The Impact of Syllable Structure on the Productivity of Verbal Derivational Suffixes in Persian

Derivation is a process in which adding a derivational affix leads to formation of a new word. This process has been studied by linguists for many years and mainly seen as a morphologic or morphosyntactic process. Productivity of a derivational affix (the number of new words formed by a derivational affix) is a prominent factor while considering the derivation process. Phonological and morphophonemic factors may also play role in the ratio of the productivity of an affix. This paper studies the impact of syllable structure on the productivity of verbal derivational suffixes in Persian language. The results showed that there is a close relation between the syllable structure and the productivity of the verbal suffix derivational suffixes in Persian, all of them have a vowel in their initial syllable position. As a result, we can conclude that initiation with a vowel can be considered as a productivity factor of a derivational suffix in Persian. The study of the nucleus of the syllables also showed that the two front vowels of [a, e] are the most frequent vowels of these suffixes as nucleus. Consequently, it is concluded that phonological factors, especially syllable structure of a derivational suffix, play an indispensable role in its productivity.