The Structure of Words at the Interfaces

Edited by Heather Newell, Máire Noonan, Glyne Piggott, and Lisa deMena Travis

Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics

Examines a variety of perspectives on the notion of 'wordhood'
Addresses crucial issues in the interface between the syntactic and phonological modules of Universal Grammar
Offers analyses based on rich empirical data from languages including German, Tagalog, and Mebengokre

The Structure of Words at the Interfaces

Edited by Heather Newell, Máire Noonan, Glyne Piggott, and Lisa deMena Travis

Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics

Description

This volume takes a variety of approaches to the question 'what is a word?', with particular emphasis on where in the grammar wordhood is determined. Chapters in the book all start from the assumption that structures at, above, and below the 'word' are built in the same derivational system: there is no lexicalist grammatical subsystem dedicated to word-building. This type of framework foregrounds the difficulty in defining wordhood. Questions such as whether there are restrictions on the size of structures that distinguish words from phrases, or whether there are combinatory operations that are specific to one or the other, are central to the debate. In this respect, chapters in the volume do not all agree. Some propose wordhood to be limited to entities defined by syntactic heads, while others propose that phrasal structure can be found within words. Some propose that head-movement and adjunction (and Morphological Merger, as its mirror image) are the manner in which words are built, while others propose that phrasal movements are crucial to determining the order of morphemes word-internally. All chapters point to the conclusion that the phonological domains that we call words are read off of the morphosyntactic structure in particular ways. It is the study of this interface, between the syntactic and phonological modules of Universal Grammar, that underpins the discussion in this volume.

The Structure of Words at the Interfaces

Edited by Heather Newell, Máire Noonan, Glyne Piggott, and Lisa deMena Travis

Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics

1: Introduction, Heather Newell, Maire Noonan, Glyne Piggott, and Lisa Travis
2: Nested phase interpretation and the PIC, Heather Newell
3: Wordhood and word internal domains, Glyne Piggott and Lisa Travis
4: Syntactic domain types and PF effects, Bethany Lochbihler
5: Exceptions to the 'Mirror Principle' and Morphophonological 'Action at a distance', Neil Myler
6: Quantitative component interaction: Data from Tagalog nasal substitution, Kie Ross Zuraw
7: Suppletion is local: Evidence from Hiaki, Jonathan David Bobaljik and Heidi Harley
8: The paradoxes of Mebengokre's analytic causative, Andrés Pablo Salanova
9: Ein is Ein and that is that: A note on anti-homophony and meta-morphology, Thomas Leu
10: Dutch and German R-pronouns and P-stranding, Máire Noonan
11: Adjunction of complex heads inside words: A reply to Piggott and Travis (2013), Eric Mathieu, Brandon J. Fry, and Michael Barrie
12: Verb stem formation and event composition in Oji-Cree, Tanya Slavin
13: Adjuncts as a diagnostic of polysynthetic word-formation in Inuit, Richard Compton

The Structure of Words at the Interfaces

Edited by Heather Newell, Máire Noonan, Glyne Piggott, and Lisa deMena Travis

Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics

Author Information

Edited by Heather Newell, Assistant Professor, Linguistics Dept, Université du Québec à Montréal, Máire Noonan, Course Lecturer and Research Assistant, Department of Linguistics, McGill University, Glyne Piggott, Emeritus Professor, Department of Linguistics, McGill University, and Lisa deMena Travis, Professor, Department of Linguistics, McGill University

Heather Newell is Assistant Professor in the Linguistics department at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Her work is an investigation of how morphological phenomena inform theories of phonology, morphology, and their interface. She is the former book review editor and current co-editor of the Canadian Journal of Linguistics.

Máire Noonan is a course lecturer at McGill University and coordinator of the Montreal Word Structure project. She has worked on Celtic syntax, covering topics such as the lexical semantics and syntax of stative verbs, long distance A-bar constructions, and person-number marking. Her recent research investigates spatial adpositional constructions in Germanic and Romance from a cartographic perspective.

Glyne Piggott is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at McGill University. His research focuses on phonology, morphology, and the syntax-phonology interface, with special reference to Ojibwe (an Algonquian language). He is well known for his contributions to syllable structure, nasal harmony, and stress assignment. He has published in Linguistic Inquiry, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, The Linguistic Review, Phonology, Lingua and Canadian Journal of Linguistics.

Lisa Travis is Professor in the Department of Linguistics at McGill University where she has been teaching since 1984. Her research focuses mainly on phrase structure, head movement, language typology, Austronesian languages (in particular, Malagasy and Tagalog), and the interface between syntax and phonology. Recent publications include Inner Aspect: The Articulation of VP (Springer, 2010), and she is the co-editor, with Jessica Coon and Diane Massam, of The Oxford Handbook of Ergativity (OUP, 2017).

Contributors:

Michael Barrie, Sogang University
Jonathan David Bobaljik, University of Connecticut
Richard Compton, Université du Québec à Montréal
Brandon J. Fry, University of Ottawa
Heidi Harley, University of Arizona
Tom Leu, Université du Québec à Montréal
Bethany Lochbihler, McGill University
Éric Mathieu, University of Ottawa
Neil Myler, Boston University
Heather Newell, Université du Québec à Montréal
Máire Noonan, McGill University
Glyne Piggott, McGill University
Andrés Pablo Salanova, University of Ottawa
Tanya Slavin, School of Oriental and African Studies
Lisa Travis, McGill University
Kie Ross Zuraw, University of California Los Angeles