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The Evolution of Noun Incorporation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Marianne Mithun
Marianne Mithun*
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Albany
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Abstract

Noun incorporation is perhaps the most nearly syntactic of all morphological processes. Examination of the phenomenon across a large number of geographically and genetically diverse languages indicates that, where syntax and morphology diverge, incorporation is a solidly morphological device that derives lexical items, not sentences. It is used for four different but related purposes; these fall into an implicational hierarchy which in turn suggests a path along which incorporation develops historically. Differences in its productivity from language to language show that this development may be arrested at any point—resulting either in the eventual disappearance of the process, or in its resurgence as a productive system of affixation.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 60 , Issue 4 , December 1984, pp. 847 - 894
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 by the Linguistic Society of America

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