Morphology - inflection derivation, ordering, morph profiles Flashcards
GENERAL definition of Inflection and Derivation
INFLECTIONAL morphology: grammatical information
DERIVATIONAL morphology:
robust semantic/lexical info
they have contrasting properties
Derivational Morphology properties summary
- Substantial Semantic Effect
- Can ALTER WORD CLASS
- partly idiosyncratic semantic predictability
- RESTRICED productivity
- DOESN’T occur in PARADIGMS
- INNER location
Inflectional Morphology properties summary
- Minor semantic effect
- NEVER ALTERS word Class
- PREDICTABLE semantic change
- UNRESTRICTED productivity
- DOES occur in PARADIGMS
- PERIPHERAL location
INFLECTION AND DERIVATION - Semantic effect
Derivation: defines/changes lexical meaning.
» Root/lexeme becomes another lexeme.
Inflection: root/lexeme does not change meaning.
»It is grammatically modulated. I.e. inflected (‘bent’).
Teach = activity DERIVATION: teach-er = person INFLECTION: t-aught = activity, past
INFLECTION AND DERIVATION - effect on word class
- correlates with semantic effect
- ALL Derivation produces NEW lexemes => potential change in word class
» Inflection cant change class because it does not produce new lexeme
Teach = activity VERB DERIVATION: teach-er = person NOUN INFLECTION: t-aught = activity, past VERB
not all derivations affect word class -
do (activity - VERB) –> re-do (diff activity - VERB)
INFLECTION AND DERIVATION - Semantic predictability
- Inflection is 100% predicable.
- Derivation is not entirely regular, therefore not predictable (or very partially).
DERIVATION
orphan-age pilgrim-age leaf-age
INFLECTION
dog-s car-s cake-s
INFLECTION AND DERIVATION - Productivity
-Inflection is productive.
» E.g. plural -s applies to most nouns.(Few exceptions)
-Derivation is semi-productive
» Eg. nominalizer -th
ADJ --> NOUNS deep depth wide width short *shortth big *bigth
INFLECTION AND DERIVATION: Paradigms
Inflectional affixes belong to paradigms.
PARADIGM = Closed sets where forms are mutually exclusive WITH Conflicting grammatical meaning.
derivational affixes do not belong in paradigms
INFLECTION AND DERIVATION: Distance from the root
- Derivation is CLOSER to the root.
- Inflection is FURTHER from the root.
> > A good test when they combine in the same word.
EG grammaticalised
{grammar} {-ical} {-ise} {-d}
root -der -der -inf
Exceptions to criteria of inflection and derivation
As usual, these criteria ‘leak’
EG -ing in English
1. Their constant fight-ing kept us awake.
2. Her loud chew-ing is very annoying.
3. These happen-ing-s are hard to explain
INFLECTION AND DERIVATION:
Categorical distinction or continuum?
- Affixes like -ing suggest a continuum (Bybee 1985).
»But typological evidence argues for categorical
Implicational scale: inflection > derivation
Gbergs universal 29:
If a language has inflection, it always has derivation.
- Portmanteau do not combine inflection and derivation. (Andersen (1992))
» Suggests a functional distinction between the two. - some ‘cognitive’ evidence in favor of categories.
» Patients with APHASIA LOSE INFLECTIONAL morphology. But RETAIN DERIVATIONAL morphology.
»> Stored in separate locations in the brain?
categories with exceptions?
Inflectional Ordering
Stacked inflectional affixes occur in predictable order.
Gbergs Universal 39:
- Where morphemes of BOTH NUMB+CASE are present
- and both follow or both precede the noun base,
- the expression of NUMB almost always comes BETWEEN the
NOUN base and the expression of CASE.
ROOT-NUMB-CASE
> strong tendency for following ordering (bybee 1985)/mirror image
> when these categories fall on the same side of the root
Bybee’s prediction
verb root + voice + A + T + M + person/number
Morphological diversity
Significant diversity in how languages handle morphology.
>The first field of typology.
> As early as 19th century.
Resulted in two indices:
- Index of synthesis.
- Index of fusion.
Index of synthesis
Stacking morphemes together or keeping them apart > Extreme cases:
Mandarin: M M M M
West Greenlandic: MMMMM
> Notion of ‘CATEGORY PER WORD’ VALUE (based on inflections) paint: 1, painted 2 = synthesis degree Vietnamese: 0 English: 2 Koasati (Luisiana): 13
ISOLATING LANGUAGES: Mandarin SYNTHETIC LANGUAGES: Most langs. English POLYSYNTHETIC LANGS: West greenlandic
ITS A CONTINUUM
Index of synthesis: ISOLATING LANGUAGES
Mandarin
- Each/most phonological word is a single morpheme.
» Many isolating languages in East Asia.
Index of synthesis: SYNTHETIC LANGUAGES
-Many phonological words are morphologically complex.
|»_space; Most languages in the world.
Index of synthesis: POLYSYNTHETIC LANGUAGES
West greenlandic
- Phonological words number many morphemes.
- In particular in verb complexes.
- CONSISTENT profile
- verb template = “TEMPLATIC languages”
- noun incorporation
- non-configurationality
SO: Polysynthetic languages have comparable properties.
>Even when geographically distant.
» Meso- and North America, Australia, Siberia.
Index of fusion
Whether morphemes are identifiable or collapsed.
» Fusional or agglutinative.
Fusional: Yekwana (Cariban, South America), Oral french:
idk: je sais pas VS je-(ne-)sais-pas
Agglutinative: Murinh Patha (Australia)
ITS A CONTINUUM
Synthesis and fusion are ‘orthogonal’
STATISTICALLY INDEPENDENT
> Obviously isolating languages cannot be fusional.
> But (poly)synthetic languages can be more or less fusional
Historical trends of synthesis and fusion
Natural trend is TOWARD synthesis and fusion.
» DUE 2 grammaticalization.
But then large phonological words can break apart?
»_space; Evans et al. (2008) on DALABON.
And the cycle starts again?
