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Subject

Key-Topics

DOI:

12. Naturalness and Morphological Change

WOLFGANG U. DRESSLER

Linguistics

»

Historical Linguistics

morphology

10.1111/b.9781405127479.2004.00014.x

During the last decades, “natural” has often been used by linguists in an inductive or even anecdotal way as
a synonym of “intuitively plausible” or of “cross-linguistically frequent,” in reference to both synchrony and
diachronic change. In more theoretical views, it often overlaps with cognitively simple (cf. Anttila, this
volume), elementary and therefore universally preferred, and with Praguian (especially Jakobson's) notions of
markedness (where unmarked loosely corresponds to natural).

Naturalness is a relative, gradient concept: a phenomenon X is more or less natural than Y. For example,
within English plural formation, the modern plural cow-s is a more natural plural of cow than its precedent
correspondents cyne/kin(e). Change from a less natural to a more natural morphological phenomenon may
then be called “natural/preferred/unmarked morphological change.” Thus, naturalness studies in diachronic
change usually do not deal with absolute constraints on change but minimally with tendencies or maximally
with “soft constraints” or defaults. Preferences are of a functional nature (cf. Heine and Mithun, this volume)
and ultimately founded in extralinguistic bases.

Tendencies of morphological change have been investigated by many with recourse to some notion of
naturalness, often with a shady transition from notions of naturalness to those of simplicity, that is, to views
that natural morphological change results in simplification. But only few have done that in any systematic
way, notably Bailey (1982) in his “Developmental Linguistics,” Plank (1981), and Keller (1990). Most
systematic work, however, has been done within the framework of “Natural Morphology” (NM) or in reference
to it. A second reason for using the NM framework in this chapter is the important role that diachrony has
always played in this approach.

This chapter will center on grammar-initiated, natural change, first according to universal, system-
independent morphological naturalness/markedness (section 2.1), in regard to the parameters of
constructional iconicity, morphosemantic, and morphotactic transparency (including preferences for
continuity and word bases), and binarity, whereas the parameters of (bi)uniqueness, indexicality, optimum
shape are dealt with in sections 2.2 and 3. Conflicts between universal parameters (section 2.2) either within
morphology or with other components explain unnatural changes. After type-adequacy as a filter on change
(section 3), language-specific, system-dependent naturalness (system-adequacy; section 4.1) is dealt with,
followed by interaction between the three subtheories of universal versus typological versus system-
dependent naturalness (section 4.2). Finally, in section 5, work on change initiated by grammarexternal
factors is briefly mentioned, viz. on contact-induced change, language decay, creolization, and language
planning in terminology.

1 The Framework of Natural Morphology (NM)

The theory of NM

1

originated with the integration of concepts of Praguian markedness and phonological

naturalness (cf. Stampe 1969) into the study of morphology and the conception of naturalness conflicts by

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naturalness (cf. Stampe 1969) into the study of morphology and the conception of naturalness conflicts by
Mayerthaler (1977) and Dressler (1977). In the same year, they, along with Wurzel and Panagl, formulated, at
the 1977 LSA Summer Institute at Salzburg, a common platform later extended into Dressler et al. (1987),
where morphological change occupies a prominent place. More recently, naturalness has become a cover
term for a set of more specific terms to be defined in specific subtheories and to be derived from more
general semiotic, cognitive, and/or psychological concepts.

These subtheories proposed since 1977 are those of universal markedness or system-independent
morphological naturalness (cf. Mayerthaler 1981: 3), and of type-adequacy (cf. Dressler 1985a, 1988a:
section 4), preceded by a theory of system-dependent naturalness or system-adequacy (cf. Wurzel 1984:
section 5). Subtheories for interfaces with other areas of morphological naturalness were established for
morphonology (cf. Dressler 1985b) and morphopragmatics (cf. Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994), and
Mayerthaler is establishing one for morphosyntax, within his theory of Natural Syntax (cf. Mayerthaler et al.
1994).

