CONTENIDOS SEGUNDO TRIMESTRE
3. COMPETENCIAS BÁSICAS Y CONTENIDOS TRANSVERSALES. DIMENSIONES SELECCIONADAS
As noted in the beginning of this chapter, well-formedness of word struc-ture depends on three factors: the choice of morphemes, the choice of forms of morphemes, and the order of morphemes. Having discussed the first two factors, we now turn to linear order (cf. parameter ( f ) in Section 4.1).
How could the morphemes in a word be sequenced? In the beginning of Section 3.3 of Chapter 3 , the same question was asked about the sequenc-ing of words in sentences. In response to that question, we identified five logical possibilities:
1. Precedence regardless of adjacency 2. Adjacency regardless of precedence
3. Both precedence and adjacency (=immediate precedence) 4. Neither adjacency nor precedence (“free order”)
5. Interlocking order
We concluded that in syntax, there were crosslinguistic tendencies involv-ing precedence (e.g. Subject before Object) and others involvinvolv-ing adjacency (e.g. Object next to Verb), but crosslinguistically valid order patterns involving both precedence and adjacency are rare if occurrent at all, as are also free order and interlocking order. What about morpheme order?
Leaving the order in compound words aside, our focus will be the order of affixes relative to the base.
First of all, in Section 4.1 above, one more possible temporal pattern was identified, one that is inapplicable to words but is an option for mor-phemes: simultaneity. Since the concept morpheme is not defined so as to require independent pronounceability, morphemes may be suprasegmen-tal properties such as stress and pitch which, instead of being linearly sequenced to a word, are simultaneous with it. Here is therefore the com-plete list of the possible morpheme orders:
1. Precedence regardless of adjacency 2. Adjacency regardless of precedence
3. Both precedence and adjacency (=immediate precedence) 4. Neither adjacency nor precedence (“free order”)
5. Interlocking order
6. Simultaneous order (=suprasegmental affixing)
The examples given in Section 4.1 illustrated various patterns of prece-dence (suffixes, prefixes), of interlocking (infixes, circumfixes, introfixes), and of suprasegmental order (suprafixes). Our task in this section is to
Additional
explore the crosslinguistic frequencies of the various order patterns and the conditions under which they occur. There are several relevant gener-alizations that have been suggested in current research, some pointing up similarities between word order and morpheme order while others show-ing differences.
First of all, there are two order patterns that are crosslinguistically rare both in syntax and in morphology: free order and interlocking order. In addition, examples of suprasegmental affixing are also few and far between.
GEN-14: The free order of affixes is rare across languages and if a language has it, it also has fixed affix order.
GEN-15: Discontinuous affix order (infixing, circumfixing, and introfixing) is rare across languages; and if a language has discontinuous affixing, it also has either prefixing or suf-fixing or both. (Greenberg 1966a : #26)
GEN-16: Suprasegmental affixing is rare across languages and if a language has it, it also has segmental affixes.
The statement about free order (GEN-14) is stated probabilistically because there are scattered examples of reversible affix order. One was mentioned in connection with Tagalog reduplication (Section 4.2.2.1); (49) and (50) provide two more examples (Comrie 1980 : 81–82).
(49) ‘to our house’: (a) kerka- nim-laṅ Zyrian house- our-to
(b) kerka- laṅ-nim house- to-our
(50) ‘to my forest’: (a) čodra- m-lan Cheremis forest- my-to
(b) čodra- lan-em forest- to-my
Interestingly, variable affix order may also signal different meanings, as in Turkish (Lewis 1967 : 40).
(51) (a) kardeᶊ- ler-im ‘my brothers’ Turkish
brother- PLU-my
(b) kardeᶊ- im-ler ‘my brother and his family’
brother-my-PLU
The generalizations about discontinuous and suprasegmental affix order (GEN-15 and GEN-16) are similarly statistical rather than absolute.
This is due to examples such as those in Section 4.1: infixing in Katu and Agta, circumfixing in Chikasaw, Russian, and German, introfixing in Hebrew, and suprasegmental affixing in English and Kisi. Here are addi-tional examples (as cited in Rubba 2001 : 679, 680, 681).
(52) (a) infixing Bontok (i) fikas ‘strong’
f- um -ikas ‘to be/become strong’
(ii) bato ‘stone’
b- um -ato ‘to be/become stone’
(b) circumfixing Yucatec Mayan
(i) leti ‘that one’
maɁ -leti Ɂi ‘not that one’
NEG -that.one- NEG
(ii) Ɂnkaat ‘I want (it)’
maɁ -Ɂnkaat- Ɂi ‘I don’t want it’
NEG -I.want(.it)- NEG
(c) introfixing Amharic
infinitive: m ǝ sb ǝ r imperfective: s ǝ br- perfective: s ǝ b ǝ r imperative: s ɨ b ǝ r
(d) suprafixing Ancient Greek
(i) potós ‘drunk’
p ó tos ‘a drink’
(ii) leuk ó s ‘white’
le ữ kos ‘whitefish’
GEN-14, GEN-15, and GEN-16 pertain to the last three of the six possible order patterns in the list above: free order, discontinuity, and suprafixing.
