Difference between revisions of "Feature percolation"
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Latest revision as of 20:40, 13 February 2009
Feature Percolation is a mechanism proposed in Lieber (1980) and Williams (1981a) which copies features of one of the members of a morphological construction (usually features of the head) to the node that immediately dominates both members. As a consequence, a complex form inherits the properties of its head.
Example
the English verb stand is a strong verb, which can be indicated by assigning the diacritic feature [+ablaut] to this verb. The complex verb withstand also is a strong verb. This can be accounted for if one assumes that the feature [+ablaut] will percolate up to the node dominating both with and stand, as illustrated below:
V V / \ [+abl] / \ / \ P V P V with stand => with stand [+abl] [+abl]
Link
Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics
References
- Lieber, R. 1980. On the Organization of the Lexicon, PhD diss. Univ. of New Hampshire, reproduced by the IULC.
- Williams, E. 1981a. On the notions 'Lexically Related' and 'Head of a Word', Linguistic Inquiry 12, pp. 245-274