Abstract In my study I have taken a contrastive look at Finnish and Estonian inflectional morphology as evidenced in their literary forms. In its perspective the present study differs from the contrastive linguistic research as it is commonly practiced in Finland, in which the objects of research have usually been the relations between Finnish and a morphologically poorer Indo-European language. The languages now in comparison are both morphologically rich languages, viz., Finnish and Estonian, and they also share a common historical background. The objective of my study is twofold: the primary goal is to obtain theoretical information about the relations of inflectional morphology that pertain between these two languages and, secondly, to acquire pedagogically applicable data for language teaching purposes. In order to achieve these goals, it is essential to find out how and to what extent Finnish and Estonian differ from each other morphologically, where the differences come from and how the changes have affected these languages typologically. The results show that by comparing languages it is also possible to discover such features that would not have been possible to detect by just focusing on one language. Natural morphology and markedness theory have served as the theoretical bases for this study. Even in the common grammatical categories there are differences in the markedness relations between Finnish and Estonian. Contrastive research usually deals with a synchronic comparison of languages. However, in analyses of morphological relations between Finnish and Estonian it has turned out practical to relate the synchronic phenomena to their historical background. By adopting this procedure, we are able to unveil the strategic solutions that have taken the languages in different directions. These solutions are reflected in synchronic differences and they can also be indications of typological differentiation. The reasons underlying morphological divergence between Finnish and Estonian can often be found in the developments that have taken place in Estonian: phonological changes can have led to changes in morphological structures and even to morphological innovations. The complete morphologicalization of consonantal gradation and the birth of internal inflection are two of the important processes that Estonian has undergone. To some extent, differences have also been caused by conscious development and standardization of the two languages. A comparison of inflectional morphology in Finnish and Estonian nouns shows that the singular and plural genitive forms have a more focal position in Estonian than they have in Finnish. I will also show in more detail, both diachronically and from the point of view of markedness, the nature of the relationship between the three plural types of Estonian compared to the two types in Finnish. In verb morphology there are important differences, for example, in the passive construction, the mood system and past tense relations as well as in the selection and morphology of the infinite forms. A characteristic feature of Estonian is the weakening of the category for person: many finite verb forms are without the person suffix altogether, or it is optional. The present analysis shows that the relations between Finnish and Estonian paradigm types are quite complex. For instance, many Finnish two-stem word-types are parallel to an Estonian type that has evolved into a single-stem type. However, Estonian can have developed a secondary consonant stem type, which has no equivalent in the Finnish paradigms. There is also ample evidence for one Finnish paradigm having its parallels in two or more types in Estonian. This is the case, for instance, in the two-syllable e contracted nouns and contracted verbs. In addition, a