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date: 25 January 2021

Abstract and Keywords

Natural Morphology offers a fairly elaborated model for analyzing and interpreting morphological facts, which heavily relies on the one hand on a semiotic foundation of the linguistic sign and on the other on a comprehensive understanding of the cognitive, typological, and system-specific aspects of natural languages. In this regard, it crucially distinguishes a system-independent dimension in which a number of universal preferences are at play for producing and understanding morphologically complex words from a system-dependent dimension in which language-specific factors play a major role. The morphological systems of natural languages result from the dialectic relation between these two dimensions which are concretely investigated in any conceivable empirical domain offered by languages as they are used especially in natural(istic) speech contexts, from language acquisition and change to language impairment and death.

Keywords: naturalness, iconicity, semiotics, markedness, inflection, derivation, word-formation, language change, paradigm, system adequacy

Livio Gaeta

Associate Professor (professore associato) for German Language and Linguistics in the Department of Humanistic Studies (StudiUm) of the University of Turin

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