Accidental gap

{{Short description|Permissible word or form that does not exist}}

In linguistics an '''accidental gap''', also known as a '''gap''', '''paradigm gap''', '''accidental lexical gap''', '''lexical gap''', '''lacuna''', or '''hole in the pattern''', is a potential word, word sense, morpheme, or other form that does not exist in some language despite being theoretically permissible by the grammatical rules of that language.<ref name=Crystal>{{Cite book |last=Crystal |first=David |title=A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics |location=Malden |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |year=2003 |isbn=0-6312-2664-8}}</ref> For example, a word pronounced {{IPA|/zeɪ̯k/}} is theoretically possible in English, as it would obey English phonological rules, but does not currently exist. Its absence is therefore an accidental gap, in the ontologic sense of the word ''accidental'' (that is, circumstantial rather than essential).

Accidental gaps differ from systematic gaps, where words or other forms do not exist due to the boundaries set by phonological, morphological, and other rules of the language. In English, a word pronounced {{IPA|/pfnk/}} does not and ''cannot'' exist because it has no vowels and therefore does not obey the word-formation rules of English. This is a systematic, rather than accidental, gap.

Various types of accidental gaps exist. Phonological gaps are either words allowed by the phonological system of a language which do not actually exist, or sound contrasts missing from one paradigm of the phonological system itself. Morphological gaps are nonexistent words or word senses potentially allowed by the morphological system. A semantic gap refers to the nonexistence of a word or word sense to describe a difference in meaning seen in other sets of words within the language.

==Phonological gaps== {{IPA notice|section}} Often words that are allowed in the phonological system of a language are absent. For example, in English the consonant cluster {{IPA|/spr/}} is allowed at the beginning of words such as ''spread'' or ''spring'' and the syllable rime {{IPA|/ɪk/}} occurs in words such as ''sick'' or ''flicker''. Even so, there is no English word pronounced *{{IPA|/sprɪk/}}. Even though this potential word is phonologically well-formed according to English phonotactics, it happens to not exist.<ref name=Trask>{{Cite book |last=Trask |first=Robert Lawrence |title=A Dictionary of Phonetics and Phonology |location=London |publisher=Routledge |year=1996}}</ref>

The term "phonological gap" is also used to refer to the absence of a phonemic contrast in part of the phonological system.<ref name=Crystal/> For example, Thai has several sets of stop consonants that differ in voicing (whether or not the vocal cords vibrate) and aspiration (whether a puff of air is released). Yet the language has no voiced velar stop ({{IPA|/ɡ/}}).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Abramson |first=Arthur S. |title=The Vowels and Tones of Standard Thai: Acoustical Measurements and Experiments |location=Bloomington |publisher=Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore, and Linguistics |year=1962}}</ref> This lack of an expected distinction is commonly called a "hole in the pattern".<ref name=Trask/> {| class="wikitable" |+ Thai stop consonants |- ! plain voiceless !! aspirated voiceless !! voiced consonant |- | {{IPA|p}} || {{IPA|pʰ}} || {{IPA|b}} |- | {{IPA|t}} || {{IPA|tʰ}} || {{IPA|d}} |- | {{IPA|k}} || {{IPA|kʰ}} || ''{{IPA|/ɡ/}}'' |}

==Morphological gaps==

A morphological gap is the absence of a word that could exist given the morphological rules of a language, including its affixes.<ref name=Crystal/> For example, in English a deverbal noun can be formed by adding either the suffix ''-al'' or ''-(t)ion'' to certain verbs (typically words from Latin through Anglo-Norman French or Old French). Some verbs, such as ''recite'' have two related nouns, ''recital'' and ''recitation''. However, in many cases there is only one such noun, as illustrated in the chart below. Although in principle the morphological rules of English allow for other nouns, those words happen to not exist.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Accidental gap |url=http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Accidental+gap&lemmacode=975 |work=Lexicon of Linguistics |editor1=Kerstens, Johan |editor2=Eddy Ruys |editor3=Joost Zwarts |publisher=Utrecht institute of Linguistics OTS |year=2001 |access-date=2011-02-12}}</ref> {| class="wikitable" |- ! verb !! noun (''-al'') !! noun (''-ion'') |- | recite || recital || recitation |- | propose || proposal || proposition |- | arrive || arrival || ''"arrivation"'' |- | refuse || refusal || ''"refusation"'' |- | describe || ''"describal"'' || description |}

