LINGUIST List 19.700: Morphology: Steriopolo: 'Form and Function of Expressive Morp...'

LINGUIST List 19.700

Sun Mar 02 2008

Diss: Morphology: Steriopolo: 'Form and Function of Expressive Morp...'

Editor for this issue: Evelyn Richter <evelynlinguistlist.org>

1. Olga Steriopolo, Form and Function of Expressive Morphology: A case study of Russian

Message 1: Form and Function of Expressive Morphology: A case study of Russian
Date: 02-Mar-2008
From: Olga Steriopolo <olgasteriopolohotmail.com>
Subject: Form and Function of Expressive Morphology: A case study of Russian
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Institution: University of British Columbia Program: Department of Linguistics Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2008

Author: Olga Steriopolo

Dissertation Title: Form and Function of Expressive Morphology: A case study of Russian

Dissertation URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/424

Linguistic Field(s): Morphology
Subject Language(s): Russian (rus)
Dissertation Director:
Martina Wiltschko Hotze Rullmann Gunnar Ólafur Hansson
Dissertation Abstract:

I conduct a detailed case study of expressive suffixes in Russian. I showthat although the suffixes under investigation have the same function("expressive"), they differ significantly in their formal properties. Iidentify two major semantic types of expressive suffixes: attitude and sizesuffixes. Attitude suffixes convey an attitude of the speaker toward thereferent. Size suffixes both convey an attitude and refer to the size ofthe referent.

I argue that the two different semantic types map onto different syntactictypes. Attitude suffixes are syntactic heads, while size suffixes aresyntactic modifiers. As heads, attitude suffixes determine the formalproperties (syntactic category, grammatical gender and inflectional class)of the derived form. As modifiers, size suffixes do not determine theformal properties of the derived form. Attitude suffixes can attach both tocategory-free √Roots and to categories (n/a/v), while size suffixes canonly attach to a noun category.

I investigate the functional and formal properties of Russian expressivesuffixes in a systematic way, which has not been done before. In doing so,I analyze how expressive suffixes pattern along several kinds of criteria(gender/class change, category change, subcategorization). An importantbyproduct of this analysis is that I show how grammatical gender of anexpressive form can be predicted from its inflectional class (combined withanimacy and natural gender of the base).

One implication of this analysis is that I show that the formal propertiesof expressives are no different from those of non-expressives(descriptives), as both expressives and descriptives can attach as heads ormodifiers either to √Roots or categories. Another implication is that theformal criteria which I develop for a small set of expressive suffixes inRussian can be extended to set up a cross-linguistic typology of expressives.