it is about Distributed morphology

1. David Embick and
Rolf Noyer
Distributed Morphology and
the Syntax-Morphology
Interface
Presented by :
Mbarek Elfarhaoui

2. Outline:
 I. Introduction
 II. 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

3. 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

4.  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.

5. 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.

6. 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 .

7. • 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).

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11.  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.

12. 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 ».

13.  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

14. 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

15.  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

16. 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.

17. 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.

18.  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.