path of development in Estonian may also have led to merging of two paradigm types, such as the coalescence of us quality terms and action terms. / Tiivistelmä Tarkastelen tutkimuksessani kontrastiivisesti suomen ja viron taivutusmorfologiaa niiden kirjakielisen edustuksen pohjalta. Lähtökohdiltaan työni poikkeaa Suomessa yleensä harjoitetusta kontrastiivisesta tutkimuksesta, jossa kohteina ovat olleet tavallisesti suomen ja jonkin usein morfologialtaan köyhemmän indoeurooppalaisen kielen suhteet. Nyt vertailtavina ovat paljolti yhteisen taustan omaavat läheiset sukukielet, suomi ja viro, jotka ovat morfologialtaan rikkaita. Tutkimukseni päämäärä on kahtalainen: ensisijaisena tavoitteena on saada teoreettista tietoa kielten taivutusmorfologisista suhteista, mutta toiseksi myös pedagogisesti hyödynnettävissä olevaa tietoa kielenopetuksen tarpeisiin. Keskeistä on sen selvittäminen, miten ja missä määrin suomi ja viro poikkeavat toisistaan morfologisesti ja mistä erot johtuvat sekä miten muutokset ovat vaikuttaneet kieliin typologisesti. Tulokset osoittavat, että kieliä vertailemalla niistä voidaan saada selville sellaisiakin seikkoja, jotka eivät olisi havaittavissa vain yhteen kieleen keskittymällä. Tutkimukseni teoreettisena viitekehyksenä on luonnollinen morfologia ja tunnusmerkkisyysteoria. Suomen ja viron välillä ilmenee yhteisissäkin kielioppikategorioissa eroja tunnusmerkkisyyssuhteissa. Kontrastiivisen tutkimuksessa on tavallisesti kyse kielten synkronisesta vertailusta. Suomen ja viron morfologisten suhteiden selvittämisessä on osoittautunut tarkoituksenmukaiseksi synkronisten ilmiöiden suhteuttaminen historialliseen taustaan. Tällöin näkyvät kieliä eri suuntaan vieneet strategiset ratkaisut, jotka nyt kuvastuvat synkronisina eroina ja voivat olla osoituksena typologisesta erilaistumisesta. Suomen ja viron morfologisten erojen syynä on usein etenkin virossa tapahtunut kehitys: äänteenmuutokset ovat voineet johtaa kielen muotorakenteessa muutoksiin, myös morfologisiin innovaatioihin. Tärkeitä prosesseja ovat virossa olleet astevaihtelun täydellinen morfologistuminen ja sisäisen taivutuksen synty. Niin ikään eroja on jossain määrin aiheuttanut kielten tietoinen kehittäminen ja normittaminen. Suomen ja viron nominien taivutusmorfologian vertailu osoittaa, että virossa erityisesti yksikön ja monikon genetiivimuodoilla on järjestelmässä huomattavasti keskeisempi asema kuin suomessa. Esitän myös lähemmin, millainen on viron kolmen monikkotyypin suhde suomen kahteen tyyppiin sekä diakronisesti että tunnusmerkkisyyden kannalta. Verbimorfologiassa kielten kesken on tärkeitä eroja muun muassa passiivissa, modusjärjestelmässä, imperfektityyppien suhteissa sekä infiniittimuotojen valikoimassa ja morfologiassa. Virolle leimallista on persoonakategorian heikkeneminen: monet finiittiset verbimuodot ovat vailla persoonapäätettä tai sellainen on valinnainen. Suomen ja viron paradigmatyyppien suhteet osoittautuvat varsin kirjaviksi. Monia suomen kaksivartaloisia sanatyyppejä vastaa virossa yksivartaloiseksi kehittynyt tyyppi. Toisaalta viroon on voinut syntyä sekundaaria konsonanttivartaloisuutta, jollaiselta suomen paradigmoista puuttuu vastine. On myös useita esimerkkejä siitä, että yhtä suomen paradigmatyyppiä, esimerkiksi kaksitavuisia e-supistumanomineja sekä supistumaverbejä, vastaa virossa kaksi tai useampia tyyppejä. Kehitys on virossa voinut johtaa myös kahden paradigmatyypin, kuten us-ominaisuudennimien ja -teonnimien, yhdistymiseen.

Der Analyse liegt ein Konzept von verbaler Flexionsmorphologie zugrunde, das die diachrone Entwicklung von Flexionsmorphemen berücksichtigt. Dies wird im Makunduchi insbesondere aufgrund der häufig unscharfen Grenzziehung zwischen Auxiliarkonstruktion und Flexionsmorphemen erforderlich.

No description available.

