NUCLEAR STRUCTURES IN LINGUISTICS Ricnarp S. Prenwan Scammn Iserrzore oF Lixovreries 1. The expression ‘nuclear structures’ has become, in our day, a term to con- jure with; but the concept is not new in linguistics. "It is mentioned or implied in contemporary discussions under the terms ‘immediate constituents’, ‘rank’, and ‘endocentric phrases’; in the older literature it is referred to as ‘modification’, ‘attribution’, or ‘subordination’. An assumption of different ranks is implicit in such word-pairs as stem-affiz, head-attribute, noun-adjective, substantive modifier, verb-adverb, principal-subordinate. ‘The purpose of this paper is not to offer a new concept for linguistic theory, but rather to codify the eriteria which probably serve as the basis for most judg ments of relative rank that have been tacitly invoked in linguistic analysis.* 2. We begin with the assumption that the principle of immediate constitu- ents is valid* This principle might be described as a sort of gravitational attrac- tion between certain morphemes or groups of morphemes, but not between others. As an analyst observes it when undertaking the description of a given language, he might call it ‘concomitance’ or ‘affinity’, or simply the tendency of a given class of sequences to occur only with certain other selected classes of sequences. ‘Thus, some sort of ‘essential affinity’ is observed to exist between red and -ish but not between ra? and -ing, between very aud Just but uot between very aud runs. ‘The usefulness of this principle consists in the very considerable simplification of analysis which it affords. If one does not accept the IC* hypothesis, one is almost compelled to regard every morpheme in an utterance as pertinent to the description of every other morpheme. Buta good analysis in termsof ICs usually reduces the total possible environmental factorsof a given morphemeor sequence of morphemes to one: in other words, it states that the only pertinent environment of a given IC is its concomitant (the other IC). ‘Thus, in the sentence I would Cf. Leonard Bloomfield, Language 161, 209 f., 21 f. (New York, 1938); Otto Jespersen, ‘The philosophy of grammar 97-107 (New Vork, 194). Neadless to eny, my development owes a great deal to these sources. +The first stimulus for this paper waa received while I was attending the Lingui Institute at the University of Michigan in the summer of 1945, holding a acholarship {rom the American Council of Learned Societies. An earlier version of the paper waa read at a meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, 30 December 1947, Tam indebted to Zellig 8. Harris for help in preparing the published draft. *Cf. especially Bloomfield, op.cit.; Kenneth L. Pike, Taxemes and immediate constit uuents, Lana. 19.65-82 (1043); Pike, Analysis of a Mixteco text, ITAL 10.113-88 (1044), esp. 120; Eugene A. Nida, Syntax 44-61 Glendale, Calif., 1946); Rulon 8, Wells, Immedi constituents, Laxa. 23 Tam especially indebted to Pike and Nida for struction in the prineiples of immediate constituents. ‘This useful abbreviation for immediate constituent (plural ICs) is taken from Wells, op.cit. Of course there are always exceptions, for instance factors of intonation, concord, and substitution (pronouns). ‘The last two might be handled by the method suggested in Zellig, 8. Harris, Discontinuous morphemes, Lana. 21.121-7 (1045), and the first by the method 287288, RICHARD 8. PITTMAN like to have gone, the IC principle strips down the pertinent environment of would to the single morpheme like, that of to to the sequence have gone, and that of have to gone* This means that a proper analysis of the ICs of any expression should be rewarded by a very appreciable saving of labor, since it eliminates the 1non-pertinent parts of an utterance at each level of deseription. 