12 - Rule‑combining Morphotactics and Morphological Theories

Summary

Situating the rule-combining approach to morphotactics in a wider theoretical context, I summarize its implications for the architecture of Paradigm Function Morphology and for schema unification in Construction Morphology. I further contrast the exponence-driven conception of morphotactics embodied by the rule-combining approach with the very different word-skeletal approach to morphotactics, drawing attention to two advantages of the rule-combining approach. First, it affords a more parsimonious inventory of morphological operations than is assumed in Distributed Morphology. Second, it avoids the cumbersome theoretical commitments of Information-based Morphology (the assumptions of position-based ordering, rule anchoring, and distributional pigeonholing), which entail numerous complications in the analysis of a language’s morphotactics. The distinct assumptions on which the rule-combining approach rests (those of combination-based ordering, unanchored rules, and distributional multidetermination) afford morphotactic analyses that are at once simpler and more explanatory.