This project pursues a strictly derivational, cyclic, optimization-based approach to inflectional morphology that offers new perspectives on phenomena like affix order, extended exponence, disjunctive blocking, apparently non-local stem allomorphy, and *ABA patterns; beyond that it will primarily be investigated for recalcitrant concepts like impoverishment, exponent drop, deponency, paradigmatic gaps, morphological movement, discontinuous bleeding, and learning algorithms for underspecification.
This project pursues a cyclic, optimization-based approach to inflectional morphology that relies on Harmonic Serialism, a derivational alternative to Standard Parallel Optimality Theory. The approach qualifies as lexical-realizational. In addition, like most current theories of inflectional morphology, this new approach recognizes a separate level of morphological realization in the grammar. However, unlike virtually all competing approaches, it does not rely on specific rules of exponence like, e.g, substitution transformations applying to terminal nodes (`vocabulary insertion'), entire subtrees, or spans; rather, it involves structure-building via (external or internal) Merge, as in the syntactic component of grammar.
Mainly due to its strictly derivational nature (and the related fact that decisions in morphological derivations will often be myopic), an approach to inflectional morphology in terms of harmonic serialism can be shown to offer new perspectives on some core phenomena in inflectional morphology, among them affix order, extended exponence, disjunctive blocking, apparently non-local stem allomorphy, and *ABA patterns. Perhaps the most striking property of the new approach is that it automatically predicts the existence of movement of morphological exponents in words, which contributes to a solution of several long-standing problems with discontinuous exponence, seemingly non-local phonological reflexes, seemingly non-local stem allomorphy, and discontinuous partially superfluous extended exponence.
Against this background, the first goal of the research project is to establish this approach as a viable alternative to current morphological theories, like Distributed Morphology or Paradigm Function Morphology. The second, more far-reaching goal is to show that it can solve some recalcitrant problems for existing theories in the areas of impoverishment, exponent drop, deponency, paradigmatic gaps, morphological movement, discontinuous bleeding, and learning algorithms for underspecification.
Andermann, Felicitas.
Cyclicity in Morphological Movement: The Case of Potawatomi Inverse Marking.
In Privizentseva, M.; Andermann, F. & Müller, G. (eds)
Cyclicity. LinguistischeArbeits Berichte 95. Institut für Linguistik. Universität Leipzig. 2023. pp. 123–158.
Andermann, Felicitas.
Inverse Marking as Morphological Movement.
In Proceedings of ConSOLE XXXII. 2024. pp. 213–233.
Andermann, Felicitas.
Two-Level Alignment in Harmonic Serialism.
To appear in Daniel Gleim, Andrew Nevins, Sören Tebay & Eva Zimmermann (eds)
Traces in Morphology and Phonology. 2024. [pdf]
Andermann, Felicitas.
Portmanteaux as an Epiphenomenon: The Case of Potawatomi.
In Müller. 2025. Accepted.
Gleim, Daniel.
Additive Deponency: Tripartition in Western Keres Intransitives.
In Müller 2025. Accepted.
Gleim, Daniel; Müller, Gereon; Privizentseva, Mariia & Tebay, Sören.
Reflexes of Exponent Movement in Inflectional Morphology: A Study in Harmonic Serialism.
Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 41. 2023. pp. 103–158.
Müller, Gereon.
Challenges for Cyclicity.
In Privizentseva, M.; Andermann, F. & Müller, G. (eds)
Cyclicity. LinguistischeArbeits Berichte 95. Institut für Linguistik. Universität Leipzig. 2023. pp. 3–72.
Müller, Gereon.
Fanselow on Minimality and Case Agreement.
In Gisbert Fanselow’s Contributions to Syntactic Theory.
Linguistische Arbeits Berichte 96. Institut für Linguistik. Universität Leipzig, 2024. pp. 73–90.
Müller, Gereon.
Pre-Syntactic Impoverishment.
Word Structure 17. 2024. pp. 134–184.
Müller, Gereon.
Exponent Movement in Irarutu Possession Marking.
In Müller. 2025. Accepted.
Müller, Gereon.
German Syntax: A Structure Removal Approach.
Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. 2025.
Müller, Gereon.
An Introduction to Inflectional Morphology in Harmonic Serialism.
In Müller. 2025. Accepted.
Müller, Gereon.
Pre-Syntactic Morphology and Syntactic Valuation. 2025. Ms., UL. [pdf]
Müller, Gereon & Opitz, Andreas.
Grammatical Consequences of Gender-Sensitive Language Innovation: The Generic Feminine
Pronoun in German.
2024. Under review. [pdf]
Müller, Gereon (ed).
Morphology by Serial Optimization.
Benjamins, Amsterdam. 2025. Accepted. [pdf]
Müller, Gereon; Englisch, Johannes & Opitz, Andreas.
Extraction from NP, Frequency, and Minimalist Gradient Harmonic Grammar.
Linguistics 60. 2022. pp. 1619–1662.
Privizentseva, Mariia.
Late Merge and Cyclicity.
In Privizentseva, M.; Andermann, F. & Müller, G. (eds)
Cyclicity. LinguistischeArbeits Berichte 95. Institut für Linguistik. Universität Leipzig. 2023. pp. 325–245.
Privizentseva, Mariia.
Nominal Ellipsis Reveals Concord in Moksha Mordvin. Syntax 26. 2023. pp. 355–403.
Privizentseva, Mariia.
Semantic Agreement in Russian: Gender, Declension, and Morphological Ineffability.
Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 42. 2024. pp. 767–814.
Privizentseva, Mariia.
Binary Case Features and *ABA in Buryat Pronouns. Ms., Universität Potsdam. 2025.
Privizentseva, Mariia.
Multiple Exponence in Finno-Ugric Personal Pronouns.
In Müller. 2025. Accepted.
Müller, Gereon.
Pre-Syntactic Morphology and Syntactic Valuation.
Ms., Leipzig University. 2025. [pdf]
Müller, Gereon & Opitz, Andreas.
Grammatical Consequences of Gender-Sensitive Language Innovation: The Generic Feminine Pronoun in German.
submitted. 2024. [pdf]
Privizentseva, Mariia.
Binary Case Features and *ABA in Buryat Pronouns.
Ms., Potsdam University. 2025.