Agreement, anti-agreement, and the structure of the verbal paradigm (original) (raw)

On the correlation between morphology and syntax

Studies in comparative Germanic …, 2002

In this paper we revisit V-to-I-movement in Germanic and beyond. We examine and evaluate the hypothesis that there is a correlation between richness of verbal inflectional morphology and the obligatory movement of the finite verb to Infl, which has been adopted in much recent literature. We show that this hypothesis is empirically inadequate, and that in fact V-to-I movement across languages is independent of morphology.

The balance between syntax and morphology: Dutch particles and resultatives

Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 1993

This paper focuses on Dutch verb-particle constructions and verb-resultative constructions. On the one hand, Dutch particles and resultatives share some properties; for instance, they mutually exclude each other. On the other hand, they show contrastive behavior with respect to, for example, movement. The similarities can be captured if to some extent, the two constructions receive the same analysis. It is argued that both particles and resultatives are base generated in a position adjoined to the verb. The differences between the constructions follow from the assumption that resuttatives are adjoined to the verb at D-structure, while particles are adjoined to the verb in the morphological component. This analysis has several consequences for the syntaxmorphology interface: (i) there has to be a separate morpholoNcal component, (ii) the relation between this component and syntax is determined by generalizing metarules, and (iii) morphological structures are visible to syntactic principles such as the proposed constraint on the complexity of heads.

On the relation between morphology and syntax.

The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Interfaces, 2007

According to the traditional view, the relation between morphology and syntax is the following: while morphology builds up word forms-typically by combining roots with other roots and with affixes, but also by applying other operations to them, syntax takes fully inflected words as input and combines them into phrases and sentences. The division of labour between morphology and syntax is thus perfect: morphology only operates below the word level whereas syntax only operates above the word level.

Minimalist Morphology: An Approach to Inflection

Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft, 1995

In this paper we advocate a minimal characterization of inflectional morphology as a combinatorial system of underspecified stems and affixes which is controlled by a hierarchy of categories, by general principles of affixation, and by principles that regulate paradigm structures. We first contrast our views on inflection with other proposals found in the literature, and then describe our machinery, illustrating it with facts from the inflectional morphology of the German verb. While subregularities are represented by structured lexical entries which take the form of non-mono tonic inheritance trees, regular affixation is assumed to be a monotonie operation. Finally the structure of paradigms is illustrated in some detail with an analysis of the subject agreement morphology of the verb in Classical Arabic. 1. The structure of the inflectional component The proper place of inflectional morphology within the main components of grammar is still a matter of debate. Inflectional categories such as morphological case or person-number agreement on verbs constitute relations between syntactic constituents and therefore must be present in the syntax. At the same time, however, they are mostly realized through affixes which are interleaved with phonological rules and therefore must be visible in the phonology. So the question arises of whether inflection belongs to syntax proper or to phonology, or whether it constitutes a component of its own. The answers which have been given in the recent literature on the subject diverge to a great extent. Anderson (1992) denies the existence of word structure since, in his view, inflectional categories belong to syntax and are spelled out by phonological rules. Moreover, Anderson claims that affixes do not have morpheme status but are merely the * This paper grew out of our research on agreement morphology in the lexicon project SFB 282 'Theorie des Lexikons', which is supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Preliminary results have been presented in Wunderlich (1992) and Fabri (1993) as well as in talks in Berlin,

Morphological theory and English

This paper presents a review of a number of recent issues in the field of generative morphology, with their implications for the description of English. After an introduction to the field two types of question are considered. First, 1 examine the nature of word structure and illustrate two competing approaches, one of which assurnes that words have a constituent structure (much like the phrase structure of syntax) and the other of which rejects this assumption. Then we look at the way morphologicai structure interacts with syntax. We examine the extent to which syntactic principles can account for the behaviour of certain types of compounds and aiso the expression of syntactic arguments in nominaiizations.

