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Book cover Understanding Morphological Rules

Part of the book series: Studies in Morphology ((SUMO,volume 1))

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Abstract

This chapter is organized as follows: the first Section 4.1 is devoted to terminological matters and the definition of subtraction. Section 4.2 tackles subtraction-like shortenings that cannot be described in terms of morphological rules and therefore do not represent subtraction. The latter is set apart from phonological shortening, backformation, haplology, hypocoristics, clippings, blends, acronyms, subtraction of semantics, zero sign and truncation. Section 4.3 analyzes subtraction in relation to rule inversion. Section 4.4 deals with the classification of subtraction. It is shown that subtraction operates in derivation and in inflection and that subtraction in derivation can be word-class-changing and word-class preserving. Derivational and inflectional subtraction may exhibit additional phonological and morphonological modifications. The last Section 4.5 gives a brief summary of the chapter and draws conclusions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Note that Bloomfield himself offers two solutions: (i) consider the masculine form as basic and assume addition of a consonant in each feminine form; or (ii) consider the feminine form as basic and derive the masculine form by the means of a minus-feature (i.e. subtractive morphology).

  2. 2.

    In Russian, the usual way to address a person is either to use his/her full name and patronimic (formal discourse) or the hypocoristic form of his/her full name (informal discourse), e.g. Elena Petrovna and Lena. A very few names, e.g. Marina, are used in their full forms in informal discourse and consequently the full name is shortened when the new vocative form is derived, i.e. the new vocative of Marina is Marin; though the sequence Marina → Marisha → Marish, through the hypocoristic form, is also possible.

  3. 3.

    In Modern Bulgarian, the process is less productive than in modern Russian. Bulgarian examples are Bg. liberal ‘a liberal’, fakultativ ‘facultative lesson’, nacional ‘national sportsman’, etc. However, there is no serious investigation of such formations in Bulgarian. As for Serbo-Croatian, there seems to be no information relevant to the discussion, but of course, in Serbo-Croatian, there are forms such as libèrāl as well.

  4. 4.

    Plag (2003) suggests an alternative description of blends in terms of prosodic categories. However, his observations hold only for English blends of the type AB + CD → AD.

  5. 5.

    Note that the term Isačenko used for the rule in question is usečenie. Recall, however, that in Russian linguistic literature (as mentioned in Section 4.1 of this chapter) usečenie stands for any type of shortening and can thus denote truncation, conversion, and subtraction.

  6. 6.

    Note that plural nouns without singular counterparts are typical for historical texts. For example, traki ‘the Thracians’ denotes the old Thracian tribe which inhabited the Balkan Peninsula. In historical discourse there is usually no need of the singular form of nouns such as traki, therefore the singular trak is a potential form only. However, a resident of the Trakia district in Bulgaria is actual, therefore expressed by the actual noun trakiec, PL trakijci. Likewise, persi ‘the persians’ has no singular in Modern Bulgarian, but an Iranian is persiec, and the Iranians are persijci, i.e. one thinks as individuals only of present-day peoples (maybe therefore čex ‘a czech’ and šved ‘a swede’ are quite normal).

  7. 7.

    Mayerthaler (1981: 51) defined singulatives as nominal forms in which the meaning of singular is encoded through addition of a segment and gave the following examples from different languages:

    1. (1)

      Nahuatl (Aztec)

      • tolteca ‘People from Tollan, Toltekians’ – toltecatl ‘a Toltekian’

      • mexica ‘Mexicans’ – mexicatl ‘a Mexican’

      • ciua ‘women’ – cuiatl ‘woman’

    2. (2)

      Cymrian (Welsh)

      • pysgod ‘Fish’ (PL) – pysgodyn ‘Fish’ (SG)

      • moch ‘swines’ – mochyn ‘swine’

      • llygod ‘mice’ – llygoden ‘mouse’

    3. (3)

      Mongolian

      • balaġad ‘cities’ – balaġsun ‘city’

      • -(a)d = PL exponent, -sun = SG exponent

    4. (4)

      Arabic

      • ’arab ‘Arabians’ – arabi ‘an Arab’

      • almân ‘Germans’ – almâni ‘a German’

      • inkelîz ‘Englishmen’ – inkelîzi ‘Englishman’.

  8. 8.

    Assuming that action nouns in Icelandic (Anderson 1988; 1992) and Romanian (Hristea 1984) claimed to be derived by subtraction have an intermediate status within the derivation-inflection continuum.

  9. 9.

    For the stress pattern of the Russian nouns in -graf and -olog see Comrie et al. (1996: 94–96).

  10. 10.

    The vowels are phonologically inserted, since ‘consonant + k’ is difficult to pronounce word-finally.

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  1. Department of Slavic Studies, University of Vienna, Universitätscampus AAKH, Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 3, 1090, Vienna, Austria

    Stela Manova

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Manova, S. (2010). Subtraction. In: Understanding Morphological Rules. Studies in Morphology, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9547-3_4

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