Feast and Famine: Confronting Overabundance and Defectivity in Language

Every day, as we use language, we unconsciously select forms of words that feel "right" for what we want to say. Occasionally, however, multiple forms may compete for a slot, such as the participle of 'prove' (have proved? have proven?); here, users find both forms adequate, although each of us might only use one of them. Elsewhere, we lack a suitable form where one is expected: we may baulk at forming the past tense of the verb 'troubleshoot', where we have a "slot" (past tense of a particular word) but no form that can adequately fill it (troubleshot? troubleshooted?).

These examples of "feast" (multiple forms) and "famine" (no forms) show that selecting the "right" word form is not a process of mechanically mapping from function to form; instead, users weigh and select forms from a basket of those available to us, sometimes keeping around more forms than necessary and sometimes failing to find a form that works for us.

Linguists term the first sort of mismatch 'overabundance', and the second sort 'defectivity'. These mismatches cause difficulty for traditional linguistic theories, which assume that each form we use fulfils one function, and that each function can be fulfilled by one form. For the most part, this is true: if adult native speakers need a past tense of the verb 'choose', they head unerringly for 'chose', never *choosed or *chost. This results in an assumption that inflection (form-selection) is automatic, judgement-free, and innate rather than learned. Language handbooks then write this assumption into practice, describing forms and features very differently from how a speaker might actually use them.

Defectivity and overabundance have traditionally been treated as separate phenomena, arising in different circumstances that explain their divergent outcomes. Our project highlights the commonalities in these circumstances - it is the outcomes (multiple forms or none) that mark them as distinct. Using data from morphologically complex languages - Czech, Croatian, Estonian and a further language chosen by the PDRA - we explore a fundamental question: which factors push users and models of use down one or the other path? We converge on an answer by considering multiple perspectives:

- The Czech National Corpus Institute will use CORPUS DATA, particularly from more "naturalistic" subtitle corpora, to uncover new methods for identifying competition (overabundance) and gaps (defectivity) in the "real world" of texts: their methods (collocation, keymorph analysis, frequency distribution) will be refined, elaborated and tested on project languages via experimental and computational methods.
- Sheffield will use EXPERIMENTAL DATA from adult native speakers to examine language users' reactions to overabundance and defectivity by confronting them in similarly structured tests - which show in what way our reactions are (or are not) measurably different to these two slot types. These data will also help assess aspects of SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIATION, such as education and reading skills.
- York will test, refine and develop COMPUTATIONAL MODELS OF INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY to see how they handle and predict overabundant and defective slots.
- Zagreb and York will collect LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DATA in naturalistic and experimental settings to illuminate how learners make sense of "messy" data such as those found in overabundant and defective slots. Overabundance and defectivity will be examined as potentially differing, temporary responses to structures of uncertain predictability.

As an integral part of the project, staff in Zagreb and Prague will translate our findings into GUIDELINES for language users, feeding directly into public-facing language resources such as online dictionaries and handbooks of the target languages. Instead of seeing idealised systems that linguists project for them, as at present, speakers will get information on how their language is used in a clear and user-friendly format.

The Feast and Famine project has a clear path to impact in the real world, using advances in linguistic theory to address issues in ordinary language use. It will bring immediate benefits for authors of language resources, and longer-term benefits for those who use written language in their daily lives.

By writing reference works about language, scholars exert pressure on the form of a 'standard' language, shaping it to their descriptions. Ideally, these descriptions are based on actual usage, but in practice, they are often based on an author's gut feelings, combined with material inherited from existing handbooks.

Our project deals with the forms of words (morphology), and specifically what happens when we find more than one suitable form (e.g. I have proved/proven my point) or have difficulty finding any (e.g. I have already ?troubleshot/?troubleshooted this problem). Especially in languages with more elaborate verb and noun paradigms than English, at every turn we encounter the question: is there really one "right" form? Or should we describe things differently when we write a grammar or dictionary of this language?

Feast and Famine addresses this question on several fronts: mapping the extent of these possibilities in four languages; incorporating project outcomes in two major public resources; and developing protocols for expressing and managing this variation in public-facing works in general. With major impact envisaged in two different language settings, it offers an unparalleled chance to learn how the linguistic setting affects these decisions and how to implement them more effectively.

Two project partners, the Czech Language Institute (CLI) and the Institute for Croatian Language and Linguistics (ICLL), are the major national bodies in their respective countries that create and maintain public-facing language resources. The project outcomes thus reach an already engaged audience who trust these bodies as authorities in the field.

The Czech Internet Language Handbook (ILH) at the CLI contains detailed grammatical information on word forms. It receives over 20,000 hits per day and since its launch in 2009 has been accessed from over a million unique IP addresses (in a country of 10.5 million). Staff responsible for the ILH will target places in it where gaps and competition occur and identify the commonalities, with the goal of creating a uniform, easily understandable way of explaining these places to users. This system will be rolled out to the ILH and disseminated to colleagues in other areas - e.g. those with responsibility for producing the upcoming new dictionary of Czech.

The Croatian Morphological Doublets Database, administered by staff at the ICLL and the University of Zagreb, aims to contain a detailed list and description of all such forms. Project work will help complete this database, which will then serve as a resource for an upcoming handbook similar to the Czech ILH and for other reference works. Our work on Croatian child language has significant potential to influence how we assess children's linguistic development. A dissemination workshop will guide potential stakeholders - in publishing houses, education and at the ICLL itself - to access and use our research's practical results.

In Estonia, we plan outreach talks and meetings with bodies active in monitoring and codifying the Estonian language. We will engage with the Estonian Language Institute and the Estonian Mother Tongue Society to deliver talks and discuss our research. Similar work is envisaged for the fourth project language.

All project countries have "popular-scholarly" journals about language (e.g. Estonia: Oma Keel; Czech Republic: Nase rec; Croatia: Hrvatski jezik), where we plan articles for the interested public.

This project promises impact on a significant scale, with opportunities to learn and shape how theoretical linguistics and the public face of language interact with and inform each other.