Matthew Baerman
University of Surrey, Surrey Morphology Group, Faculty Member
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This book aims to assess the nature of morphological complexity, and the properties that distinguish it from the complexity manifested in other components of language. Of the many ways languages have of being complex, perhaps none is as... more
This book aims to assess the nature of morphological complexity, and the properties that distinguish it from the complexity manifested in other components of language. Of the many ways languages have of being complex, perhaps none is as daunting as what can be achieved by inflectional morphology: this volume examines languages such as Archi, which has a 1,000,000-form verb paradigm, and Chinantec, which has over 100 inflection classes. Alongside this complexity, inflection is notable for its variety across languages: one can take two unrelated languages and discover that they share similar syntax or phonology, but one would be hard pressed to find two unrelated languages with the same inflectional systems.
In this volume, senior scholars and junior researchers highlight novel perspectives on conceptualizing morphological complexity, and offer concrete means for measuring, quantifying and analysing it. Examples are drawn from a wide range of languages, including those of North America, New Guinea, Australia, and Asia, alongside a number of European languages. The book will be a valuable resource for all those studying complexity phenomena in morphology, and for theoretical linguists more generally, from graduate level upwards
In this volume, senior scholars and junior researchers highlight novel perspectives on conceptualizing morphological complexity, and offer concrete means for measuring, quantifying and analysing it. Examples are drawn from a wide range of languages, including those of North America, New Guinea, Australia, and Asia, alongside a number of European languages. The book will be a valuable resource for all those studying complexity phenomena in morphology, and for theoretical linguists more generally, from graduate level upwards
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Krongo, a member of the Kadu family (Nuba Mountains, Sudan), has four agreement classes: feminine, masculine, neuter and plural (Reh 1985). Nominal number-marking prefixes play a key role in class assignment: productive plural prefixes... more
Krongo, a member of the Kadu family (Nuba Mountains, Sudan), has four agreement classes: feminine, masculine, neuter and plural (Reh 1985). Nominal number-marking prefixes play a key role in class assignment: productive plural prefixes trigger plural agreement, and productive singular prefixes trigger neuter agreement. In most other Kadu languages there is no distinction between the plural and neuter classes. Comparative and typological evidence shows that Krongo represents the older state of affairs. It is argued that the motivation for the merger of these two classes was a morphosyntactic abstraction over agreement rules. Two distinct rules, one for singular prefixes and one for plural prefixes, were replaced by a single rule that assigned the same agreement class to all productive number prefixes, regardless of whether they mark singular or plural. The result is the morphosyntactic mirror-image of an inverse number system, such as is found in e.g. Dagaare (Grimm 2012).
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The loss of inflectional morphology is a diachronic process which has played a major role in shaping our linguistic landscape, but has never been the target of focussed research in the same way that the origin of inflectional morphology... more
The loss of inflectional morphology is a diachronic process which has played a major role in shaping our linguistic landscape, but has never been the target of focussed research in the same way that the origin of inflectional morphology has been. We offer here a preliminary typology of the operations involved in inflectional loss, distinguishing three change types: the loss of forms, the loss of features, and loss of both at the same time – that is, the loss of entire paradigm cells. These are illustrated with examples from a typologically, genetically and areally diverse set of languages.
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Nouns in Nuer (Western Nilotic) nouns have been presented as an extreme example of inflectional complexity, where a 'chaotic' distribution of suffixes combines with dozens of different stem modifications to yield dozens of inflection... more
Nouns in Nuer (Western Nilotic) nouns have been presented as an extreme example of inflectional complexity, where a 'chaotic' distribution of suffixes combines with dozens of different stem modifications to yield dozens of inflection classes, (Frank 1999, Baerman 2012). We show that all of the apparent surface variety can be reduced a handful of operations. The proliferation of inflection classes is due to a property we call PARADIGMATIC SATURATION: practically every combination of inflectional operations is attested, yielding the maximum variety with the minimum of means. 1
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In this paper we introduce the object of study of this special issue of Amerindia, the inflectional classes of the Oto-Manguean languages of Mexico, together with their most relevant typological characteristics. These languages are rich... more
In this paper we introduce the object of study of this special issue of Amerindia, the inflectional classes of the Oto-Manguean languages of Mexico, together with their most relevant typological characteristics. These languages are rich both in the variety of their inflectional systems, and in the way these are split into inflection classes. In effect, the full typological range of possible inflection class systems can be found just in this one stock of languages. This is illustrated through a survey of the variety of morphological forms, assignment principles, and paradigm structure, as well as the effects of combining multiple inflection class systems across different exponents within a single word form.
