avis de parution: A Guide to Morphosyntax-Phonology Interface Theories

[Tobias Scheer]

Avis de parution

Scheer, Tobias
A Guide to Morphosyntax-Phonology Interface Theories
How Extra-Phonological Information is Treated in Phonology since 
Trubetzkoy's Grenzsignale
De Gruyter: Berlin.
xlviii + 847 pages | 2011
Electronic: ISBN:  978-3-11-023863-1
Hardback: ISBN:  978-3-11-023862-4
RRP Euro [D] 149.95 / for USA, Canada, Mexico US$ 210.00.
http://www.degruyter.de/cont/fb/sk/detail.cfm?id=IS-9783110238624-1

This book reviews the history of the interface between morpho-syntax 
and phonology (in this direction) roughly since World War II. In Part 
I, Structuralist and generative interface thinking is presented 
chronologically, but also theory by theory: Trubetzkoy's 
Grenzsignale, American Structuralism (juncture phonemes), early 
generative work and SPE, boundary theory in the 70s, Lexical 
Phonology, Halle & Vergnaud's (1987) non-interactionist version 
thereof, Government Phonology, Prosodic Phonology, OT, Distributed Morphology.
In preparation of the evaluating Part II, an Interlude then 
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.
Part II serves two functions: it distills lessons from the review of 
interface theories and locates the interface debate in the landscape 
of current minimalist syntax and phase theory. The reader is 
introduced to ongoing debate in syntax that is by and large absent 
from (traditional, but also some more recent) interface theories: 
linearisation, phase theory, the definition of phasehood and the 
blown-up PF area into which minimalism outsources (or rather dumps: 
clean syntax, dirty phonology?) a number of mechanisms that were 
previously syntactic (and hence for sure are not phonological). 
Building on the insight that syntax and phonology communicate through 
the same pipe (phase theory) and are hence interdependent, the book 
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)?
The questions asked are: what can we learn from previous interface 
theories? Is the current state of (phonological) theories of the 
interface really informed of earlier results? How could phonological 
and morpho-syntactic theories of the interface converge? Which ideas 
are theory-resident? In which different guises does a given idea 
appear over time? Which are the mechanisms that have survived the 
verdict of time? Which empirical generalisations emerge? Which are 
the watershed lines that separate interface theories into different 
camps? Which are the questions that interface theories are constantly 
after? Which ones are solved, which ones remain pending?



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