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12. Naturalness and Morphological Change

WOLFGANG U. DRESSLER

Subject

Linguistics » Historical Linguistics

Key-Topics

morphology

DOI:

10.1111/b.9781405127479.2004.00014.x

During the last decades, “natural” has often been used by linguists in an inductive or even anecdotal way as

a synonym of “intuitively plausible” or of “cross-linguistically frequent,” in reference to both synchrony and

diachronic change. In more theoretical views, it often overlaps with cognitively simple (cf. Anttila, this

volume), elementary and therefore universally preferred, and with Praguian (especially Jakobson's) notions of

markedness (where unmarked loosely corresponds to natural).

Naturalness is a relative, gradient concept: a phenomenon X is more or less natural than Y. For example,

within English plural formation, the modern plural cow-s is a more natural plural of cow than its precedent

correspondents cyne/kin(e ). Change from a less natural to a more natural morphological phenomenon may

then be called “natural/preferred/unmarked morphological change.” Thus, naturalness studies in diachronic

change usually do not deal with absolute constraints on change but minimally with tendencies or maximally

with “soft constraints” or defaults. Preferences are of a functional nature (cf. Heine and Mithun, this volume)

and ultimately founded in extralinguistic bases.

Tendencies of morphological change have been investigated by many with recourse to some notion of

naturalness, often with a shady transition from notions of naturalness to those of simplicity, that is, to views

that natural morphological change results in simplification. But only few have done that in any systematic

way, notably Bailey (1982) in his “Developmental Linguistics,” Plank (1981), and Keller (1990). Most

systematic work, however, has been done within the framework of “Natural Morphology” (NM) or in reference

to it. A second reason for using the NM framework in this chapter is the important role that diachrony has

always played in this approach.

This chapter will center on grammar-initiated, natural change, first according to universal, system-

independent morphological naturalness/markedness (section 2.1), in regard to the parameters of

constructional iconicity, morphosemantic, and morphotactic transparency (including preferences for

continuity and word bases), and binarity, whereas the parameters of (bi)uniqueness, indexicality, optimum

shape are dealt with in sections 2.2 and 3. Conflicts between universal parameters (section 2.2) either within

morphology or with other components explain unnatural changes. After type-adequacy as a filter on change

(section 3), language-specific, system-dependent naturalness (system-adequacy; section 4.1) is dealt with,

followed by interaction between the three subtheories of universal versus typological versus system-

dependent naturalness (section 4.2). Finally, in section 5, work on change initiated by grammarexternal

factors is briefly mentioned, viz. on contact-induced change, language decay, creolization, and language

planning in terminology.

1 The Framework of Natural Morphology (NM)

The theory of NM 1 originated with the integration of concepts of Praguian markedness and phonological

naturalness (cf. Stampe 1969) into the study of morphology and the conception of naturalness conflicts by

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naturalness (cf. Stampe 1969) into the study of morphology and the conception of naturalness conflicts by

Mayerthaler (1977) and Dressler (1977). In the same year, they, along with Wurzel and Panagl, formulated, at

the 1977 LSA Summer Institute at Salzburg, a common platform later extended into Dressler et al. (1987),

where morphological change occupies a prominent place. More recently, naturalness has become a cover

term for a set of more specific terms to be defined in specific subtheories and to be derived from more

general semiotic, cognitive, and/or psychological concepts.

These subtheories proposed since 1977 are those of universal markedness or system-independent

morphological naturalness (cf. Mayerthaler 1981: 3), and of type-adequacy (cf. Dressler 1985a, 1988a:

section 4), preceded by a theory of system-dependent naturalness or system-adequacy (cf. Wurzel 1984:

section 5). Subtheories for interfaces with other areas of morphological naturalness were established for

morphonology (cf. Dressler 1985b) and morphopragmatics (cf. Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994), and

Mayerthaler is establishing one for morphosyntax, within his theory of Natural Syntax (cf. Mayerthaler et al.

1994).

