Inflectional Elements Research Articles

Enclisis, mesoclisis and inflection in Italo-Romance varieties: A minimalist analysis

This contribution addresses a central theme in morphological analysis, namely the relationship between clitics and inflectional elements. Important contributions on the point are due to Anderson (1992) and Marantz (1988), who, in different ways, connect clitics and affixes. We will propose a solution based on the idea that clitics are part of the inflectional arrangement of the verbal head. Specifically, we will investigate two types of data coming from some Romance varieties in which enclisis and mesoclisis phenomena interact with word formation. These phenomena affect the expression of the Internal Argument and lead us to rethink the analysis of enclisis and mesoclisis in terms of the ability of the inflected verb to realize Phasal domains. In other words, morphology is part of the syntactic computation, and morphemic elements, endowed with interpretable content, are introduced by the operation of Merge.

Revisiting isiZulu noun classes: a lexicalist approach

This article seeks to question the lexical integrity (lexicality) of isiZulu noun classes. A noun is a lexical category, hence it would be expected that a noun classifier be a lexical or derivational affixal morpheme. We view noun classes as grammatical words or forms (noun phrases). We regard initial vowels of the existing isiZulu noun classes as the first layer of nominal inflection, as they repeat the vowel of the basic prefix. Since the ‘plural’ is generally considered an inflectional element, the conclusion we reach is that it cannot be used for noun classification either. Hence, the need to revisit the three systems of Bantu classification and reclassify the nouns according to singular basic prefixes.

The morphological expression of plurality and pluractionality in Mandarin

This paper reports the fact that the morpheme that expresses the plurality of individuals and the one that expresses the plurality of events or actions are the same derivational reduplicant in Mandarin Chinese. It is seen in AABB nouns and AABB verbs. Thus, an instance of cross-categorial quantification is attested morphologically. With respect to word formation, the fact can be explained if the reduplicant is combined with a base first and then a functional element is merged with the combination, and the categorial features are projected from the functional element alone (categorization). Thus, not only roots, but also derivational affixes, can have no categorial features. As a consequence, the existence of acategorial plural markers indicates that number features can be integrated not only after categorization, realized as inflectional affixes or functional elements, but also before categorization, realized as derivational affixes. The same is true of gender and animacy features, cross-linguistically.

‘행위성 명사+이다’ 구문의 통사론적 분석

This paper presents a syntactic analysis of the constructions which consist of a verbal noun and a copular verb ‘ita’. The previous approaches can be divided into three types, depending on the level of grammar where a verbal noun, assumed as N, incorporates into a verb ita: the lexicon-formation approach, the syntax-formation approach, and the LF-formation approach. All the approaches turn out to have non-trivial theoretical problems with respect to syntax-morphology interface and hence not to be sustained. Based on Distributed morphology, this paper argues that a verbal noun projects a Root Phrase and can license its internal argument crucially without the help of ‘ita’ and that ‘ita’ is a dummy verb which is inserted to support inflectional elements. This paper supports a syntax-driven approach to morphology.

Morphological stems: what William of Ockham really said

Two concepts that have figured widely in morphological analysis and theory for centuries are root and stem (or theme). The OED defines root in its linguistic sense as ‘an ultimate unanalysable element of language’ and gives a first citation from John Palsgrave’s grammar of French printed in 1530, said to be the first French grammar printed in any language. In that same citation, Palsgrave also uses the term theme in much the same sense that I will use stem here. The OED definition of this sense of theme is ‘The inflexional base or stem of a word, consisting of the “root” with modification or addition’. According to the OED, stem does not appear in its linguistic sense, which is given there as ‘the theme of a word (or of a particular group of its cases or tenses), to which the flexional suffixes are attached’, until 1851. A root is thus defined in terms of analyzability (it is unanalyzable morphologically), while a stem or theme is defined in terms of the inflectional elements that attach to it. I will make the same distinction in this work. In recent work, David Embick and Morris Halle (Embick & Halle 2005), have questioned whether we need both concepts, root and stem, in linguistics:

Prūsistika K. O. Falko rankraštiniame palikime

PRUSSIAN PHILOLOGY IN K. O. FALK’S MANUSCRIPTS Summary On the basis of the preliminary analysis of Knut Olof Falk’s (1906-1990) manuscripts the conclu­sion can be drawn that the research into the Germanization of Prussian proper names, toponyms and vo­cabulary is Falk’s main merit to Old Prussian philology. Deserving attention is the idea about the substi­tutional and additional final -e as an inflectional element of Middle Low German, with the help of which Germans used to grammaticalize proper names and sometimes appellatives of Old Prussian. An attempt to interpret toponyms in -ayn , -ayen , -igen , etc. as having the authentic non-suffixal pluralia tamt um form in -(i)ai seems to be less convincing.

