know that there will be the form `transduced'. Even if the pattern is not fully regular, there will be a form available, as in `understand' ~ `understood'. Surprisingly, this principle is sometimes violated, a phenomenon known as defectiveness, which means there is a gap in a word's set of forms: for example, given the verb `forego', many if not most people are unwilling to produce a past tense.

Although such gaps have been known to us since the days of Classical grammarians, they remain poorly understood. Defectiveness contradicts basic assumptions about the way inflectional rules operate, because it seems to require that speakers know that for certain words, not only should one not employ the expected rule, one should not employ any rule at all. This is a serious problem, since it is probably safe to say that all reigning models of grammar were designed as if defectiveness did not exist, and would lose a considerable amount of their elegance if it were properly factored in.

This volume addresses these issues from a number of analytical approaches---historical, statistical and theoretical---and by using studies from a range of languages.

Since 1905 this series has provided a unique record of British scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, by publishing the highly regarded Academy lectures, and through its memoirs of the lives and scholarly achievements of recently deceased Fellows of the Academy.

The series includes thematic volumes that stem from symposia specially convened to address particular subjects.

Matthew Baerman is Research Fellow, University of Surrey.
Greville G. Corbett is Distinguished Professor of Linguistics and Russian Language, University of Surrey, and a Fellow of the British Academy.
Dunstan Brown is Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, University of Surrey.