Analyzing position classes
المؤلف:
PAUL R. KROEGER
المصدر:
Analyzing Grammar An Introduction
الجزء والصفحة:
P18-C2
2025-12-04
36
Analyzing position classes
Let us work through the process involved in constructing a position class chart. The first step obviously is to identify each morpheme in the data, using the methods discussed in Identifying meaningful elements. We will practice with the following (slightly regularized) data from the Gee language of West Africa. For simplicity, morpheme boundaries are already marked:
Based on these data we can identify the following meanings for each morpheme:
We begin the position class analysis by re-writing each word in the data onto a chart, with the longest words (i.e. those which contain the greatest number of morphemes) at the top. We line up all the roots in one column and arrange the affixes in such a way that: (i) no column in the chart contains more than one morpheme in any given word; and (ii) each individual morpheme always appears in the same column in all the words where it occurs.
One obvious way to do this is to start out with a separate column for each morpheme; in this example, that would mean 12 columns (1 for the root plus 1 for each of the 11 affixes). But it is much more helpful to make some initial guesses about which affixes might belong to the same position class. When several affixes have closely related meanings, or belong to the same grammatical category (tense, person, number, etc.), and no two of them are found in the same word, there is a good chance they will belong to the same class. In that case, we can write them in the same column in our initial chart.
The charting procedure itself will help us to find out if an initial hypothesis of this sort was mistaken. There are at least two ways in which this could happen. First, we might discover that two of the affixes which we have tentatively grouped together really can occur in the same word after all. Second, we might discover that two affixes have different ORDERING RELATIONSHIPS with respect to some other morpheme. For example, if we find in a certain language that the masculine and neuter gender markers occur as prefixes to the adjective root, while the feminine marker occurs as a suffix, we must split these elements into two separate position classes, even though they all express the same grammatical category (namely gender). This is necessary because the columns in a position class chart represent fixed linear ordering constraints. Every element in a given position class must have the same order as its fellows with respect to all elements of every other position class.
In our present example, we can see that the three tense markers (–ʃu,–paʔ, and–te) form a coherent group, as do the three subject-agreement markers (–ni,–me, and–mi); and there are no words which contain more than one element from either group. So our initial chart might look like (21).
The next step is to inspect each column to see whether elements in that column ever co-occur with elements in the neighboring column to the left or right. If we find two adjacent columns that are never both filled in the same row, it would be possible to merge the two into a single column. The two sets of elements are said to be in COMPLEMENTARY DISTRIBUTION, meaning that no single word ever contains elements from both sets.
We would definitely want to merge the two columns if the meanings of the elements are related or form a coherent class in some way. On the other hand, if two adjacent columns appear to be in complementary distribution but there is no plausible relationship between the meanings of their elements, it may be better to leave the columns separate for the time being. Rather than merging the two, add a note at the bottom of your chart stating that these two sets of elements have not been found to co-occur. When you have a chance to collect more data, try to find examples where elements from both sets can occur together. If there are no (or very few) such words in the language, you have discovered a CO-OCCURRENCE RESTRICTION, which needs to be stated as part of the grammar of the language. Attempting to find explanations for these restrictions often leads to interesting discoveries, either about the current structure of the language or about its historical development.
In our present example, we can see that the three forms–risa, –tuʃi, and–duʔa never co-occur with each other, so it would be possible to collapse all three columns into one. The corresponding meanings (‘first,’ ‘suddenly,’ ‘only’) do not appear to be closely related, but neither are they in compatible; they all provide some information about the manner in which the action was performed. Unless further data reveal that two or more of them may co-occur, it seems reasonable to combine them into a single position class, as in (22).
Since–do and–leʔ occur with each other and with elements of every other column in the chart, no further combination is possible. Tense and subject agreement appear to be obligatory, while the other classes are optional, so our final position class chart would look like this:
The identification of position classes is not a purely mechanical procedure. It involves judgments based on linguistic knowledge and intuition, which are developed with practice. Moreover, while position class charts are useful for a large number of languages, there are other languages for which they are less helpful.
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