Network Morphology: a DATR account of Russian nominal inflection

Abstract

In this paper we introduce a declarative approach to inflectional morphology, which we call Network Morphology, using the lexical representation language DATR. We show that we can account for a range of (Russian) data, for which previously various rule types were required, and can provide a more satisfying analysis than was previously available. First we outline the essential data (section 2), highlighting the problems they present. Section 3 introduces the basic tenets of Network Morphology. This draws heavily on DATR, which we present in outline in section 4. Next we reconsider the Russian declensional classes from this new perspective (section 5). We show how the approach described overcomes long-standing problems in an elegant fashion; the complexity of the data suggests that the approach adopted has implications well beyond Russian. We then tackle the complex problem of animacy in Russian, which exemplifies interesting regularities extending across declensional classes (section 6).