Dans les systèmes flexionnels, il arrive que des propriétés morphosyntaxiques soient exprimées différemment d’un lexème à l’autre. Pour décrire ces systèmes, il est usuel d’énumérer un petit nombre de classes flexionnelles formant une partition des lexèmes. Les systèmes flexionnels suivent cependant une organisation beaucoup plus complexe, et en raison d’un flou méthodologique, les travaux sont souvent en désaccord sur l’inventaire exact des classes.Cette thèse se place dans la perspective Mot et Paradigme et élabore des outils computationnels permettant d’observer précisément la structure de similarité des systèmes de classes flexionnelles en se fondant sur des lexiques de formes fléchies. Nous étudions les verbes de l’arabe, de l’anglais, du chatino de Zenzontepec, du chatino de Yaitepec, du français, du navajo, du portugais européen, ainsi que les noms du Russe.Dans une première partie, nous proposons de décrire le comportement flexionnel des lexèmes au moyen des alternances entre leur formes. Nous présentons un algorithme pour inférer automatiquement des patrons d’alternances reliant deux formes de surface d’un même lexème. Nous employons ces patrons pour quantifier le problème de remplissage des cases de paradigme. Dans une seconde partie, nous nous interrogeons sur la structure de similarité des systèmes flexionnels. Nous commençons par classer les lexèmes en microclasses, fondées sur l’identité du comportement flexionnel. Celles-ci sont nombreuses, et parfois très similaires entre elles. Nous proposons ensuite un algorithme fondé sur la longueur de description permettant de regrouper les microclasses en un petit nombre de macroclasses correspondant à la notion traditionnelle de classe flexionnelle. Enfin, nous montrons que le modèle le plus fidèle pour décrire les similarités au sein de ces systèmes est un treillis dont chaque nœud constitue une classe flexionnelle. Pour déduire cette hiérarchie à héritage multiple des patrons d’alternances, nous employons l’analyse de concepts formels / In some inflectional systems, the same morphosyntactic properties can be expressed differently across lexemes. These systems are usually described through the enumeration of a small number of inflection classes partitioning the inventory of lexemes. However, the actual structure of inflection class systems is much more complex, and methodological vagueness leads to contradictory accounts regarding inventories of inflection classes.This dissertation adopts the Word and Paradigm approach and elaborates computational tools to investigate precisely the similarity structure of inflection class systems based on inflectional lexicon. We study Arabic, Yaitepec Chatino, Zenzontepec Chatino, English, French, Navajo and European Portuguese verbs as well as Russian nouns.The first part defines the inflectional behavior of lexemes through the set of all surface alternations between their forms. We describe an algorithm to infer automatically alternation patterns between any two forms of a lexeme. We use alternation patterns to quantify the Paradigm Cell Filling Problem (PCFP). The second part investigates the similarity structure of inflectional systems. We start by classifying lexemes into microclasses, based on identity of inflectional behavior. These classes are numerous, and sometimes very similar. We then describe an algorithm based on minimal description length to gather microclasses into macroclasses which conform to the traditional notion of inflection class. Finally, we show that the most faithful model to describe similarities in inflectional systems is a lattice in which each node is an inflection class. To deduce this multiple inheritance hierarchy from alternation patterns, we use Formal Concept Analysis.

This study investigates, theoretically and empirically, the role of animacy in the development of gender systems. The theoretical background is a grammaticalisation approach to language change. Concerning gender, this presupposes that classifications begin as semantic distinctions in the realm of animacy with flexible, contextually based agreement between the gender-marking elements. This kind of gender is called contextual gender. In the course of time, these classifications will spread into other areas, they become desemanticized and the agreement relation grammaticalizes into one of government where the inherent gender of the head noun controls the gender of the agreeing elements, irrespective of contextual factors When this leads to a great number of violations of the principles of contextual agreement in the realm of animacy, a new cycle of semantic classification will begin, creating layers of classifications. For German and Swedish two different layers are discerned respectively. The empirical starting point of this project was the observation of two opposite developments in the area of female person reference in Germany and Sweden. As a consequence of feminist critique of language, mainly targeted at the use of socalled masculine generics, in Germany the use of female gender-specific nouns increased substantially, the