I discuss my assumptions about individual morphological rules, and then explain the ways in which rules combine. Rule composition, the default mode of rule combination, models many canonical patterns, but also models certain deviations from the canonical morphotactic criteria. Holistic rule combination, a second mode of combination, accounts for deviations from the compositional content criterion, in which a rule combination realizes more than the sum of the content that those rules realize individually. Rule aggregation, a third mode of combination, accounts for deviations from the stem operand criterion, in which a rule operates not on a stem, but on the affix introduced by the rule with which it combines. Counterpotentiation, a fourth mode of combination, accounts for deviations from the intermediate well-formedness criterion, in which the result of applying one rule is ill-formed unless its application is followed by that of another particular rule. I outline the elaboration of these ideas in the ensuing chapters.

In this chapter, I discuss the preliminary assumptions of the rule-combining approach to morphotactics and advance the two fundamental hypotheses that underlie it: the morphotactic holism hypothesis and the morphotactic variety hypothesis (Section 1.2). In Section 1.3, I review previous proposals that provide empirical support for the morphotactic holism hypothesis, which (unlike the morphotactic variety hypothesis) is not a novel idea. In Section 1.4, I discuss the nature of canonical morphotactics, for which I introduce ten criterial characteristics, construed in rule-based terms. In Section 1.5, I give examples of phenomena that possess these characteristics as well as of phenomena that do not apparently possess them. The morphotactic phenomena to be analyzed in the following chapters deviate from some of these canonical characteristics, but reinforce conformity to others provided that a rule-combining approach is assumed. In Section 1.6, I anticipate the range of topics to be discussed in subsequent chapters.