Linguistics Department Colloquium:

James Hye Suk Yoon (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

(Note special time and place: Tuesday, April 4, 2:00pm, Merrill 314)

“Lexical Integrity and the Architecture of Morphology-Syntax Interface”

Abstract:

Although morphology is taught as a system autonomous from syntax in introductory linguistics, many scholars have questioned whether morphology and syntax are autonomous or better viewed as parts of a unified system, given the similarities between the two. In this debate, facts surrounding Lexical Integrity have played a key role in arguments for the traditional, lexicalist, position.

In this talk, I shall examine the properties of two types of denominal predicates in Korean, which are distinguished by the fact that Lexical Integrity is observed in one but not the other. I shall show that the behaviors of the two classes of denominal predicates vis-à-vis Lexical Integrity can be modeled using the theoretical and empirical machinery of current DM, without making special assumptions about the special status of words.

While this is a welcome result, it turns out that DM predicts that more languages should behave like Korean in allowing systematic violations of Lexical Integrity, a prediction that is not upheld. I will show that the presence or absence of complex head formation prior to Vocabulary Insertion makes the correct cut between the two types of languages. For DM, the question of why complex head formation creates internal opacity must be answered without reverting to lexicalist tenets. Incorporating insights from recent work on Roots in DM (de Belder and van Cranenbroeck 2015) coupled with a particular theory of head movement (Matushansky 2006), I sketch a possible answer to this question.