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12 - Suppletion

from Part Three - Morphology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2022

By
Martin Maiden  and
Anna M. Thornton
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 uses data from a range of Romance languages to illustrate the different definitions of the notion of suppletion in the linguistic literature, and to offer a typology of suppletion (notable the difference between ‘incursive’ and phonologically induced suppletion). Suppletion may be most usefully viewed simply as an extreme contrast between unity of meaning, on the one hand, and disunity of the forms expressing that meaning, on the other. The typology and distribution of Romance suppletions is described, for example, from the numeral system, from the system of marking comparatives in adjectives, from the inflexional morphology of personal pronouns, from the inflexional morphology or verbs, nouns, and adjectives. While the Romance languages provide cross-linguistically typical illustrations of suppletion in its different manifestations, the Romance data are particularly thought-provoking with regard to, among other things, (i) the particular role of synonymy between lexemes in determining the emergence of incursive suppletion in diachrony; (ii) the role of existing abstract patterns of alternation in providing ‘templates’ for the paradigmatic distribution of suppletive alternants; and (iii) the role of phonological resemblance as a determinant of incursive suppletion.

Keywords

morphologyallomorphysuppletionincursionparadigmsverbsnounscomparativesnumeralssynonymy
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Romance Linguistics , pp. 371 - 399
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Selected References

Aski, J. (1995). ‘Verbal suppletion: an analysis of Italian, French and Spanish to go’, Linguistics 33: 403–32.Google Scholar
Börjars, K. and Vincent, N. (2011). ‘The pre-conditions for suppletion’. In Galani, A., Hicks, G., and Toulas, G. (eds), Morphology and Its Interfaces. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 239–65.Google Scholar
Corbett, G. (2007). ‘Canonical typology, suppletion, and possible words’. Language 83: 8–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dressler, W. (1985). ‘Sur le statut de la suppléance dans la Morphologie Naturelle’, Langages 78: 41–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fertig, D. (1998). ‘Suppletion, natural morphology and diagrammaticity’, Linguistics 36: 1065–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Juge, M. (1999). ‘On the rise of suppletion in verbal paradigms’, Berkeley Linguistics Society 25: 183–94.Google Scholar
Maiden, M. (2004). ‘When lexemes become allomorphs: on the genesis of suppletion’, Folia Linguistica 38: 227–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maiden, M. (2014). ‘Two suppletive adjectives in Megleno-Romanian’. Revue Romane. 49: 32–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melčuk, I. (2000). ‘Suppletion’. In Booij, G., Lehmann, C., & Mugdan, J. (eds), Morphologie. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Flexion und Wortbildung/Morphology. An International Handbook on Inflection and Word-Formation. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 510–22.Google Scholar
Nurmio, S. (2017). ‘The development and typology of number suppletion in adjectives’, Diachronica 34: 127–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rudes, B. (1980). ‘On the nature of verbal suppletion’, Linguistics 18: 655–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Veselinova, L. (2006). Suppletion in Verb Paradigms. Amsterdam: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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