Deriving affix ordering in polysynthesis: evidence from Adyghe

Abstract

This article deals with the order of verbal suffixes in Adyghe, a polysynthetic language of the Caucasus. Traditionally the structure of the Adyghe word form and the order of its affixes were described in terms of template morphology. However, we present new data demanding another, substantially different approach. We demonstrate that for the most part suffix ordering within the Adyghe verb follows strictly compositional rules. This feature is a manifestation of the polysynthetic nature of the language.

Morpheme Ordering Across Languages Reflects Optimization for Processing Efficiency

“…A second prominent semantic account holds that morphemes are ordered in the order in which their meanings combine, so that morphemes are closer to the root when their meanings have narrower scope (e.g., Caballero, 2010;Korotkova & Lander, 2010;Narrog, 2010;Rice, 2000). A good example for the scope-based explanation is the relative ordering of valence and voice.…”

“…The order of affixes corresponds to the order in which the meanings of these suffixes combine with the meaning of the root: The causative affix adds an argument indicating who makes an object freeze, and the passive affix then backgrounds that argument, yielding a verb describing something that is being frozen by someone. This account is highly successful at predicting the order of valence and voice, among other morphemes (e.g., Caballero, 2010;Korotkova & Lander, 2010;Narrog, 2010;Rice, 2000), (with the exception of anti-scope orderings in some languages (Hyman, 2003)). However, it is not always straightforward to evaluate for other affixes, because its predictions depend on the specifics of how meaning is represented formally.…”

Two-Faced Subordination Marker in West Circassian Necessity Constructions

“…The suffixes belonging to the stem include mainly morphemes conveying various aspectual (including aktionsart), temporal and modal meanings. These suffixes are largely ordered according to their scope (Korotkova and Lander 2010). Most (but not all) endings convey syntactic information: in particular, almost all suffixes that mark subordination (e.g., case markers and markers of dependent clauses) are of this kind.…”

West Circassian polysynthesis at the morphology-syntax interface

“…Background on West Circassian morphosyntax. West Circassian is generally classified as polysynthetic, with prevalent head marking and complex agglutinative morphology (Smeets 1984:68-71;Arkadiev et al 2009:18;Korotkova & Lander 2010;Lander & Letuchiy 2010;Lander 2015, inter alia). Thus, a typical verbal form includes prefixes referring to all of its arguments, as well as a range of morphology expressing voice, polarity, TAM, etc.…”