3. Tt snot the intention of this paper, however, to examine the techniques for Aetermining ICs. Whatever method a linguist follows, his final result will in all probability assume several degrees of rank. To certain constituents he is likely to assign a principal or ‘central’ status; these he may label root, stems, bases, themes, heads, nouns, verbs, main clauses, ete. ‘To other constituents he is likely to assign a subordinate or ‘lateral’ status; these he may call affixes, ‘encltics, formatives, attributes, modifiers, subordinate clauses, ete. Tt would be possible to term the central constituents ‘nuclei” and the lateral ones ‘satellites ‘These terms are of course not meant to imply that there must be anything inherently principal or subordinate about all morphemes and groups of mor- phemes. They merely afirm that in most expressions the linguistic structure is such as to make this distinction and this relationship « very convenient one for the systematizer* 4. But what, precisely, is the advantage of Inbeling one constituent central and another lateral? Probably the principal gain is that since we conventionally describe the largest classes first, and smaller classes (or satelite) in terms of their relation to nucle, the central-lateral clasification gives us a desirable working basis for our description. It shows us the essential nucei at all levels, +0 that inthe descriptive arrangement the satelites may then be simply grouped with their respective nuclei. Just as an astronomer finds it simpler to describe the moon's relation to the earth than its relation to the sun, so a linguist, in analyzing the sentence Eat your bread, finds it simpler to describe the relation of ‘your to bread than its relation to eat. 5. This dichotomy into nuclei and satellites poses the question which is the primary concer of this paper: What procedures are followed in deciding that ‘this is a nucleus and that a satellite, this a stem or head and that an affix or attribute? Most linguists seem to make the classification intuitively. The following is an attempt to suggest some of the assumptions which may underly this intuition. ‘Ten premises are proposed as probably constituting the basis for most of the distinctions of rank that linguists make. In illustrating the premises, the sequence AB represents any two immediate constituents of an expression in any uggeoted in the same writer's Bimultancous componente fu phywolugy, Lana, 2381-206 (as4s), ‘On have gone see Harris, Discontinuous morphemes (f. 5 above). " Pike appears to have been among the frst to uae the term ‘nidleus in thi aense, See hig Analysia of « Mixteco text (fn. 3 above). "The equations in Zellig 8. Tiara, From morpheme to utterance, Laxo. 22.161-85 (2946), though not using the term IC, are based on the ‘auclear hypothesi’. is highest surviving numbered formulas represent the base nuclei. The eliminated formulas at each Tevel represent the satellites,NUCLEAR STRUCTURES IN LINGUISTICS 280 sven language. Theoretically, it does not matter whether these are regarded ‘as morphemes, words, or phrases; actually, however, the more morphemes there ‘rein an IC, the more complicated it would befor illustrative purposes. For this reason, most of the illustrations will contain only single words and mor- phemes. An arrow points from satellite to nucleus: my —> hat. A subseript humeral after a letter indicates that the letter represents an entire formelass rather than a single form; thus, A (man) = the form-cass to which man belong, i.e, the class of nouns. It is assumed in the illustrations that the ICs have already been determined: the problem which will occupy us is ther relative rank. Premise 1. INDEPEXDENCE.? If one of two TCs occurs alone but the other does not, the former is usually considered to be central and its concomitant lateral. Thus, we probably consider affixes as subordinate to stems because stems, in many languages, oceur alone, whereas affixes usually do not. In English, a morpheme of the class of talk may occur without the suffix -ing, but, ‘not conversely. In Spanish, a word of the class of perro may oceur without the rmorpheme su, but not conversely. ‘This premise might alio be refered to ss ‘Uispenaily"s Une more dispensable of two TCs is cully seared x che satelli Premise 2. Ciass size. If one of two ICs belongs toa larger form cass (i. ‘class with more members) than the other, it is usually considered to be central ‘nd its concomitant lateral. If Ay of the sequence AyBs represents clas of fity members and Ba clas of five members, its probable that A wl be labelled central and B lateral. This premise is fairly apparent in the relative sizes of the English adverb and verb classes, pronouns and verbs, affixes and stems, 04. goateay, shrt-ensc. Fr. je—mange. Premise 3. Vensatmrry (raxce). If one of two ICs has a potential range of occurrence with more different classes of concomitants than the other, it ‘imally considered contra and ite concomitant lateral If A of the soquence AB occurs with five different classes of concomitants, while B occurs with only two, itis probable that A will be interpreted as a nucleus and B asa satelite. An