Aspects of the Theory of Morphology 9783110199864, 9783110177114

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Aspects of the Theory of Morphology

≥

Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 146

Editors

Walter Bisang Hans Henrich Hock Werner Winter

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Aspects of the Theory of Morphology by

Igor Mel’cˇuk edited by

David Beck

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin.

The publication of this volume was made possible by the generous financial support of (i) the Alexander Humboldt Foundation, Germany and (ii) the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. 앝 Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines 앪 of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mel’cˇuk, Igor, 1932⫺ Aspects of the theory of morphology / by Igor Mel’cˇuk ; edited by David Beck. p. cm. ⫺ (Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs ; 146) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-3-11-017711-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 3-11-017711-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Grammar, Comparative and general ⫺ Morphology. I. Beck, David, 1963⫺ II. Title. III. Series. P241.M45 2006 4151.9⫺dc22 2005026841

ISBN-13: 978-3-11-017711-4 ISBN-10: 3-11-017711-0 ISSN 1861-4302 Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at ⬍http://dnb.ddb.de⬎. ” Copyright 2006 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover design: Christopher Schneider, Berlin Typesetting: medionet AG, Berlin Printed in Germany.

Contents

Phonemic/phonetic transcription adopted in this book Abbreviations and notations

xiii xv

Introduction

1

The problem stated: A conceptual system for linguistic morphology

3

1. The goal of the book: Definitions of some important linguistic concepts 2. The theoretical framework of the book: Meaning-Text Theory 3. Characteristics of the linguistic definitions proposed 3.1. Substantive aspect of the definitions 3.2. Formal aspect of the definitions 4. Intermediate concepts used in this book 5. The structure of the book 6. Acknowledgments Notes

3 4 11 12 16 18 24 26 26

PART I. The Syntax-Morphology interface

29

Chapter 1. Agreement, government, congruence

31 31 32 32 33

1. Introductory remarks 2. Three auxiliary concepts 2.1. Morphological dependency 2.1.1. Notation 2.1.2. The concept of morphological dependency: Definition 1.1 2.1.3. Comments on Definition 1.1 2.2. Agreement class 2.2.1. The concept of agreement class: Definition 1.2 2.2.2. Comments on Definition 1.2 2.2.3. Minimality of an agreement class 2.2.4. Agreement class vs. lexical class

34 36 47 47 48 53 54

vi

Contents

2.3. A mirroring inflectional category: Definition 1.3 2.4. Relationships between the concepts ‘agreement class,’ ‘mirroring category,’ and ‘agreement’ 3. Agreement 3.1. The concept of agreement: Definition 1.4 3.2. Comments on Definition 1.4 3.3. Examples of agreement 4. Government 4.1. The concept of government: Definition 1.5 4.2. Comments on Definition 1.5 4.3. Examples of government 5. Congruence 5.1. The concept of congruence: Definition 1.6 5.2. Comments on Definition 1.6 6. Summing up 6.1. Agreement vs. government 6.2. Agreement and government in one wordform 6.3. Agreement/government and semantic dependencies 6.4. Agreement/government and syntactic dependencies 6.5. Should agreement/government be called syntactic or morphological? 6.6. Other types of morphological dependencies? Notes

55 57 57 58 58 66 83 83 83 87 89 89 89 92 92 93 95 95 97 98 98

PART II. Morphology proper

107

II.1. Morphological signifieds

109

Chapter 2. Case

110 110 111 114 120 126 134 138 150 151 158

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Introductory remarks Three concepts of Case: Definitions 2.1 – 2.3 Comments on Definitions 2.1 – 2.3 English ‘Saxon Genitive’ External autonomy of case forms Do casesI.1b have meanings? Taxonomy of casesI.1b Internal autonomy of casesI.1b Illustrative inventory of possible casesI.1b The Russian genitive in numeral phrases: a problematic situation

Contents

vii

11. ‘Multiple Case’ 11.1. Nominal agreement in caseI.2a 11.2. Hypostasis 11.3. Semantic-syntactic caseI.1b combinations 11.4. Compound casesI.1b 11.5. CasesI.1a in group inflection 12. Main tendencies in the study of case Notes

159 159 166 167 167 167 169 173

Chapter 3. Voice

181 181 182 190 194 194 199

1. 2. 3. 4.

