Is derivational morphology canonical in Persian?

Abstract

The present contribution bears an attempt to take a novel synchronic perspective on derivational morphology in Persian namely canonical derivation. Introduced by Corbett (2010) and being a sub branch of canonical typology approach, canonical derivation viewpoint looks for canonical instances of single grammatical categories which are the best, the clearest and the indisputable ones rendering spectacular typological definitions. In this paper, by analyzing (195) derivational affixes including (22) prefixes and (173) suffixes, we endeavored to discover whether derivational morphology is canonical in Persian or the derivational affixes are far from canonicity in some degrees. The data analysis revealed that (%34) of derivational affixes rejected the substitutability criterion and just one suffix rejected 2 criteria. In sum, among 975 points for the fully canonical system, Persian gained 904which portrayed (%7.29) deviation from the canon; in other words, it is (%93) canonical. This amount of canonicity illustrates that derivation system in Persian is so close to the canonicity of derivation systems worldwide.

Keywords

• derivation
• canonical
• persian
• derivational affixes
• criteria