major means being female derivation with –in, so-called motion. Although similar means for female derivation exist in Swedish, i.e. -inna and -ska, the number of derivations used is decreasing. In order to isolate socio-cultural and historical facts from language-internal mechanisms behind the diverging tendencies, a historical sketch of the development of equal rights, of language criticism and of the development of the female suffixes is drawn for the respective countries. It is obvious, that the German strategy to achieve gender-fair language use is established by making women visible by means of motion, while in Sweden the use of gender-neutral forms for a long period of time has been regarded as a sign of equality. This ‘neutral’ use of former masculine and male-specific forms has been made possible by the merging of the two nominal genders masculine and feminine into uter (Sw. utrum). A contrastive study of comparable German and Swedish newspaper texts shows that the lack of motion in Swedish is partly compensated by composition and attribution with gender-specific lexemes. Still, the 64% gender-specific noun phrases in Swedish cannot compare with the 95% in German. But the use of gender-specific forms for well over half of the person references calls into doubt the general opinion shared by most Swedes that Swedish has a gender-neutral person reference system. Linguistic asymmetry persists as long as gender-specification is restricted to one half of the gendered population, whatever the means for specification. The almost exclusive use of gender-specific forms in German is seen as indicative of a grammaticalisation process. Haspelmaths invisible hand explanation of grammaticalisation is used to show how the development of -in in German fulfils just about every requirement on a grammaticalisation process – language-external as well as -internal – while -inna and -ska neither are promoted sufficiently by the speech community nor does there exist a paradigm that could accommodate them. In contrast to Swedish, where the suffixes remain strictly derivational, it is demonstrated that -in is turning into an inflectional marker. The German gender sub-system for person reference is developing into a semantically based system with genderflexible person denominations. A study of the pronouns agreeing with non-personal-agents in a parallel corpus of EU-documents shows that other aspects than purely referential or formal ones impinge on the choice of agreement forms. Non-personal-agents in certain contexts expose both agency and intentionality, which turns them into suitable agreement partners for animate pronouns. In Swedish, all animate pronouns are sexed, leaving a “Leerstelle” for these inanimate but agentive and intentional referents. In German, this problem is covered by the polysemy of the personal pronouns. Non-personal-agents are shown to be one possiblesource for the spreading of a linguistic innovation from the realm of animacy into inanimate contexts via semantic and thematic roles that share important features with animates proper. The last study makes use of different types of German monolingual corpora in order to investigate the agreement between inanimate nouns with female inherent gender – from non-personal-agents and abstracts to concrete nouns – and agent nouns which can potentially expose agreement by female derivation. Although the results are rather heterogeneous, they allow the formulation of the hypothesis that agreement is more likely to occur with nouns for which a metaphorical bridge to stereotypical conceptions of femininity can be constructed and that key collocations with high frequency such as die Kirche als Trägerin or die DNA als Trägerin der Erbinformation contribute significantly to the spread of the agreement pattern.

Σκοπός της παρούσας εργασίας ήταν να μελετήσει την ορθογραφική απόδοση κλιτικών μορφημάτων ουσιαστικών, ρημάτων και επιθέτων της ελληνικής γλώσσας από μαθητές ηλικίας 9 έως 11 ετών. Στη μελέτη συμμετείχαν τρεις ομάδες μαθητών: 21 μαθητές Στ΄ δημοτικού με αναγνωστικές και ορθογραφικές δυσκολίες, 21 μαθητές ίδιας χρονολογικής ηλικίας και 24 μαθητές παρόμοιου αναγνωστικού και ορθογραφικού επιπέδου νεότερης ηλικίας. Αρχικά, χορηγήθηκε στους μαθητές όλων των ομάδων ένα σύνολο δοκιμασιών, οι οποίες αξιολογούσαν τη μη λεκτική τους νοημοσύνη, τη βραχύχρονη μνήμη τους, τις αναγνωστικές και ορθογραφικές τους δεξιότητες. Η πειραματική ορθογραφική δοκιμασία συνίστατο στην ορθογραφική απόδοση ουσιαστικών, επιθέτων και ρημάτων ενσωματωμένων σε κατάλληλα προτασιακά πλαίσια. Σύμφωνα με τα αποτελέσματα, οι μαθητές με αναγνωστικές και ορθογραφικές δυσκολίες ήταν λιγότερο ακριβείς και συνεπείς στην ορθογραφική απόδοση των κλιτικών μορφημάτων των λέξεων συγκριτικά με τους μαθητές τυπικής ανάπτυξης της Στ΄ τάξης δημοτικού. Οι μαθητές με αναγνωστικές και ορθογραφικές δυσκολίες είχαν παρόμοια επίδοση με αυτή των νεαρότερων μαθητών παρόμοιου αναγνωστικού και ορθογραφικού επιπέδου ως προς την ορθογραφική ακρίβεια και την ορθογραφική συνέπεια στην απόδοση των κλιτικών μορφημάτων. Υπήρξαν βέβαια και κάποιες