Abstract
The wide empirical coverage of two number features, [±singular] and [±augmented], is used to show that (Greenbergian) category-internal markedness, (geometric) feature markedness, and value markedness are, respectively, epiphenomenal, untenable, and too simplistically formulated to be currently evaluated.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anceaux J.C. (1965) The Nimboran language: Phonology and morphology. ’s-Gravenhage, M. Nijhoff
Beaver D. (2001) Presupposition and assertion in dynamic semantics. CSLI Publications, Stanford, CA
Béjar, S. (2003). Phi-syntax: A theory of agreement. Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto.
Benveniste E. (1966) Problèmes de linguistique générale. Gallimard, Paris
Bonet, E. (1991). Morphology after syntax: Pronominal clitics in Romance. Ph.D. thesis, MIT, Cambridge, MA.
Calabrese, A. (1988). Towards a theory of phonological alphabets. Ph.D. thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
Chomsky N. (1965) Aspects of the theory of syntax. MIT Press, Cambridge MA
Churchward C.M. (1953) Tongan grammar. Vava’u Press, Tonga
Cooper R. (1983) Quantification and syntactic theory. Reidel, Dordrecht
Corbett G. (2000) Number. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Coulson, M. (1992). Sanskrit: An introduction to the classical language (2nd ed.). London: Hodder and Stoughton (revised by Richard Gombrich and James Benson).
Crowley, T. (1982). The Paamese language of Vanuatu, volume B 87 of Pacific linguistics. Canberra: Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University.
Cysouw M. (2003) The paradigmatic structure of person marking. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Foley W. (1991) The Yimas language of New Guinea. CSLI Publications, Stanford, CA
Frampton J. (2002) Syncretism, impoverishment, and the structure of person features. In: Andronis M., Debenport E., Pycha A., Yoshimori K. (eds) Papers from the Chicago Linguistics Society (Vol. 38). Chicago University Press, Chicago, pp 207–222
Greenberg J.H. (1966) Language universals, with special reference to feature hierarchies. Mouton, The Hague
Hale K. (1973) Person marking in Walbiri. In: Anderson S.R., Kiparsky P. (eds) A Festschrift for Morris Halle. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, pp 308–344
Harbour, D. (2005). Valence and atomic number. Ms., Queen Mary, University of London (under review).
Harbour, D. (2006a). Number: The morphological use of semantic atoms. Queen Mary’s OPAL #5. http://webspace.qmul.ac.uk/dharbour/Queen-Mary’s-OPALs.html.
Harbour, D. (2006b). On the unity of ‘number’ in morphology and semantics. In R. Otoguro, G. Popova, & A. Spencer, (Eds.), Essex research reports in linguistics (Proceedings of the York–Essex morphology meeting 2) (Vol. 47, pp. 21–30). University of Essex: Department of Language and Linguistics.
Harbour, D. (2006c). Person hierarchies and geometries without hierarchies or geometries. Presentation at Leipzig morphology colloquium. Queen Mary’s OPAL #6. http://webspace.qmul.ac.uk/dharbour/Queen-Mary’s-OPALs.html.
Harbour D. (2007) Morphosemantic number: From Kiowa noun classes to UG number features. Springer, Dordrecht
Harbour, D. (2009). Mass, non-singularity, and augmentation. In C. Halpert, J. Hartman, & D. Hill, (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2007 workshop in Greek syntax and semantics at MIT (MIT Working Papers in Linguistics (Vol. 57, pp. 349–360). Cambridge, MA: MITWPL.
Harley, H. (1994). Hug a tree: Deriving the morphosyntactic feature hierarchy. In A. Carnie, H. Harley, & T. Bures, (Eds.), MITWPL 21: Papers on phonology and morphology (pp. 289–320). Cambridge, MA: MITWPL.
