Word-Formation in Distributed Morphology

Workshop convenors: Milena Šereikaitė (Cornell University), Luke James Adamson (Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft)

The issue of word-formation has been a focus of research in Distributed Morphology (DM) since the inception of the framework. A fundamental assumption of the framework is that word-internal morphemes are combined in the narrow syntax, with a limited repertoire of displacement operations that may follow in the postsyntactic component (e.g., Embick & Noyer, 2001; Embick 2010). 

Some fundamental questions as far as word-formation is concerned include: 

● What is the nature of the basic elements involved in word-formation, e.g., roots, derivational and inflectional affixes, as well as their feature composition (Embick & Noyer 2001; Alexiadou 2004; Harley 2014)? 

● How is lexical information encoded in the relation of roots and the functional morphemes that combine with them (Harley 2014)?

● What is the order of operations in post-syntax that combines these elements, and how do these operations interact (Arregi & Nevins 2012; Kalin 2022)? 

● What are the domains that are relevant for word-formation, and how do these relate to or differ from domains familiar from other modules (e.g., syntactic phases or phonological cycles) (Bobaljik 2012; Marantz 2013)? How does the notion of domain relate to the notions of “word” and “wordhood”? 

In this workshop, we are interested in synthesizing these different strands in research to see how they bear on the question of word-formation in DM. We are particularly interested in how these questions bear on phenomena including, but not limited to, inflectional and derivational morphology, compounding (Harðarson 2016), and nonconcatenative morphology (Kastner 2020).

The information regarding abstract submission

Abstract guidelines: Anonymized abstracts should be submitted in PDF format. The main text of the abstract should not exceed one page with 1-inch margins and 12-point font. A second page can be used for data, figures, tables, and references. Non-English language data should include interlinear glosses following the Leipzig Glossing Rules. 

Abstract Submissions: Submit an anonymized PDF via OpenReview. Please note that you must first register for an OpenReview account before submitting your abstract. During the submission process, you will be asked whether you would like your abstract to be considered for a poster presentation or a talk.

References

Alexiadou, A. (2004). Inflection class, gender and DP internal structure. Explorations in nominal inflection, 10, 21-50.

Arregi, K., & Nevins, A. (2012). Morphotactics: Basque auxiliaries and the structure of spellout. Springer Science & Business Media.

Bobaljik, J. D. (2012). Universals in comparative morphology: Suppletion, superlatives, and the structure of words. MIT Press.

Embick, D., & Noyer, R. (2001). Movement operations after syntax. Linguistic Inquiry, 32(4), 555-595.

Embick, D. (2010). Localism versus globalism in morphology and phonology (Vol. 60). MIT Press.

Harðarson, G. R. (2016). Peeling away the layers of the onion: On layers, inflection and domains in Icelandic compounds. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics, 19(1), 1-47.

Harley, H. (2014). On the identity of roots. Theoretical linguistics, 40(3/4), 225.

Kalin, L. (2022). Infixes really are (underlyingly) prefixes/suffixes: Evidence from allomorphy on the fine timing of infixation. Language, 98(4), 641-682.

Kastner, I. (2020). Voice at the interfaces: The syntax, semantics, and morphology of the Hebrew verb (Vol. 8). Language Science Press.

Marantz, A. (2013). Locality domains for contextual allomorphy across the interfaces. In O. Matushansky & A. Marantz (Eds.), Distributed morphology today: Morphemes for Morris Halle (pp. 95–115). MIT Press.