Introductory remarks Auxiliary concepts: Definitions 3.1 – 3.6 The concept of voice: Definition 3.7 Calculus of possible voices in bi-valent verbs 4.1. General remarks 4.2. Voice grammemes 4.3. Comments on specific topics: passive, middle, reciprocal, impersonal 4.3.1. The passive voice 4.3.2. The middle voice 4.3.3. Is the reciprocal a voice? 4.3.4. The term impersonal as applied to voices 5. Voice in mono- and multi-valent verbs 5.1. Monovalent verbs 5.2. Multivalent verbs 5.2.1. Different promotional (= full) passives 5.2.2. The 2/3-permutative 5.2.3. The indirect reflexive 6. Four distinct voice categories 7. Four inflectional categories related to voice 7.1. Transitivization 7.1.1. Introductory remarks 7.1.2. Concept of transitivization 7.1.3. Illustrations of transitivization 7.1.4. ‘Antipassive’ 7.2. Verbal focus 7.3. Affectedness 7.4 Inversion

209 209 213 215 216 218 219 221 221 223 226 227 230 230 230 231 233 235 236 242 244

viii

Contents

8. Conclusions 8.1. Complex voice-like categories 8.2. ‘Semantic impurity’ of actual voices 8.3. Fickle differences between categories Notes

248 248 249 250 251

Chapter 4. Case, basic verbal construction, and voice in Maasai 1. Introductory remarks 2. Case in Maasai 2.1. The primary data 2.2. The problem stated 2.3. The proposal: Changing the names of the cases 3. The basic verbal construction in Maasai 4. Voice in Maasai Notes

263 263 263 263 266 267 269 276 283

II.2. Morphological signifiers

287

Chapter 5. Morphological processes

288 288 289 289 290 292 294 295 297 298 298 299 301 301 302 304 306 308 308 309 309

1. Introductory remarks 2. The characterization of morphological process 2.1. Auxiliary concepts 2.2. The concept of morphological process 2.3. The inherently additive character of morphological processes 3. Typology of morphological processes 3.1. Major types of linguistic signs 3.2. Major types of morphological processes 3.3. Brief survey of morphological processes 3.3.1. Compounding 3.3.2. Affixation 3.3.3. Suprafixation 3.3.4. Replication3 3.3.5. Modification 3.3.6. Conversion3 3.4. Hierarchies of morphological processes 3.5. Morphological processes and language types 4. A special variety of morphological processes: zero processes 5. Three current fallacies concerning morphological processes 5.1. Suppletion is not a morphological process

Contents

5.2. Word-creating devices are not morphological processes 5.3. Combinations of morphological processes, or multiple exponence 6. Non-uniqueness of morphological solutions: methodological principles 6.1. A morphological process or a (meaningless) morphological means? 6.2. Which morphological process? Notes

ix

310 310 313 313 315 318

II.3. Morphological syntactics

321

Chapter 6. Gender and noun class 1. Introductory remarks 2. Gender1 vs. Class1 3. Gender1 3.1. The concept of gender1: Definition 6.1 3.2. Comments on Definition 6.1 3.3. Examples of gender1 systems 3.4. Semantic motivation of genders1 3.5. Gender1 neutralization 3.6. Marked/unmarked character of genders1 3.7. Problematic genders1: two case studies 3.8. Double noun classification 4. (Noun) class1 4.1. The concept of noun class1: Definition 6.2 4.2. Comments on Definition 6.2 4.3. Examples of class1 systems 4.4. Establishing a noun class1 system: a methodological problem 5. Genders1, classes1 or neither? Three case studies 6. Syntactic genders1/classes1 vs. morphological genders1/classes1 Notes

322 322 323 324 324 325 330 334 336 339 341 345 346 346 347 349 367 371 378 379

II.4. Morphological signs

383

Chapter 7. Morph and morpheme

384 384 384 389

1. Introductory remarks 2. Definitions of the concepts ‘morph’ and ‘morpheme’ 3. Comments on morphs and morphemes

x

Contents

3.1. Morph and quasimorph 3.2. Morpheme 3.3. Allomorphs 4. Discussion of the concepts introduced 4.1. What is the use of the proposed concept of morpheme? 4.2. Fused expression of two or more morphemes: megamorph 4.3. A difficulty in the definition of morpheme Notes

