Baseless derivation: the behavioural reality of derivational paradigms

Standard accounts of derivational morphology assume that it is incremental: some words are formed on the basis of others, and each derivational family has a base from which all of the other words are derived. The importance of the base has been questioned by paradigmatic approaches to morphology, wh...

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Main Authors: Copot Maria, Bonami Olivier
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: De Gruyter 2024-05-01
Series:Cognitive Linguistics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2023-0018
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author Copot Maria
Bonami Olivier
author_facet Copot Maria
Bonami Olivier
author_sort Copot Maria
collection DOAJ
description Standard accounts of derivational morphology assume that it is incremental: some words are formed on the basis of others, and each derivational family has a base from which all of the other words are derived. The importance of the base has been questioned by paradigmatic approaches to morphology, which posit that word systems are about multidirectional relationships between words and paradigm cells, in which no word has a privileged status. This paper seeks to test which of these two views makes more accurate predictions about speakers’ cognitive representations of derivational families. We perform an acceptability judgement experiment in which speakers are asked to evaluate the acceptability of a pseudoword conditional on another pseudoword in the same derivational family. We find that speakers are aware of implicative relationships between words in the same family, and that they opportunistically exploit probabilistic relationships between surface words, regardless of whether the base form is the predictor, the target of prediction, or not at all involved in the task.
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spelling doaj-art-56f2c3bebd334e97bdb7e8b5ce6ca0a52025-08-25T06:10:17ZengDe GruyterCognitive Linguistics0936-59071613-36412024-05-0135222125010.1515/cog-2023-0018Baseless derivation: the behavioural reality of derivational paradigmsCopot Maria0Bonami Olivier1The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USAUniversité Paris Cité, Laboratoire de Linguistique Formelle, CNRS, Paris, FranceStandard accounts of derivational morphology assume that it is incremental: some words are formed on the basis of others, and each derivational family has a base from which all of the other words are derived. The importance of the base has been questioned by paradigmatic approaches to morphology, which posit that word systems are about multidirectional relationships between words and paradigm cells, in which no word has a privileged status. This paper seeks to test which of these two views makes more accurate predictions about speakers’ cognitive representations of derivational families. We perform an acceptability judgement experiment in which speakers are asked to evaluate the acceptability of a pseudoword conditional on another pseudoword in the same derivational family. We find that speakers are aware of implicative relationships between words in the same family, and that they opportunistically exploit probabilistic relationships between surface words, regardless of whether the base form is the predictor, the target of prediction, or not at all involved in the task.https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2023-0018morphologyderivationword and paradigmexperimental linguistics
spellingShingle Copot Maria
Bonami Olivier
Baseless derivation: the behavioural reality of derivational paradigms
Cognitive Linguistics
morphology
derivation
word and paradigm
experimental linguistics
title Baseless derivation: the behavioural reality of derivational paradigms
title_full Baseless derivation: the behavioural reality of derivational paradigms
title_fullStr Baseless derivation: the behavioural reality of derivational paradigms
title_full_unstemmed Baseless derivation: the behavioural reality of derivational paradigms
title_short Baseless derivation: the behavioural reality of derivational paradigms
title_sort baseless derivation the behavioural reality of derivational paradigms
topic morphology
derivation
word and paradigm
experimental linguistics
url https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2023-0018
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AT bonamiolivier baselessderivationthebehaviouralrealityofderivationalparadigms