This article investigates the recently recognized concept of ASSOCIATED MOTION in 66 South American languages located on the western fringes of the Amazonian basin. In that region, associated motion is a widespread and particularly... more
This article investigates the recently recognized concept of ASSOCIATED MOTION in 66 South American languages located on the western fringes of the Amazonian basin. In that region, associated motion is a widespread and particularly complex phenomenon. It is instantiated by verbal affixes in 44 languages, of which 22 display complex systems of multiple affixes. Correlations are noticed between the degree of complexity of the systems and the semantic content of the markers. Two implicational scales are proposed: (i) motion of the subject > motion of the object and (ii) prior motion > concurrent motion > subsequent motion. Correlations are also observed between the types of systems and their geographical distribution. These are taken as evidence that diffusion must have played an important role in spreading associated motion in this region and shaping its particular semantic make-up in the different languages.
Inflectional allomorphy is a prototypical form of morphological complexity, introducing unpredictability into the mapping of form to meaning. In this chapter we examine a system of verb inflection allomorphy in the Murrinhpatha language... more
Inflectional allomorphy is a prototypical form of morphological complexity, introducing unpredictability into the mapping of form to meaning. In this chapter we examine a system of verb inflection allomorphy in the Murrinhpatha language of northern Australia, which shows a high level of complexity as measured by unpredictability of analogical relations in inflectional exponence. We argue that in this case the unpredictability is associated with incremental demorphologisation, the process whereby morphology gradually dissolves into unanalysable lexical form. We present observations of analogical change in Murrinhpatha, comparing contemporary fieldwork documentation with data from 40 years' earlier, showing that a long-term process of demorphologisation is still underway in recent generations, resulting in increasing complexity of the system.
In addition to its central role in the organization of gender systems and its numerous effects on different parts of the grammar, animacy reveals itself as a significant, sometimes even determinant factor in diachronic processes like the... more
In addition to its central role in the organization of gender systems and its numerous effects on different parts of the grammar, animacy reveals itself as a significant, sometimes even determinant factor in diachronic processes like the reduction of morphological complexity. Complexity in the realm of inflection may be defined as the extent to which formal distinctions in paradigms are semantically or phonologically unmotivated and therefore largely unpredictable on extramorphological grounds. Animacy and natural (or sex-based) gender emerge in certain cases as features capable of constraining this kind of complexity by offering a transparent semantic criterion that helps substantiate several formal distinctions in languages, thereby reducing the amount of morphological complexity or unpredictability inherited from earlier stages in the evolution of different linguistic systems.
This chapter is about one particularly rich part of the verbal inflection of Oneida, a polysynthetic Iroquoian language. Morphological referencing of event participants in Oneida is achieved via a system of fifty-eight pronominal prefixes... more
This chapter is about one particularly rich part of the verbal inflection of Oneida, a polysynthetic Iroquoian language. Morphological referencing of event participants in Oneida is achieved via a system of fifty-eight pronominal prefixes that are an obligatory part of the inflection of verbs. The sheer number of prefixes, and the relations between them, afford us the opportunity to ask what we believe is a unique set of questions about morphological complexity.
This chapter overviews some of the foundational assumptions informing contemporary views on morphological complexity and raises some of the central questions to be addressed in the volume’s chapters from different perspectives. We propose... more
This chapter overviews some of the foundational assumptions informing contemporary views on morphological complexity and raises some of the central questions to be addressed in the volume’s chapters from different perspectives. We propose a new composite approach in terms of a set of complexities in morphology instead of a view of morphological complexity as a unified phenomenon. This, we argue, allows us to individuate different aspects e.g., syntagmatic vs. paradigmatic, inflectional vs. derivational, etc.) as logically independent variables of cross-linguistic variation requiring their own measures and analyses. A synopsis of the volume and of the individual contributions is also provided.
