Competitors and alternants in linguistic morphology
Bibliographic Collection:
CARTA-Inspired Publication
Publication Type: Miscellaneous
Authors: Aronoff, M
Year of Publication: 2016
Secondary Title: linguistics.stonybrook.edu
Publication Language: eng
Abstract:
Complementary distribution is a consequence of a general principle of evolutionary biology, competitive exclusion, which further provides a uniform account of both allomorphic variation and the rivalry between affixes in terms of competition for distributional resources. The distribution of inflectional competitors is a type of spatial partitioning, restricted by the morphosyntactic system of a language, while derivational rivals benefit from having to name externally driven concepts. The English suffixes -ce, -cy, and -ntial are analyzed in detail as examples of competition for distribution.
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