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It is not uncommon for inflected nominal forms to be incorporated into verbal paradigms, as in Imonda progressive construction tōbtō soh-ia ale-f 'he is looking for fish (lit. fish search-LOC stay-PRS)', where the verbal noun 'search' is... more
It is not uncommon for inflected nominal forms to be incorporated into verbal paradigms, as in Imonda progressive construction tōbtō soh-ia ale-f 'he is looking for fish (lit. fish search-LOC stay-PRS)', where the verbal noun 'search' is in the locative case. Equally, nominal inflection classes are not uncommon. But the two rarely cooccur. We present two case studies (the only examples we are aware of) as a contribution to the typology of inflection class systems: the Western Nilotic language Nuer, and Old Irish. In these languages nominal inflection class distinctions in case marking have become part of the verbal paradigm through the incorporation of constructions involving deverbal nouns. This provides a unique context for observing the properties of inflection classes. In Nuer, case inflection of the verbal noun can be deduced through a cascading series of implicatures, laying bare processes which are
entirely covert in the ordinary noun system. With Old Irish, its transition to the modern period was accompanied by a split in the behaviour of verbal nouns, whose inflection class system was simplified when used verbally, but left intact in other contexts, showing that incorporation into the verbal paradigm had real effects on the system.
entirely covert in the ordinary noun system. With Old Irish, its transition to the modern period was accompanied by a split in the behaviour of verbal nouns, whose inflection class system was simplified when used verbally, but left intact in other contexts, showing that incorporation into the verbal paradigm had real effects on the system.
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The paper addresses the evolution of predicate agreement in Russian over the last two centuries. Analysis of a large corpus of literary work from the 19th and 20th centuries reveals two diachronic patterns, one involving the gradual... more
The paper addresses the evolution of predicate agreement in Russian over the last two centuries. Analysis of a large corpus of literary work from the 19th and 20th centuries reveals two diachronic patterns, one involving the gradual generalization of an innovative form while the other type, which is less common, involves undulating variation with no observable historical trend. We analyze the conditions that underlie both types of diachronic behaviour and show that although conditions which disfavour certain morphosyntactic variants need not preclude historical change, the course of a diachronic process may be suspended if it is in serious conflict with other morphosyntactic mechanisms.
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... 1/3 Koiari*, Zoque Aleut, German, Hindi 2/3 Atakapa,Hindi, Amele,Kapau,Kewa, Chitimacha, Nivkh*, Nubian Kobon, Slovene Guambiano, Kiwai, Wambon ... 2/3 Amele*, Kalam*, Kawesqar Kamoro, Kobon, Korafe*, Meyah, Mansim, Nez Perce*,... more
... 1/3 Koiari*, Zoque Aleut, German, Hindi 2/3 Atakapa,Hindi, Amele,Kapau,Kewa, Chitimacha, Nivkh*, Nubian Kobon, Slovene Guambiano, Kiwai, Wambon ... 2/3 Amele*, Kalam*, Kawesqar Kamoro, Kobon, Korafe*, Meyah, Mansim, Nez Perce*, Sango*, Warekena*, Wolof ...
In: R. Alexander and V. Zhobov (eds) Revitalizing Bulgarian dialectology.< a href=" http://repositories. cdlib. org/uciaspubs/editedvolumes/2/10" Berkeley: University of California Press/University of California International... more
In: R. Alexander and V. Zhobov (eds) Revitalizing Bulgarian dialectology.< a href=" http://repositories. cdlib. org/uciaspubs/editedvolumes/2/10" Berkeley: University of California Press/University of California International and Area Studies Digital Collection, ...