Next we will turn to precedence and adjacency relations between affix and base .
a. Suffixing versus prefixing
In his sample of 772 inflecting languages, Dryer ( 2005i ) found that more than half – 382 languages – were predominantly suffixing (e.g. West Greenlandic Eskimo) and a further 114 had a moderate preference for suf-fixes (e.g. Mokilese). On the prefixing side, there were only 54 languages where this was the predominant pattern (e.g. Hunde, a Bantu language of the Democratic Republic of Congo) and there were 92 with a moderate preference for prefixing (e. g. Mohawk). The number of languages in between – with an approximately equal amount of suffixing and prefixing – was 130 (e.g. Kiribati).
GEN-17: PRECEDENCE
Crosslinguistically, suffixing is more frequent than prefixing.
The picture of this overall preference for suffixing becomes more differen-tiated if two factors are considered. One is the function of individual affixes: whether they express case, subject agreement, object agreement, definiteness, and so forth. The other is the word order types of languages.
An observation of the former kind has to do with case affixes. In another of his WALS projects (Dryer 2005f ), Dryer found 466 languages where case is affixal. Of these, the overwhelming majority – 431 – have case suffixes;
only 35 have case prefixes. Thus, case affixes show a much greater prefer-ence to suffixal position than other affixes.
GEN-18: Crosslinguistically, case affixes tend to be suffixed.
Here is an example of the rare pattern of case prefixing (cited in Dryer 2005f : 210).
(53) wakaboola a -Joni ‘He came along with John.’ Tonga he.came with -John
A generalization of the second type, one linking affix position to word order type, is as follows (cf. Greenberg 1966a : #27).
GEN-19: Languages that have verb-final sentence order and postposi-tions are almost always exclusively suffixing.
What may be the explanation for the general preference for suffixing over prefixing? Two factors have been explored in the literature: one is a psychological factor having to do with the processing advantages of suffix-ing patterns, the other is diachronic involvsuffix-ing the historical origins of affixes. For a direct explanation of the causal sort, only diachrony is avail-able: as John Haiman remarked, “everything is the way it is because it got that way” (Haiman 2003 : 108). But it is psychological factors that in turn trigger and shape diachronic change and they are the ones to guide the selective survival of structures.
Christopher Hall’s explanatory argument ( 1988 ) for the overall prefer-ence for suffixing over prefixing (GEN-17 above) combines the two strands:
historical change and processing preferences. His proposal has two com-ponents. The first hypothesis is that affixes originate in lexical material:
they start out as free- standing words which , over time, fuse with bases due to the frequency with which they co-occur with them. These words may precede or follow the head of the construction that will eventually become the morphological base and thus, no preference is predicted so far for either prefixing or suffixing. This is where Hall’s second hypothesis comes in: lexical morphemes that follow stems are more likely to fuse with them than those preceding stems. This is because, as demonstrated by Hawkins and Gilligan ( 1988 ), from the point of view of word recogni-tion, it is preferable if the identity of the word is revealed immediately in sequential processing without the prefix getting in the way.
Let us now turn to the proximity of affixes and bases.
b. The Relevance Principle
Based on his 30-language sample, Joseph Greenberg proposed the follow-ing crosslfollow-inguistic generalization (Greenberg 1966a : #28):
If both the derivation and the inflection follow the root or they both precede the root, the derivation is always between the root and the inflection.
Examples abound. In the English word demonstrate-ion-s , the derivational affix - ion is placed closer to the stem than the plural -s (* demonstrate-s-ion );
and in harmon-iz-ing , - iz , a derivational affix, is also next to the base
followed by the inflectional affix - ing . Here is an example from prefixing that shows the mirror image of the English order of derivational and inflectional affixes (Kimenyi 1980 : 64).
(54) Úmwáana y-ii- shy i z-é-ho amabuye kúrí we. Kinyarwanda child AGR-REFL-
put-ASP-on
stones on him ‘The child puts stones on himself.’
The derivational affix ‘reflexive’ is adjacent to the stem; the agreement inflection is on the outside.
However, Greenberg’s generalization leaves two questions open. First, what are the orders of multiple derivational affixes relative to each other and the relative orders of multiple inflectional ones? And, second, what might be the reason for derivational affixes placed closer to the stem?
