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13 - Inflexion, Derivation, Compounding

from Part Three - Morphology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2022

By
Chiara Cappellaro  and
Judith Meinschaefer
Edited by
Adam Ledgeway  and
Martin Maiden
Adam Ledgeway
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Martin Maiden
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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Summary

This chapter highlights how phenomena found in modern Romance varieties as well as processes of language change pose challenges to the idea that inflexion, derivation, and compounding may reside in distinct modules or components of the grammar. It discusses the basic and uncontroversial characteristics of inflexion, derivation, and compounding with data from Romance languages and presents specific topics and case studies that challenge the traditional view from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. The first case study considers the ways in which various morphophonological alternations, such as diphthongization and palatalization, pattern alike or differently with respect to inflexion, derivation, and compounding. The question whether inflexion and derivation can be distinguished on semantic grounds is the focus of two further case studies dealing with (i) the formal marking and the semantic interpretation of number in Italian ambigeneric nouns, and (ii) with the different outcomes of the Latin augment /-sc-/ in modern Romance languages, which evolved in some languages into an inflexional marker, while retaining a derivational function in others. A final topic covered is so-called ‘conversion’, defined here as a transpositional (i.e., category-changing) process that is not marked by any formative, and thus applies to fully inflected words.

Keywords

ambigeneric nounsaugmentcompoundingconversionderivationellipsis under coordinationinflexionirregular pluralmorphophonologyprosodic constituency
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Romance Linguistics , pp. 400 - 433
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Selected References

Acquaviva, P. (2008). Lexical Plurals. A Morphosemantic Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baerman, M. (2015). ‘Introduction’. In Baerman, M. (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Inflection. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Dressler, W. (1985a). Morphonology. The Dynamics of Derivation. Ann Arbor: Karoma.Google Scholar
Forza, F. and Scalise, S. (2016). ‘Compounding’. In Ledgeway, A. and Maiden, M. (eds), The Oxford Guide to Romance Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 524–37.Google Scholar
Hacken, P. Ten (2014). ‘Delineating derivation and inflection’. In Lieber, R. and Stekauer, P. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Derivational Morphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 10–25.Google Scholar
Karlsson, K. E. (1981). Syntax and Affixation. The Evolution of mente in Latin and Romance. Tübingen: Niemeyer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Olsen, S. (2014). ‘Delineating derivation and compounding’. In Lieber, R. and Štekauer, P. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Derivational Morphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–31.Google Scholar
Rainer, F. (2016). ‘Derivational morphology’. In Ledgeway, A. and Maiden, M. (eds), The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 513–23.Google Scholar
Scalise, S. and Bisetto, A. (2009). ‘The classification of compounds’. In Lieber, R. and Štekauer, P. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Compounding. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 34–53.Google Scholar
Štekauer, P. (2015a). ‘The delimitation of derivation and inflection’. In Müller, P. O., Ohnheiser, I., Olsen, S., and Rainer, F. (eds), Word-Formation: An International Handbook of the Languages of Europe. Berlin: de Gruyter, 218–34.Google Scholar

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