περιπτώσεις, όπου δεν υπήρξαν διαφοροποιήσεις μεταξύ των ομάδων. Επιπλέον, oι μαθητές και των τριών ομάδων είχαν καλύτερη επίδοση στην ορθογραφική απόδοση των κλιτικών μορφημάτων των ουσιαστικών και των ρημάτων σε σχέση με αυτήν στα κλιτικά μορφήματα των επιθέτων. / The purpose of this study was to examine the spelling of noun's, verb's and adjectives' inflectional morphemes in the Greek language by 9–11-year old children. Three groups participated in this study. Particularly, 21 sixth graders with reading and spelling difficulties, 21 chronological age-matched children and 24 younger reading and spelling-level-matched children. At first, students were assessed on a range of tests of non verbal ability, short-memory abilities, as well as reading and spelling abilities. In the experimental spelling task they were asked to spell nouns, verbs and adjectives in dictated sentences. Children with reading and spelling difficulties were less accurate and less consistent than chronological age-matched children in spelling inflectional morphemes. Moreover, children with reading and spelling difficulties performed similarly to younger reading and spelling-level-matched children as far as spelling accuracy and spelling consistency of inflections are concerned. In some cases of inflectional morphemes the three groups did not differ. Finally, children spelled noun and verb inflections more accurately than adjective inflections.

This study falls under the broad area of child language acquisition with specific focus on Shona morphosyntax. The understanding that knowledge of the nature of child language contributes to the sustainability of language acquisition matters forms the basis of the investigation. A qualitative approach is followed in the study, specifically focusing on the constraints on the development of inflectional morphemes (IMs) in the acquisition of nouns and verbs in child Shona. The study investigates the development of child Shona inflectional morphology and how morphology interacts with syntax. The constraints that operate in the acquisition of Shona are identified. The study refers to linguistic theories for an account of the development of child Shona morphosyntax. The study is based on the understanding that knowledge of the nature of child language contributes to the sustainability of language acquisition matters. The data used in this study is collected from four Shona speaking children. The ages of the children range from two years (2; 0) to three years and two months (3; 2). Two female and two male children participated in this study. The primary method of data collection used in this study is the naturalistic method, while elicitation is used to elicit plural formation. The results indicate that child Shona morphosyntax is characterized by omission of the various inflectional morphemes on nouns and verbs, while the lexical morphemes are retained. The child Shona IM is phonologically different from the adult Shona IM. This is because the children are constrained and hence use simplification strategies in order to try to be faithful to the input grammar. The noun and verb IMs are produced in the form of a reduced syllable, because the children dropped the consonant in the IM syllable and retained the vowel. The study reveals that the development of child Shona morphosyntax is based on pivotal constituencies of the sentence. These pivots are the nouns and verbs that are used by the children. The study identifies constraints that operate on the process of child Shona development as phonological, morphological, semantic, visibility and frequency constraints. The finding that is arrived at through this study is that syntax is in place before morphology. / African Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)

The present dissertation investigates the development in the production and perception of inflectional morphology in second-language learners of English and the role of their mother tongue during this development. The data analysed in this thesis stem from three psycholinguistic experiments that examine the production and comprehension of English novel words (thus investigating the sublexicon without the activation of word meaning). The first experiment focuses on the perception of inflectional morphemes in English novel words in L2 students at the A0 to C1 proficiency levels. Reaction-times analysis has shown that L2 learners seem to be (similarly to native speakers (e.g., Post et al., 2008)) sensitive to the presence of morphosyntactic information at the sublexical level, and they appear to decompose inflected forms into stems and affixes during perception and conduct an implicit phonetic analysis of the stem. The presence of these patterns across all levels suggests that L2 performance might be influenced by L1: Czech is morphologically much richer than English, and Czech speakers might thus be in general sensitive to morphological analysis of words. The second experiment investigates the production of inflected forms, more specifically those of past tense, in L2 learners of English at the A1 to...