The Lexical Integrity Hypothesis in a New Theoretical Universe

Abstract

As yet, there are also too few examples to understand fully the interaction of morphological and phrasal semantics, and we confess we have not scoured the literature on the morphology/phonology interface as closely as we could for examples of interaction, so restatements of LIH in terms of other modules will have to wait. Nevertheless we feel that an examination of both the relevant data and the theoretical possibilities leads us in the right direction. We know now that any adequate statement of the LIH must \nbe sensitive to interactions between morphology and other components as well. The data tell us that we do not need to sanction a complete collapse of morphology into syntax or other components, for that matter – this possibility predicts far more interaction than we fi nd. Nor can we explain away the data and maintain that morphology is an island unto itself. There \nis a point of contact – a small one – between morphology and syntax (and probably between morphology and phrasal semantics and phonology), and our theory must eventually allow for that point of contact. \nWe feel that our restatement of the LIH as the Limited Access \nPrinciple, together with the statement of Morphological Merge that we suggest allows us to loosen the original strictures of the LIH without vitiating it entirely. In other words, we neither deny any contact between morphology and syntax, nor allow free access. Ultimately one would want our statement of the LIH and the Limited Access Principle to follow from something in the architecture of our theory, but at present we are not yet prepared to offer such a theory. We therefore leave this as a goal for future research.

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