This book contributes to the exploration of a view of language wherein its elements are grounded, or substantively based. It looks in particular at the role of the lexicon, and morphology, as a complex interface relating the syntactic representations to the representations of phonology. Language structure is assumed to be modular, such that modules are defined by the particular aspect of extralinguistic mental content they grammaticalize. This establishes two basic modules: syntax, which is cognitively based, and phonology, based on sound perception. Morphology has no such distinctive basis, o ... More

This book contributes to the exploration of a view of language wherein its elements are grounded, or substantively based. It looks in particular at the role of the lexicon, and morphology, as a complex interface relating the syntactic representations to the representations of phonology. Language structure is assumed to be modular, such that modules are defined by the particular aspect of extralinguistic mental content they grammaticalize. This establishes two basic modules: syntax, which is cognitively based, and phonology, based on sound perception. Morphology has no such distinctive basis, only bracketing into formatives of the phonological representation of a word on the basis of the syntactic categories expressed and such non-syntactic classifications as conjugation. The book focuses on inflectional morphology and in particular the expressive role of inflection. Mechanisms deriving from the need for expressiveness compensate for the commonly accepted unidirectionality of exponence, whereby the exponent does not influence what it expounds. Two manifestations of a mechanism of compensation are addressed. Firstly, it is outlined, and illustrated from Old English verb morphology, how the syntactic information that is eventually expressed in paradigms (morphosyntax) may be reorganized to facilitate formulation of the exponence relations (morphophonology). Secondly, on the basis of more general exemplification, there is outlined the mechanism whereby grammatical periphrases compensate for gaps in the finite verb paradigm. Finally, the volume argues that it is the substantive differences between verbs and nouns that account for the absence of periphrases in nominal structures and the marking of agreement, especially of gender, including via classifiers.