Rajendra Singh (ed.) (1996). Trubetzkoy's orphan: proceedings of the Montréal Roundtable ‘Morphonology: contemporary responses’ (Montréal, September 30–October 2, 1994). With the collaboration of Richard Desrochers. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Pp. xiv+363.

Abstract

The participants at the Montréal Roundtable included Paul Kiparsky, Wolfgang U. Dressler and Joan Bybee, all of them major figures in recent morphological debates, as well as Alan Ford and Rajendra Singh, the authors of a theory of morphology which is less well known but equally ambitious. The bulk of this book consists of target articles on these four theoretical standpoints followed by comments by one or two commentators, replies by the protagonists, and transcripts of discussion. The commentators are Heather Goad, Richard Janda, K. P. Mohanan and Douglas C. Walker, and in general they do a good job. But the discussion sections are what you will turn to first if you have ever asked yourself questions such as ‘I wonder how Kiparsky (or Dressler) would respond to that argument of Bybee (or Ford & Singh)?’. Singh and Desrochers are to be congratulated on producing such a full report of a conference with such high-profile participants.