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... Matthew Baerman&#x27;s research focuses on inflectional morphology, in particular on typological, diachronic and formal aspects of irregular phenomena. ... 1976. Word formation in generative grammar. ... 1998. Some remarks on the... more
... Matthew Baerman&#x27;s research focuses on inflectional morphology, in particular on typological, diachronic and formal aspects of irregular phenomena. ... 1976. Word formation in generative grammar. ... 1998. Some remarks on the Latin case system and its development in Romance. ...
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In this note I question a long-standing truism of Russian historical morphology, attempting to account for its persistence. The facts are these: the default endings of the genitive plural of 1st declension masculine nouns, -ов and -ей,... more
In this note I question a long-standing truism of Russian historical morphology, attempting to account for its persistence. The facts are these: the default endings of the genitive plural of 1st declension masculine nouns, -ов and -ей, come originally from the u-stems and i-stems, ...
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The verbal suffixes of Seri (a language isolate of Sonora, Mexico) divide the lexicon into classes of unparalleled complexity. The paradigm has only four forms, which mark subject number and aspect (or event number), yet there are over... more
The verbal suffixes of Seri (a language isolate of Sonora, Mexico) divide the lexicon into classes of unparalleled complexity. The paradigm has only four forms, which mark subject number and aspect (or event number), yet there are over 250 distinct types in a corpus of just under 1000 verbs. This relation of forms to types means that by information-theoretic measures this is among the most complex inflection class system yet studied. In part this complexity is due to the sheer wealth of allomorphs and the freedom with which they combine within the paradigm; however, these properties can be found in all inflection class systems of any complexity. The unique property of Seri it that although the suffix morphology and the morphosyntactic paradigm have the same featural content, the two systems are not directly coordinated. Both suffix morphology and verbal morphosyntax are based on the concatenation of markers of plurality, and an increase in the morphological marking of plurality reflects a morphosyntactic accumulation of subject and predicate plurality (i.e. aspect). In this sense morphology is a direct exponent of featural content. But there is no consistent mapping between the two systems, and the precise calibration between morphological form and morphosyntactic function must be lexically specified; it is this specification that increases dramatically the number of inflectional types. Seri therefore represents a middle ground in between the conceptual extremes of morphosyntactically motivated and morphologically autonomous morphology that serve as a basis for much of our theory building.
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Distributed and multiple exponence create the possibility that a single lexeme may simultaneously belong to multiple inflection classes, e.g. a word form may contain prefixal, suffixal and prosodic inflectional exponents, each displaying... more
Distributed and multiple exponence create the possibility that a single lexeme may simultaneously belong to multiple inflection classes, e.g. a word form may contain prefixal, suffixal and prosodic inflectional exponents, each displaying allomorphic variation. This paper sketches an initial typology of the sorts of interactions that obtain between multiple inflection class systems, ranging from cross-classification to mutual implicature. Perhaps the most interesting systems are those in between, which give evidence both of the autonomy of the individual subsystems as well as greater or lesser degree of communication between them.
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The tonal paradigm of verbs in Tlatepuzco Chinantec counts as one of the most complex and opaque ever described, with five tone values distributed over twelve cells (distinguishing person/number and aspect) to yield c. 70 distinct... more
The tonal paradigm of verbs in Tlatepuzco Chinantec counts as one of the most complex and opaque ever described, with five tone values distributed over twelve cells (distinguishing person/number and aspect) to yield c. 70 distinct paradigm types, with no consistent mapping between morphological form and morphosyntactic function. We suggest that useful generalizations will emerge only when we consider units of analysis larger than the individual inflected form, which we dub inflectional series. For Tlatepuzco Chinantec this means concatenating the three aspectual forms for each person/number value. The resulting units allow us to see structural relationships between the elements of the paradigm which were previously inaccessible.
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The paper addresses the evolution of predicate agreement in Russian over the last two centuries. Analysis of a large corpus of literary works from the 19th and 20th centuries reveals two diachronic patterns, one involving the gradual... more
The paper addresses the evolution of predicate agreement in Russian over the last two centuries. Analysis of a large corpus of literary works from the 19th and 20th centuries reveals two diachronic patterns, one involving the gradual generalization of an innovative form while the other type, which is less common, involves undulating variation with no observable historical trend. We analyse the conditions that underlie both types of diachronic behavior and show that although conditions which disfavor certain morphosyntactic variants need not preclude historical change, the course of a dischronic process may be suspended if it is in serious conflict with other morphosyntactic mechanisms.