389 390 397 399 399 400 401 403

Chapter 8. Suppletion

405 405 405 405 407 410 412 413 415 418 420 420 438

1. Introductory remarks 2. The concept of suppletion 2.1. An informal characterization of suppletion 2.2. A rigorous definition of suppletion: Definition 8.3 2.3. Examples of suppletion 2.4. Comments on Definition 8.3 2.4.1. The rationale for the conditions in Definition 8.3 2.4.2. Definition 8.3 vs. traditional definitions of suppletion 2.4.3. The gradable character of suppletion 3. The typology of suppletion 3.1. Types of signs standing in a relation of suppletion 3.2. Degrees of suppletion 3.2.1. The regularity of the semantic relation between suppletive signs 3.2.2. The irregularity of the formal relation between suppletive signs 3.2.3. The similarity of the signifiers of suppletive signs 4. Suppletion: five case studies 4.1. ‘Suppletion of stems’ 4.2. Suppletion of verbal roots according to the number of the Subject or Object 4.3. Number suppletion in personal pronouns? 4.4. Suppletion of Russian verbal aspectual stems 4.5. Are Russian suffixes of inhabitant suppletive (with respect to each other)? 5. The theoretical importance of suppletion 5.1. Typical domains of suppletion 5.2. Suppletion and phraseologization 6. Suppletion viewed diachronically

438 440 440 443 443 444 448 449 449 450 450 453 454

Contents

xi

6.1. The rise of suppletion in languages 6.2. The diachronic evolution of suppletive forms 7. Pseudo-suppletion: a related concept Notes

454 455 458 460

Chapter 9. Zero sign in morphology

469 469 470 471 471 476 477 478 480 482 485

1. The concept of zero sign 2. The Zero Sign Introduction Principle 3. Comments on the concept of zero sign 3.1. Different types of zero signs 3.2. The requirement of non-zero alternants 3.3. Empty zero signs 3.4. Zero sign as a last resort 3.5. Zero signs and parasitic formations 3.6. Irrelevant overt distinctions accompanying zeroes 3.7. No non-contrastive zeroes 3.8. Different zero signs in the same position and adjacent zero signs 4. A zero sign or an ellipsis? 5. Morphological ellipsis 5.1. Morphological ellipsis and related concepts 5.2. Illustrations of morphological ellipses 5.3. An alternative description of the same facts? 5.4. Truncation alternation: a phenomenon similar to morphological ellipsis 6. The impossibility of derivational zero signs 7. Language zeroes vs. linguist’s zeroes Annex: Common examples of zero signs Notes

487 488 492 493 495 498 500 504 505 507 508

Chapter 10. The structure of linguistic signs and semantic-formal relations between them 517 1. The structure of a linguistic sign 2. Seventeen possible types of semantic-formal relations between linguistic signs 3. Greater/lesser complexity in relations between linguistic signs 4. Illustrations of the 17 types of semantic-formal relations between linguistic signs Notes

517 518 521 523 537

xii

Contents

PART III. The Morphology-Phonology Interface

541

Chapter 11. The phonemic status of Spanish semivowels

543 543 544 547 548

1. 2. 3. 4.

Introductory remarks The phonetic data The phonemicization problem in general Phonemic status of the Spanish semivowels [i 8] / [ j ] and [u]/[w] 4.1. The Spanish semivowels are not allophones of the vowels /i/ and /u/ 4.2. The Spanish semivowels are not allophones of the consonants / ĵ/ and /ŵ/ 4.3. The Spanish semivowels are allophones of glides 4.4. Advantages of the solution proposed 4.5. Review of Spanish phonemes in the «i» and «u» series Notes

553 555 556 557 559

Conclusion

563

Results and perspectives 1. Results 1.1. Concepts defined 1.2. Statements about languages 1.3. Methodological principles 2. Perspectives 2.1. The Syntax-Morphology interface 2.2. Morphology proper 2.3 The Morphology-Phonology interface