The focus of diachronic investigations has been on those types of morphological change where the above
subtheories can explain most, that is, where no external theories appear to be crucially involved (but see
sections 5 and 6). This appears to be the case when change is supposed to be mainly triggered by forces
which lie within grammar or become manifest in first language acquisition. Such change has been called
“grammar-initiated change” (the title of Wurzel 1994b). This term is justified in view of the (admittedly
simplified) dichotomy between origin and spread of change. Whereas social factors are of great importance
in spread (cf. Guy, Pintzuk, and Wolfram and Schilling-Estes, this volume), they are of little or, maybe, even
no importance in certain types of change which are subsumed under the term grammar-initiated change.

2 Universal, System-Independent Morphological Naturalness/Markedness

This subtheory is a preference theory (cf. Vennemann 1983; Dressler 1999), which establishes deductively
degrees of universal preferences on a restricted number of naturalness parameters. Here naturalness refers
specifically to what is universally preferred on one given parameter. Parameters and their preference degrees
are deduced from their extralinguistic bases. For each parameter, the two main diachronic predictions are:

i the more natural a phenomenon is on a given morphological parameter, the more stable, that is, the
more resistant it should be to morphological change (but not necessarily to phonological or syntactic
change);

ii if, of two comparable morphological options X and Y, X is more natural than Y on a given parameter
Z, then natural /unmarked change of X to Y should be more likely to occur than the reverse,
unnatural/marked change Y to X. This predicted direction of change does not imply the absurd
position of overall change toward more and more naturalness, but represents the hypothesis of local
improvement on just one parameter (cf. Vennemann 1990), which goes back to Jespersen's (1949)
idea of local efficiency of change (more in sections 2.2 and 4.2 below).

Empirical testing of the predictions of (i) and (ii) should reach statistical significance (weak hypothesis) or
they should even predict the default (strong hypothesis).

2.1 Universal naturalness parameters

Iconicity is the best-known semiotically derived parameter. Most important for morphology is its
subparameter of constructional iconicity (cf. Mayerthaler 1981). According to Peirce's (1965) subdivision of
icons, the various types of English plural formation can be classified as follows: oaf-s is diagrammatic, that
is, most iconic, because there is an analogy between morphotactic addition of a plural marker and addition
of the morphosemantic feature of plurality; umlaut plural feet with vowel modification (from foot), instead of
addition, is only metaphoric (i.e., with weaker iconicity); loav-es (from sg. loaf) lies in between; sheep is
non-iconic; the counter-iconic operation of subtraction can be illustrated with subtractive plural hon of sg.
hond ‘dog’ in a Franconian German dialect: naturalness decreases accordingly on this scalar parameter of
constructional iconicity.

If we test the predictions (i) and (ii) of section 2 with recent diachronic change, then the diagrammatic type
oaf-s is the only productive and stable one in English. It acquires new items from the type loav-es, as
attested by the variation roof-s/roov-es, cf. leav-es versus The Toronto Maple Leaf-s; similarly the umlaut

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attested by the variation roof-s/roov-es, cf. leav-es versus The Toronto Maple Leaf-s; similarly the umlaut
plural lice has a recent variant louse-s (with new meaning and diagrammatic plural), and, earlier on, pl. cyne
has been replaced by cow-s; the anti-iconic Franconian plural type hon has become unproductive and loses
items to diagrammatic additive plural formation.

From the semiotic preference for transparency, the two parameters of morphosemantic and morphotactic
transparency

2

are derived: on the parameter of morphosemantic transparency, full transparency means fully

compositional meaning, as is generally the case with inflectional meanings. For example, the meaning of
cow-s equals the meanings of cow and of plurality. There is, however, morphosemantic opacity in cases of
parasitic formation (cf. Aronoff 1994: 33), such as in the formation of the Latin periphrastic future canta-t-
urus sum ‘I'll sing,’ formed via the stem of the past participle canta-t-us, whereas there is no meaning of
past in the periphrastic future. Since, in general, there is an iconic preference for a pairing of transparent
meaning and form, this morphosemanti-cally opaque periphrastic future of Latin has been replaced by more
transparent ones in the Romance languages, especially the type Fr. chanter-ai, Sp. cantar-é, etc., which still
shows its origin from Inf. (Lat. cantare, Fr. chanter, Sp. cantar) and the auxiliary Lat. habeo, Fr. ai, Sp. he ‘I
have.’

