Paradigm economy: a rejoinder to Carstairs

Abstract

The theory of inflexional morphology has benefited from Carstairs' (I987 and previous papers) explications of notions that underlie the common practice of modelling morphological organization in terms of inflexional paradigms. For instance, Carstairs' notion of MACROPARADIGM involves a useful conceptualization of the age-old practice in Latin grammar of lumping the noun types lupus 'wolf' and bellum 'war' into (a single macroparadigm called) the 2nd declension. Needless to say, there are generally speaking more points of agreement between Carstairs and me than points of disagreement. Carstairs' Paradigm Economy Principle (PEP) belongs to the latter category. Challenged by my paper (Nyman, I987), Carstairs has written a defence of the PEP (Carstairs, I988). He is to be commended for his willingness to defend the PEP in a moderate and amicable tone. Yet I must confess that I am somewhat disappointed by his reply, the reason being that he is too inexplicit on methodological matters. However, this weakness is an asset in that the methodological problems which beset the PEP come up more clearly than elsewhere in Carstairs' writings. My rejoinder will consist of two main parts. Firstly, in Section I, I shall show that Carstairs fails to salvage the PEP from empirical vacuousness, insofar as the inflexional changes in the Latin 3rd declension are concerned. Secondly, in Section 2, some methodological problems will be taken up which arise from Carstairs' (I988) characterization of the PEP.