Notes on morphological defectivity
Kyle Gorman
October 2023 

[The following is a handout from an invited talk given at the University of Surrey in October 2023.] One curious fact about human language is that speakers can imagine, think about—even accidentally produce—words or sentences which they in some sense "can’t say". Let us call this pre-theoretic property of language ineffability. To be used for theorizing, observations about ineffability need to be related to expectations of what the grammars in question ought to generate in the first place.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/008753 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	University of Surrey handout
keywords:	defectivity, inflectional gaps, indeclinability, productivity, exceptionality, ineffability, morphology, phonology, phonotactics, morphology, syntax, phonology
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