The focus of diachronic investigations has been on those types of morphological change where the above

subtheories can explain most, that is, where no external theories appear to be crucially involved (but see

sections 5 and 6). This appears to be the case when change is supposed to be mainly triggered by forces

which lie within grammar or become manifest in first language acquisition. Such change has been called

“grammar-initiated change” (the title of Wurzel 1994b). This term is justified in view of the (admittedly

simplified) dichotomy between origin and spread of change. Whereas social factors are of great importance

in spread (cf. Guy, Pintzuk, and Wolfram and Schilling-Estes, this volume), they are of little or, maybe, even

no importance in certain types of change which are subsumed under the term grammar-initiated change.

2 Universal, System-Independent Morphological Naturalness/Markedness

This subtheory is a preference theory (cf. Vennemann 1983; Dressler 1999), which establishes deductively

degrees of universal preferences on a restricted number of naturalness parameters. Here naturalness refers

specifically to what is universally preferred on one given parameter. Parameters and their preference degrees

are deduced from their extralinguistic bases. For each parameter, the two main diachronic predictions are:

i the more natural a phenomenon is on a given morphological parameter, the more stable, that is, the

more resistant it should be to morphological change (but not necessarily to phonological or syntactic

change);

ii if, of two comparable morphological options X and Y, X is more natural than Y on a given parameter

Z, then natural /unmarked change of X to Y should be more likely to occur than the reverse,

unnatural/marked change Y to X. This predicted direction of change does not imply the absurd

position of overall change toward more and more naturalness, but represents the hypothesis of local

improvement on just one parameter (cf. Vennemann 1990), which goes back to Jespersen's (1949)

idea of local efficiency of change (more in sections 2.2 and 4.2 below).

Empirical testing of the predictions of (i) and (ii) should reach statistical significance (weak hypothesis) or

they should even predict the default (strong hypothesis).

2.1 Universal naturalness parameters

Iconicity is the best-known semiotically derived parameter. Most important for morphology is its

subparameter of constructional iconicity (cf. Mayerthaler 1981). According to Peirce's (1965) subdivision of

icons, the various types of English plural formation can be classified as follows: oaf-s is diagrammatic, that

is, most iconic, because there is an analogy between morphotactic addition of a plural marker and addition

of the morphosemantic feature of plurality; umlaut plural feet with vowel modification (from foot ), instead of

addition, is only metaphoric (i.e., with weaker iconicity); loav-es (from sg. loaf ) lies in between; sheep is

non-iconic; the counter-iconic operation of subtraction can be illustrated with subtractive plural hon of sg.

hond ‘dog’ in a Franconian German dialect: naturalness decreases accordingly on this scalar parameter of

constructional iconicity.

If we test the predictions (i) and (ii) of section 2 with recent diachronic change, then the diagrammatic type

oaf-s is the only productive and stable one in English. It acquires new items from the type loav-es , as

attested by the variation roof-s/roov-es , cf. leav-es versus The Toronto Maple Leaf-s; similarly the umlaut

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attested by the variation roof-s/roov-es , cf. leav-es versus The Toronto Maple Leaf-s; similarly the umlaut

plural lice has a recent variant louse-s (with new meaning and diagrammatic plural), and, earlier on, pl. cyne

has been replaced by cow-s; the anti-iconic Franconian plural type hon has become unproductive and loses

items to diagrammatic additive plural formation.

From the semiotic preference for transparency, the two parameters of morphosemantic and morphotactic

transparency 2 are derived: on the parameter of morphosemantic transparency, full transparency means fully

compositional meaning, as is generally the case with inflectional meanings. For example, the meaning of

cow-s equals the meanings of cow and of plurality. There is, however, morphosemantic opacity in cases of

parasitic formation (cf. Aronoff 1994: 33), such as in the formation of the Latin periphrastic future canta-t-

urus sum ‘I'll sing,’ formed via the stem of the past participle canta-t-us , whereas there is no meaning of

past in the periphrastic future. Since, in general, there is an iconic preference for a pairing of transparent

meaning and form, this morphosemanti-cally opaque periphrastic future of Latin has been replaced by more

transparent ones in the Romance languages, especially the type Fr. chanter-ai , Sp. cantar-é , etc., which still

shows its origin from Inf. (Lat. cantare , Fr. chanter , Sp. cantar ) and the auxiliary Lat. habeo , Fr. ai , Sp. he ‘I

have.’