Morphology, divided and conquered. DRAFT

In Linguistica Brunensia, Brno. On line http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/130163, 2016

Abstract: Concentrating on the taxonomy of grammatical morphemes, this study shows that traditional definitions of inflectional vs. derivational morphemes do not pass more rigorous testing, although they probably reflect instinctive distinctions present in a natural language system. The authors propose to define the distinctions by referring to derivational stages, namely by distinguishing levels of insertion for morphemes. Most of what is usually classified as derivational morphology and subject to Williams's (1981) Right Hand Head Rule are morphemes which enter derivations in narrow syntax. As such, they conform to what is here termed a Logical Form Interpretation Condition, which allows only one syntactic feature per morpheme. On the other hand, morphemes such as agreements are not subject to the Right Hand Head Rule and result from post-syntactic insertion and exhibit cross-classification. The authors propose that the source of these bound inflections is the process of Alternative Realisation. They argue that their new distinction between derivational and inflectional morphology correlates with testable semantic, phonetic and syntactic properties and that in terms of these properties, both are necessary parts of an adequate formal linguistic framework. 1 The basis for dividing inflection and derivation Analysts of natural language grammars never seem to tire of the quest to categorize two kinds of affixes, which are widely termed (1) inflectional and (2) derivational. 1 The persistence of these attempts indicates that linguists share intuitions about the reality of some core distinction between two kinds of elements, that this distinction is inherent to the language system, and therefore it must be part of any linguistic framework. The inconclusive discussions and variety of definitions, on the other hand, suggest that the study of the phenomena has not yet found a formalisation that can stand up to more rigorous scientific testing. We are going to address the issue from the perspective of generative grammar, accepting what is usually called Borer's Conjecture. In her study of parametric syntax, BORER (1984) proposes that the distinctions among the variety of human languages can be best expressed as distinctions among the repertory and characteristics of their grammatical morphemes. If so, a taxonomy of those morphemes must be a part of every linguistic analysis. 1 The division is in fact tripartite, but we are not going to address here free or lexical morphemes at all. Not because their status are much clearer but because of time and space reasons which force us to concentrate on a more limited topic.

A study of analogical change : Vowel alternation in the verb in the Low German and Dutch dialects