Harley H., Ritter E. (2002) Person and number in pronouns: A feature-geometric analysis. Language 78: 482–526
Haspelmath M. (2006) Against markedness (and what to replace it with). Journal of Linguistics 42: 25–70
Heim I. (2008) Features on bound pronouns. In: Harbour D., Adger D., Béjar S. (eds) Phi theory: Phi-features across modules and interfaces. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 35–56
Kratzer A. (2009) Making a pronoun: Fake indexicals as windows into the properties of pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry 40: 187–237
Krifka M. (1992) Thematic relations as links between nominal reference and temporal constitution. In: Sag I., Szabolcsi A. (eds) Lexical matters.. CSLI, Stanford, CA, pp 29–53
Link G. (1983) The logical analysis of plurals and mass terms: A lattice-theoretical approach. In: Bäuerle R., Schwarze C., Stechow A. (eds) Meaning, use and interpretation of language. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, pp 302–323
Lipkind W. (1945) Winnebago grammar. King’s Crown Press, New York
McGinnis M. (2005) On markedness asymmetries in person and number. Language 81: 699–718
McKay G. (1978) Pronominal person and number categories in Rembarrnga and Djeebbana. Oceanic Linguistics 17: 27–37
McKay G. (1979) Gender and the category unit augmented. Oceanic Linguistics 18: 203–210
Nevins, A. I. (2003). Do person/number syncretisms refer to negative values? Paper presented at the Linguistic Society of America, Atlanta.
Nevins A. (2008) Cross-modular parallels in the study of phon and phi. In: Harbour D., Adger D., Béjar S. (eds) Phi theory: Phi-features across interfaces and modules. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 329–367
Noyer R. (1992) Features, positions and affixes in autonomous morphological structure. MITWPL, Cambridge, MA
Oltra-Massuet, I. (2000). On the notion of theme vowel: A new approach to Catalan verbal morphology. MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics 19. Cambridge, MA: MITWPL.
Sauerland U. (2008) On the semantic markedness of phi-features. In: Harbour D., Adger D., Béjar S. (eds) Phi theory: Phi-features across modules and interfaces. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 57–82
Schlenker, P. (2003). Indexicality, logophoricity, and plural pronouns. In J. Lecarme (Ed.), Research in Afroasiatic grammar II (selected papers from the fifth conference on Afroasiatic languages, Paris, 2000) (pp. 409–428). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Siewierska A. (2004) Person. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Silverstein M. (1976) Hierarchy of features and ergativity. In: Dixon R.M.W. (eds) Grammatical categories in Australian languages. Australian Institutes of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra, pp 112–171
Sprott, R. W. (1992). Jemez syntax. Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago.
Thomas D. (1955) Three analyses of the Ilocano pronoun system. Word 11: 204–208
Trommer J. (2008) A feature-geometric approach to Amharic verb classes. In: Bachrach A., Nevins A. (eds) Inflectional identity.. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 206–236
Tsoulas G. (2008). On the grammar of number and mass terms in Greek. In C. Halpert, J. Hartman, & D. Hill (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2007 workshop in Greek syntax and semantics at MIT (MIT Working Papers in Linguistics (Vol. 56, pp. 333–348)). Cambridge, MA: MITWPL.
Tuite K. (1995). Svan and its speakers. Ms., Université de Montréal. http://www.mapageweb.umontreal.ca/tuitekj/publications.htm.
Watanabe A. (2010) Vague quantity, numerals and natural numbers. Syntax 13: 37–77
Watkins L.J. (1984) A grammar of Kiowa. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE
Wunderlich D. (2001) How gaps and substitutions can become optimal: The pronominal affix paradigms of Yimas. Transactions of the Philological Society 99: 315–366
Yumitani, Y. (1998). A phonology and morphology of Jemez Towa. Ph.D. thesis, University of Kansas.
Zwicky A. (1977) Hierarchies of person. Chicago Linguistics Society 13: 714–733
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Harbour, D. Descriptive and explanatory markedness. Morphology 21, 223–245 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11525-010-9167-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11525-010-9167-0