Lacking Integrity: HPSG as a Morphosyntactic Theory

Standard accounts of HPSG assume a distinction between morphology and syntax. However, despite decades of research, no cross-linguistically valid definition of ‘word’ has emerged (Haspelmath, 2011), suggesting that no sharp distinction is justified. Under such a view, the basic units are morphemes, rather than words, but it has been argued this raises problems when analysing phenomena such as zero inflection, syncretism, stem alternations, and extended exponence. We argue that with existing HPSG machinery, a morpheme-based approach can in fact deal with such issues. To illustrate this, we consider Slovene nominal declension and Georgian verb agreement, which have both been used to argue against constructive morpheme-based approaches. We overcome these concerns through use of a type hierarchy, and give a morpheme-based analysis which is simpler than the alternatives. Furthermore, we can recast notions from Word-and-Paradigm morphology, such as ‘rule of referral’ and ‘stem space’, in our framework. We conclude that using HPSG as a unified morphosyntactic theory is not only feasible, but also yields fruitful insights. 1 Word Segmentation and Lexical Integrity The Lexical Integrity Principle holds that syntactic rules do not have access to internal parts of words (Bresnan & Mchombo, 1995; Asudeh et al., 2013). Although this principle is often not explicitly stated in HPSG, it is usually implicitly assumed that there there is some notion of ‘word’, with a corresponding division of labour between lexical and phrasal rules. For example, Sag et al. (2003, p.228ff.) describe the use of lexemes as abstract structures from which we can derive families of wordforms differing only by inflection, where this process is carried out using lexical rules. However, while they take it for granted that we can identify words, the difficulties in defining the term ‘word’ have been known for some time: “Many forms lie on the border-line between bound forms and words, or between words and phrases; it is impossible to make a rigid distinction” — (Bloomfield, 1933) “What we call ‘words’ in one language may be units of a different kind from the ‘words’ in another language” — (Lyons, 1968) “There may be clear criteria for wordhood in individual languages, but we have no clear-cut set of criteria that can be applied to the totality of the world’s languages” — (Spencer, 2006) More recently, Haspelmath (2011) identifies ten possible criteria for defining words: potential pauses, free occurrence, mobility, uninterruptibility, nonselectivity, non-coordinability, anaphoric islandhood, non-extractability, phonological idiosyncrasies, and non-biuniqueness. They argue that none of these criteria, nor any combinations of them, coincide with linguistic or orthographic practice. Furthermore, we cannot retreat by saying that words are simply a language-specific