example is the relationship of English nouns and adjectives, Their relative independence and class size might be debatable, but there seems to be little doubt that nouns ocear in a much greater variety of environments than adjectives. Other illustrations: comerdoun, in-vside, Fr. deus—ans. Premise 4. Expocswrniciry* If « constitute” belongs to the sime class ‘as one of its immediate constituents, that constituent is usually interpreted as a nucleus and its concomitant asesatellite. Ifthe sequence AB belongs to Class 1 and the constituent B also belongs to Claas 1, B will probably be regarded ss + Pome 1,2, and @ have been suggested, in ight diferent form, by Hoekett and Premine by Bioh, in Chale F. Hock review of Nia‘ Morphology, Lax 2320-65 (rep, 292. Several of thee premio were wad by Kenneth lc Pe an Hanie ¥ Pik, immodiat sonmitent of Staatecn plalon, UAL 187-01 (IO) Aan inguita might accept this ante only vad form frank, eluding xocentee onsrvtions. But rank in nevertele implied By th deciption ofan exons orm iit ney au conitng of sem pla af. “A costae ran expression that consist of two (or more) IC; ae Wells, op it200 RICHARD 8. PITTMAN ‘nucleus. Most endocentric expressions come under this premise, Examples: ‘cans—read, bigdog, Sp. woop. Premise 6. Crass rRzqvexcr." If one of two classes of ICs occurs oftener than the other, it is likely to be considered central and its concomitant lateral If Ai of the sequence A:B, occurs 100 times to 10 occurrences of Br, class Ay will probably be regarded as central. In testing this premise in English, one would check to see if nouns occur more often than adjectives, verbs more often than adverbs, stems more often than affixes, independent clauses more often than dependent clanses. Of course, if the premises of independence and versatility ‘are valid, this one would seem to be a necessary corollary, since more independent and versatile classes would be expected to occur more often than those which are less 20. Premise6. Inprvipvanrneavexcy. Inseeming contradiction to the premise of class frequency, it may be possible to state that an individual constituent ‘hich occurs more often than its concomitant is likely to be considered lateral and its concomitant central. If A of the sequence AB is observed to occur more often in the language dian its concomitant B, itis very possible Ut A will be interpreted as lateral and B as central. This, of course, is readily apparent in ‘language such as Nahuatl, where stems do not occur without affixes, and where ‘hence certain afixes must occur very much more often than any member of the stem classes, eg, the prefix ni- and the suffix -t have much higher frequencies than any of the stems with which they occur. Exceptions to this premise will immediately become apparent; but there seems to be enough evidence to justify its inclusion, For example, a high percentage of the words which were eliminated from Van der Beke's, Morgan's, and Buchanan’s word counts (for French, German, and Spanish respectively)” because of frequencies too high to be worth counting, were words whieh would ‘eenerally be considered lateral types. Premise 7. Prosopr. In some languages, factors of syllable length, stress, piteh, or intonation may influence determinations of rank. In Nahuatl, for example, a stress on the word kinika ‘how’ leads one to describe it as Kieni*~ka, stem plus enclitic Premise 8. Lexorm. If nothing is known about two ICs except their length, (ie. the number of phonemes contained in ther) it is very likely that the longer will be classified as nuclear and the shorter as a satelite." If a linguist were asked to make a guess at two Nahuatl terms about which he knew nothing, e ‘kal and neknemi-s, he would, in all probability, surmise that the i- and the -s were lateral elements (afixes), ‘This premise may sound like linguistic heresy, -yet there can belittle doubt thatthe really fast’ linguists who ‘get the hang’ of "Martin Joos, Statistical patteras in Gothie phonology, Laxo. 1839-8 (1982), dis tinguishes between text frequeney and list frequency. Ian referring here to text fre ™ George E. Van der Beke, French word book (Publications of the Ameria and Cana dian Committees on Modern Languages, Vol. 15; New York, 12); Bayard Q. Morea, ‘German frequeney word book (PACCME, Val. 9; New York, 192); Milton A. Dachanan, A ‘rudd Spanish word book (PACCML, Vol 3; Toronto, 192), "This io probably much lea likely in ayotax than a morphology.NUCLEAR STRUCTURES IN LINGUISTICS 201 ‘ Janguage in record time use al sorts of undefined mental shorteuts, including ‘one, in probing linguistic structures. Tt is also worth while to compare this premise with the premise of individual frequency, and to recall at this point Zipf's hypothesis that ‘as the relative frequency of a word or morpheme) in- creases, it tends to decrease in magnitude.”