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Description:
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Syncretism - where a single form serves two or more morphosyntactic
functions - is a persistent problem at the syntax-morphology interface. It
results from a 'mismatch', whereby the syntax of a language makes a
particular distinction, but the morphology does not. This pioneering book
provides the first full-length study of inflectional syncretism, presenting
a typology of its occurrence across a wide range of languages. The
implications of syncretism for the syntax-morphology interface have long
been recognised: it argues either for an enriched model of feature
structure (thereby preserving a direct link between function and form), or
for the independence of morphological structure from syntactic structure.
The Syntax-Morphology Interface argues for the autonomy of morphology, and
the resulting analysis is illustrated in a series of formal case studies
within network morphology. It will be welcomed by all linguists interested
in the relation between words and the larger units of which they are a part.
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