Morphology And Its Demarcations

The papers in this volume derive from the International Morphology Meeting (Vienna 2004) and were selected because they address the main topic of the conference: external and internal demarcations of morphology. The external demarcation between syntax and morphology is dealt with in the papers by Rood, Cysouw, Milicevic, Blom, Enrique-Arias, and Heine & König. Demarcations of inflection and derivation are discussed in the contributions by Ricca, Lloret, Manova, Say, Žaucer, and Stump. In contrast to theoretical discussions in previous literature, which have concentrated on the internal boundary between inflection and derivation, this volume attributes equal importance to the demarcations between derivation and compounding, addressed in the contributions by Bauer, Booij, Štekauer, Fradin, Amiot, and Scalise, Bisetto & Guevara.

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,7, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel (Englisches Seminar), language: English, abstract: Inflection and derivation are traditional concepts in the field of morphology, the subdiscipline of linguistics that concentrates on the internal structures of words. Despite the ascribed central role in linguistics, the distinction between inflection and derivation is far from clear-cut. Linguistic textbooks or publications used to treat the fields of inflectional and derivational morphology as two clearly distinguishable categories but on closer examination the boundaries between both processes turn out to be a lot fuzzier. "The question of how inflection can be distinguished from derivation is one of the classical problems addressed by structuralist linguistics." . During the last decades many linguists have already focussed on this lack of clear distinctions with the aim to find a universally valid definition for both categories, but the concepts of inflectional and derivational morphology "are notoriously easier to illustrate than to define."2 We will first turn towards a broad selection of criteria that have been argued to distinguish inflection and derivation. These criteria have been proposed to put the dichotomy on a firmer theoretical footing which is important since much morphological theorising is based on the assumption that morphological processes fall into these two broad categories - inflection and derivation.

The volume collects a selection of papers presented at a European Colloquium held at the Università degli Studi di Roma Tre in October 1997. It focuses on phenomena at the boundary between morphology and syntax, and provides analyses for data from the fields of both inflectional and derivational morphology and word order. Morpho-syntactic phenomena are analysed cross-linguistically and cross-theoretically, as typologically-different languages (European, Afro-Asiatic, American and Austronesian ones) are dealt with and compared according to a variety of approaches, from minimalism and lexical-functional grammar to grammaticalization theory, taking into account both synchronic variation and diachronic change. The volume is divided into three sections: I. Morphological phenomena and their boundaries, II. Morpho-syntax and pragmatics, and III. Morpho-syntax and semantics, as the interaction with the higher components of the grammar is seen as contributing to explaining variation in morpho-syntactic behaviour.

In a series of pioneering explorations of the diachrony of morphomes, this book throws new light on the nature of the morphome and the boundary - seen from both diachronic and synchronic perspectives - between what is and is not genuinely autonomous in morphology. Its findings will be of central interest to morphologists of all theoretical stripes.

Morphology, the science of words, is a complex theoretical landscape, where a multitude of frameworks, each with their own tenets and formalism, compete for the explanation of linguistic facts. The Oxford Handbook of Morphological Theory is a comprehensive guide through this jungle of morphological theories. It provides a rich and up-to-date overview of theoretical frameworks, from Structuralism to Optimality Theory and from Minimalism to Construction Morphology...

A revival of interest in morphology has occurred during recent years. The periodical Yearbook of Morphology, published since 1988, has proven to be an eminent support for this upswing of morphological research, and has shown that morphology is central to present-day linguistic theorizing. In the Yearbook of Morphology 2005 a number of important theoretical issues are discussed: the role of inflectional paradigms in morphological analysis, the differences between words and affixes, and the adequacy of competing models of word structure. In addition, the role of phonological factors in shaping complex words is discussed. Evidence for particular positions defended in this volume is taken from a wide variety of languages. This volume is of interest to those working in theoretical, descriptive and historical linguistics, morphologists, phonologists, computational linguists, and psycholinguists. Beginning with Volume 16 (2006) the Yearbook of Morphology continues as a journal with the title: Morphology. This is the only journal entirely devoted to the study of linguistic morphology. The journal is available online as well as in print. Visit the journal at: www.springer.com/11525 or click on the link in the top right hand corner.

The Oxford Handbook of Derivational Morphology is intended as a companion volume to The Oxford Handbook of Compounding (OUP 2009) Written by distinguished scholars, its 41 chapters aim to provide a comprehensive and thorough overview of the study of derivational morphology. The handbook begins with an overview and a consideration of definitional matters, distinguishing derivation from inflection on the one hand and compounding on the other. From a formal perspective, the handbook treats affixation (prefixation, suffixation, infixation, circumfixation, etc.), conversion, reduplication, root and pattern and other templatic processes, as well as prosodic and subtractive means of forming new words. From a semantic perspective, it looks at the processes that form various types of adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and verbs, as well as evaluatives and the rarer processes that form function words. The book also surveys derivation in fifteen language families that are widely dispersed in terms of both geographical location and typological characteristics.

This volume provides an unprecedented collection of data from the Asia Minor Greek dialects, affected by Turkish and Romance. It investigates issues regarding inflection, derivation and compounding, and aims to increase our understanding of morphology, dialectology and language change.