Morphological theory

В статье обсуждаются значение морфологических работ А. А. Зализняка для русской и общей морфологии, анализируется ценность его исследований с точки зрения истории лингвистики и возможности развития его теоретических идей.
The paper is devoted to the contribution of morphological works by the outstanding Russian linguist A. Zalizniak to Russian and general morphology and to possible ways of the development of his ideas.

English: The current study focuses on the grammatical category of person inherent to personal pronouns in Russian and Bulgarian. Even though some Bulgarian parts of speech (mostly verbs, for example) have significant differences in comparison with Russian ones, the systems of
meanings of the Bulgarian and Russian pronomina personalia function in a similar way. Additionally, the subject of examination is the set of categorial and non-categorial meanings of the grammatical category of person. The two semantic types are invariably connected but the emphasis is put on the manifestations of non-categoriality. Bulgarian serves as a background to Russian empirical data, and the main approach used is a comparative one. The main goal is to explain and describe the ways in which the non-categorial meanings of person function in Russian. For this purpose, fi rst categorial meanings are examined and then non-categorical ones are reviewed.

Russian: Объектом настоящего исследования является грамматическая категория лица, присущая личным местоимения в русском и болгарском языках. Несмотря на то, что у некоторых классов слов в болгарском языке (например, у глагола) наблюдаются значительные различия в категориях по сравнению с русским языком, системы значений болгарских и русских pronomina personalia функционируют схожим образом. Предметом исследования являются категориальные и некатегориальные значения категории лица местоимений. Эти два семантических типа неразрывно связаны друг с другом, но акцент делается на проявлениях некатегориальности. Болгарский язык имеет статус языка фонового сопоставления с русским эмпирическим материалом, а основной метод работы – сопоставительный. Основная цель исследования – объяснить и описать случаи функционирования некатегориальных значений лица в русском языке. В связи с этим сначала рассматриваются категориальные значения, а потом и некатегориальные.

Language is a mean of communication which is used by living beings to communicate with each other. There are many important components in language to create a successful communication, such as sound, sentence, meaning, and etc. One of the components is word. Word can be considered as a complex part in language since it has many different forms. Compound word, for example, is a word which is formed through one of the word-formation processes by combining one lexical item with another and thus produces a new word with a new meaning. This paper investigates the types of English compounds and the lexical categories which are resulted from the process of compounding. The first results showed that the types of English compounds are endocentric, exocentric, and copulative compounds. The second results showed that the lexical categories resulted from the process of compounding are noun compound, verb compound, and adjective compound. Based on the results, the researcher hopes that readers can gain deeper insight and knowledge on English compound words.

"Kayardild possesses one of, if not the, most exuberant systems of morphological concord known to linguists, and a phonological system which is intricately sensitive to its morphology. This dissertation provides a comprehensive description of the phonology of Kayardild, an investigation of its phonetics, its intonation, and a formal analysis of its inflectional morphology. A key component of the latter is the existence of a ‘morphomic’ level of representation intermediate between morphosyntactic features and underlying phonological forms.

Chapter 2 introduces the segmental inventory of Kayardild, the phonetic realisations of surface segments, and their phonotactics. Chapter 3 provides an introduction to the empirical facts of Kayardild word structure, outlining the kinds of morphs of which words are composed, their formal shapes and their combinations. Chapter 4 treats the segmental phonology of Kayardild. After a survey of the mappings between underlying and (lexical) surface forms, the primary topic is the interaction of the phonology with morphology, although major generalisations identifiable in the phonology itself are also identified and discussed. Chapter 5 examines Kayardild stress, and presents a constraint based analysis, before turning to an empirical and analytical discussion of intonation. Chapter 6, on the syntax and morphosyntax of Kayardild, is most substantial chapter of the dissertation. In association with the examination of a large corpus of new and newly collated data, mutually compatible analyses of the syntax and morphosyntactic features of Kayardild are built up and compared against less favourable alternatives. A critical review of Evans’ (1995a) analysis of similar phenomena is also provided. Chapter 7 turns to the realisational morphology — the component of the grammar which ties the morphosyntax to the phonology, by realising morphosyntactic features structures as morphomic representations, then morphomic representations as underlying phonological representations. A formalism is proposed in order to express these mappings within a constraint based grammar.

In addition to enriching our understanding of Kayardild, the dissertation presents data and analyses which will be of interest for theories of the interface between morphology on the one hand and phonology and syntax on the other, as well as for morphological and phonological theory more narrowly."