563 564 564 564 565 566 566 567 567

References Language index Subject and term index Definition index

569 597 608 616

548

Phonemic/phonetic transcription adopted in this book More or less obvious symbols are not listed. C´ w C C’ C V¯ V˜ æ B œ c Ā D d1 d¸ Î e ¡ ´ a © I i8 j ĵ d

ĵ Ò h ¥ n1 N  o

palatalized consonant C labialized consonant C glottalized consonant C in Arabic: emphatic consonant C elsewhere: retroflex consonant C long vowel V nasal vowel V high-front open unrounded vowel voiced bilabial fricative implosive voiced bilabial stop voiceless alveolar affricate voiceless palatoalveolar affricate in Spanish: ‘debilitated’ voiced dental stop elsewhere: voiced interdental fricative voiced laminal dental stop voiced palatalized alveodental stop implosive voiced dental stop mid-front closed unrounded vowel mid-front open unrounded vowel mid-central unrounded vowel voiced velar fricative voiceless pharyngeal fricative mid-back unrounded vowel non-syllabic i in Spanish: palatal glide elsewhere: voiced palatal fricative [= IPA Ô] in Spanish: voiced palatal fricative in Spanish: voiced palatal affricate voiceless alveolar lateral fricative voiceless alveolar lateral affricate voiced palatal lateral approximant [= Spanish ll, It. gl] voiced laminal nasal voiced velar nasal voiced palatal nasal mid-back closed rounded vowel

xiv

O ø œ q r¯ t1 ¸t u U u8 ü e T3 w ŵ a ŵ x r Z# / ?

Phonemic/phonetic transcription adopted in this book

mid-back open rounded vowel mid-front closed rounded vowel mid-front open rounded vowel voiceless uvular stop voiced alveolar trill voiceless laminal dental stop voiceless palatalized alveodental stop high-back closed rounded vowel high-back open rounded vowel non-syllabic u high-front rounded vowel voiceless interdental fricative in Spanish: voiced interdental fricative in Spanish: labiovelar glide elsewhere: voiced rounded labiovelar fricative in Spanish: voiced rounded labiovelar fricative in Spanish: voiced rounded labiovelar affricate voiceless velar fricative voiceless uvular fricative voiced palatoalveolar affricate [= Eng. j] glottal stop voiceless pharyngeal stop [Arabic ‘ain]

Abbreviations and notations -A A/ADJ ABL ACC ADV AgCo AOR ART ATM C COagent COMP COMPL CONT DDAT DEF DET DirO DSyntA DSyntS DU ERG FEM FUT g a GEN GER GP IMPER IMPF INCL IND INDEF INF INSTR IndirO L L LOC LU MASC Morph-

Actant (Sem- or DSynt-) adjective ablative (case) accusative (case) adverb Agentive Complement aorist (tense) article Aspects of the Theory of Morphology inflectional category Agentive Complement comparative completive (aspect) continuative deep dative (case) definite determiner Direct Object Deep-Syntactic Actant Deep-Syntactic Structure dual (number) ergative (case) feminine (gender) future (tense) grammeme value of a syntactic feature genitive (case) gerund government pattern imperative (mood) imperfect (tense) inclusive [form of a pronoun] indicative (mood) indefinite infinitive instrumental (case) Indirect Object a particular lexical unit a particular language locative (case) lexical unit masculine (gender) morphological

MV MTM MTT N NEU NEUTR

Main Verb Meaning-Text Model Meaning-Text Theory noun neuter (gender) neutral (respectfulness; focalization) NOM nominative (case) NUM numeral OBJ object(al) verbal affix OBL obliquus (case) OblO Oblique Object OBV obviative PART participle PART(IT) partitive (case) PERF perfect; perfective (aspect) PASS passive (voice) PL plural (number) POSS possessive particle (≈ (that of ...)) PRES present (tense) PRET preterit (tense) PROX proximate RESP respectful YX syntactics of linguistic sign X Yi syntactic feature i Ssurface -S structure Semsemantic SemA Semantic Actant SemR Semantic Representation SemS Semantic Structure SG singular (number) SSyntA Surface-Syntactic Actant SSyntRel Surface-Syntactic Relation SSyntS Surface-Syntactic Structure SUB subject(al) verbal affix SUBJ 1) subjective (case) 2) subjunctive (mood) Subject Surface-Syntactic Subject Syntsyntactic U utterance V verb Vintr intransitive verb Vtr transitive verb w wordform

xvi

Abbreviations and notations

2/3-PERM X, Y, Z, ... 1, 2, 3 I, II, III, ... I, II, III, ... Ø R (X) {M}

2/3-permutative variables denoting SemAs 1st, 2nd, 3rd person nominal classes1/2 I, II, III, ... numbers of DSyntAs zero sign empty set meaning (of) X morpheme M

