Distributed Morphology

2018 ◽  
pp. 142-165
Author(s):  
Daniel Siddiqi
Keyword(s):  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
Morphological Properties ◽  
The Status ◽  
Morphological Theory

This chapter surveys the key principles of the framework of Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993, 1994). This summary distinguishes itself from other such summaries by focusing primarily on DM’s morphological properties rather than its syntactic ones. Thus it focuses on morphological concerns such as the morpheme-based hypothesis, realizational morphology, morphological rules, segmentability, derivation vs. inflection, underspecification, productivity, blocking, allomorphy, and the interfaces of morphology with syntax and phonology. This chapter emphasizes metatheoretical concerns that would be of interest to students of comparative morphological theory with a significant focus on the strengths and weaknesses of Distributed Morphology as a theory of morphology. Secondary focus is also given to internal metatheoretic debates such as the status of roots in the grammar and the power of post-syntactic rules.

scholarly journals Features, Syntax, and Categories in the Latin Perfect

2000 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Embick
Keyword(s):  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
Verbal System ◽  
The Status ◽  
Category Labels ◽  
The Difference

The analysis centers on the notion of category in synthetic and analytic verbal forms and on the status of the feature that determines the forms of the Latin perfect. In this part of the Latin verbal system, active forms are synthetic (“verbs”) but passive forms are analytic (i.e., participle and finite auxiliary). I show that the two perfects occur in essentially the same structure and are distinguished by a difference in movement to T; moreover, the difference in forms can be derived without reference to category labels like “Verb” or “Adjective” on the Root. In addition, the difference in perfects is determined by a feature with clear syntactic consequences, which must be associated arbitrarily with certain Roots, the deponent verbs. I discuss the implications of these points in the context of Distributed Morphology, the theory in which the analysis is framed.

Syntactic Categorization of Roots

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terje Lohndal
Keyword(s):  
Building Block ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
Consonant Clusters ◽  
Semitic Languages ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Fundamental Building Block ◽  
The Status ◽  
Relevant Category ◽  
Syntactic Theories

A root is a fundamental minimal unit in words. Some languages do not allow their roots to appear on their own, as in the Semitic languages where roots consist of consonant clusters that become stems or words by virtue of vowel insertion. Other languages appear to allow roots to surface without any additional morphology, as in English car. Roots are typically distinguished from affixes in that affixes need a host, although this varies within different theories. Traditionally roots have belonged to the domain of morphology. More recently, though, new theories have emerged according to which words are decomposed and subject to the same principles as sentences. That makes roots a fundamental building block of sentences, unlike words. Contemporary syntactic theories of roots hold that they have little if any grammatical information, which raises the question of how they acquire their seemingly grammatical properties. A central issue has revolved around whether roots have a lexical category inherently or whether they are given a lexical category in some other way. Two main theories are distributed morphology and the exoskeletal approach to grammar. The former holds that roots merge with categorizers in the grammar: a root combined with a nominal categorizer becomes a noun, and a root combined with a verbal categorizer becomes a verb. On the latter approach, it is argued that roots are inserted into syntactic structures which carry the relevant category, meaning that the syntactic environment is created before roots are inserted into the structure. The two views make different predictions and differ in particular in their view of the status of empty categorizers.

scholarly journals Greek derivational affixes roots or categorizers?

2021 ◽  
pp. 129-150
Author(s):  
Artemis Alexiadou
Keyword(s):  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
The Status

In this paper, I am concerned with the status of derivational affixes in Distributed Morphology: are these roots or categorizers? I will compare Greek to English and Dutch, as some derivational affixes in these two languages have been claimed to be roots. I will show that Greek derivational affixes are categorizers, and I will offer an explanation that capitalizes on the stress properties of Greek derivational affixes.

