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Part of
Morphological Metatheory
Edited by Daniel Siddiqi and Heidi Harley
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 229] 2016
► pp. 95–120

Syncretism in paradigm function morphology and distributed morphology

| Georgetown University
In the development of morphological theory, restrictiveness and maximal empirical coverage of the facts must be carefully balanced. In this discussion chapter, I use the empirical phenomenon of syncretism to explore the restrictiveness/coverage dichotomy in two morphological theories: Distributed Morphology (DM) and Paradigm Function Morphology 2 (PFM2), drawing on Stump (this vol.) and Trommer (this vol.). As previous work has observed, the theories contrast in their approach to this dichotomy: DM tends towards restrictiveness, whereas PFM2 tends towards maximal empirical coverage. I show that syncretism is a useful tool for exploring the advantages and pitfalls of these positions, and I identify open questions for both theories whose answers would contribute to resolving this dichotomy.
Published online: 29 June 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.229.04kra
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DOLATIAN, HOSSEP
2024. Fluctuations in allomorphy domains: Applying Stump 2010 to Armenian ordinal numerals. Journal of Linguistics 60:3 ► pp. 563 ff. DOI logo
Hein, Johannes & Philipp Weisser
2023. Syncretism. In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Morphology, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Alqarni, Muteb
2021. No Gender Polarity in Arabic Numeral Phrases. Linguistic Inquiry 52:3 ► pp. 441 ff. DOI logo
Spencer, Andrew
2019. Manufacturing consent over Distributed Morphology. Word Structure 12:2 ► pp. 208 ff. DOI logo

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