Urban morphology is a thriving field of enquiry involving
researchers from a wide diversity of disciplinary, linguistic and cultural backgrounds. While this diversity has helped advance our understanding of the complexity of urban form, confusion and controversy has also arisen over the various theoretical formulations forwarded by researchers from different philosophical and epistemological backgrounds. With the aim of improving intelligibility in the field, this paper proposes a straightforward scheme to identify, classify and interpret, or ‘map’, individual contributions to the study of urban form according to their respective theoretical or epistemological perspectives. Drawing upon epistemological discussions familiar to the readers of this journal, the authors first distinguish between cognitive and normative studies. A second distinction is made between internalist studies that consider urban form as a relatively independent system, and externalist studies in which urban form stands as a passive product of various external determinants. Using these basic criteria, it is possible to interpret and synthesize a multitude of contributions and map them using a simple Cartesian grid. The paper highlights how contributions from seemingly different theoretical approaches to urban morphology are intrinsically similar in their treatment of urban form as an object of enquiry.

The terms "deponency" and "deponents" originally referred to a particular class of Latin verbs which take passive ("nonactive") morphology but are syntactically active. The term has subsequently been extended to cover verbs in other languages with seemingly aberrant voice morphology, and eventually to describe other kinds of perceived mismatches between morphology and syntax. Deponency has therefore become a useful tool for testing and comparing the predictions and assumptions made by different morphological theories, specifically regarding the lexicon-(morpho)syntax interface. However, the different definitions of and theoretical approaches to deponency found in the literature render it difficult to evaluate and compare specific theoretical claims. Definitions that are too broad do not capture a natural class of phenomena, while definitions that are too narrow or explicitly tailored to a specific language obscure potentially valuable cross-linguistic generalizations. Theoretical approaches moreover differ in whether they treat deponency as a property of a designated morphological domain, a purely lexical (diachronically motivated) idiosyncrasy, or an interaction of different synchronic factors. This article uses deponency in Latin as a case study of these issues and discusses the behavior of Latin deponents in finite and non-finite contexts, in primary and secondary verbs, and from various theoretical perspectives. It is shown that the perceived mismatch of deponent verbs in Latin arises from a discrepancy between argument structure and voice morphology in a lexically specified subset of morphologically nonactive/"passive" verbs which unexpectedly have an agent subject, while the vast majority of verbs with this morphology actually displays canonical behavior with respect to argument structure and voice morphology. Future work on deponency in Latin and other languages that display form-function mismatches must therefore disentangle the lexically specific aspects of these phenomena from properties that follow from general morphological or syntactic principles of the language(s) under study.

"This dissertation is about the elements that build verbs, the elements that introduce arguments, and how these elements interact to determine the interpretation of arguments and events. A theory of argument structure is a theory how arguments are introduced syntactically, interpreted semantically, and marked morphologically, and how this information is linked to predicates and their morphological shape. Through a detailed empirical study of Icelandic verbal alternations, this dissertation contributes to a line of research in which much of the work of argument structure is handled by the syntax, the component of language responsible for combining elements into larger structures, rather than a pre-syntactic lexicon.

The major theoretical contribution of this thesis is a syntactic theory of argument structure which is much more syntactically autonomous than its closest relatives. The system proposed shares with construction-based approaches to argument structure the assumption that structures generate meanings independent of the lexical roots embedded in them. That is, lexical roots play a secondary role in effecting argument structures. However, it differs from most syntactic approaches in that the syntax is far less deterministic of semantics, much as late insertion theories of morphology take syntax to underdetermine morphophonology.

In the present theory, syntactic structure may underdetermine interpretation in three ways. First, a functional head may be compatible with multiple ‘allosemes’, or denotations, which are decided post-syntactically on the basis of surrounding material. The categorial v head, for example, may have the interpretation of an activity or a cause (among other possible interpretations), depending on the interpretation of its complement. Second, a DP may be interpreted as an entity, or may be type-shifted to be interpreted as a (stative) eventuality. Third, a lexical root is associated with a web of possible semantic contributions, but the selection from among them is made on the basis of surrounding structure, after such structure has been built."

