Derivational morphology as a synchronic criterion of (non-)configurationality: typological evidence based on a comparative corpus analysis

Abstract

The distinction between configurational languages vs non-configurational languages is generally based on (morpho-)syntactic criteria such as word order, phrase structure and inflection (among others Hale 1982, Bentz & Christiansen 2013). For example, it is usually claimed that case marking in non-configurational languages serves to indicate the syntactic grouping and grammatical functions which constituency and adjacency define in configurational languages (Hawkins 2004: 127). In this paper, we argue that morphological derivation may also serve as a correlating property of (non-)configurationality. More precisely, we focus on denominal verb formation in present-day English, Dutch and Greek. Our hypothesis is that highly configurational languages such as English do not need morphological marking of the change of the noun into the verbal word class because of the presence of syntactic marking of the insertion into the verbal constituent (explicit subject marking, fixed SVO, etc.), whereas in less configurational languages like Modern Greek (with no explicit subject marking and more flexible word order among others) the change of word class requires explicit morphological marking (aside from inflectional markers). Hence, denominal verb formation by conversion can be expected to be predominantly associated with configurational languages like English (e.g. bottleN > to bottleV), while denominal verbalization by affixation is more likely to be found in less configurational languages like Modern Greek (e.g. εμ-φιαλ-ώνω [emfialono] ‘to bottle’, derived by the combination of prefixation and suffixation). Dutch will serve as a test case for our hypothesis: since its syntactic configurationality can be considered intermediate between English and Modern Greek, we expect the proportion of conversion/affixation in the expression of denominal verb-formation to be situated in-between the proportions found for English and Modern Greek. Our method consists in a synchronic comparable corpus analysis, based on the Ten Ten web corpora available on SketchEngine (Kilgariff et al. 2014). References Bentz, C. & M. H. Christiansen. (2013). Linguistic adaptation: the trade-off between case marking and fixed word orders in Germanic and Romance languages. In: F. Shi & G. Peng (eds.), Eastward flows the great river. Festschrift in honor of Prof. William S-Y.Wang on his 80th birthday. Hong Kong: City University of Hong. 45-61. Hale, K. (1982). Preliminary Remarks on Configurationality. Unpublished paper, MIT. Hawkins, J.A. (2004). Efficiency and complexity in grammars. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kilgarriff, A. et al. (2014). The Sketch Engine: ten years on. Lexicography 1:1. 7-36