Inflexion, Derivation, Compounding

Chiara Cappellaro; Judith Meinschaefer

doi:10.1017/9781108580410.016

13 - Inflexion, Derivation, Compounding

from Part Three - Morphology

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 June 2022

Chiara Cappellaro and

Judith Meinschaefer

Edited by

Adam Ledgeway and

Martin Maiden

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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 nouns augment compounding conversion derivation ellipsis under coordination inflexion irregular plural morphophonology prosodic constituency

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Romance Linguistics , pp. 400 - 433

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108580410.016 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

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References

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