In spite of the central position that the concept word has among the basic units of language structure, there is no consensus as to the definition of this concept (or network of related concepts). Many perspectives are needed in order to gain even a schematic idea of what words are, how words may be composed, and what relationships there might be between words. Many linguists have put forward frameworks for describing the domain of morphology, each framework proceeding from its author's assumptions, prioritizing distinct formal and functional dimensions, and therefore entering into de facto competition. This book addresses the needs of the language scholar/student who finds her/himself engaged in morphological analysis and theorizing. It offers a guide to existing approaches, revealing how they can either complement or compete with each other and ranks them on multiple continua.

Urban morphology is a thriving field of enquiry involving researchers from a wide diversity of disciplinary, linguistic and cultural backgrounds. While this diversity has helped advance our understanding of the complexity of urban form, confusion and controversy has also arisen over the various theoretical formulations forwarded by researchers from different philosophical and epistemological backgrounds. With the aim of improving intelligibility in the field, this paper proposes a straightforward scheme to identify, classify and interpret, or 'map', individual contributions to the study of urban form according to their respective theoretical or epistemological perspectives. Drawing upon epistemological discussions familiar to the readers of this journal, the authors first distinguish between cognitive and normative studies. A second distinction is made between internalist studies that consider urban form as a relatively independent system, and externalist studies in which urban form stands as a passive product of various external determinants. Using these basic criteria, it is possible to interpret and synthesize a multitude of contributions and map them using a simple Cartesian grid. The paper highlights how contributions from seemingly different theoretical approaches to urban morphology are intrinsically similar in their treatment of urban form as an object of enquiry.

A language's morphology possesses a large set of meaningful elements, affixes, which combine in order to express an even larger set of semantic meanings; and affixation is the default rule for derivation of new words and word forms. However, of all possible affix combinations in a language, a relatively limited number really exist, which gives rise to the question: What principle(s) is/are responsible for the combination of affixes? This question is a central one in linguistic theory. As might be expected, there is much research on affix order, especially in particular languages. Overviews on the topic are, however, rare; and to the best of our knowledge, there is no study on affix order from a typological perspective. These facts make the writing of the following text a challenging task-easy and difficult at the same time.

In this paper we will discuss the notion of prominence in morphology by reviewing how morphological heads are defined through their prominence at different levels. After outlining the main issues and, specially, the problems posed by heads in morphology, we consider how prominence and headedness are dealt with in two different influential contemporary theories: Minimalism and Construction Morphology. Despite being very different in many respects, the two models agree that there is no need for a structural notion of head, because interpretability is guaranteed by the interplay of features within complex constituents.

Galls are plant tissue which is controlled by the insect. Galls are outgrowths on the surface of leaf caused by invasion of various organisms like Bacteria, Fungi, Insects, Parasites and Mites. Galls may be found on leaves, stems, twigs, branches, trunks and roots. There are hundreds of unique galls caused by insects and mites. They are formed on a variety of plants and in a broad range of sizes, shapes, colors and textures. Some galls are common and abundant and easily noticed. Others are rare or less conspicuous. This paper reports physicochemical study in leaf galls of Syzygium cumini. The parameters assayed were Total ash, acid insolubility and water solubility values and extractive values (Alcohol, water and petroleum ether).

Abstract. Urban morphology is a thriving field of enquiry involving researchers from a wide diversity of disciplinary, linguistic and cultural backgrounds. While this diversity has helped advance our understanding of the complexity of urban form, confusion and controversy has also arisen over the various theoretical formulations forwarded by researchers from different philosophical and epistemological backgrounds. With the aim of improving intelligibility in the field, this paper proposes a straightforward scheme to identify, classify and interpret, or ‘map’, individual contributions to the study of urban form according to their respective theoretical or epistemological perspectives. Drawing upon epistemological discussions familiar to the readers of this journal, the authors first distinguish between cognitive and normative studies. A second distinction is made between internalist studies that consider urban form as a relatively independent system, and externalist studies in which ...

In this paper I will provide a new argument for post-syntactic morphology. The empirical evidence comes from so-called displaced morphology in German verb clusters, where the non-finite verb form selected by a given governor does not appear on the immediately dependent verb but rather on the linearly last verb of the selector's complement. The placement of the morphology thus partly depends on linear notions and not exclusively on hierarchical relations. I will provide an analysis within Distributed Morphology (Halle and Marantz 1993), where exponents for non-finite morphology are inserted into separate functional heads which are linearized after their VP-complements. At a late stage of the PF-derivation, the exponents are associated with their verbal hosts by means of Local Dislocation, an operation that applies under adjacency (Embick and Noyer 2001). As a consequence, the non-finite morphology always comes last in the selector's complement. Displacement arises once the immediately dependent verb is not the last verbal element in the complement of its selector; this is generally the case in strictly ascending orders , while in the strictly descending 321 order the morphology is faithfully realized. The placement operation is thus always the same, displacement only emerges as a side-effect of certain cluster orders. Further evidence for a post-syntactic approach to the placement of non-finite morphology and against a pre-syntactic perspective comes from the absence of semantic effects under displacement, the emergence of non-finite verb forms specified for more than one non-finite category under multiple displacement and the distribution of default forms.

