The computational cost of generalizations: An example from micromorphology
- Sedigheh Moradi (Stony Brook University)
- Alëna Aksënova (Stony Brook University)
- Thomas Graf (Stony Brook University)
Abstract
Morphotactics has been argued to be limited to the formal class of tier-based strictly local languages (Aksënova et al., 2016). We claim that the level of the complexity of a pattern largely depends on the way it is morphologically analyzed. Using an example from adjectival inflection in Noon (Niger-Congo), we show that the complexity of this pattern falls in two different classes within the subregular hierarchy if viewed from different perspectives. In particular, the traditional segmentation of Noon affixes (Soukka 2000) yields a 3-TSL grammar, while the same pattern is 3-SSTSL under the perspective of micromorphology (Stump 2017). Both grammars require a locality window of 3 segments; however, the micromorphology-based analysis shows an increase in formal complexity, although it reduces the grammar size by defining complex affixes in terms of simpler ones.
Keywords: morphology, computational complexity, affix ordering, subregular hypothesis
How to Cite:
Moradi, S., Aksënova, A. & Graf, T., (2019) “The computational cost of generalizations: An example from micromorphology”, Society for Computation in Linguistics 2(1), 367-368. doi: https://doi.org/10.7275/77ee-we40
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