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Chris Reintges
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Witte Singel 25 (building 1175/202C), tel. 527-2258
The domain of morphology
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1.
Outline of the course
This course provides an introduction to the field of morphology, i.e. the study of word
structure and the relation between word forms and words.
We will address some of the basic issues in morphological theory and review several
competing theories of word structure in generative grammar, but we will also take a
closer look at the morphological systems of Non-Western European languages.
In these languages, the study of morphological process often provides us with some
introspection into syntactic and phonological constituency.
Researchers from different areas of linguistics (syntax, phonology) and with different
assumptions on the place of morphology in a theory of grammar.
Morphemes and word structure
A theory of morphology captures grammatical knowledge of the speaker about the structure
of words and relations between words in his or her language:
(1)
“Morphology is at the conceptual centre of linguistics. This is not because it is the
dominant subdiscipline, but because morphology is the study of word structure, and
words are the interface between phonology, syntax and semantics. Words have
phonological properties, they articulate together to form phrases and sentences, their
form often reflects their syntactic function and their parts are often composed of
meaningful smaller units. In addition, words contract relationships with each other by
virtue of their form, that is, they form paradigms and lexical groupings. For this
reason, morphology is something all linguistics have to know about (...)” (Spencer &
Zwicky 2001:1)
The quotation in (1) from the Handbook of Morphology introduces three major themes of
morphological theorizing:
(i)
Decomposition: the internal make-up of words from smaller meaningful units. Native
speakers of English will agree that an internally complex word like disagreement
consists of three components dis-, -agree, and -ment, even if they can’t give an exact
etymology of these parts.
1
(ii)
The systematic relationships between word forms that underlies the notion of a
paradigm (e.g. walk, walks, walked, and walking, which have a derivational base that
consists as separate word, and an ending -s, -ed, -ing that expresses a particular set of
formal feature, e.g. [3rd sing. masc.]
(iii) The encoding of different types of linguistic information in words (phonological
shape, syntactic category (verb vs. noun), meaning/reference (e.g. rose /rUz/ [+N,V], <FLOWER>. In modular theories of grammar, these different types of information
are associated with different levels of representation: syntax, phonology, and
semantics (interpretation/logical form). Morphology as subsystem of syntax or
phonology or as an independent grammatical module (“interface” component).
The question of how the phonological and the semantic structure of words are connected
represents a fundamental issue of morphological study; yet morphology never expanded
into a theory of semiotics; Saussurean axiom of linguistic signs as arbitrary pairings
between form and meaning (cat: /kÓ´t/ ⇔ <FELINE>) .
Although the architecture of the (mental) lexicon plays an important role in morphological
theorizing, most morphological theories are not psycholinguistic theories about lexical
access or word storage (lemma/form distinction: is an item like rose stored in the same
department as tulip, daisy, lily or stored in another department with phonologically identical
or phonologically related items like rose /rUz/ (< rise), rosé /rUzei/, rosin /rAzIn/).
1.1
Morphemes as discrete form-meaning pairings
In a sense, then, morphology is not a theory about words per se, but rather about complex
words with an internal structure, which displays a systematic connection between proper
subparts of a word’s form and proper subparts of its meaning:
(2)
a.
[N dis- [V agree- [N ment]
b.
[OPPOSITE OF [APPROVE [STATE-OF-BEING]
The partition of words like disagreement into smaller parts lies at the foundation of the
structuralist conception of the morpheme as a minimal sign (form-meaning association).
Based on this notion of the morpheme, structuralists made the following seemingly obvious
statements concerning word structure:
(3)
a.
Every word is composed exhaustively of morphemes
b.
Every morpheme is a word form is represented by one and one allomorph, i.e.
different phonological shapes of one and the same morpheme (e.g. the a/an
alternation of the indefinite article in English) → ALLOMORPHY
c.
Morphemes are arranged into a hierarchical structure (immediate constituent
structure) → MORPHOTACICS (word syntax)
2
The division of the study of morphology into allomorphy and morphotactics has been very
influential in early generative studies of word structure and underlies reductionist research
agendas, which treat morphology as a subsystem of phonology and syntax (for review, see
Anderson 1992:ch.1, Spencer 1991:ch.2).
1.2
(iii) FEATURE MERGER/COALESCENCE: expression of two or more semantic categories by
means of a single unsegmentable morph (so-called portmanteau morphemes).
Consider the partial paradigm of affirmative and negative tense/aspects in Coptic
Egyptian (Ancient Egyptian, 6th -13th c. AD), which do not share phonological
properties in common (-f 3rd sing. masc. ‘he’, sotm ‘to hear’):
Mismatches between phonological and semantic structure
Despite its conceptual appeal, the structuralist view of word structure is intrinsically
problematic, since it is based on relatively transparent word forms that are created by
simple affixation. Moreover, it presupposes a one-to-one correspondence between form and
meaning/function. Putting aside the question whether/how non-concatenative
morphological processes like reduplication can be assimilated to affixation [class], there are
several types of mismatches between the phonological and the semantic structure of words:
(i)
UNDERSPECIFICATION: Elements in the word structure that convey grammatical
meaning, but lack phonological form as in the case of the English present tense, cf.
table 1:
3RD
MASC.
AFFIRMATIVE
TENSE
SING.
PERFECT
a-f-sotm
HABITUAL
Sa-f-sotm
FUTURE
e-f-e-sotm
IMPERATIVE
sotm
NEGATIVE
TENSE
3RD
MASC.
SING.
Negative
Perfect
Negative
Habitual
Negative
Future
mpe-f-sotm
he has/has not heard
me- f-sotm
he does/does not hear usually
nne- f-sotm
he shall/should not hear
Negative
Imperative
mper-sotm
listen!/do not listen!
