Re: derivational morphology

Quoting Patrick Dunn <tb0pwd1@...>:

> Anyone want to talk about derivational morphology?  I'm trying to
> figure out how other languages, nat and con, do it so I can find a way that's
> aesthetically pleasing to me.  I love the sound of Hawai'ian;
> apparently reduplication is part of their derivational morphology.  Anyone
> know how that works?  Or have interesting methods to elucidate, like Hebrew?
The line between derivational and inflectional morphology is
not as hard and fast as it's often portrayed.  Check out
Laurie Bauer's _Introduction to Linguistic Morphology_

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0852245823/qid=1001965698/
sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_0_1/103-4681790-7004663>

He/she (I don't know the sex of the author) makes a good case
for not making a theoretical distinction between them at all,
in fact.  It's chapter 6, I think.  One example of the difficulty
can be seen in Phaleran.  Take three constructions, the active,
the passive, and the direct causative:

   Atherlu    þasu     šr|eswanti
   father.ERG food-ABS eat.TR.3SgPfRe.S
   "The father ate the food."

   Þasu     g|arînto šr|ebronti.
   food-ABS son.INST eat.DETR.3SgPfRe.S
   "The food was eaten by the son."

   Atherlu    g|arituo þasu     šr|eþnunti
   father.ERG son.DAT  food-ABS eat.CAUS.3SgPfRe.S
   "The father forced his son to eat the food"

In each of these, the valence-marker is at some different
point along a continuum between an ideal notion of inflectional
affixes and an ideal notion of derivational affixes.  The transitive
marker is most inflectional:  it has allomorphs according to
phonological shape of the root and it actually disappears when
used in a subordinate clause -- it is, in fact, almost entirely
redundant, like personal marking is.  The passive is somewhat less
inflectional, as it changes the valence of the verb, but it doesn't
occur in infinitival-type constructions (*_šr|ebro_), and the basic
meaning is only narrowly changed. (Thus, to use a passive complement,
you have to find some circumlocution.) The causative, on the other
hand, is more like a derivational morpheme:  it occurs in infinitival
constructions (_šr|eþnu_ is licit), and changes more drastically the
basic meaning of the verb.

==============================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...>

"If a man demands justice, not merely as an abstract concept,
but in setting up the life of a society, and if he holds, further,
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to Actium_, on Spartan king Cleomenes III