@inproceedings{turk-etal-2026-frequency,
title = "Frequency modulates structural choice in {T}urkish suspended affixation: a latent-process account",
author = {Turk, Utku and
Neu, Eva and
Bakay, {\"O}zge and
Dillon, Brian and
Jarosz, Gaja},
editor = "Voigt, Rob and
Warstadt, Alex and
Feldman, Naomi and
Linzen, Tal",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics 2026",
month = jul,
year = "2026",
address = "San Diego, CA",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.scil-main.32/",
pages = "343--352",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-412-5",
abstract = "Suspended affixation (SA) allows a suffix on one conjunct to scope over all coordinated elements. While inflectional SA is productive in Turkish, derivational SA is claimed to be highly restricted; yet speakers readily accept certain cases. We propose that this gradient acceptability reflects a frequency-modulated choice between two possible syntactic representations: base-generation, which licenses derivational SA, and ellipsis. To test this, we conducted a rating task on the acceptability of four derivational suffixes in SA form while manipulating the frequency of coordinations. Using a Multinomial Processing Tree model to isolate latent structural choices from surface ratings, we found that frequency modulated SA acceptability for some suffixes (i.e., sIz `-less' and cI `-maker'), but not others (i.e., lI `-having' and lIk `-for'). These findings suggest that frequency shapes syntactic parsing in morphologically complex environments."
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<abstract>Suspended affixation (SA) allows a suffix on one conjunct to scope over all coordinated elements. While inflectional SA is productive in Turkish, derivational SA is claimed to be highly restricted; yet speakers readily accept certain cases. We propose that this gradient acceptability reflects a frequency-modulated choice between two possible syntactic representations: base-generation, which licenses derivational SA, and ellipsis. To test this, we conducted a rating task on the acceptability of four derivational suffixes in SA form while manipulating the frequency of coordinations. Using a Multinomial Processing Tree model to isolate latent structural choices from surface ratings, we found that frequency modulated SA acceptability for some suffixes (i.e., sIz ‘-less’ and cI ‘-maker’), but not others (i.e., lI ‘-having’ and lIk ‘-for’). These findings suggest that frequency shapes syntactic parsing in morphologically complex environments.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Frequency modulates structural choice in Turkish suspended affixation: a latent-process account
%A Turk, Utku
%A Neu, Eva
%A Bakay, Özge
%A Dillon, Brian
%A Jarosz, Gaja
%Y Voigt, Rob
%Y Warstadt, Alex
%Y Feldman, Naomi
%Y Linzen, Tal
%S Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics 2026
%D 2026
%8 July
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C San Diego, CA
%@ 979-8-89176-412-5
%F turk-etal-2026-frequency
%X Suspended affixation (SA) allows a suffix on one conjunct to scope over all coordinated elements. While inflectional SA is productive in Turkish, derivational SA is claimed to be highly restricted; yet speakers readily accept certain cases. We propose that this gradient acceptability reflects a frequency-modulated choice between two possible syntactic representations: base-generation, which licenses derivational SA, and ellipsis. To test this, we conducted a rating task on the acceptability of four derivational suffixes in SA form while manipulating the frequency of coordinations. Using a Multinomial Processing Tree model to isolate latent structural choices from surface ratings, we found that frequency modulated SA acceptability for some suffixes (i.e., sIz ‘-less’ and cI ‘-maker’), but not others (i.e., lI ‘-having’ and lIk ‘-for’). These findings suggest that frequency shapes syntactic parsing in morphologically complex environments.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.scil-main.32/
%P 343-352
Markdown (Informal)
[Frequency modulates structural choice in Turkish suspended affixation: a latent-process account](https://aclanthology.org/2026.scil-main.32/) (Turk et al., SCiL 2026)
ACL