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Note: the abstract is in Russian, but the paper is in English. В статье рассматривается изменение в падежном маркировании предикативных существительных со связочным глаголом быть в русском языке девятнадцатого и двадцатого веков.... more
Note: the abstract is in Russian, but the paper is in English. В статье рассматривается изменение в падежном маркировании предикативных существительных со связочным глаголом быть в русском языке девятнадцатого и двадцатого веков. Известно, что такие существительные могут иметь форму как именительного, так и творительного падежа. Проанализировав различную
частотность альтернативных форм в текстах, написанных между 1801 и 2000 годами, авторы исследовали факторы падежного варьирования для различных временных периодов, что позволило определить характер изменения морфосинтаксическоймодели в целом. Считается, что существительные в предикативных конструкциях, передающих темпоральные или определенные модальные значения, чаще маркируются творительным падежом. Такие значения могут порождаться семантикой предикативного существительного, компонентами фразы, порядком слов, либо вытекать из более широкого контекста. Исследование показало, что подобныйвзгляд отражает ситуацию в языке девятнадцатого и первойполовины двадцатого веков, в то время как во второй половине двадцатого века использование творительного предикативного с существительными выходит за рамки указанных ограниченийи становится преобладающим, вытесняя характерную для более ранних периодов зависимость падежа от множества разнородных факторов. Хотя в отдельных классах лексем (в таких, как этнонимы) изменения протекают медленнее, чем в языке в целом, статистика свидетельствует, что тенденция к обобщению творительного падежа в предикативной функции является общей для всех лексико-семантических классов существительных. Таким образом, язык постепенно переходит от семантически обусловленной модели к единому синтаксическому правилу, определяющему падеж предикативных именных групп.
частотность альтернативных форм в текстах, написанных между 1801 и 2000 годами, авторы исследовали факторы падежного варьирования для различных временных периодов, что позволило определить характер изменения морфосинтаксическоймодели в целом. Считается, что существительные в предикативных конструкциях, передающих темпоральные или определенные модальные значения, чаще маркируются творительным падежом. Такие значения могут порождаться семантикой предикативного существительного, компонентами фразы, порядком слов, либо вытекать из более широкого контекста. Исследование показало, что подобныйвзгляд отражает ситуацию в языке девятнадцатого и первойполовины двадцатого веков, в то время как во второй половине двадцатого века использование творительного предикативного с существительными выходит за рамки указанных ограниченийи становится преобладающим, вытесняя характерную для более ранних периодов зависимость падежа от множества разнородных факторов. Хотя в отдельных классах лексем (в таких, как этнонимы) изменения протекают медленнее, чем в языке в целом, статистика свидетельствует, что тенденция к обобщению творительного падежа в предикативной функции является общей для всех лексико-семантических классов существительных. Таким образом, язык постепенно переходит от семантически обусловленной модели к единому синтаксическому правилу, определяющему падеж предикативных именных групп.
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Person is required in an account of the syntax and the morphology of many languages, while others lack it. Between these two types are languages where person lacks unique morphological exponents (suggesting it is not a morphosyntactic... more
Person is required in an account of the syntax and the morphology of many languages, while others lack it. Between these two types are languages where person lacks unique morphological exponents (suggesting it is not a morphosyntactic feature) but interacts systematically with the expression of other features (suggesting it is a feature). In particular in a range of languages, notably in the Nakh-Daghestanian and Tucanoan families, the expression of gender and person are intertwined. The recurring pattern is that a default form in the gender system (inanimate or neuter) also serves for first and second person. After careful examination, possible analyses without a person feature become less attractive. While these genuinely difficult systems may still lead us to posit a morphosyntactic person feature,
we must recognize that its status is intriguingly different from that which is normally found.
we must recognize that its status is intriguingly different from that which is normally found.