Lightface italics

CAPITAL LETTERS

Boldface roman Boldface italics SMALL CAPITALS

in Courier

/xy...z/ xy...z is a string of phonemes [xy...z] xy...z is a string of phones kX1 + X2 ...l phraseme consisting of LUs X1, X2, ... X ‰ Y | C for a rule X ‰ Y, C are conditions of its applicability + morph boundary  operation of linguistic union xDY x is an element of Y

cited linguistic forms and, more specifically, signifiers and parts thereof (if the latter are not in phonemic transcription, i.e., not between slashes: / /) in a smaller font – names of lexical units and of morphemes linguistic signs technical terms on their first mention in a smaller font – names of grammemes, such as (PLURAL), (IND, PRESS), (1, PL, EXCL,) technical terms in tables

Introduction

The problem stated: A conceptual system for linguistic morphology

1.

The goal of the book: Definitions of some important linguistic concepts

Aspects of the Theory of Morphology [= ATM] sets out to develop and sharpen a number of concepts crucial to the theory of linguistic morphology. I believe that one of the most urgent tasks of present-day linguistics is exactly that – putting in place a reliable conceptual apparatus. Strange as this might seem, the wild proliferation of formal approaches that swept through linguistics in the 60’s of the last century (and which still continues today) did not bring with it increased rigor in our treatment of basic concepts. Linguistic terminology still is a shambles.1 Imposing some order on morphological concepts and the terms used to describe them is the main challenge to be taken on by ATM. Thus, the orientation of the book is META-linguistic: what follows is a contribution to the language of linguistics rather than to the description of particular natural languages. More specifically, ATM proposes rigorous definitions for a number of basic morphological concepts. However, to test these definitions and to show their validity, the book has to deal with data from particular languages. If the proof of a pudding is in eating, the proof of a concept defined is in applying it to a few languages – appreciating or rejecting the results. Therefore, I need to deal with the description of (fragments of) many different languages, and this gives my endeavor a distinct TYPOLOGICAL flavor. I am not presenting any new facts about the languages under analysis nor do I offer new explanations of some known facts. My main thrust is using the facts of this or that language in order to improve our understanding of such concepts as (agreement) vs. (government), ((grammatical) case), (nominative) vs. (accusative) [case], (ergative construction), ((grammatical) voice), (passive voice), etc. I would like to make the terms and concepts current, say, in Slavic or Nilotic studies commensurate with what is known and used elsewhere. In short: ATM is an exercise in typologically-biased metalinguistics in the domain of morphology.

This exercise is undertaken in the context of work that I began some forty years ago in Mel´Āuk 1963 and have carried forward to the present day (Mel´Āuk 1973a, Mel’Āuk 1982, 1986, 1991a, b, 1993a, b, 1994b) culminating in Mel’Āuk 1993 – 2000.2 The whole enterprise is aimed at creating a unified linguistic metalanguage – something similar to what Nicholas Bourbaki accomplished more