Recent work on verb clusters within Continental West-Germanic has argued in favor
of restrictive theories of cluster orders that only generate a subset of the logically
possible orders in three-verb clusters, explicitly ruling out the 213 order. In this context
it is remarkable that Swiss German features a verb cluster-like construction with an
unmarked 213 order. I will argue that this construction indeed represents a proper
verb cluster and not an instance of the 3rd Construction, which also allows the 213
order. Based on new diagnostics, viz., stranding of VP3 under topicalization of the
governing VP2, short relative clause extraposition and displaced zu, I will show that
verb clusters and Verb Projection Raising differ from the 3rd Construction with respect
to the structural position of the dependent VP: while the dependent VP is contained
within the projection of the governing verb in the former, it occurs outside of the
projection of the governing verb in the latter. Applying the diagnostics to the Swiss
German 213 construction delivers a clear result: the construction patterns with verb
clusters rather than the 3rd Construction. I conclude from this that theories of verb
clusters and unmarked word order more generally must be able to generate all six
logically possible orders, including the 213 order.

Syntactic representations the phrases and sentences of a language accommodate the insertion of morpholexical (¼ morphological or lexical) expressions drawn or projected from its lexicon. Morphologists disagree about the types of morpholexical expression that is inserted and about the types of node into which insertion Ramchand and Reiss / The Oxford Hand book of Linguistic Interfaces 12-Ramchand-chap12

"Résumé
Dans son étude des mots en -Vche, Plénat (2008) affirme que le choix entre les différentes formes du suffixe est sensible à des contraintes de taille et à des contraintes dissimilatives et que l’interaction de ces contraintes est responsable d’autres alternances en français. Cependant, il prétend que le phénomène est si complexe que la version standard de la Théorie de l’Optimalité ne suffit pas à le décrire correctement et suggère d’importantes modifications au modèle. Notre analyse des faits nous mène en revanche à conclure que la TO n’est pas conçue pour décrire la compétence morphologique et que la morphophonologie ne constitue pas un module de la grammaire au même titre que la phonologie et la morphologie. Nous présentons donc un commentaire de l’analyse de Plénat et une alternative purement morphologique dans le cadre d’une théorie de la morphologie basée sur le mot (Whole Word Morphology, Ford & Singh 1991). Cette approche présente l’avantage de rendre compte de la variabilité du résultat des processus de formation de mots – dans le cas -Vche et dans la morphologie en général – en laissant au locuteurs le choix de former de nouveaux mots en utilisant l’une ou l’autre des stratégies de formation de mots qui sont légitimées par leur lexique mental.
Abstract
In his study of French -Vche words, Plénat (2008) claims that the choice between the different shapes of this suffix is guided by size constraints and dissimilatory constraints and that their interaction is also responsible for some other alternations in French. At the same time, he says that the phenomenon is so complex that Standard Optimality Theory is not enough to account for it and suggests important modifications to the model. However, our analysis of the facts leads us to conclude that OT may in principle be unable to describe morphological competence and that morphophonology is not a module of grammar like phonology or morphology. We present a critique of Plénat’s analysis and an alternative treatment within a word-based theory of morphology (Whole Word Morphology, Ford & Singh 1991). This approach has the advantage of accounting for the variability of outcome – in the -Vche case just as in morphology in general – by giving speakers the choice to use one or the other of the word-formation strategies that are licensed by their mental lexica."