Morphology in Austronesian Languages

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore Levin ◽  
Maria Polinsky
Keyword(s):  
Morphological Properties ◽  
Verbal Morphology ◽  
Verbal System ◽  
Austronesian Languages ◽  
Lexical Categories ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Case Markers ◽  
Nominal Morphology

This is an overview of the major morphological properties of Austronesian languages. We present and analyze data that may bear on the commonly discussed lexical-category neutrality of Austronesian and suggest that Austronesian languages do differentiate between core lexical categories. We address the difference between roots and stems showing that Austronesian roots are more abstract than roots traditionally discussed in morphology. Austronesian derivation and inflexion rely on suffixation and prefixation; some infixation is also attested. Austronesian languages make extensive use of reduplication. In the verbal system, main morphological exponents mark voice distinctions as well as causatives and applicatives. In the nominal domain, the main morphological exponents include case markers, classifiers, and possession markers. Overall, verbal morphology is richer in Austronesian languages than nominal morphology. We also present a short overview of empirically and theoretically challenging issues in Austronesian morphology: the status of infixes and circumfixes, the difference between affixes and clitics, and the morphosyntactic characterization of voice morphology.

The Status of the Morpheme

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Leu
Keyword(s):  
Driving Force ◽  
Phonological Information ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Feature Sets ◽  
Intuitive Appeal ◽  
Linguistic Sign ◽  
Central Notion ◽  
The Status ◽  
Morphological Theory ◽  
Morphosyntactic Feature

The morpheme was the central notion in morphological theorizing in the 20th century. It has a very intuitive appeal as the indivisible and invariant unit of form and meaning, a minimal linguistic sign. Ideally, that would be all there is to build words and sentences from. But this ideal does not appear to be entirely adequate. At least at a perhaps superficial understanding of form as a series of phonemes, and of meaning as concepts and morphosyntactic feature sets, the form and the meaning side of words are often not structured isomorphically. Different analytical reactions are possible to deal with the empirical challenges resulting from the various kinds of non-isomorphism between form and meaning. One prominent option is to reject the morpheme and to recognize conceptually larger units such as the word or the lexeme and its paradigm as the operands of morphological theory. This contrasts with various theoretical options maintaining the morpheme, terminologically or at least conceptually at some level. One such option is to maintain the morpheme as a minimal unit of form, relaxing the tension imposed by the meaning requirement. Another option is to maintain it as a minimal morphosyntactic unit, relaxing the requirements on the form side. The latter (and to a lesser extent also the former) has been understood in various profoundly different ways: association of one morpheme with several form variants, association of a morpheme with non-self-sufficient phonological units, or association of a morpheme with a formal process distinct from affixation. Variants of all of these possibilities have been entertained and have established distinct schools of thought. The overall architecture of the grammar, in particular the way that the morphology integrates with the syntax and the phonology, has become a driving force in the debate. If there are morpheme-sized units, are they pre-syntactic or post-syntactic units? Is the association between meaning and phonological information pre-syntactic or post-syntactic? Do morpheme-sized pieces have a specific status in the syntax? Invoking some of the main issues involved, this article draws a profile of the debate, following the term morpheme on a by-and-large chronological path from the late 19th century to the 21st century.

MICROMORPHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF SEEDS IN SOME SPECIES OF LATHYRUS L. IN SOUTH CAUCASUS (AZERBAIJAN)

2020 ◽  
Vol 6(72) (1) ◽  
pp. 14-25
Author(s):  
G. F. Allahverdiyeva ◽  
A. M. Asgarov
Keyword(s):  
Side Surface ◽  
Morphological Characters ◽  
Morphological Properties ◽  
South Caucasus ◽  
General Shape ◽  
Taxonomic Importance ◽  
The Status ◽  
Different Populations ◽  
First Time ◽  
Electronic Microscope

