Analogy, complexity and predictability in the Russian nominal inflection system

Abstract

The Paradigm Cell Filling Problem (pcfp): “What licenses reliable inferences about the inflected (and derived) surface forms of a lexical item?”Ackerman et al. (2009, p. 54) has received considerable attention during the last decade. The two main approaches that have been explored are the Information Theoretic approach which aims to measure the information contained in the implicative relations between cells of a paradigm; and the neural network approach, which takes an amorphous view of morphology and tries learn paradigms form surface forms. In this paper I present a third alternative based on analogical classification which tries to integrate elements from both approaches. I will present a case study on the Russian nominal inflection system, and will argue that implicative relations between markers, noun semantics and stem phonology all play a role in helping speakers solve the pcfp.