A cognitive approach to SUFF1-SUFF2 combinations: A tribute to Carl Friedrich Gauss
This article discusses the further derivation of already derived words. With the help of a problem-solving strategy (Gauss-Jordan elimination) borrowed from mathematics, a solution to the suffix order puzzle is suggested. It is shown that there is a systematic relationship between a derived base (terminating in SUFF1) and the syntactic-category specification of the SUFF2 suffixes that attach to it. There is a clear tendency for a SUFF1 to select only one particular SUFF2 of a major syntactic category (word class), N, V and ADJ. If more than one SUFF2 with the same syntactic (word-class) specification exists, either one of the SUFF2 suffixes applies by default (i.e. most of the derivatives exhibit that suffix) or semantic rules differentiate between the different SUFF2 suffixes and allow the attachment of only one particular SUFF2 depending on what the speaker intends and due to blocking. Moreover, since derivation is prototypically word-class-changing, SUFF1 and SUFF2 usually have different word-class specifications. The syntactic specification of a suffix is cognitively defined in terms of semantic concepts. Data from English and Bulgarian illustrate the argument.