Or+en+wurm, Tag+s+brief, Kelb+er+arzet. Fugenelemente in N+N-Komposita des Frühneuhochdeutschen

Besides numerous linguistic changes, the emergence of linking elements in n+n-compounds is one decisive characteristic of Early Modern German. The syntactic postposition of the attributively used genitive and the concomitant reanalysis of the nominal phrase as a nominal compound lead to the reinterpretation of the inflectional element as a linking element. By means of the analysis of an Early Modern German dictionary, this contribution extensively tries to present the stock and distribution of linking elements of this epoch for the first time. A comparison with Modern German researches shall finally give a glimpse at interepochal changes.

The morphology of Romanian palatalization

In this paper, I will argue that the asyllabic /i/—a recurrent inflectional element in final position in Romanian words—is not a phoneme of the Romanian vowel system. I will present arguments which sustain that the morphological marker- i leads to the palatalization of the preceding consonant, resulting in a positional allophone of the consonant phoneme in complementary distribution with it.

A note on subject clitics in Akan

This paper is concerned with the analysis of pronominal subject clitics (SCLs) in Akan within the Priniciples and Parameters framework of syntactic theory. Two kinds of analysis are considered: one, where the SCL is a true pronoun, generated in an argument position (the argument analysis); the other, where the SCL is an inflectional element residing in Infl, which identifies a null pronominal (pro) in subject position (the pro analysis). On the basis of the distribution of null objects in causative constructions, it is argued that the pro analysis provides a more elegant account of the facts of Akan than does the argument analysis. Akan is therefore analyzed as a pro-drop, or null subject, language, permitting null pronominal subjects under certain circumstances. Finally, possible implications for Universal Grammar are considered.

Things We Can Learn From Repeated Tellings of the Same Experience

The study of repeated tellings of the same experience by the same speaker has been a neglected source of insights into the human mind. The content of the mind (here termed underlying experience) cannot be equated with any particular verbalization of it. Language, mental imagery, and emotions provide different windows on it, but the very fact that repeated tellings differ shows that language is not in any one-to-one relation with it. The comparison of such tellings can, however, allow us to zero in on the nature of underlying experience by showing what is constant and what variable. Such comparisons suggest that experience is stored in terms of relatively large topics and relatively small foci that are activated, one at a time, as a topic is scanned. They suggest, too, that decisions regarding sentence boundaries are made as one is talking, so that sentences appear not to reflect units of memory. Whereas ideas of events and their participants show stability, the orientations to such ideas that are expressed by the inflectional elements of language are free to vary. The relative importance of ideas may be inferred from their constancy across repetitions. Chronology appears to be important when it is a relevant relation between ideas, but when it is not relevant there is room for random ordering. These points will be illustrated with a comparison of two tellings that were produced fifteen months apart. (Narrative Structure, Memory)

On the scope of verb movement in Irish

This paper is concerned with one aspect of the syntactic processes which derive VSO order in (Modern) Irish. Analyses which appeal to fronting of the finite verb have played an important role in recent theorizing about the VSO clausal pattern. A question which has resisted resolution, however, is the question of what the target-position for this fronting is: does the verb move as far as the C0-position, or does it remain among the inflectional projections? This paper argues that the kind of Verb Fronting found in Irish involves only fronting of V0 to I0, and that it is, as a consequence, different in important ways from Verb Fronting of the Germanic type. The analytical challenges posed by the Irish data are, however, made more interesting by the fact that the sequence of Complementizer, Inflectional element and Verb clearly forms a unit-a word at least for phonological purposes. It is an interesting issue how this conclusion is compatible with the conclusion that there is no general fronting of I0 to C0 in Irish (finite) clauses. It is argued that the Verbal Complex is formed by two movements — raising of V0 to I0 and lowering of C0 to I0. The question of how this conclusion can be compatible with current theories of movement and of locality constraints on movement is the final matter addressed.