In this paper I discuss a typologically peculiar inverse-like construction found in the polysynthetic ergative Circassian languages of the Northwest-Caucasian family and will argue that this construction has been borrowed into Abaza... more
In this paper I discuss a typologically peculiar inverse-like construction found in the polysynthetic ergative Circassian languages of the Northwest-Caucasian family and will argue that this construction has been borrowed into Abaza belonging to a different branch of the same family. These languages possess a cislocative verbal prefix, which, in addition to marking the spatial meaning of speaker-orientation, systematically occurs in polyvalent verbs when the object outranks the subject on the person hierarchy. The inverse-like use of the cislocative in Circassian differs from the “canonical” direct-inverse system in that, first, it is fully redundant since the person-role linking is achieved by means of the person markers themselves and, second, it does not occur in the basic transitive construction, featuring instead in configurations involving an indirect object both in ditransitive and bivalent intransitive verbs. I argue that the similar use of the cislocative prefix observed in Abaza is a result of pattern-borrowing from Kabardian, with which Abaza has been in intense contact, and that this borrowing has resulted in the increase of both paradigmatic and syntagmatic complexity of Abaza verbal morphology.
Morphomes (Aronoff 1994) exemplify extreme complexity within morphology. This chapter argues that morphomic categories come in three types. Rhizomorphomes pertain to morphological roots, dividing the lexicon into classes (e.g.... more
Morphomes (Aronoff 1994) exemplify extreme complexity within morphology. This chapter argues that morphomic categories come in three types. Rhizomorphomes pertain to morphological roots, dividing the lexicon into classes (e.g. declensions, conjugation classes) whose members share similar paradigms. Meromorphomes pertain sets of word formation operations, which derive the pieces of individual word forms, thus meromorphomes inhere in the organisation of a morphological exponence system. Metamorphomes pertain to distributions of meromorphomes across a paradigm. Rhizomorphomes and metamorphomes are well described, but meromorphomes much less so. Arguments are presented for the existence of meromorphomes, drawing on evidence from Kayardild (Round 2013). It is observed that in given languages, all three kinds of morphomic category may divide into subcategories, adding more complexity to the picture. Nevertheless, the architecture of this complexity, into an autonomous layer of representation with subcategories, is familiar and qualitatively similar to other domains of grammar.
Diese Arbeit stellt den ersten Versuch einer vergleichenden Analyse ausgewählter Phänomene flexivischer Komplexität im Ober- und Niedersorbischen dar. Es ist davon auszugehen, dass komplexe Strukturen in Flexionssystemen nicht zufällig... more
Diese Arbeit stellt den ersten Versuch einer vergleichenden Analyse ausgewählter Phänomene flexivischer Komplexität im Ober- und Niedersorbischen dar. Es ist davon auszugehen, dass komplexe Strukturen in Flexionssystemen nicht zufällig auftreten, sondern von allgemeinen Tendenzen des Sprachwandels abhängig sind. Die Bedingungen für den Erhalt oder Ausbau flexivischer Komplexität lassen sich im Vergleich genetisch verwandter Sprachen ermitteln und auf soziolinguistische Verhältnisse abstimmen. In diesem Sinne ist der sorbische Sprachvergleich auch für kontaktlinguistische und sprachwandeltheoretische Fragestellungen interessant. In der vorliegenden Studie werden ausschließlich solche grammatischen Kategorien untersucht, die eine innermorphologische Grundlage haben, da sie zur Klassifikation von Paradigmen dienen: Genus, Subgenera (Belebtheit und Personalität) und das System der Flexionsklassen. Es ergibt sich, dass das Flexionssystem des Obersorbischen hinsichtlich der kategoriellen Basis inhomogener und komplexer ist als dasjenige des Niedersorbischen. Im Niedersorbischen besteht hingegen mehr flexivische Komplexität in der Struktur der Flexionsklassen: vereinheitlichende Innovationen, die das Obersorbische oder zumindest einige seiner Dialekte kennzeichnen, sind im Niedersorbischen nur schwach ausgeprägt. Auch in den sorbischen Sprachen kann das Verhältnis zwischen Dialekten und Schriftsprachen die diachrone Entwicklung der flexivischen Kategorien beeinflussen.
