A COMPUTATIONAL MODEL OF MINIMALIST MORPHOLOGY

Abstract

In this paper we present a computational model of a theory of inflection called Minimalist Morphology (Wunderlich & Fabri 1994). This theory places special emphasis on the economical feature specification of stems and affixes, which combine in a principle-guided fashion. Recursive paradigms then act to ban illicit, overgenerated candidate word forms. The computational grammar which formalises stems, affixes and morphological combination is realised using the constraint-based linguistic formalism CUF (Dorre & Dorna 1993). Output candidate word forms are further processed by a parametrised paradigm tool, implemented in Prolog, that embodies active candidate ranking principles to select only the well-formed forms. It is shown that Minimalist Morphology can be made explicit enough to provably generate all and only the correct inflected forms of both regular and irregular verbs in Modern High German. This case study then demonstrates the nontrivial potential of computer implementation as an aid in the rigid evaluation of contemporary linguistic theories, whose subtleties often defy a classical pencil-and-paper approach