TABLE 2. Affirmative and negative tense-aspects in Coptic Egyptian
PRESENT TENSE
SINGULAR
PLURAL
1st
2nd
3rd
walk
walk
walk-s
walk
walk
walk
(iv) EXTENDED EXPONENCE: The morphosyntactic properties associated with as inflected
word may be expressed by more than one morphological marker in that word (Stump
2001:4)
TABLE 1. The English present tense paradigm
The “bare” stem walk can express any person and number combination except third person
singular.
In Swahili negative past tense forms, negation is expressed both by the use of the negative
past-tense prefix ku- and by the negative prefix ha- (Stump 2001:4). Compare (5a) with
(5b):
(5)
(ii)
In Standard Arabic, definiteness is expressed by means of the article prefix l-. The l-prefix
cannot be directly attached to the determined noun, since Arabic nouns cannot begin with a
consonant cluster (4a). To avoid consonant clusters, the prefix receives an epenthetic vowel
/a/. The resulting form -al is, however, not a prosodically well-formed form, since words
must have a consonantal onset (4b). Therefore, a glottal stop /// is introduced as a default
consonantal onset (4c). Vowel and consonant epenthesis is blocked in the context of
prepositions like fi- ‘in’ (4d):
(4)
a.
*l-kitaab
the-book
b.
*al-kitaab
c.
/al-kitaab
d.
fi-l-kitaab
in-the-book
3
a.
tu-li-taka
1p-PAST-want
‘We wanted’
Elements in the word structure that are phonological, but not semantic (epenthesis,
theme vowels)
b.
ha-tu-ku-taka
NEG-1p-NEG:PAST-want
‘We did not want’
As we will see next, mismatches between morphological marking and syntactic/semantic
features in word structures are problematic for INCREMENTAL, but not for REALIZATIONAL
theories of morphology.
1.3
Incremental vs. realizational theories of morphology
According to incremental theories, inflectional morphology is information increasing:
words like walk acquire syntactic features like [3rd pers. subject agreement] [present tense]
[indicative mood] only through the addition of the formative -s, which is inserted from the
lexicon. On Lieber’s (1992) view, an affix like -s is a lexical entry in much the same way as
the verb like and therefore provided with its own subcategorization frame, restricting the
syntactic contexts into which it may be appear: [VSTEM __] (i.e. combines with a preceding
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verb stem). According to realizational theories (Anderson 1992, Stump 2001), the
association of an inflected word with a given array of morphosyntactic properties licenses
the application of WORD FORMATION RULES (WFR) determining the word’s inflectional
form:
(6)
/XSTEM/ → /X-s/
[3rd pers. subject agreement]
[present tense]
[indicative mood]
Realizational theories are generally compatible with the underspecification of a given
morphosyntactic feature in an inflected word form. On this approach, null morphemes
result from a WFR effecting no change in form. In incremental theories, by contrast, the
morphosyntactic properties of an inflected word must be read off from the morphological
marking; the way out would be to postulate invisible morphological structure in the form of
a zero affix.
Since in realizational theories there is no expectation of a one-to-one correspondence
between morphosyntactic features and morphological marking, they are compatible with
the overspecification (multiple exponence) of a given feature: the possibility is left open
that the same property may cause the introduction of a number of distinct markings.
Incremental theories, on the other hand, assume that the morphosyntactic properties of an
inflected word form can be traced back to at most one morphological marker (see Stump
2001:ch.1 for further discussion).
To conclude, assuming a working definition of morphemes as pairs of morphosyntactic
features and exponents (i.e. formatives that realize these features), the creation of word
structure represents, at least partially, a departure from the “ideal” situation of a one-to-one
correspondence between phonological and semantic/syntactic structure: morphology as s
source for parametric variation (see Chomsky 1996:26 and the references cited therein).
2.
The place of morphology
In the previous section we discussed the role of “morphemes” as the building blocks for
word structure and several types of mismatches between morphosyntactic feature bundles
that define a particular morphological category and their morphological realisation by
means of particular formatives or exponents. In this section we will be concerned with the
place of word formation in the grammatical system. Of particular relevance is the question
whether there are a single, relatively homogenous morphological module or rather two or
more subdomains of word structure, associated with distinct properties and principles.
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2.1
Derivation vs. inflection
We will begin with the traditional distinction between inflectional and derivational
morphology. The domain of derivational morphology is lexeme formation, i.e. the creation
of new lexical items (compounds, e.g. /bird/ + /black/ → blackbird, agentive nouns, e.g.
/sing/ + /-er/ → blackbird). The domain of inflectional morphology, on the other hand, is
paradigm formation, i.e. the spell-out of the morphosyntactic properties array associated
with a particular base. In languages with morphological case, every noun will have all the
case it needs to participate in syntax. Thus, Latin nouns will always appear with a particular
case marking:
CASE
SINGULAR
PLURAL
nominative
Genitive
dative
accusative
Ablative
amic-a
amic-ae
amic-ae
amica-rum
amic-ae
amic-is
amic-am
amic-as
amic-a
amic-is
TABLE 3. Latin case-ending amica (2nd declension) ‘girl-friend’
Several criteria are commonly used to show that the traditional notion of inflection and
derivation correspond, indeed, to coherent subdomains of word structure. As we will see
while we proceed, these criteria are, to some degree, logically independent from one
another. Therefore, we would not necessarily expect each of them to divide morphological
phenomena into the same two groups.
(i)
Syncategorematicity vs. change in syntactic category
Inflectional morphology is category preserving: word forms that are members of the same
inflectional paradigm share both their basic lexical meaning and their syntactic category
(noun, noun, adjective), i.e. they are syncategorematic. Derivational morphology may,
however, change the syntactic category of the input form, e.g. singV → singerN. However,
that derivational morphology does not always a category-changing process, e.g. readV →
re- readV, presidentN → ex-presidentN.
