| Theories of markedness within the structuralist tradition view language as a semiotic system containing hierarchically inclusive levels of signs which achieve and convey their values relationally, in terms of structuralized opposition to each other. Both the perceptible (i.e., formal) and the intelligible (i.e., functional) components composing linguistic signs are understood to be variously explicable in terms of marked values versus unmarked values. The marked component of a sign is taken to signify explicitly the presence of a feature which the corresponding unmarked component either does not possess or does not signify. By isolating and so evaluating the particular formal and/or functional oppositions among various linguistic signs, theories of markedness claim to provide powerful descriptive and predictive models both of how language itself is structured, and of how individual languages operate.;My dissertation explores the relevance of markedness for Semitic morphology. It includes two guiding and related goals: (1) To provide a history and a critique of the origins, developments, and applications of markedness in linguistics, with the intention of positing, from among the theoretical and methodological alternatives, a model of markedness for morphology; and (2) To test and to assess the evaluative capabilities of this markedness model, by applying it to a sample corpus of Semitic morphological evidence. The data so analyzed are the Northwest Semitic (NWS) prefixed verb forms as attested in three Canaano-Akkadian (CanAkk) subcorpora (i.e., Gubla, Gazru, Ginitu) of the 14th-century B.C.E. Amarna Letters. Specifically, I evaluate the suffix morphemes of these verbs in terms of markedness oppositions with respect to both their actual forms (i.e., yqtl-O, yqtl-u, yqtl-a, yqtl-u- [n]na, yqtl-a-[n] na) and their potential functions (i.e., mood, tense, aspect, [non-]anteriority). The results of my analysis lead me to conclude that the NWS prefixed verb system of CanAkk manifests markedness oppositions at the functional levels of mood and (non-)anteriority, but not at the functional levels of either tense or aspect. These marked versus unmarked functional oppositions, furthermore, correlate directly with the formal markedness oppositions that are evidenced by the verb system. |
