Phi-features and the Modular Architecture of - UMR 7023 - CNRS

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2 Phi-features in realizational morphology
2.1 Modularity, morphology, and phi-features
In this chapter three themes are introduced through the investigation of a class
of phi-agreement phenomena: modular architectures; phi-feature manipulations in
realizational morphology; and its limits, which let some phi-agreement be ascribed
to syntax. This first section returns to modular architecture from chapter 1, in the
syntax-morphology relationship and phi-features. Next are set out two phenomena
in morphology that manipulate phi-features, constituting phi-agreement in the
sense of chapter 1: syncretisms in clitic and agreement systems in 2.2 and synthetic-analytic
alternations in 2.3. Through contrast with them, the following chapters
will put superficially similar phenomena squarely into the syntax.
The basic models of modularity in linguistic, and in cognitive science, have
been in the image of Fodor's (1983) 'input transducers': computational components
encapsulated from the outside, save for strictly one-way information flow from
their input module(s) and to necessarily distinct output module(s), and partly differing
from each other in their computation and information. The Y/T-model of
generative grammar in (6) has these properties. The syntax module receives as its
sole input material from the lexicon, via the numeration interface, and its output
interfaces translate it to the external PF and LF modules with no communication
from them back into syntax. Consistent with this view of modularity is the articulation
of PF and LF into further modules as indicated, as well as further one-way
channels of communication between LF to PF other than syntax.
(40) The Y/T-model
(… Phonology ← Morphology) PF ← Syntax → LF (Inference → Context …)
realization ↑ interpretation
Lexicon
A model of modularity attributes to each module a constellation of distinctive
characteristics defining its interaction, information, and mechanisms. It may be
called its modular signature. The Y/T-model makes for signatures like (41).
(41) Modular signatures characterizing the Y/T-model
a. Interaction: partial encapsulation from (inaccessibility to) other modules
Syntax: visible to syntax and LF.
Phonology, Morphology: invisible to syntax and LF.
b. Information: partly distinctive information types (domain specificity)