On the parameter of morphotactic transparency, the most natural forms are those where there is no
opacifying obstruction to ease of perception. Purely phonological processes opacify very little, for example,
phonological surface palatalization in the Polish pejorative nom.pl. Polak-i of sg. Polak ‘Pole.’ More
morphotactic opacity occurs in the frequent intervention of morphonological rules, such as in Polish
morphonological palatalization, for example, normal nom.pl. Polac-y. Most opaque is suppletion, as in E.
am, is, are, was. Diachronically, opaque forms are less stable than more transparent ones and easily
replaced, unless high token frequency facilitates memorization of opaque forms and hence helps to preserve
them. Thus in English and German, morphotactically opaque strong verbs have been increasingly replaced by
transparent weak verbs.

3

Most resistant to change are the very frequently used auxiliaries, modal verbs, etc.

Another way of rendering plurals more transparent (and often more iconic) is hypercharacterization (cf.
Malkiel 1957), similar to children's plural feet-s, where a morphological category is doubly marked, the
second time in a more iconic and/or transparent way. Diachronic examples are Middle English pl. child-er /
child-re > child-ren; comparative worse > colloquial wors-er.

A consequence of the preference for morphotactic transparency is also the preference for continuous (rather
than discontinuous) elements. Therefore suf-fixation and prefixation is preferred over infixation
(discontinuous base) or circumfixation (discontinuous affix). The diachronic instability of infixes is evident in
the history of Indo-European languages: for example, -n- infixes of the Latin present stem, as in fra-n-g-o
‘I break,’ perfect freg-i, past participle frac-tus, have become part of the immutable verb stem, as in It.
frang-o, fransi, franto (cf. Klausenburger 1979: 49–54). Also, diminutive/hypocoristic suffixes are generally
preferred to comparable infixes, such as in Sp. Cesar-ito versus Ces-ít-ar, hypocoristics of the name Cesar

(cf. Méndez Dosuna and Pensado 1990), from the late Latin suffix -ittus.

4

Related to the preference for morphotactic transparency is also the word-base preference (cf. Dressler
1988b): the most natural base of a morphological rule is a word, because this is, in semiotic terms, a
primary sign and thus a very transparent unit. Smaller bases (stems, roots) or more complex bases (phrases,
sentences) are dispreferred. This makes, among the two German plural variants of Pizza, word-based Pizza-
s more natural than root-based Pizz-en. As predicted, the type Pizza-s is now the preferred one (cf. Wurzel
1984; Janda 1991, 1999a, with extensive literature).

The word-base preference also renders compounds like do-it-yourself movement (with a sentence as first
member) less natural than eye movement (where the first member is a word). Such sentence-based
compounds seem to originate only in literary languages as marginal neologisms or often only occasionalisms
(ad-hoc /nonce formations) and are socioculturally motivated, relatively unnatural complications, which may
be compared to the rise of complicated politeness forms.

A similar motivation can be found for violations of the binarity preference: grammatical relations are
preferentially binary (based on the binary nature of neurological information transmittance). In syntagmatic
relations, the preferred patterning consists in concatenating one element to one base. This preference holds,
for example, for compounding, including coordinate/copulative compounding, as in queen-mother or
prince-consort. This preference is violated, due to entirely extralinguistic reasons, in denominations of flags,
for example, red-white-red for the Austrian and Peruvian flags. Similarly, Sanskrit coordinate compounds

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for example, red-white-red for the Austrian and Peruvian flags. Similarly, Sanskrit coordinate compounds
start to have more than two members only in later, stylistically marked texts or due to extralinguistic
reasons, as in the denomination of the four main castes brãhma a-k atriya-vi -śūdrãh ‘the set of
brahmins, warriors, Vaiśyas, Śudras.’

