Re: Self-segregating morphology again - in simpler terms, with list of methods

On Mon, 17 Apr 2006 14:53:09 -0400, Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...>
wrote:
[snip]
>Here's another:
>
>6. All morphemes begin and end with a consonant and
>have no consonant clusters within them.  A consonant
>cluster marks a morpheme boundary.
>(Vorlin used this to some extent, but not, I think,
>consistently enough to be perfectly self-segregating
>-- content morphemes were all CVC, CVCVC, etc but
>particles, prefixes  and suffixes were CV or VC and I
>don't recall that it had a way to distinguish them
>from the content roots they adjoined.)
>Or maybe one vowel is reserved for use as a
>morpheme boundary marker, so there are no
>consonant clusters.
Yes, I remember seeing that one somewhere else -- thanks for mentioning it
here.

[snip]
>>>A morpheme consists of one or more phonemes from
>>>the beginning set, followed by one or more phonemes
>>>from the following set.
>>
>> The rule; "one set of phonemes is the final set, and another set is the
>> preceding set" would work also.
>
>I'm not sure what distinction you're making.  It sounds
>like alternate terms to describe the same rule, not
>a different rule.
Well, if you have Initials and Medials, your morphemes could look like:

I
IM
IMM
IMMM
IMMMM
...

but if you have Finals and Medials, your morphemes could look like:

F
MF
MMF
MMMF
MMMMF
...

>>Essentially, pick out a set that can only occur at a boundary; then,
>>either the boundary is always just before any member of that set, or the
>>boundary is always just after any member of that set.
>
>This is slightly different, then.  Tceqli's rule allow
>*one or more* from one set followed by one or more
>from the other set.  You seem to propose
>*exactly one* from one set followed by one or more from
>the other, or one or more from the first followed
>by *exactly one* from the second.
>
>For Tceqli, the boundary is always where a member of the
>following set is followed by a member of the initial set.
I see a problem with this.

How do you know whether "IIMM" is a single morpheme, or "I" followed
by "IMM"?

-----

Techniques available might include the following;

1. You could divide up the phonological segments into the following classes;
a. Segments that can be the first segment of a morpheme, but can't be any
non-first segment.
b. Segments that can't be the first segment of a morpheme, but can be any
non-first segment.

Then the morphemes will look like a, ab, abb, abbb, abbbb, ... etc.
Morpheme boundaries would occur just previous to each a.


2. You could divide up the phonological segments into the following classes;
c. Segments that can be the last segment of a morpheme, but can't be any
non-last segment.
d. Segments that can't be the last segment of a morpheme, but can be any
non-last segment.

Then the morphemes will look like c, dc, ddc, dddc, ddddc, ... etc.
Morpheme boundaries would occur just after each c.


3. If you require every morpheme to contain at least two segments, you
could divide up the phonological segments into the following classes;
e. Segments that can be the first or last segment of a morpheme, but can't
be any non-first not-last segment.
f. Segments that can't be the first nor last segment of a morpheme, but can
be any non-first non-last segment.

Then the morphemes will look like ee, efe, effe, efffe, effffe, ... etc.
(Without the two-segment-minimum, ee might be "e, e" or might be "ee".
Morpheme boundaries would occur just after each fe and just before each ef,
but a string of "ee" morphemes would have to be parsed globally; you
couldn't tell how to parse it unless you had the whole thing.

4. Require the first segment of each morpheme to code the length of the
morpheme.

5. Require the last segment of each morpheme to code the length of the
morpheme.

An extreme case; For each possible morpheme length, let there be a set of
segments that can occur in morphemes of that length, and only in morphemes
of that length.  For each segment, let there be one and only one length of
morphemes in which it can occur.  For lengths greater than one, let there
be a set of segments which are all and only those that can be the first
segment of such a morpheme, and a disjoint set of all and only those that
can be the last element of such a morpheme.  For lengths greater than two,
let there also be a third disjoint set of all and only those that can occur
internally to the morpheme.

6. Another extreme technique;  Pick a number and assume all morphemes are
exactly that long.  Again, you can't parse it with only local information,
but you can parse it if you have the whole thing.

>
>On 4/17/06, And Rosta <and.rosta@...> wrote:
>
>> My conlang, Livagian, has unambiguous syntax parsed
>> incrementally with no lookahead, and it cuts the
>>[snip]
>> ...  a sentence can be fully parsed on the
>> basis of its phonological form and the lexicogrammar,
>> without there being a need for self-segregating morphology
>>[snip]
>
>Let me make sure I understand.  You don't constrain
>the shapes of the individual morphemes so that they're
>inherently self-segregating ...
[snip]
>I'm thinking that I might probably impose a constraint
>like this on my next conlang over and above a
>self-segregation rule -- or perhaps instead of such.
>Self-segregating morphology is probably of benefit
>primarily to beginning learners of a language, whose
>vocabulary is still small.  But your rule would be
>helpful to more experienced speakers when
>looking up the occasional unknown word.  They
>would not encounter words that look like they might
>be a compound of one word they already know
>and another word they don't know, which turn out
>to be irreducible roots instead (this occasionally
>happens to me in Esperanto).
I'm interested in And Rosta's technique too.

--
eldin

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