Change and Variation w Morphonotactics

Abstract

In this contribution we discuss diachronic and variationist aspects of morphonotactics, a new research field that we have tried to establish over the last years (cf. Dressler & Dziubalska-Kołaczyk 2006). Morphonotactics is the area of interaction between morphotactics and phonotactics and represents a subfield of morphonology, which in turn is the area of interaction between morphology and phonology (cf. Dressler 1985, 1996). We claim that in this interaction morphotactics typically creates phonotactically marked structures which occur never or only exceptionally in monomorphemic words. In our contribution we deal with typical diachronic changes. Our claim about the markedness of morphonotactic sequences is tested mainly against data from Polish, Lithuanian and other Balto-Slavic languages. Our theoretical basis draws on models of Natural Phonology (cf. Hurch & Rhodes 1996, Dziubalska- Kołaczyk & Weckwerth 2002) and Natural Morphology (cf. Dressler et al. 1987, Kilani-Schoch & Dressler 2005), and especially on the subtheories of universal markedness (or universal preferences) and of typological adequacy.