On the parameter of morphotactic transparency, the most natural forms are those where there is no

opacifying obstruction to ease of perception. Purely phonological processes opacify very little, for example,

phonological surface palatalization in the Polish pejorative nom.pl. Polak-i of sg. Polak ‘Pole.’ More

morphotactic opacity occurs in the frequent intervention of morphonological rules, such as in Polish

morphonological palatalization, for example, normal nom.pl. Polac-y . Most opaque is suppletion, as in E.

am, is, are, was . Diachronically, opaque forms are less stable than more transparent ones and easily

replaced, unless high token frequency facilitates memorization of opaque forms and hence helps to preserve

them. Thus in English and German, morphotactically opaque strong verbs have been increasingly replaced by

transparent weak verbs. 3 Most resistant to change are the very frequently used auxiliaries, modal verbs, etc.

Another way of rendering plurals more transparent (and often more iconic) is hypercharacterization (cf.

Malkiel 1957), similar to children's plural feet-s , where a morphological category is doubly marked, the

second time in a more iconic and/or transparent way. Diachronic examples are Middle English pl. child-er /

child-re > child-ren; comparative worse > colloquial wors-er .

A consequence of the preference for morphotactic transparency is also the preference for continuous (rather

than discontinuous) elements. Therefore suf-fixation and prefixation is preferred over infixation

(discontinuous base) or circumfixation (discontinuous affix). The diachronic instability of infixes is evident in

the history of Indo-European languages: for example, -n - infixes of the Latin present stem, as in fra-n-g-o

‘I break,’ perfect freg-i , past participle frac-tus , have become part of the immutable verb stem, as in It.

frang-o, fransi, franto (cf. Klausenburger 1979: 49–54). Also, diminutive/hypocoristic suffixes are generally

preferred to comparable infixes, such as in Sp. Cesar-ito versus Ces-ít-ar , hypocoristics of the name Cesar

(cf. Méndez Dosuna and Pensado 1990), from the late Latin suffix -ittus. 4

Related to the preference for morphotactic transparency is also the word-base preference (cf. Dressler

1988b): the most natural base of a morphological rule is a word, because this is, in semiotic terms, a

primary sign and thus a very transparent unit. Smaller bases (stems, roots) or more complex bases (phrases,

sentences) are dispreferred. This makes, among the two German plural variants of Pizza , word-based Pizza-

s more natural than root-based Pizz-en . As predicted, the type Pizza-s is now the preferred one (cf. Wurzel

1984; Janda 1991, 1999a, with extensive literature).

The word-base preference also renders compounds like do-it-yourself movement (with a sentence as first

member) less natural than eye movement (where the first member is a word). Such sentence-based

compounds seem to originate only in literary languages as marginal neologisms or often only occasionalisms

(ad-hoc /nonce formations) and are socioculturally motivated, relatively unnatural complications, which may

be compared to the rise of complicated politeness forms.

A similar motivation can be found for violations of the binarity preference: grammatical relations are

preferentially binary (based on the binary nature of neurological information transmittance). In syntagmatic

relations, the preferred patterning consists in concatenating one element to one base. This preference holds,

for example, for compounding, including coordinate/copulative compounding, as in queen-mother or

prince-consort . This preference is violated, due to entirely extralinguistic reasons, in denominations of flags,

for example, red-white-red for the Austrian and Peruvian flags. Similarly, Sanskrit coordinate compounds

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for example, red-white-red for the Austrian and Peruvian flags. Similarly, Sanskrit coordinate compounds

start to have more than two members only in later, stylistically marked texts or due to extralinguistic

reasons, as in the denomination of the four main castes brãhma a-k atriya-vi -śū drãh ‘the set of

brahmins, warriors, Vaiśyas, Śudras.’

