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

(44) Morphology-free syntax: Syntax and its interpretation are autonomous of the
realizational aspects of morphology.
The thesis is about morphological realization or realizational morphology,
and this is how the term morphology is used henceforth. It is a cover-term that
subsumes the system(s) responsible for those aspects of the form and arrangement
of morphemes that do not follow from syntax or interpretation. It excludes wordsyntax,
the other domain to which the term morphology is applied, but not here.
To realizational morphology belongs part of the realization of word and phrasal
syntax in morphophonological form. A typical example is the allomorphy of the
English perfect-passive participle in (45). The choice of formation cannot be reduced
to any syntactic, semantic, or purely phonological property of the verb
stem. It is the province of realizational morphology.
(45) a. heav-ed b. lef-t c. clov-en d. spat e. though-t f. cast
(heave) (leave) (cleave) (spit) (think) (cast)
Morphology-free syntax claims that verbs do not participate in different syntactic
constructions like OV vs. VO according to their inflectional paradigm class
(Corbett and Baerman 2006) or that syntactically arbitrary inflectional gaps like
the absence of the past of forgo do not license otherwise unavailable syntactic
structures like did forgo (Embick and Marantz 2008). This chapter suggests that
the thesis is robust in the domain of phi-feature realization.
A realizational morphology with a modular signature distinct from syntax is
proposed by approaches that span the gamut of other architectural options, including
Sproat (1985, 1998); Aronoff (1994); Stump (1991, 1993, 2001); Bonet
(1991); Noyer (1992); Halle and Marantz (1993), Harley and Noyer (1999), Embick
and Noyer (2001, 2007); Ackema and Neeleman (2003, 2007). They share
the theses of phonology and morphology-free syntax, and differentiate between
morphosyntactic features and their morphophonological exponents (the Separation
Hypothesis, Beard 1995, Embick 2000: 188). 11 Two approaches will illustrate
positions at the opposite extremes of modular architecture: that of Bonet (1995a)
and that of Embick and Noyer (2001, 2007).
Bonet's model in (46) is characterized by a very strong modular signature for
syntax and morphology. Interaction is limited to strictly one-way information
flow from syntax to morphology, and morphology has no mechanisms to affect
syntax. Morphology is thus inert both for syntax and for those matters of interpretation
that depend on syntax, LF. The information used by morphology is distinct
from that of syntax, because the mapping from syntax need not preserve syntactic
11 Overviews of the theoretical gamut of morphology, as word syntax vs. its realization, piecesbased
vs. inferential, 'contiguous' with narrow syntax vs. wholly unlike, are in Aronoff (1994:
12-29), Harley and Noyer (1999), Stump (2001: 9-12), Ackema and Neeleman (2007).
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