The Scope of some Inflectional Elements in Korean Coordination

The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the scope of some inflectional categories in coordinate constructions in Korean. The inflectional elements to be investigated here include tense, aspect, and modality morphemes.

Restructuring with ARI

The purpose of this article is to provide an analysis of the verbal element ari in Basque. We will claim that ari is not an auxiliary-like element, but, rather, a verb. Furthermore, we posit the existence of a restructuring process that turns the main verb ari and the nominalized verb of its complement into one single complex verbal unit. This restructuring process converts a complex biclausal structure into a monoclausal one, accounting in this way for the characteristics of ari constructions that we will point out in the course of the following discussion. The article is organized in the following way. In section 1, we provide some background information on 'particles' which, like ari , appear between main verbs and the auxiliary forms in affirmative clauses. We will show that such elements do not pattern together as a group, but actually belong to different categories: inflectional elements ( bide, omen, ote, etc.), auxiliary forms ( ahal ) and main verbs ( nahi, behar ). We will try to establish the status of ari with respect to these elements. The properties of ari constructions are described in section 2, and, finally, in section 3 we propose an analysis of ari as a main verb optionally undergoing restructuring in some contexts.This analysis is shown to be more explanatory than other alternatives examined in that section.

Zero Plurals among the Japanese Loanwords in English

F OR DECADES THE USUAL MORPHOLOGICAL VIEW of inflected languages has involved an analysis of derivational and inflectional elements which may be affixed to other morphemes, with tabulated paradigmatic charts like those of Francis (1954) and Gleason (1961). However, what if the lexicon of a language changes in such a way as to require substantive revision of such charts within the analysis? Such is the case for the English language. Japanese has given English at least 544 different loanwords, few of which contain derivational morphemes. Most are native compounds, a basic kind of English morphemic structure. The standard dictionaries of English (including The Second Barnhart Dictionary of New English) record at least 490 nouns, 52 adjectives, and 2 interjections borrowed from Japanese, plus 71 duplications caused by spelling variation, main entries for both the full and the short forms of an item, functional shifts, etc. When we inquire about the inflectional morphemes in this corpus, we note that there are no verbs. So the possible problem of the assimilation of Japanese borrowings into the verb inflection-system of English does not arise. However, at least 311 of the 490 nouns are clearly count nouns. A few others might be, as dictionaries may not have recorded a plural form when it actually exists. Where a plural spelling form is indicated, 182 take -s, and go 'a game' and hootch take -es. This analogized regularization is predictable, since most Japanese nouns end in a vowel. There are also 3 partially Latin items-Katsuwonidae, shigellae, and shigelloses. However, 125 borrowings have not fitted comfortably into the pluralization system; this number drastically enlarges the total number of irregular plurals in English. There are 89 which take -0 (table 1), 29 which can take either -0 or -s, and 7 collective nouns which occur only as zero plurals. The zero collectives are burakumin 'certain people treated as an inferior caste', genro 'Japanese elder statesmen', kanamono 'sword mounts', menuki 'pair of ornaments on a Japanese sword hilt', mompei 'work trousers', norito 'Shinto ritualistic prayers', and zaibatsu 'industrial conglomerate'. It might be noted that The Second Barnhart Dictionary records 28 Japanese nouns borrowed in the 1960s and 1970s, with 8 of 149

The Serbo-Croatian Verb

Every Serbo-Croatian verb form' consists of the constituents listed in Table 1.2 While prefixes are optional, every verb form has a stem and at least one inflectional element. The stem consists of at least a root.3 Every verb paradigm has a thematic vowel in some or all of its forms, though some forms of some paradigms are without this. The remaining stem constituents are optional. The constituents always occur in the order given in Table 1. A given Serbo-Croatian verb has the following sets of forms, which constitute

Automatic translation of languages

This chapter focuses on automatic translation of languages. Most machine translation research projects show an obvious division into a linguistic section and a programming section. This reflects not only a certain natural division of skills between linguists and programmers but also the division between information about languages that ought to be valid without reference to any machine and techniques of giving the information to a particular machine for a particular purpose. Assuming the output language to be English, the synthesis involves the rearrangement of the items of the sentence into an English order, the inflection of English stems that were originally brought from the dictionary, the insertion and suppression of articles, the choice of English equivalents for polysemie words, especially prepositions, and the choice of English expressions for what the input language expresses by inflectional elements.