On the Organization of the Lexicon

This study attempts to broaden the theory of morphology in two respects. First, it is argued that both inflectional and derivational morphology should be performed within the lexicon, and, in fact, that they require the same sorts of formal processes. Second, an attempt is made to constrain the interaction of morphological rules, and thereby to limit the notion of "possible word". A theory of the organization of the lexicon is proposed. The lexicon consists of a list of all unanalyzable terminal elements and their lexical entries. Inflectional stem variants are listed, with relationships among them expressed by means of devices called morpholexical rules. In the lexical structure subcomponent, terminal elements are inserted into binary branching unlabeled trees subject to subcategorization restrictions on affixes. Lexical trees are labeled by means of general feature percolation mechanisms. The mechanics of lexical structure are illustrated with an analysis of the Latin verb paradigms; exactly the same mechanisms needed for producing derived words in Latin are also needed for producing inflected words. The subject of morphological conversion is considered in Chapter 3: it is argued that most phenomena usually treated with a zero-affixation analysis cannot be so analyzed. An alternative, non-directional analysis of conversion is proposed. The third subcomponent of the lexicon consists of a block of string dependent morphological rules, some of which must have transformational power. The properties of these rules, as illustrated by reduplication rules in Tagalog and umlaut processes in German, are shown to follow from constraints placed on other subcomponents of the morphology. Thesis Supervisor: Morris Halle Title: Ferrari P. Ward Professor of Modern Languages and Linguistics