back online

[Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy]

Hi Martha

Thanks for reviving the DM List.  (Not having seen it for months, or even years, I assumed I might have been dropped off it because of morphological incorrectness.)  To get the ball rolling, here’s some news of another instalment in an exciting debate about Polish morphophonology.

Back in the last century, I published some proposals about inflection class organization and the respective roles of affixal and nonaffixal inflection (Carstairs-McCarthy 1994).  This was followed by a discussion of Polish masculine nouns (Carstairs-McCarthy & Cameron-Faulkner 2000).  Thea Cameron-Faulkner and I argued that, although Polish nouns at first sight violated the predictions of Carstairs-McCarthy 1994 seriously, they turned out to comply perfectly, given a proper understanding of the interaction between affixes and stem alternants.

Halle & Marantz (2008) criticize our analysis from a DM point of view.  However, in my book _The Evolution of Morphology_ (due out early in 2010), I answer Halle & Marantz’s critique.  I argue that C-McC & C-F’s analysis not only fits the facts better but is also psycholinguistically more plausible (it renders unnecessary H & M’s suggestion that Polish children use the vocative form of inanimate nouns as a basis for predicting the locative!), as well as fitting nicely into my broader account of how the capacity for morphology came into existence as part of the human linguistic endowment.

Don’t miss this new thrilling instalment!  Order your copy of Carstairs-McCarthy (2010) now!

Cameron-Faulkner, Thea and Carstairs-McCarthy, Andrew (2000). Stem alternants as morphological signata: evidence from blur avoidance in Polish nouns. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 18: 813–35.
Carstairs-McCarthy, Andrew (1994). Inflection classes, gender and the Principle of Contrast. Language 70:
737–88.
Carstairs-McCarthy, Andrew (2010). The Evolution of Morphology.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Halle, Morris and Marantz, Alec 2008). Clarifying ‘blur’: paradigms, defaults, and inflectional classes. In Bachrach, Asaf and Nevins, Andrew (eds.), Inflectional Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 55–72.

Best regards
Andrew



Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy
Emeritus Professor
School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics
University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8140;
4 Fendalton Road, Fendalton, Christchurch 8014,
New Zealand
home phone (+64 3) 741 1161



-----Original Message-----
From: The Distributed Morphology List on behalf of Martha McGinnis
Sent: Fri 30/10/2009 06:34
To: DM-LIST at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: back online
 
Dear subscribers,

The DM-List has been on an extended break, mainly due to my mat leave in
2008-09. After months of endless spam, I have finally changed the
moderation settings so that posters must confirm their postings before
they are submitted to me.  This should make the list functional again.  So
please, feel free to send the List your latest ideas, questions, and
announcements about Distributed Morphology.

Best regards,
Martha McGinnis
DM-List Moderator


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