The preference parameters of bi-uniqueness (uniform symbolization), indexicality, and optimum
shape/extension of morphological word forms will be dealt with in sections 2.2, 3 and 4.

2.2 Conflicts between universal parameters

Unnatural/marked changes can be partially explained by recourse to conflicts between parameters either of
the same grammatical component (here morphology) or of different components (morphology versus
phonology/syntax). Let us start with morphology-internal parameter conflicts.

First, we must introduce another parameter derived from Peircean semiotics, the parameter of indexicality.
On this parameter, adjacency is preferred to distance, both syntagmatically and in terms of rule application.
This favors the diachronic change of rule telescoping (cf. van Marle 1990: 270; Dressler 1996a: 97), insofar
as the morphological surface form can be immediately derived from the base instead of having to be
preceded by intermediate rules and false steps. An example is the genesis of German circumfixes, as in the
poetic occasionalism Ge-khaki-t-e ‘having a khaki-colored uniform’ (= GIs, Arno Schmidt). The intermediate
steps are: noun Khaki → verb *khaki-en, past participle suffixation of this verb → *khaki-t, prefixation →
*ge-khaki-t, conversion of past participle → adjective. Rule telescoping allowed direct derivation of the
adjective from the noun via circumfixation and a morphosemantically transparent relation between nominal
base and derived adjective. This, however, created the class of morphotactically opaque circumfixes.

Another, better-known, semiotically based parameter consists in the preference for bi-uniqueness, or at
least uniqueness, as opposed to ambiguity. Bi-uniqueness

5

holds if one and the same form has always the

same meaning and vice versa, uniqueness if this holds in only one of the two directions. Biuniqueness is
difficult to achieve because of economy of sign shapes and is thus often violated, for example in cases of
hypercharacterization (see section 2.1), where one and the same meaning, for example plurality, is
expressed twice instead of once only. In hypercharacterization, morphotactic transparency wins out over bi-
uniqueness.

Since conflicts between parameters of morphology and those of either phonology or syntax are dealt with,
albeit from a different perspective, in Janda's and Joseph's contributions to this volume, my discussion can
be limited to indicating specifics of the naturalist approach.

In interaction with phonology (cf. Dressler 1985b, 1996), in a first stage, sound laws apply with little or no
respect for morphology. These purely phonological processes (postlexical, postcyclic rules in the terminology
of Kiparsky's Lexical Phonology) opacify morphotactics very little, as in the surface palatalization example
from Polish, in section 2.1. Similarly, more morphotactic opacity occurs when morphonological rules
intervene, as in the morphonological palatalization example in Polish. This increasing morphologization of
phonological rules represents, on the one hand, an unnatural /marked change on the parameters of
morphotactic transparency and constructional iconicity (cf. section 2.1) as well as on the parameter of
phonological (bi-)uniqueness, because Polish [k'] uniquely derives from underlying /k/, whereas [c] may
derive from either /c/ or /k/. On the other hand, a context-sensitive phonological process possesses much
phonological indexicality (since it refers to its phonological context) and little morphological indexicality
(since it refers to a following suffix), whereas for morphonological rules morphological indexicality is much
more important than phonological indexicality, and morphological rules possess only morphological
indexicality. Thus increasing morphologization of phonological rules represents a shift from phonological to
morphological indexicality, explainable by semiotic priority of morphology over phonology. This explains the
unidirectionality of change from phonological to morphological rules (cf. Dressler 1996). The questions of
the conditions under which natural change of indexicality may outweigh unnatural change on several other
parameters will be reconsidered in sections 3 and 4.

A similar approach applies to interaction with syntax and to unidirectionally increasing grammaticalization
from syntax to morphology, a natural change on the parameters of morphotactic transparency (continuous
forms are preferable to discontinuous ones) and of indexicality, insofar as fixed morpheme order is
preferable to alternating order of words or clitics, as in the contrast between periphrastic constructions of
the type I was read-ing, Wasn't I read-ing? and their Italian equivalents Legge-v-o, Non legge-v-o?

