Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: Beginning the Journey
- PART I FIRST STEPS
- PART II THE LEXICAL ITEMS
- PART III THE FUNCTIONAL ITEMS
- PART IV A VIEW OF THE LEXICON
- 14 The Scope Hypothesis and Simplifying the Lexicon
- 15 Evidence from the Lexicon
- PART V THE END OF THE JOURNEY
- PART VI APPENDIXES
- Notes
- References
- Name Index
- Languages Index
- Subject Index
15 - Evidence from the Lexicon
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: Beginning the Journey
- PART I FIRST STEPS
- PART II THE LEXICAL ITEMS
- PART III THE FUNCTIONAL ITEMS
- PART IV A VIEW OF THE LEXICON
- 14 The Scope Hypothesis and Simplifying the Lexicon
- 15 Evidence from the Lexicon
- PART V THE END OF THE JOURNEY
- PART VI APPENDIXES
- Notes
- References
- Name Index
- Languages Index
- Subject Index
Summary
So far, I have made the following observations: morphemes that enter into a scopal relationship with each other exhibit fixed order if their semantic relationship is fixed, if their semantic relationship is variable, their ordering varies according to this relationship, and if there is no semantic relationship between morphemes, their ordering with respect to each other may also vary. Based on these observations, I concluded that morpheme order in the verb of Athapaskan languages is regulated by scope. In this chapter, I would like to examine the morpheme stock of Athapaskan languages to provide further evidence for the claim that morpheme order is regulated not by an arbitrary template but rather by principles of universal grammar.
Predictions
In chapter 3, I laid out two hypotheses that might account for morpheme order in the verb of Athapaskan languages. Under the template hypothesis, morphemes are marked for the position that they appear in, and linear order need not reflect word formation. Thus, the ordering in a template is arbitrary, and, as discussed by Spencer 1991, in many ways quite unconstrained as compared with layered morphology.
Consider the consequences of the template hypothesis for language change. According to this hypothesis, the similarities in morpheme order across the language family are a consequence of common origins: at an early stage of the family, only a single template was available.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Morpheme Order and Semantic ScopeWord Formation in the Athapaskan Verb, pp. 373 - 384Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000