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When Ellipsis Can Save Defectiveness and When It Can’t

2021/05/10 by Gesoel Mendes, Andrew Nevins
Arts and Humanities · Computer Science · #Natural Language Processing Techniques #Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation #semigroups and automata theory

paper · doi:10.1162/ling_a_00428

openalex publication_date 2021/05/10 · crossref created 2021/05/10 · crossref issued 2022/12/22 · crossref published 2022/12/22 · crossref published-online 2022/12/22 · crossref published-print 2022/12/22 · crossref deposited 2024/08/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/19 · crossref indexed 2026/07/30

Abstract

We discuss cases of salvation and non-salvation by deletion in the domain of lexical gaps, and distinguish two types of defectiveness: (a) defectiveness that can be saved by PF deletion, which we take to signal the lack of an eligible allomorph for certain environments within a language, and (b) defectiveness that cannot be saved by PF deletion, which we take to signal the lack of a proper alloseme for a given environment. With ellipsis modeled as an instruction for nonpronunciation on the PF branch of the grammar, only gaps on the Exponent List can be saved by it.

Citations