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Person is required in an account of the syntax and the morphology of many languages, while others lack it. Between these two types are languages where person lacks unique morphological exponents (suggesting it is not a morphosyntactic... more
Person is required in an account of the syntax and the morphology of many languages, while others lack it. Between these two types are languages where person lacks unique morphological exponents (suggesting it is not a morphosyntactic feature) but interacts systematically with the expression of other features (suggesting it is a feature). In particular in a range of languages, notably in the Nakh-Daghestanian and Tucanoan families, the expression of gender and person are intertwined. The recurring pattern is that a default form in the gender system (inanimate or neuter) also serves for first and second person. After careful examination, possible analyses without a person feature become less attractive. While these genuinely difficult systems may still lead us to posit a morphosyntactic person feature, we must recognize that its status is intriguingly different from that which is normally found.
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Kin terms in some languages have suppletive roots according to the person of the possessor, as in Kaluli na:la ‘my daughter’, ga:la ‘your daughter’ versus ida ‘her/his daughter’. Suppletion is generally seen as a language-specific... more
Kin terms in some languages have suppletive roots according to the person of the possessor, as in Kaluli na:la ‘my daughter’, ga:la ‘your daughter’ versus ida ‘her/his daughter’. Suppletion is generally seen as a language-specific morphological peculiarity, but in this context there are a number of lexical and morphological similarities across languages, suggesting the motivation may also lie in the nature of kin terms themselves. We offer a typological assessment suppletive kin terms through a case study of the languages of New Guinea, where the phenomenon appears to be particularly common.
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Current thinking on inflection classes views them as organized networks rather than random assemblages of allomorphs (Carstairs-McCarthy 1994, Malouf & Ackerman 2010, Müller 2007), but we still find systems which appear to lack any... more
Current thinking on inflection classes views them as organized networks rather than random assemblages of allomorphs (Carstairs-McCarthy 1994, Malouf & Ackerman 2010, Müller 2007), but we still find systems which appear to lack any visible implicative structure. A particularly striking example comes from Võro (a variety of South Estonian). Its system of verbal inflectional suffixes is formally simple but distributionally complex: although there are never more than three allomorphs in competition, nearly two dozen inflectional patterns emerge through rampant cross-classification of the allomorphs. Allomorph choice in one part of the paradigm thus fails to constrain allomorph choice in the rest, so it looks as if the paradigms would have to be memorized en masse. The key to these patterns lies outside the system of suffixation itself, in the more conventional formal complexity of stem alternations and their paradigmatic patterning. The computationally implemented analysis presented here provides a model of inflection in which the implicational network of phonological, morphophonological and morphological conditions on formal realization are unified in a single representation.
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The case-number suffixes of the Western Nilotic language Nuer (Frank 1999) display a remarkable combination of formal simplicity and distributional complexity, which is manifested in: (i) a seemingly erratic form-function mapping that... more
The case-number suffixes of the Western Nilotic language Nuer (Frank 1999) display a remarkable combination of formal simplicity and distributional complexity, which is manifested in: (i) a seemingly erratic form-function mapping that precludes attributing a consistent meaning to them, and (ii) a wealth of inflection classes only barely differentiated from each other. The suffixes looks as if they were rule-generated, but behave as if they were memorized. I advance a model of inflection combining principal parts, implicational rules and default inheritence, which attributes the bulk of the complexity is attributed to the lexical stem, revealing the underlying systematicity behind suffix assignment.
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The idea that certain morphological and phonological irregularities are due to speakers' desire to avoid homophony is widely invoked, yet has also come under strong criticism as an explanation which is neither necessary nor sufficient. In... more
The idea that certain morphological and phonological irregularities are due to speakers' desire to avoid homophony is widely invoked, yet has also come under strong criticism as an explanation which is neither necessary nor sufficient. In most cases there is no way to resolve the question, since the assumption that something is being avoided is itself a theoretical construct. In this article I attempt to address this last difficulty by looking at gaps in inflectional paradigms – where it is clear that something is being avoided – that plausibly correlate with potential homophony. These fall into two types: (i) lexical, where portions of the paradigms of two lexeme would be homophonous, and (ii) paradigmatic (i.e. syncretism), where forms within the paradigm of a single lexeme would be homophonous. Case studies of Tuvaluan, Russian, Mazatec, Tamashek and Icelandic confirm the effects of homophony avoidance as a genuine, if non-deterministic, principle.