(ii)
Syntactic determination
The syntactic context into which a given lexical item is inserted may require it to be
realized by a particular member in its paradigm, but never requires the item itself to belong
to a particular derivational class. Thus, if the item SING occurs as the complement of the
auxiliary verb HAVE, it must appear in its past participial form, e.g. we have
*sing/*sings/*singing/*sang/sung. By contrast, there is no syntactic context that requires
derived nominals like driver and excludes the synonymous simplex chauffeur (cf. Stump
1998:15). “Inflectional morphology is what is relevant to syntax” (Anderson 1982:587)
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There are, however, some borderline cases where inflectional morphology is not directly
relevant to syntax. Latin verbs fall into different conjugational classes, which are
distinguished from one another by means of a particular theme vowel. Theme vowels are
empty morphs that do not contribute to the semantics of the verbal stem they are attached
to. Yet, theme vowels act in complex ways with inflected verb forms, as shown by the
contrast between the present and perfect tense forms in table 3 below (cf. Aronoff 1994:45ff
for a more detailed discussion)
CONJUGATION
First
Second
Fourth
Third
PERFECT 1ST
PERS. SING
THEME
VOWEL
PRESENT
a®
am-a®-re
e®
mon-e®-re
i®
aud-i®-re
aud-i®--o®
audi®-w-i®
e, i, ¡
reg-e-re
reg-o®
re®k-s-i®
ACTIVE
INFINITIVE
PERFECT
1ST PERS. SING.
GLOSS
am-o®
am-a®-w-i®
mon-e®-o®
mon-u-i®
I love, have loved
I advise, have advised
I hear, have heard
I rule, have ruled
However, note that (7) is based on the view that the lexicon is a a repository of all
idiosyncratic information (for the equation of lexical and idiosyncratic, see Aronoff
1994:16ff).
But is the claim that derivation always involves a change in meaning, while inflection is
semantically invariable empirically correct?
Semantic neutrality in derivation
“Etymologically, -er was a diminutive suffix for nouns; but it has lost its semantic content
in modern Mandarin, and its distribution in the Beijing dialect has been extended to other
parts of speech, including some place words, time words, verbs, and classifier/measure
words, as a purely phonological phenomenon … Basically, the retroflex suffix remains a
nominal suffix as it once was when it served as a diminutive suffix.” (Li & Thompson
1981:39f):
(8)
TABLE 4. Latin verb conjugations
(iii)
Semantic regularity
Inflection is semantically more regular than derivation and does not affect the basic lexical
meaning of the input form. Derivational morphology, on the other hand, does affect the
semantics of the input. Often, derived forms may acquire idiosyncratic meanings. Thus, the
third person suffix –s is associated with a stable semantic core ( [present tense], [indicative
mood]) with the verbalizing derivational suffix-ize, which has a more variable meaning
(e.g. stabilize ‘to make s.th. stable’, winterize ‘to prepare sth. for winter’, hospitalize ‘to put
s.o. into a hospital).
(7)
-er
-er
-er
Productivity
Inflection is generally more productive than derivation. The English plural suffix -s can
generally be applied to every count noun, while the causative suffix -en can be combined
only with a limited number of adjectives (e.g. harden, blacken, whiten, deafen, soften,
fasten, but not *dryen, *dimmen, *greenen, *colden). As a diagnostics, productivity is not
a reliable diagnostics to distinguish inflectional from derivational morphology: irregular
verbs (sing, sang, sung) and irregular plural nouns (oxen, mice, children)
(iv)
+
gen@ +
+
gui#
nia#o
“Assumption: Semantic idiosyncrasy may be attributed to the fact that derivational
morphology is located in the lexicon. The fact that the meaning of inflected forms is
fully determinate may then be taken as evidence for the syntactic (rule-governed)
character of inflectional morphology.” (Stump 1998:17)
→
→
→
‘bird’
‘root’
‘ghost’
nia#or
ge@r
gui#r
“The difference between forms with and without -er seems to be purely a matter of style.
There is no reason whatsoever to think of it as inflectional, and it thus seems to be an
instance of a derivational affix which makes no change in the meaning of the base to which
it is attached.” (Anderson 1992:79)
Semantic neutrality in inflection
Older Egyptian (Ancient Egyptian, 2300-1900 BCE) has two inflectional paradigm for
finite verb forms, the Eventive and the Stative, which are characterised by different sets of
verbal endings:
EVENTIVE
1s
2sm
2sf
3sm
3sf
1p
2p
3pm
3pf
before NP
STATIVE
sdZm(-j), sdZm-j
sdZm-k(-j), sdZm-kj, sdZm-kw
sdZm-k
sdZm-t(-j), sdZm-tj
sdZm-c#, sdZm-c#n
sdZm-t(-j), sdZm-tj
sdZm-f
sdZm-w, sdZm(-w), sdZm-jj
sdZm-s
sdZm-t(-j), sdZm-tj
sdZm-n
sdZm-wjn, sdZm-nw(j)
sdZm-c#n
sdZm-tjn
sdZm-sn
sdZm-w, sdZm-jj
sdZm-sn
sdZm-t(-j), sdZm-tj
sdZm
NP
NPmasc. sdZm-w, NPfem. sdZm-tj
TABLE 5. The Older Egyptian Eventive and the Stative paradigm
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8
The Eventive and the Stative conjugation express not only a syntactic relation between the
subject and the finite verb, but also indicate different Aktionsarten: Eventive verb forms
express events, actions, inchoatives, and accomplishments, as (9a) exemplifies, while the
corresponding Statives express resultant states, as (9b) illustrates:
(9)
a.
H?-w-f
m
stem itself consists of a single syllable only (IMP ‘imperative,
Anderson 1982:590 and the references cited therein):
(11) a.
b.
hit-IMP
‘Hit it!’
Eventive
Xsf-k
pu-ngka
INTENS
‘intensive’) (see
pu.ngka-pu.ngka
hit.IMP-INTENS
‘Hit it quickly!’
cheer-PROS-3sm EV about meet(-INF)-2sm
‘He (the god Geb) will rejoice about meeting you’ (PT 656a/M)
b.
