Morphology Morphology Its Relation To Syntax

This six-volume collection draws together the most significant contributions to morphological theory and analysis which all serious students of morphology should be aware of. By comparing the stances taken by the different schools about the important issues, the reader will be able to judge the merits of each, with the benefit of evidence rather than prejudice.

This six-volume collection draws together the most significant contributions to morphological theory and analysis which all serious students of morphology should be aware of. By comparing the stances taken by the different schools about the important issues, the reader will be able to judge the merits of each, with the benefit of evidence rather than prejudice.

Leading experts in the field have contributed to this volume which explores key issues in current morphology and the interactions of morphology with phonology and syntax. Included here are papers on compounding, argument structure, voice systems, agreement marking, movement of constituents in compounds and derived forms, haplology, affix realization, stem selection and allomorphy, levels in phonology- morphology interactions, and nonisomorphism across grammatical components. These topics are considered from a variety of theoretical perspectives, among them the theory of Lexical Conceptual Structure, the Principles and Parameters framework, Lexical Functional Grammar, Autolexical Syntax, Optimality Theory, Distributed Morphology, Paradigm-Based Realizational Morphology, and the theory of Cophonologies.

This six-volume collection draws together the most significant contributions to morphological theory and analysis which all serious students of morphology should be aware of. By comparing the stances taken by the different schools about the important issues, the reader will be able to judge the merits of each, with the benefit of evidence rather than prejudice.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,5, University of Göttingen (Seminar für Englische Philologie), course: Morphology: its relation to syntax, language: English, abstract: There is much discussion in morphological theory as to where exactly morphology belongs in the mental representation of grammar. Several grammar models have been developed, each aiming at describing the key concepts of our grammar and the position of morphology in particular. Traditionally, there seems to have been a general consensus that there exists pre-syntactic (lexical) and post-syntactic components, but recently this has become an issue of debate. A key issue in this discussion is the process of word formation. While some linguists argue that word formation takes place in a separate morphological component, some say syntactic rules also play a part and some argue that words actually are formed in the syntax. Numerous linguists have contributed to this discussion, many proposing new models of morphology and word formation. In this paper, two alternate theories that attempt at describing the position of morphology in the grammar will be outlined. Chapter 2 describes Halle and Marantz’ (1993) model of Distributed Morphology, which presupposes that all word formation takes place in a syntactic module and that there is no such thing as a lexical process. Chapters 3 and 4 give an outline of an alternate view to Distributed Morphology. Chapter 3 describes Booij’s (1993) approach at proving that there are two different types of inflection, and that contrary to former theories, inflection can feed word formation. In chapter 4, Haspelmath (1995) provides much the same view as Booij by showing that inflection also can contribute to changing a word’s part of speech category.

One of the most striking trends across linguistic research in recent years has been the examination of the interfaces between the various subcomponents of the language faculty. Yet, approaches to these interfaces across different theoretical frameworks differ substantially. This volume pulls together research into Morphology and its interfaces from researchers employing a variety of different theoretical and methodological perspectives: Morphology is a diverse field, and rather than aiming to collect works sharing a particular approach or framework of assumptions, this collection instead captures the diversity and provides an overview of the state of the research field while also addressing particular empirical phenomena with up-to-date analyses. The articles collected provide case studies from a diverse variety of languages revealing properties of the interfaces that morphology shares with syntax, semantics, phonology, and the lexicon, while the volume's inclusive cross-theoretical approach will serve to introduce readers to the findings of alternative frameworks and methodologies.

Syntax within the Word provides a multifaceted look into the syntactic framework of Distributed Morphology (DM) within the Minimalist program. For those unfamiliar with the theory, this monograph provides an overview of DM and argues its strengths. For those more familiar with DM, this monograph provides analyses of familiar data much of which has not been treated within the framework: argument selection, stem allomorphy and suppletion, nominal compounds in English (feet-first vs. *heads-first), and the structure of the verb phrase. This monograph also proposes a future for the theory in the form of revisions to DM including: the elimination of readjustment rules, a new economy constraint (Minimize Exponence) that triggers fusion of functional heads, and a feature blocking system.

The volume collects a selection of papers presented at a European Colloquium held at the Università degli Studi di Roma Tre in October 1997. It focuses on phenomena at the boundary between morphology and syntax, and provides analyses for data from the fields of both inflectional and derivational morphology and word order. Morpho-syntactic phenomena are analysed cross-linguistically and cross-theoretically, as typologically-different languages (European, Afro-Asiatic, American and Austronesian ones) are dealt with and compared according to a variety of approaches, from minimalism and lexical-functional grammar to grammaticalization theory, taking into account both synchronic variation and diachronic change. The volume is divided into three sections: I. Morphological phenomena and their boundaries, II. Morpho-syntax and pragmatics, and III. Morpho-syntax and semantics, as the interaction with the higher components of the grammar is seen as contributing to explaining variation in morpho-syntactic behaviour.