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Morphologization of phonological and syntactic patterns has been understood as the basic source of
morphological patterns by Wurzel (1984: 102ff, 212, 1987: 69) in his claim that truly morphological change
is only reactive (criticized by Dressler 1997a, 1999). Of diachronic relevance is also Wurzel's (1996a, 1996b)
perspective on “the age of morphological constructions,” which is correlated to stages of development with
different properties on morphological parameters.

3 Type-Adequacy

Inspired by Skalička's (1979) views on ideal language types which consist of properties which favor (or
disfavor) one another, we can reinterpret language types as (alternative) sets of consistent responses to
naturalness conflicts (section 2.2).

6

Since not all of the most natural options on all parameters can be

combined within one language, naturalness on certain parameters must be, so to say, sacrificed for greater
naturalness on others (cf. Dressler 1985a, 1985c, 1988a; Sgall 1988). Thus the agglutinating type (as best
represented by Turkish) has the advantages of much constructional iconicity, morphosemantic and
morphotactic transparency, and bi-uniqueness, but deviates with its often very long word forms from the
optimal shape of morphological words (one prosodic foot - another universal preference) and does not fully
achieve fixed morpheme order (unnatural on the parameter of indexicality), whereas the opposite holds for
the inflecting-fusional type. In this way, universally rather unnatural options may be typologically adequate if
they fit the properties of the respective language type.

A morphological change is type-adequate if one of the two following conditions is met:

i change does not modify typological properties - this is a typologically conservative change;

ii change correlates with other changes which implement an overall typological change of the
respective language - this is a typologically innovative change.

The second type of change can be exemplified with correlated changes from Latin to Romance inflectional
morphologies, that is, from a strong inflecting language to weak inflecting languages (with a greater role for
the isolating language type). Also, Estonian has changed from an agglutinating type to a predominantly
inflecting-fusional language, with less constructional iconicity, morphosemantic and morphotactic
transparency, and (bi-)uniqueness, but with fixed morpheme order and greater approximation to the optimal
shape of morphological words (di- and trisyllabicity), when compared with Finnish.

Type-adequacy affects the solution of conflicts between parameters. In section 2.2 we have discussed
morphologization of phonological rules and the question of why unnatural change on the parameters of
morphotactic transparency, constructional iconicity, and (bi-)uniqueness can be outweighed by other factors.
This happens especially in languages of the inflecting-fusional type where naturalness on these parameters
is sacrificed in favor of naturalness on other parameters, such as indexicality. In other words, relative
unnaturalness on these parameters obtains little weight and can therefore be outweighed by greater
naturalness on the parameter of indexicality. Similarly, the morphologically fairly unnatural class of infixes
(section 2.1) originates due to phonological factors and is typologically restricted (cf. Moravcsik 1977;
Méndez Dosuna and Pensado 1990).

Also suppletion, the most unnatural option on the parameter of morphotactic transparency, originates in
inflecting-fusional rather than in agglutinating languages. The many origins of suppletion (cf. Ronneberger-
Sibold 1990) must be strictly differentiated from the factors of maintenance (i.e., stability) of suppletion:
those suppletive forms are best preserved which have high token frequency (thus storage is more
economical than composition and decomposition by rule, e.g., with auxiliaries), have idiosyncratic meanings
(e.g., learned connotations, such as Fr. Fontainebleau, adjective Bellifontain of artificial humanistic origin),
are not natural members of large classes (e.g., auxiliaries in contrast to main verbs), or support each other
analogically, as in antonyms (e.g., good, bad, comparatives better, worse).

4 System-Dependent Naturalness

4.1 System-adequacy

Language-specific, system-dependent naturalness, as conceived by Wurzel (1984) for systems of inflectional
morphology (modifications in Dressler 1997b), represents what is normal or system-congruous (system-

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morphology (modifications in Dressler 1997b), represents what is normal or system-congruous (system-
adequate) within the morphology of a language, even if it contradicts some universal morphological
preference. Among competing system-defining structural properties the most dominant is the most
adequate one. Wurzel defines dominance basically by type frequency, Dressler by productivity.