Работа посвящена изложению базовых принципов описания грамматического слова как синтагматической единицы, построенной из морфем, связанных между собой морфолого-синтаксическими отношениями. Подобное описание должно опираться на мор-фологический словарь, в котором должна быть отражена вся информация, необходимая для синтеза грамматического слова по семантическому заданию. Работа выполнена в рам-ках общей интегральной теории типа «Смысл  Текст», а именно в том ее варианте, который развивается автором настоящей работы с 1977 г. The paper is devoted to the basic principles of description of syntactic relations between morphemes. A word is viewed as a syntagmatic unit constructed out of morphemes within ther-ules of inner syntax of the word. This kind of explanation should be based on morphological dictionary, wherein all the information needed for grammatical word synthesis in line with a semantic task should be given. This kind of dictionary was coined as explanatory combinatorial dictionary by I. A. Mel'čuk and A. K. Zholkovski. This kind of dictionary is far from being completed even for lexical syntax, not to mention syntax of morphemes.. This paper sticks to a version of Meaning-text theory, which has been being developed by the author of this paper from 1977.

This study deals with the morphology-pragmatics interface in Modern Greek compounding. The object of investigation are 64 compounds explicitly marked for stance. It is shown that the linking of denotational (semantic and/or categorial) and socio-expressive (pragmatic) heads defines the different classes of compounds in a highly restrictive manner. The threefold negative socio-expressive structure of the verbal derivatives in -(i)áz(o) shows up in the compounds as well. It is concluded that, in both verbal derivation and compounding, the morphology-pragmatics interface recruits specific denotational structures for its expression.

The theory of Distributed Morphology (DM) has been applied to English synthetic compounds by Harley (2009), who proposes an analysis as incorporation structures. After a short introduction on the passage from lexicalism to DM in Latin morphology (par. 1), I will try to extend Harley's analysis to Latin synthetic compounds, suggesting some revisions (par. 2). In the first place, I will argue for the necessity to introduce verbal features in the structure of a compound like "agricola";, in order to explain the special meanings associated to the root *COL, that is the fact that the verbal head introduces a dynamic event, and that the nominalized root *AGR is interpreted as undergoing a change of state (par. 3). This suggestion is confirmed by comparing the structures of verb phrases, e.g. "colere agrum";, noun phrases with nominal derivatives, e.g. "cultor agri";, and synthetic compounds, e.g. "agricola".

I argue that displaced morphology in German results from a conflict between the head-finality of the German VP and the possibility of head-initial verb clusters. The phenomenon provides a straightforward argument for post-syntactic morphology: First, the placement of the non-finite morphology is not solely governed by hierarchical notions but
crucially affected by linear notions such as adjacency (and thus argues against treating all instances of morphological selection in terms of upward Agree as in Wurmbrand 2012). Second, displacement has no semantic effects. Third, the restrictions on displacement follow from the selectional properties of the exponents, which are checked linearly.

Syntactic representations the phrases and sentences of a language accommodate the insertion of morpholexical (¼ morphological or lexical) expressions drawn or projected from its lexicon. Morphologists disagree about the types of morpholexical expression that is inserted and about the types of node into which insertion Ramchand and Reiss / The Oxford Hand book of Linguistic Interfaces 12-Ramchand-chap12

The aim of this study is to give the semantic profile of the Greek verb-deriving suffixes -íz(o), -én(o), -év(o), -ón(o), -(i)áz(o), and -ín(o), with a special account of the ending -áo/-ó. The patterns presented are the result of an empirical analysis of data extracted from extended interviews conducted with 28 native Greek speakers in Athens, Greece in February 2009. Rochelle Lieber's (2004) morphological system is used as a theoretical framework. The analysis suggests (i) a sign-based treatment of affixes, (ii) a vertical preference structure in the semantic structure of the head suffixes which takes into account the semantic make-up of the bases, and (iii) the integration of socio-expressive meaning into verb structures.

Syntactic representations the phrases and sentences of a language accommodate the insertion of morpholexical (¼ morphological or lexical) expressions drawn or projected from its lexicon. Morphologists disagree about the types of morpholexical expression that is inserted and about the types of node into which insertion Ramchand and Reiss / The Oxford Hand book of Linguistic Interfaces 12-Ramchand-chap12

Syntactic representations the phrases and sentences of a language accommodate the insertion of morpholexical (¼ morphological or lexical) expressions drawn or projected from its lexicon. Morphologists disagree about the types of morpholexical expression that is inserted and about the types of node into which insertion Ramchand and Reiss / The Oxford Hand book of Linguistic Interfaces 12-Ramchand-chap12

