The structural patterns of Lithuanian affixes

Abstract

The aim of this research is to identify the main structural patterns of affixes of Lithuanian inflective words, their productivity and frequency. We present a survey of the structural diversity and productivity of these morphemes rendered in The Dictionary of Modern Lithuanian and in The Grammar of Modern Lithuanian. The frequency data was collected from The Database of the Morphemics of the Lithuanian Language.

The morpheme analysis has revealed the following tendencies: 1) while prefixes are always monosyllabic, suffixes and flexions can vary from non-syllabic to trisyllabic, 2) within these morphemes, consonant clusters are not frequent.

Prefixes in Lithuanian can have C_0-2VC_0-2 structure. The most productive and frequent pattern is C₁V. Suffixes have structures C_1-2, C_0-2V(W)C_0-3 and C_0-1VC_1-2VC_0-2. The most productive are VC₁ of nominal words and C_1, VC_0-1 verbal suffixes. In usage, VC₁ suffixes of nominal words and V, C₁ as well as VC₁ verb patterns dominate. Flexions can have the following structures: C₁, VC_0-2, VC₁VC_0-1 or VC₁VC₁VC_0-1. The most productive patterns are simple VC_0-1, which also dominate the usage.

The analysis has revealed the influence of a root on the structure of other morphemes. The most typical root structure C_1-2VC_1-2 entails a C₁V structure prefix on the one side, while on the other - a suffix or a flexion with VC_0-1 structure. The result of such combination is quite a consistent a consonant + a vowel + a consonant (+ a consonant) + a vowel + a consonant (+ a consonant) + a vowel (+ a consonant) chain: C₁V + C_1-2VC_1-2 + VC_0-1.