{{anchor|Potential word}}Many '''potential words''' that could be made following morphological rules of a language do not enter the lexicon.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Aronoff|first=Mark|year=1983|title=Potential words, actual words, productivity and frequency|journal=Proceedings of the 13th International Congress of Linguists|pages=163–171}}</ref> Blocking, including ''homonymy blocking'' and ''synonymy blocking'', stops some potential words.<ref name="N+N">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H5rIXBZFm3AC|title=Productivity in English Word-formation: An Approach to N+N Compounding|last=Fernández-Domínguez|first=Jesús|date=2009|publisher=Peter Lang|isbn=9783039118083|location=Bern|pages=71–74|chapter=3}}</ref> A homonym of an existing word may be blocked. For example, the word ''liver'' meaning "someone who lives" is only rarely used because the word ''liver'' (an internal organ) already exists.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Naghzguy-Kohan |first1=Mehrdad |last2=Kuteva |first2=Tania |title=On competition and blocking in inflectional morphology: Evidence from the domainof number in New Persian |journal=Folia Linguistica |date=1 January 2016 |volume=50 |issue=1 |doi=10.1515/flin-2016-0003}}</ref> Likewise, a potential word can be blocked if it is a synonym of an existing word. An older, more common word blocks a potential synonym, known as ''token-blocking''. For example, the word ''stealer'' ("someone who steals") is also rarely used, because the word ''thief'' already exists. Not only individual words, but entire word formation processes may be blocked. For example, the suffix ''-ness'' is used to form nouns from adjectives. This productive word-formation pattern blocks many potential nouns that could be formed with ''-ity''. Nouns such as *''{{not a typo|calmity}}'' (a potential synonym of ''calmness'') and *''{{not a typo|darkity}}'' (cf. ''darkness'') are unused potential words. This is known as ''type-blocking''.<ref name="N+N" />

A defective verb is a verb that lacks some grammatical conjugation. For example, several verbs in Russian do not have a first-person singular form in non-past tense. Although most verbs have such a form (e.g. ''vožu'' "I lead"), about 100 verbs in the second conjugation pattern (e.g. *''derz'u'' "I talk rudely"; the asterisk indicates ungrammaticality) do not appear as first-person singular in the present-future tense.<ref name="Halle">{{Cite journal |last=Halle |first=Morris |year=1973 |title=Prolegomena to a theory of word-formation |journal=Linguistic Inquiry |volume=4 |pages=451–464}}</ref> Morris Halle called this defective verb paradigm an example of an accidental gap.

The similar case of unpaired words occurs where one word is obsolete or rare while another word derived from it is more common. Examples include ''effable'' (whence ''ineffable''), ''kempt'' (whence ''unkempt''), or ''whelm'' (root of ''overwhelmed'').<ref>{{Cite web |last=Quinion |first=Michael |title=Unpaired words |work=World Wide Words |url=http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/unpaired.htm |date=23 November 1996 |access-date=2012-07-31}}</ref>

==Semantic gaps==

A gap in semantics occurs when a particular meaning distinction visible elsewhere in the lexicon is absent. For example, English words describing family members generally show gender distinction. Yet the English word ''cousin'' can refer to either a male or female cousin.<ref name=Crystal/> Similarly, while there are general terms for siblings and parents, there is no comparable common gender-neutral term for a parent's sibling, and traditionally none for a sibling's child. The separate words predicted on the basis of this semantic contrast are absent from the language, or at least from many speakers' dialects. It is possible to coin new ones (as happened with the word ''nibling''), but whether those words gain widespread acceptance in general use, or remain neologistic and resisted outside particular registers, is a matter of prevailing usage in each era. {| class="wikitable" |- ! male !! female !! neutral |- | grandfather || grandmother || grandparent |- | father || mother || parent |- | son || daughter || child |- | brother || sister || sibling |- | uncle || aunt ||pibling (but this coinage remains in limited use to date) |- | nephew || niece || nibling (but this coinage remains in limited use to date) |- | || || cousin |}

==See also== *Idiom (language structure) *Lacuna model *Pseudoword, a unit that appears to be a word in a language but has no meaning in its lexicon *Semantic gap in computer programming languages and natural language processing *Sniglet, described as "any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should"

==Notes== {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}}

==References== {{Reflist}}

Category:Grammar Category:Phonology Category:Semantics Category:Linguistic morphology