* Tt would seem that there may indeed be a detectable correlation between length, frequency, and rank. Premise 9. Mraxixc. Many linguists might deny any valid correlation between meaning and rank; and yet, given the sequences noéa: ‘my house’ and keinckea ‘them he-eats’, and no further information about them, they would very probably be willing to hazard a guess that éa: ‘house’ and ka ‘he-eats’are nuclei ‘and that the other elements are prefixes. Substantival and verbal concepts ‘are very strongly associated in the minds of most of us with linguistic nuclei Premise 10, Parrenn. This premise operates here, of course, as in all ‘other phases of linguistic analysis: unfamiliar elements are interpreted on the analogy of those which are familiar. Cran- is listed as lateral to berry because ‘lack, for instance, is lateral to berry. 6. Tlaving alleged that the foregoing premises probably form the basis for ‘many or most ofthe judgments which linguists make regarding rank, one might ask, Are these criteria valid? Doubtless they represent varying degrees of validity, depending on the lan- guage in question and on the linguist handling them. The first four seem to be ‘especially useful. The others probably represent ‘reinforcing’ criteria rather than primary determinants. ‘The difficulty with the ninth is, of course, the universal problem of the definitive classification of meanings and the interfer- fence of the linguist’s own background. Perhaps it is safe to say that where ‘the premises are unanimous in favoring a given ranking, few linguists would object. Where there is considerable contradiction between the eriteri, there will be hesitaney and disagreement with regard to rank. 7. This, however, is not too disturbing, since itis not claimed that a graded relationship exists between all the constituents of any language. The most immediately apparent exceptions are compounds and coordinate constructions in which, instead of one nucleus and one satellite, there may be two (or more) nuclei of the same class, eg. It’s going to rain, I'm going home. But even these may tend, at times, to'be interpreted as having a graded structure. English ‘compound constructions like mailman, post ofice, goldbup,etc., while ostensibly having two co-equal nuclei, are actually often analyzed as satellite-nucleus constitutes instead. Many other variations are aso possible, such as satellite- nucleus satellite (wn-truthful), nucleus-satellite-satellite (whisper-ing-s), nucleus- ‘aucleus-satellte (calyisi-s), ete. A close IC analysis of such forms, however, ‘often results in breaking them into separate layers. Tt is also possible, of course, for a single constituent to be simultaneously "George K. Zipf, Relative frequency au a determinant of phonetic change, Harvard ‘Studies in Claaseal ‘Philology 40.1-95 (1929); The paycho-biology of language (Boston, 1985).-Martin Joo, in his review of the latter work, Laxo. 12.100-210 (1096, though re. jcting Zipts causal relationship between frequency and length, nevertheless appears to ‘Admit the correlation as a functional interrelation’292 RICHARD 8. PITTMAN nucleus and a satellite. ‘Thus, in the phrase very god idea, good is simultaneously a nucleus for the satelite very and a satellite to the mucleus idea. Perhaps the hardest cases to handle are those where each IC represents a different class, but the classes are approximately equal in size, versatility, fre- quency, ete. “English subject-predicate constructions are of this type. Tt is hardly possible to call them coordinate, and yet to rank either subject or predi- cate as subordinate to the other might incur considerable controversy. It might be convenient to term such forms ‘collateral’ classes, meaning classes which are approximately equal, judged by our premises, but not identical. 8. Although the primary implication of these premises has been conceived as applying to grammar, it seems that they may also be profitably applied to phonemic and syllabic structures. ‘The chief illustration of this treatment is the article by Kenneth L. Pike and Eunice V. Pike on Mazateco syllables, already cited (fn. 9).