For the first time, micromorphology structure of seeds in 10 species (L. annuus, L. cicera, L. hirsutus, L. tuberosus, L. miniatus, L. pratensis, L. laxiflorus, L. aphaca, L. nissolia, L. sphaericus) belonging to sections (Lathyrus, Pratensis, Aphaca, Nissolia, Linearicarpus) of Lathyrus L. collected from various regions of Azerbaijan were analysed. Seed samples of 10 species were taken for analysis from different biotopes and different populations located away from one-another. Collected seed materials were gathered in special sterile paper bags and their moisture was dried with silicagel substance in laboratory conditions. During the research, morphological characters, as well as general shape, size and colour of seed, length and width of hilum were identified under Leica EZ4D stereomicroscope. The largest seeds have been measured in Lathyrus (L. cicera 4,4–5,0 mm) section and the smallest seeds in Nissolia (L. nissolia 1,8–2,3 mm) section. The longest hilum belongs to L. miniatus 1,8–2,8 mm and the smallest in L. Nissolia 0,4–0,7 mm. The width hilum was measured in L. annuus (0,7–1,0 mm) and the narrow hilum L. nissolia (0,1–0,3 mm). Mature seed (2–3) samples were selected from each type under the SEM, the seeds were placed on stools with double-sided adhesive tapes and covered with gold powder through the JEOL JFC1600 ion-spray device for 1 to 2 minutes. Seed samples were researched on the side surface. The photos of the surface of seeds were taken in a 3000× size in JEOL JSM6610 lv electronic microscope, and structural analysis of the different places of their surfaces was conducted. The results showed that the microscopic research of the surface of seed is of taxonomic importance and is used in specification of the status of sections. The morphological properties such as surface structure, hilum length and width, papillae features can be used to differentiate some sections and species, but seed size, general shape seed and hilum, seed colour are not characteristics can be used to differentiate some sections.

scholarly journals Er øko et konfiks eller er det igen blevet til en rod?

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 265-274
Author(s):  
Andrzej Szubert
Keyword(s):  
Morphological Properties ◽  
German Language ◽  
The Status ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Way

Abstract The term Fr. confixe is not new and was used for the first time in 1982 but at present it is actually only used in German language linguistic literature. Confixes are morphemes of Latin and Greek origin that can form words with stems, affixes and other confixes. The article is an attempt at describing the confix øko- in the Danish language as well as its semantic and morphological properties. The status of confixes is unusual because they are actually bound morphemes with the exception that two confixes can form a word. The use of øko- shows that it is on the way to becoming a free morpheme (root), or perhaps it has become it already.

Defaulting to the new Romance synthetic future

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolas Gisborne
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Representation ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Representation Model ◽  
The Status ◽  
Morphological Theory ◽  
Theory Of Language

This chapter explores the emergence of the new synthetic Romance future from a periphrasis involving habeo and the infinitive of a verb, addressing the question of how to model such a change in a theory of language which has a Word and Paradigm theory of morphology. The theoretical discussion is conducted in Word Grammar, a theory of language structured around a default inheritance architecture that treats language as a knowledge representation model, in a symbolic network. It is explicitly mentalist, and the account of the changes involved draws on WG’s mentalism, particularly to explore how language learners set defaults on the basis of their models’ grammars’ outputs which may be different from the defaults of their models’ grammars. The two phenomena that this chapter addresses from the point of view of morphological theory are periphrasis (and whether it can be formalized within a paradigm) and the status of clitics.

Learning Numbers: A Linguistic Perspective

1986 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-111
Author(s):  
Pearla Nesher ◽  
Tamar Katriel
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Oral Reading ◽  
Formal Language ◽  
Primary Grades ◽  
Morphological Properties ◽  
Number Words ◽  
Children’S Learning ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Difference

The difference in the status of numbers—as predicates in natural language and as objects in the formal language of mathematics—is argued to have consequences for children's learning of numbers and for the construction of arithmetic texts in the primary grades. This distinction is exemplified by the findings of an empirical study that utilized particular morphological properties of Hebrew relating to gender inflections for number words. The findings indicate that there is a crossing of the two language systems in children's oral reading of a mixed arithmetic text (words and numerals).

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