Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Englisches Seminar
HS Morphology
Wintersemester 05/06

Greenberg’s Universal 28 Revisited

by

Michael Helten

März 2006

Contents

0. Contents 1

I. Introduction 2

II. Inflection vs. derivation 3
1. Inflection never changes the syntactic category of a word, derivation may change it. 3
2. IM is relevant to the syntax, DM is not. 4
3. Inflection is obligatory; derivation is optional. 4
4. Inflection does not change the core lexical meaning, derivation does. 5
5. IM is more abstract than DM. 5
6. IM is not restricted by arbitrary limitations, DM is. .. IM is more productive. 5
7. IM categories may be expressed cumulatively. 6
8. DM can be semantically irregular, IM is semantically regular. 6
9. DM is more relevant to the base than IM. 6
10. DM can be reapplied; IM cannot be reapplied. 7
11. Derived lexemes are more likely to be stored in the lexicon than inflected forms. 7
12. Inflection is always peripheral with respect to derivation. 7

III. Four theories of seeing inflection and derivation interact 7
1. The dichotomy approach 7
2. The SLH (Strong Lexicalist Hypothesis) 8
3. The continuum approach 8
4. A tripartition 9

IV. What motivates Universal 28? 10

V. Counterexamples to Universal 28 11
1. Of passers-by and hangers-around 11
2. Suppletive comparative stems 12
3. Regular comparative stems 13
4. Productive cases of inflection followed by derivation 14
5. Kinderchen and other diminutives of plurals 16
6. Yiddish adverbs – bislexvayz problematic 17
7. Of Äpfelsäfte and heroesisms 17
8. Georgian preverbs 18
9. Tagalog moderative verbs 19

VI. Conclusion 20

Bibliography 21

II. Introduction

As one of its most important theories, Functional Typology (FT) is a highly empirical approach to all fields of linguistics. Joseph Greenberg of Stanford University, the classic representative of FT, wrote Language Universals, the seminal work that constituted FT, in 1966¹. FT is called typology because it classifies languages into types according to their features as opposed to generic classifications that group languages according to their language families. It is called functional because it searches for universal tendencies in languages based on the assumption that these tendencies are brought about by the need to fulfill certain functions in communication. FT is thereby the counter approach to Generative Grammar (Functionalism), which assumes that there is a Universal Grammar every human is born with. As a result of trying to find universal categories of linguistic behavior, functional typologists try to extract valid principles by synchronic empirical testing and generalizations. They call these extracted principles universals. One of these universals is Universal 28:

Universal 28: If both the derivation and inflection follow the root, or they both precede the root, the derivation is always between the root and the inflection.

According to this Greenbergian universal, we should expect never to see a case in which a root is followed first by an inflectional and then by a derivational suffix. It also excludes cases in which a root is directly preceded by an inflectional prefix which is preceded by a derivational prefix in turn. There appear to be a number of such cases in different languages, however. The goal of this paper is to examine in how far Universal 28 can be saved in view of the cases that have been brought forth in the literature to contradict it. Crucial to this examination will be to first clarify the differences between the central terms ‘inflection’ and ‘derivation’, and how the two interact.

III. Inflection vs. derivation

In linguistic textbooks and publications that are not directly concerned with the topic, inflectional morphology (IM) and derivational morphology (DM) are often treated as two clearly and easily distinguishable categories. The boundaries turn out to be a lot fuzzier than this when we take a closer look. As a matter of fact, “the question of how inflection can be distinguished from derivation is one of the classical problems addressed by (..) linguists (TEN HACKEN 1994: 145)².” BOCHNER (1984: 411)³ says about inflectional and derivational morphology that “these concepts are notoriously easier to illustrate than to define” and shies away from a definition that includes more criteria than ANDERSON’S (1982)⁴ “inflectional morphology is what is relevant to syntax.” In order to be able to work with Universal 28 at all, our answer to ARONOFF and FUDEMANN’S⁵ (2005:160) question “is there really a need for such a distinction?” has to be “yes”. As will be seen, however, there are also approaches that see a cline from derivation to inflection rather than a clear-cut dichotomy between the two. But we will first turn to a broad selection of criteria that have been argued to set apart IM and DM. These criteria will be illustrated by examples, and, where possible, they will be accompanied by counterexamples in order to show that virtually all criteria are relative and not absolute.

1. Inflection never changes the syntactic category of a word, derivation may

change it. (SCALISE 1984: 103⁶, ARONOFF AND FUDEMANN 2005: 162, DRESSLER 1989: 7⁷) For English this means that when a noun like bed receives the inflectional plural suffix -s it is still a noun, and when a verb like kick receives the 3rd person singular suffix -s it is still a verb as well. Via DM, verbs can be ‘deverbalized’, however, turning kick into a noun when the derivational suffix -er is added; adjectives can be derived from nouns like geographic from geography and so on. HASPELMATH (2002: 77)⁸ claims that this generalization is not correct and he comes up with a number of “inflectional deverbal nouns such as English –ing forms (e.g. my raising (of) this issue).” DRESSLER (1989: 7) also adds in a side note that “participles typically behave like adjectives, infinitives like nouns, both being verb inflections.” On the other hand, SCALISE (1984: 103) strengthens the generalization and mentions (unfortunately only briefly and without any examples to support the claim) that there is evidence that DM “always changes the syntactic category of its base, even when the change is not evident.”

2. IM is relevant to the syntax, DM is not.
(HASPELMATH 2002: 70, ARONOFF AND FUDEMANN 2005: 162, DRESSLER 1989: 6, ANDERSON 1982: 609)

At this point, HASPELMATH (2002: 70) makes an IM-internal differentiation. He says that the above stated criterion is obviously true only for the inflectional categories of agreement, “because the syntactic relation of agreement is their sole raison d’être.” Thus, in Italian, we have una cosa rivelatrice (‘a revealing thing’) but un gesto rivelatore (‘a revealing gesture’) (DRESSLER 1989: 7). Notice the different inflectional markers on the adjectives in order to agree with the different genders of the nouns. In DRESSLER’S (1989: 7) discussion, concord as a property of IM but not of DM is listed as a separate criterion of distinction. Because of IM’s relevance to syntax, inflected words can also not be replaced by simple forms unlike derived words that can usually be replaced by any simple, underived lexeme that belongs to the same word class.

[....]

1 Greenberg, Joseph. 1966. Language Universals. The Hague & Paris: Mouton.

2 Hacken, Pius ten. 1994. Defining Morphology: A Principled Approach to Determining the Boundaries of Compounding, Derivation, and Inflection. Hildesheim: Georg Olms.

3 Bochner, Harry. 1984. Inflection within Derivation. The Linguistic Review 3: 411-421.

4 Anderson, Stephen R 1982. Where’s Morphology? Linguistic Inquiry 13: 571-612.

5 Aronoff, Mark and Kirsten Fudemann. 2005. What is Morphology. Malden: Blackwell.

6 Scalise, Sergio. 1984. Generative Morphology. Dordrecht: Foris.

7 Dressler, Wolfgang. 1989. Prototypical Differences Between Inflection and Derivation. Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung 42: 1. 3-10.

8 Haspelmath, Martin. 2002. Understanding Morphology. London: Arnold.