Semantic and Structural Perspectives of Morphological Reduction and Increase

Abstract

From a semantic perspective, morphological reduction usually decreases the number of meanings of a lexeme, while morphological increase increases new meanings on the basis of original meanings. From a structural perspective, morphological reduction can delete the morphemes in the paradigm of a lexeme; for example, the reduction of an affixal morpheme reduces the paradigm of the lexeme from "three paradigms" to "two paradigms", or from "two paradigms" to "one paradigm". In contrast, morphological increase adds new morphemes to the paradigm of a lexeme; for example, a new affixal morpheme increases the paradigm of a lexeme from "one paradigm" to "two paradigms", or from "two paradigms" to "three paradigms".