H?-k(j)
cheer-1sST
m
dZj-t
pŽ-j
pt
Stative
about give-INF reach-1s heaven
‘I will be happy about my being caused to reach heaven.’ (Sarenput,
architrave:13 [Gardiner ZÄS 45 (1908) pl.6])
(v)
Inflection closes words to further derivation, while derivation does not
Thus, in English, so-called privative adjectives are derived from simplex as well as derived
nouns (e.g. sockless, driverless), but they cannot be derived from a noun’s inflected plural
form (*socksless, *driversless) (Stump 1998:18)
A corollary of this criterion is that in words that contain inflectional as well as derivational
morphology, the derivational markers are always closer to the root than the inflectional
ones. This criterion has been used to motivate the so-called split-morphology hypothesis,
according to which all derivation takes place in the lexicon prior to lexical insertion, while
all regular inflection is syntactic:
(10) “Such a view of morphology, in particular the separation of inflection from
derivation, has a number of advantages. For one, it represents the fact, often noted but
never really explained that, (with certain well-defined exceptions) inflectional
morphology appears “outside of” derivational morphology. (...) On the view sketched
here this is a necessary consequence of the operation of inflectional rules a lexically
formed derived stem and may add further affixes, but they do not then allow the
inflected form to undergo further derivation.” (Anderson 1982:607)
There are, however, several types of counterevidence casting doubt on the empirical
validity of this criterion:
Denominal adjectives in German
lexically derived form involves plural nouns, e.g. ros-en-artig ‘rosaceous’, knab-en-haft
‘boyish’, kind-er-los ‘childless’
Intensive reduplication in Walpiri
Walpiri has a rule of intensive reduplication, which copies the initial CV segment of a
verbal stem. Intensive reduplication copies the entire inflectional material when the verbal
9
From (11) Anderson (1982:590) concludes that “tense marking on Walpiri verbs is really
derivational, rather than inflectional (in the terms of the theory)”
Older Egyptian reduplicative stem patterns
Older Egyptian makes use of prefixes and suffixes. But while prefixes like the causative
marker s- (glossed CAUS) are always derivational, suffixes may be derivational as well as
inflectional. Particularly clear cases of this are reduplicative suffixes, which contain a full
or partial copy of the root morpheme. Reduplicative suffixes are used for the morphological
expression of both intensive/repetitive verb stems (glossed INTENS/REPET) and imperfective
verb stem (glossed IMPF). Compare (12a,b) with (12c):
(12) a.
s-fX-fX
CAUS-loosen-INTENS/REPET
‘to release (totally)’
b.
s-nX-X
CAUS-be.young-INTENS/REPET
‘to rejuvenate’
c.
ms-s
bear-IMPF
‘is being born’
Two problems for the split-morphology hypothesis:
(i)
Reduplicative suffixes and causative prefixes appear at different sides of the
derivational base (11a-b).
(ii)
Same type of morphological operation (reduplicative copying) is used is derivation
and inflection. So perhaps imperfective verb stems are derivational after all (but then
why can they not combined with other inflectional marker (e.g. the prospective
marker -w: *ms-s-w bear-IMPF-PROSP ‘will be being born’)
So, which conclusions can be drawn from the previous discussion about the empirical
motivation for the distinction between inflectional and derivation?
(13) a.
“But, derivation is in general as paradigmatic, productive, and transparent as
inflection, and neither derivation nor inflection can create things that could be
mono-morphemic (nor can Ns, Vs, and As be mono-morphemic)” (Marantz
2001:10)
b.
“The theoretical appropriateness of the inflection/derivation distinction will be
definitively established only through the comparison of carefully constructed
formal analyses of ambitious scope for a typologically diverse range of
grammatical systems. Only by this means can the fundamental question be
10
c.
addressed: Does a theory of grammar that incorporates this distinction furnish
simpler (more learnable) grammars than one that doesn’t?” (Stump 1998:19)
2.2.2
The “Weak” Lexicalist Hypothesis (Anderson 1982, 1992)
“We must first remember that derivation and inflection are not kinds of
morphology but rather uses of morphology: inflection is the morphological
realisation of syntax, while derivation is the morphological realisation of
lexeme formation. Morphology can be put to either derivational and inflectional
ends, and the same morphology can sometimes serve both” (Aronoff 1994:1267)
Interaction between word structure and syntax in the domain of inflectional morphology
(agreement, case configurationality)
(16) a.
b.
2.2
Lexicalism
Starting with Chomsky’s (1970) Remarks on Nominalization, the lexicon has been
identified as the component of grammar where morphological operations are operative.
This view on the lexicon has come to be known as the “lexicalist” position. In the Remarks
on nominalization, the term “lexicalist” is used in opposition to “transformational”
position: the idiosyncratic behaviour of derived nominals like eagerness or certainty cannot
tranformationally be derived from the corresponding sentences, since transformations are
structure-preserving.
(17)
“The Morphosyntactic Representation (MSR) of a word is the only aspect of it
that is visible to/in the syntax; and the only way the syntax can affect the form
of a word is by manipulating its MSR.”(Anderson 1992:90)
“Monotonicity: The only effect a syntactic principle can have on a MSR is to
add features to its.”(Anderson 1992:92)
The architecture of grammar in Anderson’s (1982) Split-morphology
Lexicon
D-structure
Syntax (move α)
“Dictionary” (list of items)
Rules of derivation
We will review in a nutshell three different lexicalist positions:
Lexical items (stems)
Independence of syntax and word structure:
(14) a.
b.
(15)
S-structures (trees and MSR)
The “Strict” Lexicalist Hypothesis (DiSciullo & Williams 1987, Lieber 1992)
2.2.1
Lexically interpreted S-structures
Derivational and inflectional processes take place in the lexicon
The syntax neither manipulates nor has access to the internal structure of
words.