The preference parameters of bi-uniqueness (uniform symbolization), indexicality, and optimum

shape/extension of morphological word forms will be dealt with in sections 2.2, 3 and 4.

2.2 Conflicts between universal parameters

Unnatural/marked changes can be partially explained by recourse to conflicts between parameters either of

the same grammatical component (here morphology) or of different components (morphology versus

phonology/syntax). Let us start with morphology-internal parameter conflicts.

First, we must introduce another parameter derived from Peircean semiotics, the parameter of indexicality.

On this parameter, adjacency is preferred to distance, both syntagmatically and in terms of rule application.

This favors the diachronic change of rule telescoping (cf. van Marle 1990: 270; Dressler 1996a: 97), insofar

as the morphological surface form can be immediately derived from the base instead of having to be

preceded by intermediate rules and false steps. An example is the genesis of German circumfixes, as in the

poetic occasionalism Ge-khaki-t-e ‘having a khaki-colored uniform’ (= GIs, Arno Schmidt). The intermediate

steps are: noun Khaki → verb *khaki-en , past participle suffixation of this verb → *khaki-t , prefixation →

*ge-khaki-t , conversion of past participle → adjective. Rule telescoping allowed direct derivation of the

adjective from the noun via circumfixation and a morphosemantically transparent relation between nominal

base and derived adjective. This, however, created the class of morphotactically opaque circumfixes.

Another, better-known, semiotically based parameter consists in the preference for bi-uniqueness, or at

least uniqueness, as opposed to ambiguity. Bi-uniqueness 5 holds if one and the same form has always the

same meaning and vice versa, uniqueness if this holds in only one of the two directions. Biuniqueness is

difficult to achieve because of economy of sign shapes and is thus often violated, for example in cases of

hypercharacterization (see section 2.1), where one and the same meaning, for example plurality, is

expressed twice instead of once only. In hypercharacterization, morphotactic transparency wins out over bi-

uniqueness.

Since conflicts between parameters of morphology and those of either phonology or syntax are dealt with,

albeit from a different perspective, in Janda's and Joseph's contributions to this volume, my discussion can

be limited to indicating specifics of the naturalist approach.

In interaction with phonology (cf. Dressler 1985b, 1996), in a first stage, sound laws apply with little or no

respect for morphology. These purely phonological processes (postlexical, postcyclic rules in the terminology

of Kiparsky's Lexical Phonology) opacify morphotactics very little, as in the surface palatalization example

from Polish, in section 2.1. Similarly, more morphotactic opacity occurs when morphonological rules

intervene, as in the morphonological palatalization example in Polish. This increasing morphologization of

phonological rules represents, on the one hand, an unnatural /marked change on the parameters of

morphotactic transparency and constructional iconicity (cf. section 2.1) as well as on the parameter of

phonological (bi-)uniqueness, because Polish [k'] uniquely derives from underlying /k/, whereas [c] may

derive from either /c/ or /k/. On the other hand, a context-sensitive phonological process possesses much

phonological indexicality (since it refers to its phonological context) and little morphological indexicality

(since it refers to a following suffix), whereas for morphonological rules morphological indexicality is much

more important than phonological indexicality, and morphological rules possess only morphological

indexicality. Thus increasing morphologization of phonological rules represents a shift from phonological to

morphological indexicality, explainable by semiotic priority of morphology over phonology. This explains the

unidirectionality of change from phonological to morphological rules (cf. Dressler 1996). The questions of

the conditions under which natural change of indexicality may outweigh unnatural change on several other

parameters will be reconsidered in sections 3 and 4.

A similar approach applies to interaction with syntax and to unidirectionally increasing grammaticalization

from syntax to morphology, a natural change on the parameters of morphotactic transparency (continuous

forms are preferable to discontinuous ones) and of indexicality, insofar as fixed morpheme order is

preferable to alternating order of words or clitics, as in the contrast between periphrastic constructions of

the type I was read-ing, Wasn't I read-ing? and their Italian equivalents Legge-v-o, Non legge-v-o?