One type of change in system adequacy is then change in productivity, either emergence and increase or
decrease and loss of productivity. Both subtypes can be exemplified with the Slavic 1.sg.present marker -m:
this Indo-European ending of athematic verbs (productive in Old Indic, Greek, Hittite, etc.) was restricted in
early Slavic to a small number of high-frequency verbs. From there it spread in many Slavic languages (cf.
Janda 1996) and became the only productive ending in Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, etc. In Polish, it became the
marker of one productive verb class (of seven productive classes), for example koch-a-m ‘I love.’ This Polish
class, however, lost much of its productivity in the twentieth century (Czech even more so). Such changes in
productivity, so far, have found only partial explanations (cf. Dressler et al. 1987: 87–92, 108, 113–14, 127–
37, 143–6).

4.2 Universal versus typological versus system-dependent naturalness

One may understand type-adequacy (section 3) as a filter and elaboration on universal naturalness (section
2), and language-specific system-adequacy (section 4.1) as a filter and elaboration on type-adequacy. Each
lower-level filter can specify and even overturn preferences of the preceding higher-order level (cf. Dressler
et al. 1987; Bittner 1988; Wheeler 1993).

Let us apply this conception to the development of the genitive singular masculine in Greek. Since the
nominative is the base form throughout the history of Greek, the most natural option on the parameter of
constructional iconicity is to express the genitive via addition or at least through a longer form than that of
the nominative. This has always been the case in productive feminine classes, more so in Modern Greek
(MGk) than in Ancient Greek (AGk), for example AGk = MGk nom. x rã, gen. x rã-s ‘land,’ AGk nom. m tēr,
gen. mētr-ós ‘mother’ > MGk nom. mitéra, gen. mitéra-s. In the masculine, a diagrammatic type AGk nom.
pat r, gen. patr-ós ‘father’ contrasted with a countericonic, but more productive type nom. páppos, gen.
pápp[u] ‘grandfather.’ The second, more system-adequate type extended at the cost of the first, thus MGk
nom. patéras, gen. patéra, that is, in all productive types of masculines and feminines, it has become
system-adequate that nominative and genitive singular are marked in strictly opposite ways (zero versus -s,
cf. Seiler 1958; Dressler and Acson 1985; see also Joseph 1983b on the question of the origin of the Modern
Greek patéra-type genitive).

There is, however, no overall priority of system-adequacy, because, as we have seen, diachronic change may
also change system-adequacy. For example, the emergence of circumfixes in German (section 2.2)
introduced a previously system-inadequate pattern, albeit a type-adequate one. The same could be said
about most innovative categories.

Finally, we can study the lack of the filters of type- and system-adequacy, which exist only for grammar but
not for extragrammatical or expressive morphology (cf. Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994). Because of the
absence of these filters, universal preferences should remain more intact in extragrammatical morphological
operations than in comparable grammatical ones. This can be tested with grammatical reduplication versus
extragrammatical echo-word formation (cf. Mayerthaler 1977). Extragrammatical reduplication in echo-word
formation (e.g., zig-zag, tick-tock) is in two ways more iconic than grammatical reduplication, as, for
example, in the Latin perfect cu-curr-i/ ce-curr-i ‘I ran’ from present curro: (i) reduplication is more
complete in echo-words, and (ii) there is diagrammaticity between repetitive meaning and repetitive form in
echo-words and metaphoricity between change of direction in the meaning of zig-zag and change of its
vowels, whereas there is no iconicity between meaning and form in the Latin perfect. This allows the
following prediction for diachronic change: if an extragrammatical operation is grammaticalized and thus
becomes subject to the filters of type- and system-adequacy, then the role of universal preferences should
be diminished. This is true for Old Indic intensive formation, which presumably is of extragrammatic origin
(similar to echo words). As we can see from forms such as m j-ati ‘wipes’ → intensive mar-m j-anta, there
is more repetitiveness in its reduplication than in the form of the perfect ma-mãrj-a, but less than in echo
words. Also there is some iconicity in form-meaning relation (intensification), more than with the perfect,
but less than with echo-words (iteration).