Phonology (spell-out of inflection)
Interpretation
LF
The architecture of grammar in “Strong” Lexicalist theories models
Lexicon
Derivational morphology (category changing)
Inflectional morphology (paradigmatic)
word forms
Syntax (move α)
Phonology
•
The terminal nodes of syntactic representations are not lexical items, but rather MSR.
MSR are in principle unordered lists of grammatical features.
•
Lexical insertion takes place at s-structure; it is a process of lexical interpretation
where a lexical item is chosen to interpret each terminal node in way that is consistent
with the lexical requirements of the stem.
•
Word formation Rules (WFR) that relate one word to another in terms of some
specifiable set of changes in properties.
LF
11
12
2.2.3
Distributed Morphology
Anti-lexicalist (“No escape from syntax – Don’t try morphological analysis in the privacy
of your own lexicon”): single structure, single generative engine leads to strictly local
relations:
(18) a.
“To imagine a theory in which the grammar constructs all words in the syntax
by the same general mechanism (“merge and move”; see Chomsky 1995) that
construct phrases, it is useful to make the natural assumption that whether you
get a “zero-level category” (word-like unit) or a phrasal category by merging
two constituents is a function of the (categories of the) constituents involved,
not of the “merger” operation itself.” (Marantz 1997:205)
b.
“Distributed Morphology explodes the Lexicon and includes a number of
distributed, non-computational lists as Lexicon-replacements” (Marantz
1997:203)
(19)
→
List 2
→
Computational system (syntax) (“merge and move”)
Phonology
List 1
List 2
“Narrow Lexicon”
“Vocabulary”
List 3
“Encyclopedia”
Semantic interface
•
Feature added to the syntactic structure in the morpho-phonology may only be
features that could not be part of the “lexical items” themselves (i.e. fused bundles of
features that operate in the syntax) Thus do insertion in English, which involves
adding a little ‘v’, must be syntactic and not morphological.
2.3
Verbal/Eventive vs. Adjectival/Stative Passives
2.3.1
Wasow’s (1977) “Transformations and the Lexicon”
Modular distinction between verbal passives like (20a), which are formed in the syntax, and
adjectival passives like (20b), which are formed in the lexicon:
[The latter option]i was chosen ti by many employees.
The unchosen option
Verbal passive as prototypical transformational operation (mapping from D-structure to Sstructure):
(21) a. ec was killed[-ACCUSATIVE] John in an accident.
LF
Phonetic interface
Spell-out hands the syntactically generated structure to the morpho-phonology and to
LF for interpretation, and this occurs cyclically, at the end of each “phase”
(20) a.
b.
The architecture of grammar in Distributed Morphology
List 1
•
←
List 3
atomic roots, bundles of grammatical features
provides the phonological forms for the
terminal nodes of syntax
list of special meanings
b. John was killed in an accident.
In principles-and-parameter theory (Chomsky 1981): NP movement to prevent a case-filter
violation
Verbal and adjectival passives in English display systematic distributional differences:
Locality:
The subject of adjectival passives must be an argument of the base verb, and cannot be the
argument of a complement:
•
Universal Grammar provides a universal set of properties or features.
•
A language chooses a subset of these features to use in grammar
•
The language further chooses a subset of this features for the computational system of
syntax and decides how to package the chosen features into the terminal nodes of the
syntax (“morphemes”)
(22) a.
b.
•
These morphemes contain only the features relevant to the computational system and
so lack phonological and purely morphological features, which are inserted in the
(morpho-)phonology (= late insertion)
In (21a), the subject of the verbal passive is the subject of the embedded infinitival clause.
Due the presence of the un-prefix, the predicate unknown can be identified as an adjectival
passive. (21b) is ungrammatical, because the NP Tracey is not an argument of the adjectival
passive unknown, but the subject of the embedded infinitival clause:
13
Tracey was known [___ to be a layer]
*Tracey was unknown [___ to be a layer]
14
Idiosyncrasy/Productivity:
Unlike verbal passives, adjectival passives have many idiosyncratic exceptions. While
perception verbs like find and notice allow verbal passives freely, but only allow adjectival
passives if these are accompanied by an adverbial expression:
(23) a.
b.
These specimens were found by students.
These specimens look *(recently) found.
(24) a.
b.
Two errors were noticed by every reviewer.
Two *(widely) noticed errors have been corrected.
2.2.3
Dubinsky & Simango’s (1996) “two places” challenge to the “Strong” Lexicalist
view on passive morphology
Chichewa [Bantu] has morphologically distinct passive (passive affix -idw or -edw) and
stative constructions (Stative affix -ik or -ek) that correspond in meaning and
distributional behaviour to verbal and adjectival passives, respectively:
(26) a.
zi-na-phik-idw-a
beans
AGR-PAST-cook-PASS-FV
‘The beans were cooked.’(D&S 1996:750)
b.
Based on such facts as these, Wasow (1977) suggested that there is a need to distinguish
between operations in the lexicon, which underlie the formation of adjectival passives, and
syntactic transformations, such as verbal passivization.
2.2.2
nyemba
nyemba
zi-na-phik-ik-a
beans
AGR-PAST-cook-STAT-FV
‘The beans were cooked.’(D&S 1996:750)
The passive sentence in (26a) implies that someone cooked the beans, while the
corresponding stative sentence in (26b) makes reference only to their present state (i.e. well
cooked, ready to be eaten):
Lexicalist counter to Wasow (1977)
One place for word formation (i.e. the lexicon) is sufficient and explains the homophony
between verbal and adjectival passives (Bresnan 1982, Levin & Rappaport 1986).
The exceptional behaviour of adjectival passives can be derived from category conversion:
While passive constructions can be construed with a demoted agent phrase, as in (27b), the
addition of such an agentive phrase to stative constructions yields deviant results, as in
(27b) below:
(25)
(27) a.
