The Morphological Structure of Word Syntax

Word Syntax raises the question of whether lexical rules and morphology exist at all. Rather than special lexical rules constraining derivational and inflectional operations, Word Syntax proposes that the principles of GB syntax constrain them. Baker, Lieber, Roeper and Siegel, Roeper, Scalise, Selkirk, Di Sciullo and Williams, and Halle and Marantz argue that word formation processes are constrained by argument structure inherited from the stem plus the principles of GB syntax. Selkirk, for example, claims that internal (Object) arguments of verbs in compounds must be satisfied in a compound just as they must be satisfied in a VP. Moreover, just as an external (Subject) argument cannot be satisfied within the VP, it also cannot be satisfied within a compound. Hence *tree-eating of pasta is ruled out because the Object, pasta, must be satisfied within the compound. By the same principle, * girl-swimming is ruled out because girl must serve the function of Subject in the compound. Pasta-eating in trees is perfectly acceptable.

To account for the lexical categories of derived words, Williams posited his controversial right-hand rule, that the rightmost element of derivations and compounds is always the head and categorizes the neologism, for example, [ re [ read v]]v, [ house n[ boat ]n], and [bak v[ er ]n]n. He takes advantage of the status of affixes as listed objects with its implication that affixes belong to the same lexical classes as do stems. It follows that affixes are the lexical heads of derived words. It also follows that prefixes will not change the category of the stems to which they attach, as suffixes do. By and large, this prediction is realized in English and a few other languages, but not in predominantly prefixing languages like Yoruba or left-branch compounding languages like Vietnamese.

Recent Word Syntax studies have focused on thematic relations (Agent, Patient, Recipient) of argument structures for which verbs subcategorize. They have shown that these relations must be inherited by derivations or compounds from their underlying bases and that such inheritance precludes any further use of them by syntax in the phrase. For example, the Agentive sense of driver, by these accounts, derives from the Agent relation in the argument structure of drive: [Agent (Theme)]. Once an argument role is linked to an affix by derivation, as [Agent] is linked to -er in this case, it is unavailable for further lexical or syntactic service. Man-driver should not be interpretable as “a man who drives” since the Agent argument of drive has been assigned both to the suffix -er and, in the compound attribute, to man. The same applies to the syntactic con­struction a driver of a man where man and -er would also have to be assigned the same Agent argument. Truck-driver and the driver of the truck are acceptable since truck is assigned the unoccupied Theme (Patient) role in either case.

Some recent Word Syntax literature has gravitated toward proof that word formation and inflection do not exist as discrete components of grammar, that is, do not possess their own rules and categories. Sproat, Baker, and Lieber argue explicitly that the principles of morphology are just those of GB syntax applied to lexical structure. Word Syntax is of interest, therefore, because it focuses on the categories of morphology and what determines them. It thereby complements the theoretical work of the allomorphic research of Stratal Morphology also conducted within the GB model, and certainly frames two of the major questions on the agenda of morphology: do words have internal structure? and are the terminal elements in all that structure lexical items?