Measuring the Complexity of the Stem Alternation Patterns of Spanish Verbs

Résumé En

This paper is about the stem alternation patterns we observe in the inflection of 3700 Spanish verbs. I treat verbs with such patterns as deviating from the inflection of basic, regular verbs. To set out the right context to understand such patterns, I first present a novel description of the inflection of Spanish regular verbs which benefits from the combination of the traditional approach in Alcoba (1999) and the more innovative stem-based approach in Boyé and Cabredo (2006). All stem alternation patterns in Spanish are morphomic in nature. I present two models of how costly the deviation is for the inflectional system in terms of morphological complexity. In one model, a Kolmogorov-style model, every pattern adds an equal measure of complexity because each one involves a longer description. In an alternative model of complexity, based on implicative relations, the complexity of the system is reduced because the distribution of the patterns is not judged to be equally costly for all of them. Such model is more desirable. However, the descriptions of the implicative relations involved, which I give in the form of notebooks of default-overrides, still need to be stored somewhere in the linguistic system, but probably at a less costly price.