5 Change Initiated by Grammar-External Factors

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Although most work on diachronic morphology has been directed to grammar-initiated change (sections 1–
4), there has also been some work on other types of morphological change, which should be briefly
mentioned (cf. Dressler 1997a).

Relevant results in work on contact-induced change (e.g., Dressler and Acson 1985; Stolz 1987; Boretzky
1995) are that morphological borrowing may violate system-adequacy (and even type-adequacy) by
introduction of new morphological patterns and create more allomorphy, that is, more ambiguity (violation
of (bi-)uniqueness). When these loans are integrated, however, they may contribute to greater naturalness
on some parameters, for example, constructional iconicity via hypercharacterization (cf. section 2.1), as in
Megleno-Romanian verb inflection (Boretzky 1995): 1st and 2nd sg. prs. endings -u, -i have been amplified
by adding the respective Slavic endings -m, -š, as in afl-u, afl-i ‘I, you find’ > afl-um, afl-iš.

Both interference and internal reduction have been shown to fit naturalness criteria in studies of language
decay and language death by Dressler (1991 and before). The, so-to-say, inverse expansion of morphology
in the development of creole languages delivers evidence supporting the relevance of naturalness
parameters, as shown for word formation by Mühlhäusler (1990) and for inflectional morphology by Thiele
(1992).

In consciously planned language change, universal preferences play a role in terminological innovations in
word formation. Terminographers aim especially at high morphosemantic and morphotactic transparency,
constructional iconicity, and bi-uniqueness within the same text world, for example, the same school-
specific specialist discourse (cf. Felber and Budin 1989).

6 Concluding Remarks on the Explanation of Morphological Change

As I have argued in Dressler (1995, 1997a, 1999), functional explanation in terms of Natural Morphology so
far has achieved the grading of preferences and thus probability of types of morphological change in relation
to sets of conditions. Certain types of dysfunctional change have been identified, which comes close to the
definition of impossible change. Change has been related to language acquisition (cf. Aitchison, this
volume). For this relation I have proposed the framework of constructivist self-organisation (Dressler 1995b,
1997a), which has been independently proposed for language change by Ehala (1996). The combination with
functional explanation via preferences has the advantage of tackling probability of change and thus, at least
indirectly, the boundaries between possible and impossible change.

1 Cf. Kilani-Schoch (1988); Dressler et al. (1987); Luschützky (1991); Carstairs-McCarthy (1992: 215–40); Tonelli
and Dressler (1993); Wurzel (1994a).

2 Mayerthaler (1981) and Wurzel (1984) have a different terminology; they use “morphological (formal)
transparency” instead of “morphotactic transparency” and “morphosemantic transparency” as the hyperonym of
both of my parameters of morphosemantic and morphotactic transparency.

3 For recent systematic investigations in terms of NM, see Bittner (1996) and Bloomer (1994).

4 Why such morphologically relatively unnatural phenomena come into existence at all is due to forces outside
morphology; see sections 2.2, 3, and 4.

5 Also called the One-Meaning-One-Form Principle, relational invariance, or preference for uniform symbolization
(Mayerthaler 1981) or for unequivocal recoverability; cf. Anttila, this volume.

6 Actual language systems, obviously, can only approximate ideal language types, and they do that differently in
different parts of morphology. Thus English has a nearly isolating inflectional morphology (more so in nouns than
in verbs), an inflecting-fusional derivational morphology of Latinate origin, and properties of the polysynthetic-
incorporating type in compounding.

Cite this article

DRESSLER, WOLFGANG U. "Naturalness and Morphological Change." The Handbook of Historical Linguistics. Joseph,
Brian D. and Richard D. Janda (eds). Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Blackwell Reference Online. 11 December 2007
<http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/tocnode?id=g9781405127479_chunk_g978140512747914>

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The Handbook of Historical Linguistics

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