1932

Abstract

The multifacetedness of morphological complexity stems partly from the fact that linguistic complexity can be construed in more than one way, but also from the very nature of morphology. The complexity of morphological systems can be compared with respect to their morphotactics, to their word forms’ morphosyntactic content, to their exponence relations, to their derivational semantics, to their reliance on morphomic patterns, to the implicative relations among the forms in their inflectional paradigm, to their interfaces with other grammatical components, and to the relative parsability of their word forms. Recent research on morphological complexity has led to a precise proposal for quantifying complexity in some of these different dimensions; some dimensions, however, lend themselves to quantification more straightforwardly than others.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011415-040752
2017-01-14
2024-04-29
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/linguistics/3/1/annurev-linguistics-011415-040752.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011415-040752&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Ackerman F, Blevins JP, Malouf R. 2009. Parts and wholes: implicative patterns in inflectional paradigms. Analogy in Grammar: Form and Acquisition JP Blevins, J Blevins 54–82 Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  2. Ackerman F, Malouf R. 2013. Morphological organization: the low conditional entropy conjecture. Language 89:429–64 [Google Scholar]
  3. Allen MR. 1978. Morphological investigations PhD thesis, Univ. Conn., Storrs. 596
  4. Aronoff M. 1994. Morphology by Itself: Stems and Inflectional Classes Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
  5. Baerman M, Brown D, Corbett GG. 2005. The Syntax–Morphology Interface: A Study of Syncretism Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  6. Baerman M, Brown D, Corbett GG. 2015. Understanding and Measuring Morphological Complexity Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
  7. Baerman M, Corbett GG, Brown D. 2010. Defective Paradigms: Missing Forms and What They Tell Us Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
  8. Baerman M, Corbett GG, Brown D, Hippisley A. 2007. Proceedings of the British Academy 145 Deponency and Morphological Mismatches Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
  9. Bickel B, Banjade G, Gaenzle M, Lieven E, Paudyal NP. et al. 2007. Free prefix ordering in Chintang. Language 83:43–73 [Google Scholar]
  10. Brown D, Chumakina M, Corbett GG. 2013. Canonical Morphology and Syntax Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
  11. Corbett GG. 2005. The canonical approach in typology. Studies in Language Companion Series 72 Linguistic Diversity and Language Theories Z Frajzyngier, A Hodges, DS Rood 25–49 Amsterdam: Benjamins [Google Scholar]
  12. Corbett GG. 2009. Canonical inflectional classes. Selected Proceedings of the 6th Décembrettes F Montermini, G Boyé, J Tseng 1–11 Somerville, MA: Cascadilla
  13. Dahl Ö. 2004. The Growth and Maintenance of Linguistic Complexity Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins
  14. Demuth K. 1992. Acquisition of Sesotho. The Cross-Linguistic Study of Language Acquisition D Slobin 3557–638 Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum [Google Scholar]
  15. van Driem G. 1987. A Grammar of Limbu Berlin: de Gruyter
  16. Greenberg JH. 1960. A quantitative approach to the morphological typology of language. Int. J. Am. Linguist. 26:178–94 [Google Scholar]
  17. Haiman J. 1980. Hua: A Papuan Language of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea Amsterdam: Benjamins
  18. Halle M. 1997. Distributed morphology: impoverishment and fission. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 30 Papers at the Interface B Bruening, Y Kang, M McGinnis 425–49 Cambridge, MA: MIT [Google Scholar]
  19. Hawkins JA. 2004. Efficiency and Complexity in Grammars Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
  20. Hay J. 2002. From speech perception to morphology: affix ordering revisited. Language 78:527–55 [Google Scholar]
  21. Henri F, Kihm A. 2015. The morphology of TAM marking in creole languages: a comparative study. Word Struct. 8:248–82 [Google Scholar]
  22. Hockett CF. 1958. A Course in Modern Linguistics New York: Macmillan
  23. von Humboldt W. 1836. Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts Berlin: F. Dümmler
  24. Hyman L. 2003. Suffix ordering in Bantu: a morphocentric approach. Yearbook of Morphology 2002 G Booij, J van Marle 245–81 Dordrecht, Neth: Springer [Google Scholar]
  25. Kelly B, Wigglesworth G, Nordlinger R, Blythe J. 2014. The acquisition of polysynthetic languages. Lang. Linguist. Compass 8:51–64 [Google Scholar]
  26. Kiparsky P. 1982. From cyclic phonology to lexical phonology. The Structure of Phonological Representations H van der Hülst, N Smith 131–76 Dordrecht, Neth: Foris [Google Scholar]
  27. Kolmogorov AN. 1965. Three approaches to the quantitative definition of information. Probl. Inf. Trans. 1:1–7 [Google Scholar]
