A correspondence-theoretic analysis of Dalabon transitive paradigms

In the preceding paper, Evans, Brown and Corbett (henceforth: EBC) presented the complex system of pronominal prefixation in Dalabon. They proposed an analysis that describes this system by a number of statements associated with the nodes of a Network Morphology. Some of these statements have the formal nature of referrals (Zwicky 1985, Stump 1993): certain category combinations are realized by the morphological exponent of other combinations. I find the notion of referral problematic for theoretical reasons (because it is too powerful a device), but especially in the context of language acquisition; it requires the child who tries to identify morphemes as the exponents of some category combinations to look also at other category combinations. It would be easier for the child to analyze word forms into minimal contrastive elements that bear information themselves. In the end, the child may have identified certain morphemes to be underspecified, covering more than one category combination, or more than one cell of a paradigm (Wunderlich 1996a, Noyer 1998).

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