Joan Bybee’s proposal, labeled the Relevance Principle, suggests an answer to both queries (Bybee 1985 : 33–48 et passim ).
GEN-20: The varying proximity of an affix from the stem is general-ly proportionate to how relevant its meaning is to that of the stem.
Consider what this means for derivational affixes.
(55) (a) possibil- iti - z - ation English
(b) meg-bocsájt- hat-atlan-ság Hungarian
ASP-forgive-able-PRIV-NMLZ
(55a) is a noun derived by the outermost deverbal nominalizer -ation . In order for this affix to apply, a verb is needed: it in turn is derived by - z , a denominal verbalizer. It applies to the noun possibility , which in turn is derived from possible by the deadjectival nominalizer.
(55b) is also a noun: it is derived from an adjective by a privative affix, which in turn is added to a verb that expresses a possibility and that thus directly includes the ‘able’ affix. In both cases, affix order is in line with semantic scope.
Let us now consider how the Relevance Principle applies to the ordering of inflectional affixes. The examples in (56) are from Kimenyi 1980 : 54, 127 (glossing somewhat altered); those in (57) are from Weber 1989 : 89.
(56) (a) Kú-ririimb-a bi-ra- kome-ye . Kinyarwanda INF-sing-ASP S3-PRES- be.difficult-ASP
‘To sing is difficult.’
(b) Umugóre y-a -haa- w-e igitabo n’ûmugabo.
woman S3-PAST -give- PASS-ASP book by.man ‘The woman was given the book by the man.’
(57) Maqa- ka-ra-n-mi . Huallaga (Huánuco) Quechua hit- PASS-PAST-3S
‘He was hit.’
In both Kinyarwanda examples, the tense prefix (present or past) is next to the stem; the agreement morpheme is on the outside. Quechua is suf-fixing and thus it shows the mirror image of the Kinyarwanda order: the
tense suffix is again closer to the stem than the agreement marker. This is as the Relevance Principle predicts it: tense is more relevant to the seman-tic characterization of the verb; agreement in turn is externally imposed by the syntactic environment.
In the Quechua example, there is also a passive suffix that intervenes between stem and tense: it has a closer semantic relationship to the stem than tense does. There is a passive affix in the second Kinyarwanda exam-ple as well but it does not compete with the other affixes for position since it is on the opposite side of the base.
The same relevance-based order can be illustrated for noun affixation.
Turkish and Hungarian both have separatist expressions for number and case and in both languages, the number affix is the one adjacent to the stem. Greenberg ( 1966a : #39) noted: “Where morphemes of both number and case are present and both follow or both precede the noun base, the expression of number almost always comes between the noun base and the expression of case.” Number specification adds to the meaning of the noun; case simply signals its role in the sentence.
(58) (a) ev- ler-i Turkish
house- PLU-ACC
(b) ház- ak-at Hungarian
house- PLU-ACC
However, there are also examples of affix order that run counter to the Relevance Principle. The principle would predict that case affixes should always be peripheral and thus on the outer side of possessive affixes but in Finnish the opposite is the case (Comrie 1980 : 81).
(59) ystävä- lle-ni ‘to my friend’ Finnish
friend- to-my
And of course the sporadic examples of variable affix order that were cited above are also counter to the principle.
The observation , captured by the Relevance Principle, that the proxim-ity of affixes to the stem is governed by semantic coherence has an obvi-ous parallel in syntax: as noted in Chapter 3 , Section 3.3, words, phrases, and clauses are generally ordered in terms of Otto Behaghel’s principle, according to which semantically coherent elements tend to stand together. This raises the general question of how similar and how differ-ent morphological and syntactic structures are.
Let us begin with differences. First, sentences are less tightly struc-tured than words. The number of elements, their choice, the degree of phonological binding among them, and their order show less freedom in morphology than in syntax.
Second, sentences tend to be more compositional than words. That is, the meaning of a sentence tends more to be the sum of the meanings of the words than the meaning of a word is the sum of its morphemes. Word structure is historically more conservative and more idiosyncratic.
What are similarities between syntactic and morphological structure?
Beyond the fact that both involve patterns of co-occurrence between certain entities – words or morphemes – and patterns of temporal arrangement,
and beyond the parallelism between proximity and semantic cohesion men-tioned above, markedness relations – the common clustering of syntag-matic simplicity, paradigsyntag-matic complexity, and frequency – are evident both in syntax and in morphology as they are in the lexicon as well. As we will see in the next chapter, phonological structure is even more tightly knit than word structure; and markedness is similarly alive in phonology.