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Morphologization of phonological and syntactic patterns has been understood as the basic source of

morphological patterns by Wurzel (1984: 102ff, 212, 1987: 69) in his claim that truly morphological change

is only reactive (criticized by Dressler 1997a, 1999). Of diachronic relevance is also Wurzel's (1996a, 1996b)

perspective on “the age of morphological constructions,” which is correlated to stages of development with

different properties on morphological parameters.

3 Type-Adequacy

Inspired by Skalička's (1979) views on ideal language types which consist of properties which favor (or

disfavor) one another, we can reinterpret language types as (alternative) sets of consistent responses to

naturalness conflicts (section 2.2). 6 Since not all of the most natural options on all parameters can be

combined within one language, naturalness on certain parameters must be, so to say, sacrificed for greater

naturalness on others (cf. Dressler 1985a, 1985c, 1988a; Sgall 1988). Thus the agglutinating type (as best

represented by Turkish) has the advantages of much constructional iconicity, morphosemantic and

morphotactic transparency, and bi-uniqueness, but deviates with its often very long word forms from the

optimal shape of morphological words (one prosodic foot - another universal preference) and does not fully

achieve fixed morpheme order (unnatural on the parameter of indexicality), whereas the opposite holds for

the inflecting-fusional type. In this way, universally rather unnatural options may be typologically adequate if

they fit the properties of the respective language type.

A morphological change is type-adequate if one of the two following conditions is met:

i change does not modify typological properties - this is a typologically conservative change;

ii change correlates with other changes which implement an overall typological change of the

respective language - this is a typologically innovative change.

The second type of change can be exemplified with correlated changes from Latin to Romance inflectional

morphologies, that is, from a strong inflecting language to weak inflecting languages (with a greater role for

the isolating language type). Also, Estonian has changed from an agglutinating type to a predominantly

inflecting-fusional language, with less constructional iconicity, morphosemantic and morphotactic

transparency, and (bi-)uniqueness, but with fixed morpheme order and greater approximation to the optimal

shape of morphological words (di- and trisyllabicity), when compared with Finnish.

Type-adequacy affects the solution of conflicts between parameters. In section 2.2 we have discussed

morphologization of phonological rules and the question of why unnatural change on the parameters of

morphotactic transparency, constructional iconicity, and (bi-)uniqueness can be outweighed by other factors.

This happens especially in languages of the inflecting-fusional type where naturalness on these parameters

is sacrificed in favor of naturalness on other parameters, such as indexicality. In other words, relative

unnaturalness on these parameters obtains little weight and can therefore be outweighed by greater

naturalness on the parameter of indexicality. Similarly, the morphologically fairly unnatural class of infixes

(section 2.1) originates due to phonological factors and is typologically restricted (cf. Moravcsik 1977;

Méndez Dosuna and Pensado 1990).

Also suppletion, the most unnatural option on the parameter of morphotactic transparency, originates in

inflecting-fusional rather than in agglutinating languages. The many origins of suppletion (cf. Ronneberger-

Sibold 1990) must be strictly differentiated from the factors of maintenance (i.e., stability) of suppletion:

those suppletive forms are best preserved which have high token frequency (thus storage is more

economical than composition and decomposition by rule, e.g., with auxiliaries), have idiosyncratic meanings

(e.g., learned connotations, such as Fr. Fontainebleau , adjective Bellifontain of artificial humanistic origin),

are not natural members of large classes (e.g., auxiliaries in contrast to main verbs), or support each other

analogically, as in antonyms (e.g., good, bad , comparatives better, worse ).

4 System-Dependent Naturalness

4.1 System-adequacy

Language-specific, system-dependent naturalness, as conceived by Wurzel (1984) for systems of inflectional

morphology (modifications in Dressler 1997b), represents what is normal or system-congruous (system-

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