Feature percolation

Feature Percolation is a mechanism proposed in Lieber (1980) and Williams (1981a) which copies features of one of the members of a morphological construction (usually features of the head) to the node that immediately dominates both members. As a consequence, a complex form inherits the properties of its head.

Example

the English verb stand is a strong verb, which can be indicated by assigning the diacritic feature [+ablaut] to this verb. The complex verb withstand also is a strong verb. This can be accounted for if one assumes that the feature [+ablaut] will percolate up to the node dominating both with and stand, as illustrated below:

     V				      V
    / \				    [+abl]
   /   \			   /     \
  P     V   		 	  P	  V
with	stand	      =>	with	    stand
	[+abl]		                    [+abl]

Link

Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics

References

• Lieber, R. 1980. On the Organization of the Lexicon, PhD diss. Univ. of New Hampshire, reproduced by the IULC.
• Williams, E. 1981a. On the notions 'Lexically Related' and 'Head of a Word', Linguistic Inquiry 12, pp. 245-274