In addition to its central role in the organization of gender systems and its numerous effects on different parts of the grammar, animacy reveals itself as a significant, sometimes even determinant factor in diachronic processes like the... more
In addition to its central role in the organization of gender systems and its numerous effects on different parts of the grammar, animacy reveals itself as a significant, sometimes even determinant factor in diachronic processes like the reduction of morphological complexity. As illustrated by the three case studies presented in this talk, animacy offers a transparent semantic criterion that helps substantiate several formal distinctions in languages, thereby reducing the amount of morphological complexity or unpredictability inherited from earlier stages in the evolution of different linguistic systems.
Short description: Overspecification makes languages more complex - but given contextual pressures, complex structures can sometimes be the simpler solution. Citation: Hartmann S., Tinits P., Nölle J., Hartmann T. and Pleyer M. (2016).... more
Short description: Overspecification makes languages more complex - but given contextual pressures, complex structures can sometimes be the simpler solution.
Citation: Hartmann S., Tinits P., Nölle J., Hartmann T. and Pleyer M. (2016). Plain Simple Complex Structures: The Emergence Of Overspecification In An Iterated Learning Setup. In S.G. Roberts, C. Cuskley, L. McCrohon, L. Barceló-Coblijn, O. Feher & T. Verhoef (eds.) The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11). Available online: http://evolang.org/neworleans/papers/144.html
Complexity is important in the course of evolution, but consensus of what complexity analysis entails is elusive. In this study, multivariate complexity is measured and analyzed in terms of magnitude of change and the trends behind those... more
Complexity is important in the course of evolution, but consensus of what complexity analysis entails is elusive. In this study, multivariate complexity is measured and analyzed in terms of magnitude of change and the trends behind those changes. Multivariate morphological and functional complexities were analyzed using 3D surface models of centric diatom genera from the Eocene to Oligocene, a transitional time when temperatures cooled, sea levels rose, and glaciation increased. Diatoms were chosen for study because of their importance in biostratigraphy, biogeochemical cycling, productivity, food web dynamics, and sensitivity to environmental conditions. Probabilistic analysis using aMarkov chain indicated an increase in total complexity across the Eocene–Oligocene transition (EOT). Causal inference via structural equation modeling indicated weakly driven functional and morphological complexity trends over the EOT.Morphological and functional complexity trends differed with respect to predation resistance as responses to ecological complexity as environmental and climate change occurred across the EOT. Macroevolutionary patterns of morphological and functional complexity with respect to ecological complexity did not necessarily coincide over time.
What is the full range of ways in which morphomes can figure in the organization of a morphological system? If we believe that arguments for the existence of morphomes are compelling, then this question demands attention. It is argued... more
What is the full range of ways in which morphomes can figure in the organization of a morphological system? If we believe that arguments for the existence of morphomes are compelling, then this question demands attention. It is argued that morphomic organization can extend even to morphotactics. Earlier research (Round 2013, 2015) establishes that the realisation of morphosyntactic feature-values in Kayardild requires a morphomic analysis if empirical generalisations are to be adequately expressed within a formal account. Here it is demonstrated that morphotactic constraints, which determine licit and illicit morphological strings in Kayardild, operate in terms of the same morphomic categories motivated by other aspects of the inflectional system. Consequences and priorities for future morphomic research are discussed.
In this radically new approach to morphological typology, the authors set out new and explicit methods for the typological classification of languages. Drawing on evidence from a diverse range of languages including Chinantec, Dakota,... more
In this radically new approach to morphological typology, the authors set out new and explicit methods for the typological classification of languages. Drawing on evidence from a diverse range of languages including Chinantec, Dakota, French, Fur, Icelandic, Ngiti and Sanskrit, the authors propose innovative ways of measuring inflectional complexity. Designed to engage graduate students and academic researchers, the book presents opportunities for further investigation. The authors' data sets and the computational tool that they constructed for their analysis are available online, allowing readers to employ them in their own research. Readers can access the online computational tool through www.cambridge.org/stump_finkel.
