derivation versus inflection?

[Jess Tauber]

I'd like to ask the typologists about the possibility that derivation and
inflection, considered by many just to be opposite poles of a continuum
occupied by grammaticalized materials, might have opposing developmental
histories as well as hierarchical ranking priorities.

In Vol. 4-2 (2000) of Linguistic Typology, Amara Prasithrathsint discusses
the difficulty of pinpointing word class in Thai. Word class in isolating
languages ultimately must depend on position within a predication. Thus it is
syntactic and phrasal in nature. At the same time in isolating languages,
inflectional possibilities must often (always?) be lexical in realization.

The above is of course an idealization- in reality the actual history of
isolating languages, at the synchronic level, often conceals old derivation
(as in Tibeto-Burman languages). As a set of working factoidal premises,
though, lets suppose the above does hold. Then one might see affixational
derivation as a secondary type, one which draws lexical materials (as
modifiers) to already existing items which have become fixed as to what form
class they belong to. Affixational inflection would also be secondary, but in
this case it is the inflectional element which is the modifier.

Can the very process of developing such "secondary" derivational and
inflectional possibilities be related to an inversion of lexical versus
syntactic priority? Structural inversions are easy to find in language, what
about here? Derivational morphology would draw down from syntax the original
positional form class specification (making it "lexical" while doing so).
Inflectional morphology would delexicalize items while making them party to
more complex collocational strings. Kinda reminds me of mixing at interface
of oil and water.

Derivational morphology has the ultimate effect of complexifying the lexicon,
just as inflectional morphology might complexify syntax. What about the
inverse? Does derivation have the effect of simplifying syntax? Inflection
the lexicon?

All commentary appreciated.

Jess Tauber
zylogy at aol.com


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