Minimalist morphology : an approach to inflection

Abstract

In this paper we advocate a minimal characterization of inflectional morphology as a combinatorial system of underspecified stems and affixes which is controlled by a hierarchy of categories, by general principles of affixation, and by principles that regulate paradigm structures. We first contrast our views on inflection with other proposals found in the literature, and then describe our machinery, illustrating it with facts from the inflectional morphology of the German verb. While subregularities are represented by structured lexical entries which take the form of non-mono tonic inheritance trees, regular affixation is assumed to be a monotonic operation. Finally the structure of paradigms is illustrated in some detail with an analysis of the subject agreement morphology of the verb in Classical Arabic.