What is Morphology?

Mark Aronoff is Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at Stony Brook University, USA. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and previously served as Editor of Language, the Journal of the Linguistic Society of America and as President of the Linguistic Society of America. For Wiley Blackwell he co-edited The Handbook of Linguistics, now in its second edition, with Janie Rees-Miller.

Provides a critical introduction to the central ideas and perennial problems of morphology, fully revised and updated in a new editionWhat is Morphology? is a concise, student-friendly introduction to the fundamentals of contemporary morphological theory and practice. Requiring only a basic knowledge of linguistics, this popular textbook describes morphological phenomena and their interactions with phonology, syntax, and semantics while familiarizing students with the importance of linguistic morphology as a subject of research. Each chapter contains engaging examples and student-friendly explanations to support the development of the skills necessary to analyze a wealth of classic morphological problems.The third edition is fully updated to reflect the current state of the field, featuring a new chapter on morphology's intersections with typology and computational linguistics. Expanded coverage of morphological productivity and processing is supported by additional exercises, examples, and further reading suggestions. Thoroughly revised chapters cover essential topics including morphemes, the lexicon, phonology, inflection, syncretism, and derived lexemes. This accessible textbook:* Introduces fundamental phenomena with a descriptive theme and minimal theory* Uses cross-linguistic data to explain and clarify new concepts* Provides new and revised chapters written by prominent experts in their respective areas* Includes answers to all exercises via a companion instructor's websiteThe latest edition of What is Morphology? remains the ideal textbook for undergraduate and graduate linguistics students, researchers and scholars unfamiliar with linguistic morphology, and professionals involved in industrial applications of linguistics such as speech recognition, natural language understanding, machine translation, text-to-speech, and natural language generation.

Preface viiiAcknowledgments xiiiAbbreviations xivRemarks on Transcription xviiThe International Phonetic Alphabet xixAbout the Companion Website xx1 Thinking about Morphology and Morphological Analysis 11.1 What is Morphology? 11.2 Morphemes 21.3 Morphology in Action 41.4 Background and Beliefs 91.5 Introduction to Morphological Analysis 111.6 Summary 20Introduction to Kujamaat Jóola 222 Words and Lexemes 322.1 What is a Word? 332.2 Empirical Tests for Wordhood 362.3 Types of Words 382.4 Inflection vs. Derivation 452.5 Two Approaches to Morphology: Item-and-Arrangement, Item-and-Process 472.6 The Lexicon 522.7 Summary 54Kujamaat Jóola Noun Classes 553 Morphology and Phonology 693.1 Allomorphs 703.2 Prosodic Morphology 743.3 Primary and Secondary Affixes 773.4 Linguistic Exaptation, Leveling, and Analogy 813.5 Morphophonology and Secret Languages 873.6 Summary 89Kujamaat Jóola Morphophonology 914 Derivation and the Lexicon 1034.1 The Saussurean Sign 1034.2 Motivation and Compositionality 1044.3 Derivation and Structure 1164.4 Lexicalization 1224.5 Summary 125Derivation in Kujamaat Jóola 1265 Derivation and Semantics 1315.1 The Polysemy Problem 1325.2 The Semantics of Derived Lexemes 1345.3 Summary 141Derivation and Verbs in Kujamaat Jóola 1426 Inflection 1506.1 What is Inflection? 1526.2 Inflection vs. Derivation 1606.3 Inventory of Inflectional Morphology Types 1636.4 Syncretism 1706.5 Typology 1716.6 Summary 173Agreement in Kujamaat Jóola 1747 Morphology and Syntax 1877.1 Morphological vs. Syntactic Inflection 1887.2 Structural Constraints on Morphological Inflection 1897.3 Inflection and Universal Grammar 1917.4 Grammatical Function Change 1937.5 Summary 200Kujamaat Jóola Verb Morphology 2018 Morphological Productivity and the Mental Lexicon 2178.1 What is Morphological Productivity? 2188.2 Productivity and Structure: Negative Prefixes in English 2208.3 Degrees of Productivity 2218.4 Salience and Productivity 2268.5 Testing Productivity 2288.6 The Mental Lexicon, Psycholinguistics, and Neurolinguistics 2358.7 Conclusion 2409 Computational Morphology 2469.1 Introduction 2479.2 Early Work 2479.3 Problem Specification 2499.4 Knowledge-based Methods 2529.5 Data-Driven Methods 2609.6 Hybrid Models 2669.7 Resources for Computational Morphology 267Acknowledgments 268Further Reading 269Exercises 270Glossary 274References 289Index 299