Adjectival passive formation (Levin & Rappaport 1986:646)
V [PARTICPLE] → [V [PARTICPLE] ]A
Adjectival passives are created from verbal passives that are unaccusative; externalisation
of the internal argument underlies the elimination of the [NP,VP] position.
b.
mbale zi-na-tsuk-idw-a
ndi
naphiri
plates AGR-PAST-cook-PASS-FV by N.
‘The plates were washed by Naphiri.’(D&S 1996:751)
*mbale zi-na-tsuk-ik-a
ndi naphiri
plates AGR-PAST-cook-STAT-FV by N.
‘The plates were washed by Naphiri.’(D&S 1996:751)
The passive may operate in tandem with other argument changing operations: a verbal
complex may undergo causativisation (affixation of -its) and subsequent passivization
(affixation of -idw). By contrast, it is not possible to combine the causative affix -its with
the stative affix -ik, as shown in (28a). (There are many exceptions to this complementary
distribution!).
(28) a.
b.
15
chibwe
a-na-thamang-its-idw-a
Ch.
AGR-PAST-run-CAUS-PASS
‘Chibwe was made to run.’(D&S 1996:752)
*chibwe a-na-thamang-its-ik-a
Ch.
AGR-PAST-run-CAUS-STAT
‘Chibwe was made to run.’(D&S 1996:753)
16
(verb-causative-passive)
(verb-causative-stative)
The addition of stative morphology to a verb often gives rise to special meanings, while the
meaning of passive verb forms is completely predictable. Compare (29a) with (29b):
(29) a.
chimanga
chi-ku-gul-idw-a
ku-msika
corn
AGR-PROG-buy-PASS at-market
‘Corn is being bought at the market.’(D&S 1996:756)
b.
chimanga
•
chi-ku-gul-ik-a
ku-msika
corn
AGR-PROG-buy-STAT at-market
‘Corn is cheap at the market.’(D&S 1996:756)
On the other hand, the stative-passive opposition in Chichewa provides prima facie
evidence for two classes of morphemes that roughly correspond to an inner and outer
layer, each associated with different co-occurrences restrictions, various degrees of
productivity, and idiosyncratic vs. predictable meaning alternations.
Solution:
•
The way-out to is to reconstruct the two layers of morphemes in syntax, i.e. without
assuming a lexicon. The “two places” to build words emerge from the operations of
syntax, both structurally (position in the syntactic tree) and derivationally (pertaining
to well-defined cyclic domains or “phases”).
•
The stative is an argument structure changing operation, while the passive represents
a grammatical function changing operation.
•
•
Unlike the contrast between verbal and adjectival passives in English, both the stative
and the passive in Chichewa create verbs from verbal stems.
The Stative is a lexical type of construction (whence its special or idiosyncratic
meanings), while the passive is a syntactic type of construction (whence its semantic
regularity).
The uniformity of morpho-phonology follows from the interpretative nature of
morpho-phonology, which uniformly follows the syntax and spells out the feature
bundles in the terminal nodes of the syntactic tree.
•
The uniformity of compositionality follows from having the syntax perform all
merger operations, including those between morphemes with a word.
•
Two places to build words in syntax: an “inner” root domain and a domain above the
lexical category phrase (above “little” vP, nP, aP)
•
•
If the Stative were created from the passive in Chichewa, it would be a mystery why
the former, but not the latter is incompatible with causative morphology.
The root domain
2.2.4
Distributed Morphology’s counter to Wasow’s (1977) and Dubinsky & Simango’s
(1996) “two places to build” theory
Recall that Distributed Morphology (henceforth DM) advocates an anti-lexicalist view,
where all word formation takes place in the syntax. The passive-stative dichotomy in
Chichewa seems to provide strong evidence for the location of morphology in two distinct
grammatical components.
(30) Assumption: all lexical categories involve a category head separate from the root
Thus, categorial information (formerly stored in the subcategorization frame of a given
lexical item) corresponds to a separate functional head in syntax, which selects root
morpheme (so-called Root Phrase) as its complement:
(31)
x0
{v, n, a}
Reanalysis of Dubinsky & Simango’s (1996) passive/stative data within a DM framework
(cf. Marantz 1997, 2000, 2001)
Dilemma:
•
•
From a morpho-phonological point of view, all affixation looks similar: phonological
differences between affixes do generally not correlate with the lexical vs. syntactic or
derivation vs. inflection distinction.
From the point of view of semantic and morpho-syntactic compositionality, all
affixation looks similar (although distinctions can be drawn between certain types of
inflectional affixes (case, agreement inflections) and other affixes.
17
xP
RootP
•
Hierarchy of little x0 heads: little x heads that attach to roots differ from little x heads
that attach outside other little x heads (true category changing morphology)
•
A root takes on its specific meaning in the context of the first functional (little x) head
that merges with the rootP.
•
The root can determine the allomorphy of the vocabulary item inserted into this little
x’s head.
18
The above “little x” domain
•
Category heads outside the little x domain, such as voice will find that the specific
meaning of the root embedded below has already been determined. These higher
functional heads will take on most of the properties of the inflectional morphemes in
terms of productivity and predictable meaning:
(32)
voiceP
(predictable meaning, “paradigmatic” morphology)
voice0
Aronoff (1994) takes the homophony between the perfect and the passive participles as
evidence for “morphology by itself”:
xP
(idiosyncratic meaning, allomorphy)
0
x
{v, n, a}
•
RootP
Structurally, when a head attaches outside of little x, it sees the features of x locally,
not the features, properties, or the identity of the root that merged with x. So its
selectional features are satisfied by the features of x, not the properties of the root .
(33)
PassiveP
Passive0
-idw
vP
StativeP
0
Stative
-ik
RootP
A residual problem: the homophony between English perfect and participles and
Aronoff’s (1994) “Morphology By Itself”
A question remains with respect to the homophony between the English perfect participle
on the one hand and the adjectival and verbal passive on the other hand, giving rise to
triplets like (30a-c) below:
(34) a.
b.
c.
