Identifying Stems

Abstract

Programmatic proposals are presented for identifying the boundary between stem and affix in morphologically complex words. This is part of the wider, largely unresearched, problem of segmenting words into morphs. Two principles are proposed for expediting stem segmentation: the Strictly Morphomic Stem Hypothesis (‘all stems are morphomic’) and the Stem Maximization Principle (‘a putative inflection must unambiguously realize a coherent set of morphosyntactic properties, otherwise it is part of a morphomic stem’). It is proposed that there should be a separate stem formation component with essentially the same architecture as the inflectional component to define members of the stem space.1