David Embick and Rolf Noyer

Distributed Morphology and the Syntax-

Morphology Interface

Presented by : Mbarek Elfarhaoui

Outline:I. IntroductionII. Essentials of Distributed Morphology 1. Primitives of the syntax 2. Vocabulary Insertion 3. Synopsis: Architecture, Features, and Lists• III. A transparent Interface between

Syntax and Morphology• VI. PF processes: Syntax-Morphology

Mismatches• V. Conclusion

I. Introduction Theory of the syntax / morphology

interface is: First: a theory of how « words »

and their internal structure relate to the structures generated by the syntax.

Second: a theory of how the rules for deriving complex words relate to the rules for deriving syntactic structures

Research in the field shows us that there are two views:

. There is a sharp division/ split between morphology and Syntax

. There is an interface between morphology and syntax

The theory of Distributed Morphology proposes an architecture of grammar in which a single genarative system is responsible for both word structure and phrase structure.

Distributed Morphology claims that all derivation of complex objects is syntactic.

II. Essentials of Distributed Morphology

Every word is formed by syntactic operations (Merge,Move)

The principles of morphology are to a large extent the principles of syntax .

Thus, some aspects of word formation arise from syntactic operations such as movement.

1. Primitives of the syntax We call the units that are subject to the

syntactic operations Move and Merge « morphemes » Each morpheme is a complex unit of features which

can be phonological or grammatical/ syntactico-semantic. The basic inventory of syntactic terminals is divided into: a) Abstract morphemes: • They are composed of non-phonetic features such

as [past] or [pl].• The features that make up abstract morphemes

are universal .

• Abstract morphemes are functional categories

b) Roots: • They are language- specific combinations of

sound and meaning.• They don’t contain or possess grammatical

( syntactico-semantic) features.• Roots are lexical categories ( nouns, verbs,

adjecives).

2. Vocabulary Insertion• It is the mechanism supplying phonological features to the abstract morpheme.

• The vocabulary is the list of phonological exponents of the different abstract morphemes of the language , paired with conditions on insertion.• Vocabulary item : each pairing of a phonological exponent with information about the grammatical ( i.e. syntactic and morphological) context in which the exponent is inserted.

3. Synopsis: Architecture, Features, and Lists

In the derivations, three distinct lists are accessed. These lists are the following:

a) The Syntactic Terminals: the list containing the roots and the abstract morphemes.

b) The Vocabulary: the list of vocabulary of items, rules that provide phonological content to abstract morphemes.

c) The Encyclopedia: the list of semantic information that must be listed as either a property of a root, or of a syntactically constructed object.

III. A Transparent Inteface between Syntax and Morphology

The Distributed Morphology approach to morphology is syntactic i.e. morphological structure and syntactic structure are the same. Words are phrases are assembled by the

same generative system.

Concerning the specific derivational mechanisms at play in word formation, complex heads are created by the syntactic process of head movement.

Word- internal structure mirrors syntactc structure. This is known as the Mirror Principle : a condition on how syntactic

structure and morphological structure relate to one another.

VI. PF Processes: Syntax-Morphology Mismatches

a. Insertion of Nodes/ Features

The mismatch involves the introduction of features at PF. The primary mechanism introducing features is vocabulary ( where the phonological features of phonological items are added to abstract morphemes).

The material (features or terminal nodes) added in the the PF component is referred to as « dissociated ».

Dissociated features: a feature is dissociated iff it is added to a node under specified conditions at PF

Dissociated nodes: a node is dissociated iff it is added to a structure under specified

conditions at PF

b. Operations on Nodes

Impoverishment, first proposed in Bonet 1991, is an operation on the contents of morphemes prior to Spell-Out. 

In early work in DM, Impoverishment simply involved the deletion of morphosyntactic features from morphemes in certain contexts.  When certain features are deleted, the insertion of Vocabulary items requiring those features for insertion cannot occur, and a less specified item will be inserted instead.  Halle & Marantz termed this the Retreat to the General Case

Fission was originally proposed in Noyer 1997 to account for situations in which a single morpheme may correspond to more than one Vocabulary item. 

A further type of mismatch between syntax and morphology involves cases in which the morphological structure is one that seems to have been derived from the syntactic structure via movement operation. A general process for resolving mismatches

of this type is the device of Morphological Merger.

Merge can operate : before linearization or after linearization

a. Before linearization: the derivation operates in terms of hierarchical structures. Consequently, a movement operation that applies at this stage is defined hierarchically. This movement is Lowering , it lowers a head to the head of its complement.

b. After linearization: the derivation operates in terms of linear order. The movement operation that occurs at this stage, Local Dislocation, operates only in terms of linear adjacency, not hierarchical structure.

V. Conclusion DM is based on the idea that there is a single

generative component ( the syntax) responsible for the construction of complex objects.

Three core properties define the theory: Late Insertion, Underspecification, and Syntactic Hierarchical Structure All the Way Down.

Late Insertion refers to the hypothesis that syntactic categories are purely  abstract, having no phonological content.  Only after syntax are phonological expressions, called Vocabulary Items inserted in a process called Spell-Out.

Underspecification of Vocabulary items means that phonological expressions need not be fully specified for the syntactic positions where they can be inserted. Hence there is no need for the phonological pieces of a word to supply the morphosyntactic features of that word; rather Vocabulary items are in many instances default signals inserted where no more specific form is available.

Syntactic Hierarchical Structure All the Way Down  entails that elements within syntax and within morphology enter into the same types of constituent structures (such as can be diagrammed through binary branching trees).  DM is piece-based in the sense that the elements of both syntax and of morphology are understood as discrete instead of as (the results of) morphophonological processes.

Thanks for your attention