(36)
-
Several morphological expression types for the perfect participle:
default realisation as suffix -d, -t, -d (suffix ‘D’)
suffix -n (e.g. gotten)
apophony (ablaut) (e.g. sell, sold)
mixed forms (e.g. think, thought → ablaut, suffix -t)
(37) “We must therefore conclude that the perfect participle is some kind of abstract
category realised in the context of a given verb through the operation of one or more
of a set of realisation rules of suffixation or ablaut, the default realisation being D.
Perfect Participle is therefore a discontinuous morphophonological function similar to
Past Tense or Plural: for every verb lexeme, there is a single perfect participle,
although not all perfect participles are derived by the same rule.” (Aronoff 1994:24)
Aronoff calls the morphophonological function from verb stems to perfect participles Fen
(< see, saw, seen: perfect participle is morphologically distinct from corresponding past
tense form)
v0
2.2.5
(35) “The perfect participle is homophonous with both types of passive participles as
well, and it is perhaps a weakness of our account that this fact is left unexplained. But
whereas the two participles, besides being homophonous, share syntactic features, it
is not clear that any of these features are shared by the perfect participle as well. Both
passive participles are associated with the suppression of the external T-role of the
base verb, but there is no evidence that the perfect participle is associated with the
same feature. It is possible that further elucidation of the aspectual properties of the
passive will shed light on this issue.”(Levin & Rappaport 1986:652, fn.32)
The car was sold to the first customer.
The car remained unsold.
Our salesman has sold this car an hour ago.
19
(verbal passive)
(adjectival passive)
(perfect participle)
•
syntactic differences between the perfect and the passive in English shows that both
constructions cannot be related at some deep syntactic level
•
morphological distinctness of the perfect from the passive in many of the world’s
languages (Older Egyptian ms-n-s (bear-PERF-3sf) ‘she has given birth’ vs. ms-n-tj-s
bear- PERF-PASS-3sf ‘she has been born’)
•
No English verb has different forms for the perfect and the passive participle.
(38) “I therefore assume that passive and perfect are paired by means of the
morphologically abstract entity Fen, regardless of any possible syntactic and semantic
differences between the two. In other words, there is a mapping to the function Fen
from either Passive or Perfect. The subsequent phonological realization of Fen must
ignore any distinction between Passive and Perfect as syntactic entities, for otherwise
20
we would not be able to account for the complete morphological coincidence of the
two constructions.”(Aronoff 1994:25)
(39)
(43) a.
b.
c.
John’s eagerness to please
John’s refusal of the offer
John’s criticism of the book
Perfect
Fen
Passive
seen
phonological realisation
What is Fen?
(44)
•
Fen occupies a particular cell in the morphological paradigm of English, which is
neither syntactic nor phonological.
•
Since Fen itself is mapped from the Perfect or the Passive, which are both syntactic
elements (i.e. elements that occur in a particular construction or configuration), and
since the domain of Fen (the class of verbal lexemes) is lexemic, and not syntactic,
“its effect is to erase any possible distinction between the two syntactic elements in
their realization on the verb itself (though the difference in auxiliaries will distinguish
the two constructions)” (Aronoff 1994:25)
(40) “Fen is neither morphosyntactic nor morphophonological but rather purely
morphological – morphology by itself. Let us call the level of such purely
morphological function morphomic and the functions themselves morphomes. What
is novel about this level, and what warrants giving it a special name, is that it
embodies an empirical claim: the mapping from morphosyntax to phonological
realization is not direct but rather passes through an intermediate level.” (Aronoff
1994:25)
2.4
Gerundive nominalization involves a grammatical transformation from an underlying
sentence-like structure (Chomsky 1970:187):
Chomsky’s (1970) “Remarks on Nominalization”
(45) “Derived nominals such as [39] are very different in all respects. Productivity is more
restricted, the semantic relations between the associated proposition and the derived
nominal are quite varied and idiosyncratic, and the nominal has the internal structure
of a noun phrase”(Chomsky 1970:188)
•
Gerundive (-ing) nominals vs. derived nominals
English has two nominal expressions that correspond to the sentences in (37a-c): gerundive
nominals (with suffix -ing) (38a-c) and derived nominals (39a-c)
(41) a.
b.
c.
John is eager to please
John has refused the offer
John criticized the book.
(42) a.
b.
c.
John’s being eager to please
John’s refusing the offer
John’s criticizing the book
Productivity
(46) a.
b.
c.
John is easy (difficult) to please.
John is certain (likely) to win the prize.
John amused (interested) the children with his stories.
(47) a.
b.
c.
John’s being easy (difficult) to please
John’s being certain (likely) to win the prize
John’s amusing (interesting) the children with his stories
(48) a.
b.
c.
* John’s easiness (difficulty) to please
* John’s certainty (likelihood) to win the prize
* John’s amusement (interest) of the children with his stories
•
Idiosyncratic character of the relation between the derived nominal and the
corresponding verb, e.g. to laugh/laughter, to marry/marriage, to convert/conversion,
to specify/specification
•
Only derived nominals have the internal structure of noun phrases
Chomsky’s (1970) influential paper “Remarks on Nominalization” is often identified as the
birthplace of lexicalism (see e.g. Spencer 1991:69ff).
2.4.1
[S NP nom (Aspect) VP]S
(49) a. * the proving the theorem
b. the proof of the theorem
(of-insertion)
(50) a. * John’s unmotivated criticising the book
b. John’s unmotivated criticism of the book
(prenominal adjective)
(51) a. * John’s several proving the theorem
b. John’s three proofs
c. several of John’s proofs of the theorem
21
22
(full range of determiners)
2.4.2
Against a transformational account of derived nominals
2.4.3
Passivised derived nominals
The question is, then, whether derived nominals are transformationally related to the
associated proposition or not:
(55) a.
b.
