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Description:
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This book reviews the history of the interface between morpho-syntax and
phonology roughly since World War II. Structuralist and generative
interface thinking is presented chronologically, but also theory by theory
from the point of view of a historically interested observer who however in
the last third of the book distills lessons in order to assess present-day
interface theories, and to establish a catalogue of properties that a
correct interface theory should or must not have. The book also introduces
modularity, the rationalist theory of the (human) cognitive system that
underlies the generative approach to language, from a Cognitive Science
perspective. Modularity is used as a referee for interface theories in the
book. Finally, the book locates the interface debate in the landscape of
current minimalist syntax and phase theory and fosters intermodular
argumentation: how can we use properties of morpho-syntactic theory in
order to argue for or against competing theories of phonology (and vice-versa)?
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