4

The problem stated: A conceptual system for linguistic morphology

than half a century ago for mathematics.3 It goes without saying that a single person cannot succeed in such an adventure for the entire field of linguistics; therefore, I have to accept that my results are much less than final. Nevertheless, even a few timid steps in the right direction is much better than stagnation, and I propose here to take these steps. To simplify things to manageable proportions, ATM deals only with morphological concepts. But to present a complete self-contained conceptual system – even solely for linguistic morphology – in one volume is, of course, out of the question: this would require too much space (Mel’Āuk 1993 – 2000, where such a system is expounded, consists of five volumes). Here I opt for a different approach: to consider, in sufficient detail, only a few selected morphological problems, taken from the six basic domains of morphology, namely: – the syntax-morphology interface (agreement, government, and congruence: Chapter 1); – morphological signifieds (inflectional categories such as case and voice: Chapters 2 – 4); – morphological signifiers (morphological processes: Chapter 5); – morphological syntactics (gender vs. nominal class: Chapter 6); – morphological signs (morph vs. morpheme; suppletion; zero signs; relations between linguistic signs: Chapters 7 – 10); – the morphology-phonology interface (the role of morphology in solving some phonemicization problems: Chapter 11). As a result, many relevant facets of morphology are not mentioned – things such as historical morphology, psycholinguistic research in morphology and morphonology, or computerized morphological models of languages. Even more importantly, the semantic side of morphological phenomena is not considered. However, the selected topics treated in ATM are discussed in some depth, with relevant details and abundant illustrations. Thus, the book is exactly what its title says it is: ATM does not present a complete theory of morphology, but deals with several important aspects of it. Albert Camus said once that “to misname things is to contribute to the world’s miseries” (Mal nommer les choses, c’est contribuer aux malheurs du monde). In ATM, I am trying to propose concepts and terms that hopefully will allow linguists to name linguistic things correctly – or, at least, more correctly. 2.

The theoretical framework of the book: Meaning-Text Theory

Concepts such as agreement/government/congruence, case and voice, morph/ morpheme/megamorph, etc., can be rigorously defined only in the context of a

2. The theoretical framework of the book: Meaning-Text Theory

5

specific linguistic theory, and a fairly formalized theory at that. As the theoretical framework for this book, I adopt Meaning-Text theory (= MTT; Mel’Āuk 1974a, Mel’Āuk 1981b, 1988a: 43 – 101, 1997c). All subsequent argumentation and discussion are carried out strictly in the terms of MTT, and this is really essential. For instance, the adoption of dependency syntax (rather than constituency, or phrase-structure, syntax) and distinguishing two levels in the syntactic representation of sentences (a Deep-Syntactic Representation and a Surface-Syntactic Representation) has crucial implications for the definition of agreement/government/congruence,4 of case and voice, etc. Considerations of space force me, however, to take the main tenets of Meaning-Text theory for granted, so that in what follows I will use – without special justifications or explanations – a number of theory-specific descriptions. (I will, nevertheless, add short clarifications and illustrations in places where I believe my reader’s good will and intuition might prove insufficient.) One aspect of MTT that is especially important in connection with my goals in ATM is that in MTT utterances are represented using seven distinct, autonomous levels of representation: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Semantic Representation Deep-Syntactic Representation Surface-Syntactic Representation Deep-Morphological Representation Surface-Morphological Representation Deep-Phonological Representation Surface-Phonological Representation

[= SemR] [= DSyntR] [= SSyntR] [= DMorphR] [= SMorphR] [= DPhonR] [= SPhonR]

A representation is a set of formal objects, called structures [= -S], each of which represents a particular aspect of the utterance. Thus, a SemR is a set of four structures, or an ordered quadruplet: SemR = Semantic Structure ; Sem-Communicative Structure ; Rhetorical Structure ; Referential Structureœ

The first structure in a representation – in this case the SemS – is its main component and is referred to as the CARRYING STRUCTURE. The remaining structures characterize the carrying structure; taken together, they express all the information relevant to that particular level of representation. However, it is often sufficient to make use of the carrying structure alone, a practice I will follow in most of my examples. By way of illustration, I will supply the first five levels of representation of the sentence in (1):

6

The problem stated: A conceptual system for linguistic morphology

(1) The people’s support for the Prime-Minister amazes Mr. Bumbo-Yumbo. I will limit myself to the first, i.e., carrying, structure of each representation, and I will omit the Deep-Phon-, or phonemic, and the Surface-Phon-, or phonetic, representations, which are not relevant for my purposes. The Sem-Structure of (1) is shown in Figure 1: Semantic Structure ( amaze ) 1 ( support ) 1

2

( Mr. Bumbo-Yumbo)

2

( people )

( Prime-Minister ) 2

2

( country )

Figure 1. The Semantic Structure of sentence (1)

Note that the Semantic Structure of Fig. 1 does not show the semantic inflectional meanings (the voice, mood and tense of the verb, the number and definiteness of the noun), which, strictly speaking, should be included as well. It should be borne in mind that this SemS does not represent the sentence (1) as such, but its meaning; therefore, it corresponds not only to (1) but to all sentences synonymous with it, no matter what is their lexical composition or syntactic organization; cf. (1´), where, of course, only a small sample of all possible synonymous sentences is given: (1´) a. b. c. d. e.

