Semiproductivity in Grammar

3-4 May, 2008, Cabot Intercultural Center, Tufts University

Some corners of language appear to be rule-governed and automatic, while others appear arbitrary and idiosyncratic. However, many cases in all areas of grammar fall in between these two extremes. Such cases are sometimes referred to as "semiproductive". To use a famous example from morphology, the suffix -en can successfully verbalize some adjectives to yield words like widen, redden, and blacken, but it fails to do the same thing to narrow (*narrowen), pink (*pinken), and green (*greenen). Similarly, we can say things like take a look and take a sniff but not take a touch or take a smell. In English phonology, Velar Softening (as in electri[k]- electri[s]ity) has been discussed as a semi-productive process because it applies only in certain morphological contexts and with certain lexical items (cf. Blake — Blakism). In general, the symptom of a semiproductive rule is that it states a generalization, but one must learn which cases this generalization actually applies to.

The purpose of this workshop is to explore this elusive category of generalizations at several levels of grammar (phonology, morphology and syntax) with hope of getting a grip on such questions as:

• Do semi-productive rules of the sort above have a special status or can they be reduced to idiosyncratic cases that have to be memorized on a case-by-case basis, or to regular rules enriched with additional structure (e.g. probabilities, lexical indices, violable inheritance hierarchies, etc.)?
• What, if anything, do semi-productive rules have to do with notions of frequency, markedness, optionality and regularity?
• How can such rules be represented in the internal grammars and lexicons of the speakers?
• How can semi-productive rules be learned (e.g. how do learners come to differentiate them from fully productive regular rules)?
• Are such rules prone to regularize or are they relatively stable?

Speakers

• Adam Albright
• Harald Baayen
• William Croft
• Adele Goldberg
• Laura Gonnerman
• Rochelle Lieber
• Donca Steriade
• Charles Yang
• Kie Zuraw