Paradigm Structure:

1
Paradigm Structure The /a/ ? /aj/ Shift in
Russian Verbs and Cognitive Linguistics Tore
Nesset, University of Tromsø (tore.nesset_at_hum.uit.
no, http//uit.no/humfak/3345/78)

• 1. The Problem
• Do inflectional paradigms have internal
  structure?
• What is the structure of Russian verbal paradigms?

• 5. Statistics
• Data unevenly distributed Only verbs with 15
  examples for at least 3 forms analyzed (relevant
  cells boldfaced in table).

• 7. Analysis Extensions or entrenchment?
• Cognitive linguistics has two mechanisms that
  account for asymmetries in categories Extensions
  from prototypes and different degrees of
  entrenchment.
• The hierarchy correlates with markedness
  semantically marked forms have higher /aj/ .
• On the assumption that markedness can be
  described in terms of extensions from a prototype
  (Janda 1995), extensions are pivotal in the
  structure of Russian verb paradigms.
• What is the role of entrenchment (frequency)?
• Test case Verbs with high frequency non-finite
  forms and low frequency finite forms. Does /aj/
  correlate with frequency or markedness?
• The table below shows no correlation with
  frequency, thus suggesting that extensions are
  more important than frequency for the structure
  of Russian verb paradigms.

Paradigm as a structured network
Paradigm as an unstructured list

• 2. Hypothesis Language Change as Evidence
• Peripheral forms in the paradigm show a stronger
  tendency to regularize than central forms.
• Test Case The Russian /a/ ? /aj/ Shift
• Unproductive verb suffix /a/ ? productive /aj/
• /kapljut/ ? /kapajut/
• ????? ?????? ???? ?? ?????? ?? ???????.
• (Goncarov 1859 with /a/ suffix)
• ????? ? ?? ??????.  (Bitov 1969 with /aj/
  suffix)
• Ideal test case
• Well documented (e.g. Krysin 1974, Andersen 1980)
• Searchable in electronic corpora
• Russian verbs have large paradigms with
  potentially complex structure.
• 4. My Database
• Investigated 30 verbs where suffix shift is
  expected.
• Only non-prefixed verbs examined so far.
• Data from The Russian National Corpus
• Balanced corpus of 120 million words
• Searchable on the internet (http//ruscorpora.ru)
• My database contains 12,000 examples.

• Data from boldfaced cells yield the following
  diagram

• Problem The Active Participle
• Some verbs have high /aj/ paralleling
  non-finite forms (e.g. vnimat 81)
• Some verbs have low /aj/ paralleling finite
  forms (e.g. bryzgat(sja) 15)
• Tentative explanation
• Participles are non-finite forms for which we
  expect high /aj/ .
• Formally, the active participle is closely
  related to finite forms, for which low /aj/ is
  expected.
• Diverse behavior may be due to these conflicting
  forces.
• 9. Conclusions
• Suffix shift is compatible with implicational
  hierarchy
• ? Russian verb paradigms have internal structure.
• Hierarchy correlates with semantic markedness
• ? Extension relations are more important than
  entrenchment.
• 10. Further questions
• Does prefixation influence the /a/ ? /aj/ shift?
• Does the postfix -sja influence the /a/ ? /aj/
  shift?
• Does polysemy influence the /a/ ? /aj/ shift?

6. Analysis Implicational Hierarchy

• The diagram above shows that /aj/ increases
  from left to right.
• The /a//aj/ variation is compatible with an
  implicational hierarchy (left).
• The hierarchy
• confirms the hypothesis about regularization in
  peripheral forms (cf. Section 2).
• suggests that Russian verb paradigms have
  internal structure.

Gerund ? Imperative ? Other finite ? 1
singular ? 3 plural ? 3 singular