The support of the Prime-Minister by the people (of the country) amazes Mr. Bumbo-Yumbo. That the Prime-Minister is supported by the people (of the country) amazes Mr. Bumbo-Yumbo. The popular support for the Prime-Minister is amazing to Mr. BumboYumbo. Mr. Bumbo-Yumbo is amazed that the (country’s) population supports the Prime-Minister. The population gives its support to the Prime-Minister, which causes the amazement of Mr. Bumbo-Yumbo.

2. The theoretical framework of the book: Meaning-Text Theory

7

f.

The country rallies behind the Prime-Minister, to the amazement of Mr. Bumbo-Yumbo. At the semantic level, these paraphrases are distinguished by SemanticCommunicative and/or Rhetorical Structure; however, I cannot deal with corresponding details here. Formally, a SemS is a connected directed graph: a network, with labeled nodes and arcs. – The NODES of a SemS are labeled with semantic units known as semantemes; these are, roughly, meanings of lexical units of L – the language under description. Semantemes are of two logical types: predicates and names (in the logical sense of the terms). – The ARCS of a SemS are labeled with numbers that indicate predicate-to-argument relations (in the sense of predicate calculus). Thus, numbers labeling the arcs simply distinguish individual arguments of the same predicate and have no meaning of their own. If the meaning of a lexical unit L is a predicate, the arguments of this predicate are the semantic actants [= SemAs] of L. Substantially, a SemS represents the common content, i.e. semantic invariant, of the whole family of possible paraphrases. The DSynt-Structure of (1) is shown in Figure 2: Deep-Syntactic Structure

Figure 2. The Deep-Syntactic Structure of sentence (1)

This DSyntS corresponds not only to sentence (1) but also to all sentences which are synonymous with it and exhibit the same Deep-Syntactic organization: (1´´) a. The support of the Prime-Minister by the people amazes Mr. BumboYumbo.

8

The problem stated: A conceptual system for linguistic morphology

b. c.

The Prime-Minister’s support by the people amazes Mr. Bumbo-Yumbo. The people’s support for the Prime-Minister amazes Mr. BumboYumbo. These sentences constitute a proper subset of the sentences in (1´); other sentences of (1´) have different DSynt-organization. Formally, a DSyntS is an unordered dependency tree with labeled nodes and arcs. – The NODES of a DSyntS are labeled with deep lexical units [= LUs] of L: basically, these are full lexemes and phrasemes that appear in the sentence represented. Other LUs are excluded: (i) ‘structural words’ (governed prepositions and conjunctions, auxiliaries, analytical markers of inflectional values, etc.) are not shown; (ii) the substitute pronouns found in the sentence are replaced with their antecedents; (iii) an idiom is represented as one node; (iv) an LU L1 that is an element of the value of a Lexical Function f of another LU L2 [i.e., L1 = f(L2)] is replaced with f.5 – Where necessary, an LU that occupies a node of the DSyntS is subscripted with symbols of semantically full grammemes, representing inflectional values of the particular language – definiteness and number for nouns, voice, mood and tense for verbs, etc. – The ARCS [= branches] of a DSyntS are labeled with symbols that, unlike the labels on the arcs of the SemS, are meaningful – they represent DeepSyntactic Relations. A DSynt-Relation stands for a family of syntactic constructions (potentially) found in all natural languages, such as ‘Main Verb + Subject,’ ‘LU + Object,’ ‘LU + Complement,’ ‘Noun + Adjective,’ ‘Adjective + Adverb,’ etc. The Subjects, Objects, Complements (and their ‘transforms’) of an LU L are this L’s Deep-Syntactic Actants [= DSyntAs]. In all, there are twelve DSynt-Relations distinguished in MTT: – Roman numerals I, II, ..., VI stand for actantial DSyntRels (which hold between an LU and its subject, objects or complements: Mary@I