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Verbs lacking a 1SG non-past (such as убедить) are a familiar problem in Russian morphology. While it can be argued that defectiveness is lexicalized, the question remains as to how this came about diachronically. This paper assesses the... more
Verbs lacking a 1SG non-past (such as убедить) are a familiar problem in Russian morphology. While it can be argued that defectiveness is lexicalized, the question remains as to how this came about diachronically. This paper assesses the historic evidence. Contemporary defectives can be traced to two earlier classes of verbs which had aberrant alternations in the 1SG: (i) verbs with Church Slavonic д ~ жд, and (ii) dental stem verbs which lacked alternation altogether. Particular attention is paid to the latter type, as it has not yet received comprehensive scholarly treatment. The origin of defectiveness is traced to the suppression of these two classes over the last two centuries: lexical specification of an aberrant morphological alternation is replaced by lexical specification of a gap.
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The term morphological reversal describes the situation where the members of a morphological opposition switch their functions in some context (as with Hebrew gender marking, where -Ø ~ -a marks masculine ~ feminine with adjectives but... more
The term morphological reversal describes the situation where the members of a
morphological opposition switch their functions in some context (as with Hebrew
gender marking, where -Ø ~ -a marks masculine ~ feminine with adjectives but
feminineymasculine with numerals). There is a long tradition of polemic against
the notion that morphology can encode systematic reversals, and an equally long
tradition of reintroducing them under different names (e.g. polarity, exchange rules
or morphosyntactic toggles). An examination of some unjustly neglected examples
(number in Nehan, aspect in Tubatulabal, tense in Trique and argument marking
in Neo-Aramaic) confirms the existence of morphological reversal, particularly as
a mechanism of language change. This is strong evidence for the separateness of
morphological paradigms from the features that they encode.
morphological opposition switch their functions in some context (as with Hebrew
gender marking, where -Ø ~ -a marks masculine ~ feminine with adjectives but
feminineymasculine with numerals). There is a long tradition of polemic against
the notion that morphology can encode systematic reversals, and an equally long
tradition of reintroducing them under different names (e.g. polarity, exchange rules
or morphosyntactic toggles). An examination of some unjustly neglected examples
(number in Nehan, aspect in Tubatulabal, tense in Trique and argument marking
in Neo-Aramaic) confirms the existence of morphological reversal, particularly as
a mechanism of language change. This is strong evidence for the separateness of
morphological paradigms from the features that they encode.
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Syncretism, where a single form corresponds to multiple morphosyntactic functions, is pervasive in languages with inflectional morphology. Its interpretation highlights the contrast between different views of the status of morphology. For... more
Syncretism, where a single form corresponds to multiple morphosyntactic functions, is pervasive in languages with inflectional morphology. Its interpretation highlights the contrast between different views of the status of morphology. For some, morphology lacks independent structure, and syncretism reflects the internal structure of morphosyntactic features. For others, morphological structure is autonomous, and syncretism provides direct evidence of this. In this article, I discuss two phenomena which argue for the second view. Directional effects and unnatural classes of values resist attempts to reduce them to epiphenomena of more general rule types, and require purely morphological devices for their expression
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Research Interests: Morphology and Suppletion
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Subject agreement in the North Omotic language Benchnon (Rapold 2006) lacks dedicated person marking, but indirectly indicates person distinctions through asymmetries in the distribution of gender markers. In one verbal paradigm, first... more
Subject agreement in the North Omotic language Benchnon (Rapold 2006) lacks dedicated person marking, but indirectly indicates person distinctions through asymmetries in the distribution of gender markers. In one verbal paradigm, first and second person subjects are expressed by feminine morphology, and in the other paradigm they are expressed by masculine morphology. This is hard to reconcile with any known notion of how gender assignment works. I show that it can be explained as the particular instantiation of a rare but cross-linguistically recurrent pattern in which a (reduced) person marking system is generated by restrictions on gender agreement: only third person subjects control semantic gender agreement, while first and second person are assigned default gender. I draw on parallels with other languages, in particular from the Tucanoan family. In Benchnon the default gender switched from feminine to masculine over the course of its history, yielding two contrasting verbal paradigms. The older one is morphologically frozen, the newer one is a reflection of still-active agreement conditions. Further developments show that the older paradigm can be adapted to conform to the newer conditions, showing that the division between morphosyntactically motivated and arbitrarily stipulated morphology is a fluid one.