Gaps in the lexicon

• In connection with the phonological component of a grammar, he presents as an example the phenomena of accidental (idiosyncratic) and systematic gaps in the lexicon.
• A phonological grammar must be able to cater for the fact that although there is no attestation of the form /blk/ in the English language, a native speaker would still classify this form as a possible word of the language; it is purely accidental that this form does not exist.
• The fact that the form /ftk/ does not exist in the lexicon is systematic since a native speaker would not consider this initial combination to be possible in the language.