1985

The modern dialects Notes to chapter 5 Chapter 6s Vowel length 6.1 MLB 6.2 MDu 6.3 The modern dialects Notes to chapter 6 Part three: Conclusions Chapter 7s Conclusions on the alternations 7.1 The re la tiv e strength of the alternations 222 7.2 Characteristics of major versus minor-formations with respect to the alternations Notes to chapter 7 Chapter 8: Conclusions on analogical change 8.1 The movement of verbs between major and minor formations 229 8.2 Other analogical changes 8.2.1 Interparadigmatic 236 8.2.2-Intraparadigmatic 8.3 Final comments Notes to chapter 8 Appendix: Index of verbs 279 A Strong verbs Strong verbs by class 300 B Verbs belonging to minor weak conjugations in the modern dialects 302 Bibliography A Dialect grammars 309 B Other works 314 Maos The locations of the dialects 9 Dialect areas mentioned in the text 12 The merger of e and i_, □ and u. in open syllables 43 The merger of #ej_ and *ai_, * qjl and #au_ 44 Class I 67 Class II 70 The merger of #au_ and * o: in re la tion to the spread of * o: throughout the p re te rite of class II 72 Class II-umlaut 74 Class 111 (a) 79 Class I I I <a)-umlaut 81 Class I I H b i) 83 Class IIH b l>-umlaut 86 'Ik perhaps, serve as a basis for future analyses within a more abstract framework. Qur main focus of attention w ill be the type of change tra d itio n a lly known as "analogical change". Andersen (1980) rejects this term on the grounds that i t is too general, and replaces i t with "morphophonemic change", which he defines as "a change in the relations among variants of signantia" (that is, among allomorphs). This covers most of the changes that would tra d itio n a lly be classed as analogical. Bybee (1980) follows Andersen in replacing "analogical" by "morphophonemic". However, the new usage has some disadvantages. F ir s tly , i t is closely tied to Andersen's philosophy of the sign; and secondly, confusion might arise because the term "morphophonemic" has also been used in other senses, (c f., for example, Matthews 1974, p. involving root vowels within the paradigms of verbs. The second part 6 corresponds to interparadigmatic change) again, we shall be concentrating on changes involving the root vowels of verbs. Some of these changes can be described in proportional terms (Paul 1970); but we shall also encounter ''non-proportional'' interparadigmatic changes, which do not f i t th is model. The proportional model has been c ritic is e d by Kiparsky (1974) on the grounds that i t is both too weak (it cannot account for a ll cases of analogy) and too strong (i t cannot distinguish absurd proportions from those that could define a potential analogical change). Since we are not claiming that a ll cases of analogy are proportional, the f ir s t criticism cannot apply to our use of the term. The second criticism depends on the proportional model being conceived of as a relationship between forms of individual lexical items, in isolation from their morphological function. However, we shall use the term "proportional change" simply of changes which i t is possible to describe in proportional terms, as opposed to ones which i t is not possible to describe in these terms. The distinction proportional/non-proportional is a convenient way of dividing up changes according to the nature of the interaction between the groups of verbs. In proportional change, the two interacting sets of verbs already share an alternant in common for some morphological category or set of categories) in non-proportional change, they do not. The term proportional, then, should not be taken to imply that the change merely involves an interaction between two individual lexical items, nor between forms in isolation from th eir morphological function. Rather, particular lexical items are conceived of as representatives of the group to which they belong) and p articu lar forms should be understood in relation to the morphological categories which they express. At least some of the analogical changes encountered could perhaps be expressed in terms of rule sim plification and reordering (cf. Kiparsky (1968)). This treatment is, of course, ruled out here, because i t would require a more abstract approach to the phonology than that which we have adopted here. Moreover, there are also theoretical objections to this kind of analysis; for example, i t obscures the crucial role played by the morphological function of the forms undergoing analogical change. 1.3 Aims An attempt w ill be made to analyse the analogical changes that take place as uniformly as possible, and to reduce them to a small number of types. Equally importantly, some potential types of change that do not in fact occur w ill be specified. The sample of data on which the study is based is, I fe e l, su ffic ie n tly large for such observations to be of significance. In addition, i t seems to be a useful exercise to analyse all the changes within a given domain, rather than selecting isolated examples in support of a particular theory. A secondary aim w ill be to investigate whether the diachronic data shed any lig h t on the synchronic organisation of morphology. This, of course, assumes that lin g u istic change is a potential "window" on the synchronic structure of language (cf. Kiparsky 1968). As advocated by Kiparsky more recently (1980, 1982a), however, caution w ill be exercised in exploiting the diachronic data in this way. P r e te r ite 11 70.257. Preteri te 13. 647. Perfect 1 .237. Perfect 8.577. Pluperfect 6.757. PIuperfect 2.277. Conditional 0.467. Condi t i onal 0.707. Future 2.107. Imperative 9. 277. Direct Speech (sample size: 524; excludes imperative) 1st sg 18. 707. breakdown of 2nd sg 2nd sg 12.597. actual 2nd sg 2,997, 3rd sg 58.787. 3rd sg 4.837. 1st pi 2.677. 3rd pi 4.777. 2nd pi 0.387. IHIfx 3rd pi 6.877. W e shall deal f i r s t with tense/aspect. The very high figure for the p re te rite in narrative sections is indicative of its typical use as a narrative tense, Note that the figure for the perfect is very low here. W e would obviously expect the s ta tis tic s for the sections of direct speech to re fle c t the spoken language more closely. It is notable that the perfect constitutes a much higher percentage of past tense forms in 26 direct speech than in narratives Past tense farms Past tense forms in narrative in direct speech Pret 89