(52) “We might extend the base rules to accommodate the derived nominal directly (I will
refer to this as the “lexicalist position”), thus simplifying the transformational
component; or, alternatively, we might simplify the base structure, excluding these
forms, and derive them by some extension of the transformational apparatus (the
“transformationalist position”).” (Chomsky 1970:188)
Possible problem for the lexicalist position: passively derived nominals look like
nominalizations of a passive sentence.
Grammatical transformations like the passive imply meaning equivalence or sameness of
selectional relations.
(53) “However, when the lexicon is separated from the categorial component of the base
and its entries are analysed in terms of features, this difficulty disappears. We can
enter refuse in the lexicon as an item with fixed selectional and strict
subcategorization features, which is free with respect to the categorical features
[verb] and [noun]. Fairly idiosyncratic morphological rules will determine the
phonological form of refuse, destroy, etc., when these items appear in the noun
position. The fact that refuse takes a noun phrase complement or a reduced sentential
complement and destroy only a noun phrase complement, either as a noun or as a
verb, is expressed by the feature structure of the “neutral” lexical entry, as are the
selectional properties. Details aside, it is clear that syntactic features provide a great
deal of flexibility for the expression of generalizations regarding distributional
properties. (…) Let us propose, then, as a tentative hypothesis, that a great many
items appear in the lexicon with fixed selectional and strict subcategorization
features, but with a choice as to the features associated with the lexical categories
noun, verb, adjective. The lexical entry may specify that semantic features are in part
dependent on the choice of one or another of these categorical features. (…) Insofar
as there are regularities, these can be expressed by means of redundancy rules in the
lexicon.”(Chomsky 1970:190)
(54) “It is quite possible that the categories noun, verb, adjective are the reflection of a
deeper feature structure, each being a combination of features of a more abstract sort.
In this way various relations among these categories are expressible.” (Chomsky
1970:199)
23
(agent-postposing)
(56) “But we now see that the crucial phrases need not be regarded as nominals derived
transformationally from the passive (with the auxiliary mysteriously disappearing),
but can rather be explained as, in effect, passives of base-generated derived nominals,
by independently motivated transformations” (Chomsky 1970:204-5)
2.4.4
Earlier studies (Lees 1960) could capture the fact that the context in which refuse appears
as a verb and refusal as a noun are closely related.
The city was destroyed by the enemy.
the destruction of the city by the enemy.
Marantz (1997)’s “up-date” of Chomsky’s (1977) Remarks
Marantz (1987:213ff) questions the widely held assumption that Chomsky’s (1977)
“Remarks on Nominalization” argued for the lexicon as a special component for word
formation. On his view the remarks provide “a knock-down argument” against lexicalism.
The crucial aspect of Chomsky’s Remarks is the abandoning of a distributional definition of
grammatical categories. If both nouns and verbs can take complements and specifiers, and
have the head-complement relation interpreted semantically in the same way, then some
internal feature must distinguish nouns and verbs:
Chomsky’s Remarks are actually the birthplace of X-bar theory, stating that all lexical
grammatical categories have the same distribution, taking a complement to form X’, which
takes a specifier to form Xmax:
(57) Xmax → Spec X’
YP
X’ → X0
Categories are only distinguished with respect to their internal features, development of
binary feature system for lexical categories ([±N] and [±V])
(58) “The “idiosyncrasy” of nominalizations [i.e. derived nominals, CHR] is relevant
strictly to the argument against deriving nominalizations from sentences”(Marantz
1997:219)
Roots like √DESTROY and √GROW are category neutral: when embedded into a nominal
environment, they become derived nominals (the destruction, the growth), when embedded
into a verbal environment, they become verbs (to destroy, to grow)
24
(59) √DESTROY:
a.
John destroyed the city.
b.
*The city destroyed
c.
John’s destruction of the city
d.
The city’s destruction
e.
John’s destroying the city
The AGENT-projecting v-1, which serves to verbalize roots in its environment, is also
present in “true” gerundive nominalizations:
(63) John’s destroying the city
D
As a verb: only transitive
As a derived nominal: transitive as well as intransitive
(60) √GROW:
a. Tomatoes grow here.
b. John grows tomatoes.
c. *John’s growth of tomatoes
d. The tomatoes’ growth
e. John’s growing tomatoes
f. Tomatoes’ growing (there would surprise me).
D
v-1
√DESTROY
v-1
√DESTROY
the city
(64) The growth of the tomatoes
D
As a verb: transitive (causative) and intransitive (Inchoative)
As a derived nominal: only intransitive (inchoative)
(61) The destruction of the city, the city’s destruction
√GROW
D
√GROW
tomatoes
D
Root √GROW refers to an internally caused change of state. The complement NP of the root
will therefore be interpreted as both the theme and the internal cause.
√DESTROY
D
√DESTROY
the city
(65) John grows tomatoes (make [v-1] tomatoes grow [v-2]). The tomatoes grow [v-2]
Possessor NP may express any kind of relation (here CAUSER). Crucially, John’s destruction
of the city should not involve an additional little v-1 projection that licenses an AGENT
argument. If derived nominals would contain such an additional v-1 layer, it would be
impossible to rule out *John’s growth of the tomatoes.
v-1/v-2
v-1/v-2
√GROW
√GROW
(62) John destroyed the city
the tomatoes
v-1
v-1
Impossibility of having causative growth can be derived from the absence of a v-1 layer in
the nominal environment. Thus, derivational morphology is syntactic rather than lexical.
√DESTROY
√DESTROY
the city
25
26
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Anderson, Stephen R. 1982. Where’s morphology. Linguistic Inquiry 13, 571-612.
_____ 1992. A-Morphous morphology, Cambridge: CUP.
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____ 1981. Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.
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Levin, Beth and Malka Rappaport 1986. The formation of adjectival passives. Linguistic
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27