Subtractive morphology

Subtractive morphology is a term which refers to the situation where the semantically more complex category is represented by a phonologically simpler form.

Example

the genitive plural of feminine and neuter nouns in -a/-o in Russian (kniga 'book', mesto 'place') are formed without any (overt) affixation (knig, mest).

Links

Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics

References

• Scalise, S. 1984. Generative Morphology, Foris, Dordrecht.
• Spencer, A. 1991. Morphological Theory, Blackwell, Oxford.

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