2. The Relation of Morphology to Syntax
Introduction
According to the Syntactic Structures theory, the early generative models lacked a
morphological component.
Complex words are words that involve an affix and a stem (For example, un-fair or doll-s), or
compounds like „black-board“ were derived by syntactic transformation. For example, on
the relative clause structure „a board“ (which is black), a compound as „blackboard“ was the
result of transformations.
Most workers in the field had demonstrated to the complacency with such a model
problems by the early 1970s. The existence of forms that are not predictable from their parts
and that cannot be transformationally derived turned in a large part of the arguments
among them. As a result of this debate, modern generative models, similar at least in this
respect traditional and pre-Chomskyan structuralist models, almost uniformly posit
morphology as an independent component of a grammar.
A morphological component is to reduce the role of syntax in the formation of the word. In
fact, Lexicalist Hypothesis, which is the basic assumption, is the independence of the
structure of the word and the syntax. The principles and rules that are involved in the phrase
construction (syntax) and the principles and rules that are involved in word construction
(morphology) are simply twisted, and that is the leading idea here. But still, performance of
this has taken much stronger form.
The strongest of this hypothesis, Principle 1 states one explication, and that is:
1. Syntactic rules do not manipulate word-internal structure, nor do they have
access to it.
That is, words are atomic units, their parts are unavailable. Structures in which these words
appear are relevant to certain properties of the word. Simply, consider –s in „girls“ as the
plural number that is indicated is relevant to the verb form that follows it (in the present
tense).
For example:
a) Girls work hard.
b) *Girls works hard.*
This matter of fact is a problem which has to be resolved under the conditions of Principle 1.
Some parts of words in the irrelevance of others and the syntactic structures have to be
explained for in the difference of notability of any separation of morphology and syntax.
Other morphological properties are not relevant to the verb form, while the number of the
3. subject noun phrase is. For example, the suffix „-ity“ as in „electricity“ doesn't vary with the
presence or absence of the word.
Electricity works for you.
The interaction between syntax and morphology is the first part of this article. In the second
part there is a brief detail to the problem. In the third part, there is a replacement from the
work of morphology to the work in syntax that carries us directly to the issue.
Syntactic Relevance
The issue between derivational morphology and inflectional morphology has been a classical
problem in morphology studies, although this study is orthogonal.
As the example above illustrates (*electric-ity) the English plural marking satisfies the
definition. If there is a language where plural marking defects syntactic relevance, it will not
be inflectional.
The range of inflectional morphology has been classified as transferring to the following:
a) Configurational properties
An example of a configurational property is a Noun Phrase.
b) Agreement properties
An agreement property is presented by adjectives that deviate in form of the head noun
in the same noun phrase.
c) Inherent properties
An example of an inherent property is the property of the noun with which the adjective
differs.
d) Phrasal properties
Is a property of a word that determines the character of the entire domain.
Two Morphological Approaches
Two morphological approaches attentive a relationship between morphology and syntax
take opposite views of the place in a grammar.
4. On one hand, all morphology is a part of a single grammatical component in such a way that
words are introduced into the structure fully inflected. In the other hand, morphological
properties are distributed across two separate components in such a way of a consequence
of the structural configuration in which they occur, and according to these two separate
components, they are distributed by morphological properties.
The argument for this difference is based on contemplations suggesting that morphological
properties do not present a unitary phenomenon.
The Single Component Theory
This application of the idea that words are introduced fully, considers inflectional
morphology only of the three general areas introduced, for example:
This are derivational morphology examples, but the idea is designated to apply to
inflectional morphology likewise.
It's applicable cross-linguistically to inflection only insofar as such indications are suffixes,
but not infixes and prefixes, or they will otherwise be reflected in the rightmost member of
the word.
Although possesive forms are not usually included as case, the requirement here in regard to
the possessive prefix is not different from the requirement for the object suffix, a
noncontroversal case form.
5. The Two-Component Theory
The alternative is the idea that certain properties of words are introduced as a consequence
of the structure in which the word occurs. Anderson argues that words are introduced into
the syntax lacking the morphological properties that identify their syntactically accessible
properties. These are provisions by the encircle as a set of features – what Anderson calls a
„morpho-syntactic representation“ and these features are translated into the requisite
morphological form.
For example, the morphosyntactic presentment of a transitive verb in a language where the
verb bears person and number notation for both subject and object would include a feature
set of identifying the temporal and other equipments for the verb itself and two sets of
person or number specifications, identified as to their grammatical relation.
A Third Option
Execution of the outlook that words are introduced to the syntax fully marked must increase
the notion of what counts as syntactically relevant, like the mechanisms by which the
properties of words are made achievable. In the other view, the execution of the view that
the inflectional properties of a word are defined by the syntactic environment must address
the aftereffects of the division it proposes between inflection and derivation.
Farther refinement of either of these two compenting views of syntactically relevant
morphology may resolve these problems.
SUMMARY
Morphology and Syntax improvement relationship is clear. In early generative studies,
morphology was treated as a part of the syntax. The emphasis is still primarily syntactic,
although current models distignuished between syntax and morphology, as pointed out by
what are taken to be the mid questions.
Future theories can be expected to give a wider role in morphology, considering the given
vitality of orientation theories projecting the syntactic equipments of a construction of the
morphology members, as it focuses on the lexical item equipments.