  28. Li M, Vitányi P. 1997. An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications New York: Springer, 2nd ed..
  29. Maiden M. 2005. Morphological autonomy and diachrony. Yearbook of Morphology 2004 G Booij, J van Marle 137–75 Dordrecht, Neth.: Springer [Google Scholar]
  30. Matthews PH. 1972. Inflectional Morphology: A Theoretical Study Based on Aspects of Latin Verb Conjugation Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  31. McWhorter J. 2001. The world's simplest grammars are creole grammars. Linguist. Typol. 5:125–66 [Google Scholar]
  32. Miestamo M, Sinnemäki K, Karlsson F. 2008. Language Complexity: Typology, Contact, Change Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins
  33. Milin P, Kuperman V, Kostić A, Baayen RH. 2009. Words and paradigms bit by bit: an information-theoretic approach to the processing of paradigmatic structure in inflection and derivation. Analogy in Grammar: Form and Acquisition JP Blevins, J Blevins 214–52 Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  34. Mithun M. 2015. Morphological complexity and language contact in languages indigenous to North America. Linguist. Discov.1337–59
  35. Moscoso del Prado Martín F, Kostić A, Baayen RH. 2004. Putting the bits together: an information-theoretical perspective on morphological processing. Cognition 94:1–18 [Google Scholar]
  36. Newmeyer FJ, Preston LB. 2014. Measuring Grammatical Complexity Oxford, UK/New York: Oxford Univ. Press
  37. Pinker S, Prince A. 1994. Regular and irregular morphology and the psychological status of rules of grammar. The Reality of Linguistic Rules S Lima, R Corrigan, G Iverson 353–88 Amsterdam: Benjamins [Google Scholar]
  38. Pinker S, Ullman M. 2002a. Combination and structure, not gradedness, is the issue. Trends Cogn. Sci. 6:472–74 [Google Scholar]
  39. Pinker S, Ullman M. 2002b. The past and future of the past tense. Trends Cogn. Sci. 6:456–62 [Google Scholar]
  40. Plag I. 2002. The role of selectional restrictions, phonotactics and parsing in constraining suffix ordering in English. Yearbook of Morphology 2001 G Booij, J van Marle 285–314 Dordrecht, Neth.: Springer [Google Scholar]
  41. Plag I, Baayen H. 2009. Suffix ordering and morphological processing. Language 85:109–52 [Google Scholar]
  42. Rice K. 2000. Morpheme Order and Semantic Scope: Word Formation in the Athapaskan Verb Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  43. Sampson G, Gil D, Trudgill P. 2009. Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable Oxford, UK/New York: Oxford Univ. Press
  44. Sapir E. 1921. Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.
  45. von Schlegel F. 1808. Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier: Ein Beitrag zur Begründung der Alterthumskunde Heidelberg, Ger.: Mohr & Zimmer
  46. Shannon CE. 1948. A mathematical theory of communication. Bell Syst. Tech. J. 27:379–423 [Google Scholar]
  47. Shannon CE. 1951. Prediction and entropy of printed English. Bell Syst. Tech. J. 30:50–64 [Google Scholar]
  48. Siegel DC. 1974. Topics in English morphology PhD thesis, Dep. Foreign Lit. Linguist., MIT, Cambridge, MA 194
  49. Spencer A. 2003. Periphrastic paradigms in Bulgarian. Interface Explorations 7 Syntactic Structures and Morphological Information U Junghanns, L Szucsich 249–82 Berlin: de Gruyter [Google Scholar]
  50. Stump G. 2001. Inflectional Morphology: A Theory of Paradigm Structure Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  51. Stump G. 2006. Heteroclisis and paradigm linkage. Language 82:279–322 [Google Scholar]
  52. Stump G. 2015. The interface of semantic interpretation and inflectional realization. Semantics of Complex Words L Bauer, L Körtvélyessy, P Štekauer 27–45 Dordrecht: Springer [Google Scholar]
  53. Stump G. 2016a. Inflectional Paradigms: Content and Form at the Syntax–Morphology Interface Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  54. Stump G. 2016b. Morphomic categories and the realization of morphosyntactic properties. The Morphome Debate A Luís, R Bermudez-Otero 175–206 Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  55. Stump G, Finkel RA. 2013. Morphological Typology: From Word to Paradigm Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  56. Stump G, Finkel RA. 2015. Contrasting modes of representation for inflectional systems: some implications for computing morphological complexity. See Baerman et al. 2015 119–40
  57. Thornton AM. 2012. Reduction and maintenance of overabundance: a case study on Italian verb paradigms. Word Struct. 5:183–207 [Google Scholar]
  58. Xanthos A, Lahaa L, Gillis S, Stefany U, Aksu-Koç A. et al. 2012. On the role of morphological richness in the early development of noun and verb inflection. First Lang. 31:461–79 [Google Scholar]
  59. Zwicky AM. 1985. How to describe inflection. Proceedings of the 11th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society M Niepokuj, M Van Clay, V Nikiforidou, D Feder 372–86 Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguist. Soc. [Google Scholar]
  60. Zwicky AM. 1990. Syntactic representations and phonological shapes. The Phonology–Syntax Connection S Inkelas, D Zec 379–97 Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press [Google Scholar]
  61. Zwicky AM. 1992. Some choices in the theory of morphology. Formal Grammar: Theory and Implementation R Levine 327–71 Vancouver: Univ. B. C. [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011415-040752
Loading
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011415-040752
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Review Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error