When speakers need to predict an inflected form of some word, the prediction they make is known to be sensitive to the behavior of lexical neighbors (‘nearby’ words in the lexicon). In this sense, inflectional generalization is analogical and local in nature. At the same time, the relationship between these local-level generalizations and the system-level organization of inflectional systems is not straightforward. While functionalist pressures and learning biases have become popular modes of explanation for the emergence of system-level organization, in this lecture I argue that a full understanding requires more attention to the local environments in which generalization occurs. In turn, this requires precise quantitative tools for describing inflectional organization and I introduce an approach based on the idea of inflectional systems as networks. This is a lecture in the Abralin ao Vivo -- Linguists Online series. It will be broadcast live on Saturday October 17th, 2020 at 10am BRT (9am EDT, 13.00 GMT) and available afterwards for streaming. Link for live transmission and streaming: https://aovivo.abralin.org/lives/andrea-d-sims/

This paper deals with the semantic structures of the Event -ízo derivatives in Modern Greek, appearing in the syntactic frames NPi __ NP and NP __. The present analysis incorporates a version of Ray Jackendoff's conceptual semantics (1983, 1990, 1992). Special attention is paid to the semantic under-determination of word-formation rules. Semantic fields, conceptual functions, formation rules, and mechanisms/rules involved in -ízo derivation are presented. A principled account of various ambiguous structures is also provided. In the last part, the conceptual structures in -ízo derivation are finally laid down and the question of keeping these structures minimal while extending the semantic fields is once more addressed.

This paper deals with the semantic structure of the verbal prefixes apo-, ek(s)-, and kse- in Modern Greek, by considering their interface with pragmatics. 223 verbal creations are examined, elicited by means of language interviews with native Greek speakers. For the sake of comparison, 495 existing verbs are considered. The analysis relies on Lieber’s (2004) framework. The interpretations of the creations suggest that the prefixes have a negative socio-expressive (SE/pragmatic) content by default. This content is a function of the base and can be formalized as a set of semantic/pragmatic conditions of a probabilistic nature on specific arguments.

The purpose of this research is to identify the morphological nature of cancerous cell by employing image processing algorithms so that they can be used to automate diagnostic techniques, reducing the cost and increasing the accuracy of epithelial biopsy procedures. The approach taken combines a mix of image processing techniques and methods such as (median filter, unsharp mask and threshold). Next an averaging was done to remove noise and to distinguish between the two cells so that it can be easily identified which one has some abnormality. Lastly an improved future work of line plot in which will clearly identify the abnormality of a cell and hence recognize a cancerous cell accurately was proposed in this research.

Urban morphology is a thriving field of enquiry involving researchers from a wide diversity of disciplinary, linguistic and cultural backgrounds. While this diversity has helped advance our understanding of the complexity of urban form, confusion and controversy has also arisen over the various theoretical formulations forwarded by researchers from different philosophical and epistemological backgrounds. With the aim of improving intelligibility in the field, this paper proposes a straightforward scheme to identify, classify and interpret, or 'map', individual contributions to the study of urban form according to their respective theoretical or epistemological perspectives. Drawing upon epistemological discussions familiar to the readers of this journal, the authors first distinguish between cognitive and normative studies. A second distinction is made between internalist studies that consider urban form as a relatively independent system, and externalist studies in which ur...

"Zum Stand der Dinge" lautet der Titel des im Wortsinne einigermaßen großen und schweren Buches der beiden Autoren Herbert Fitzek und Andreas M. Marlovits, beides Professoren an der Business School Berlin. Auf dem Cover des Buchs prangt das Foto eines Großstadtplatzes mit einer wuchtigen Litfaßsäule (wohl nur den Älteren unter uns noch vertraut) im Mittelpunkt. Damit ist der Titel samt Untertitel ("Annäherung an das Gegenständliche") optisch eindrucksvoll in Szene gesetzt. Dass es um Psychologisches gehen soll, bleibt zunächst im Hintergrund. Man hat beim Durchblättern den Eindruck, einen Kunstband in der Hand zu halten. Annähernd die Hälfte des Buchs besteht aus ganzseitigen farbigen Fotografien. Was sofort auffällt: es sind keine Menschen zu sehen, allenfalls als Nachbildung in Form von Schaufensterpuppen oder fotografisch so verzerrt oder verkleinert, dass sie als Personen kaum wahrzunehmen sind. Was allerdings wahrgenommen wird, sind die auf den Fotos abgebildeten Dinge bzw. der Raum. Auch wenn es sich dabei um vertraute und tausendmal gesehene Dinge (ein Schuh, ein Haus, eine U-Bahn, etc.) handelt, sind die Aufnahmen so gestaltet, dass eine spürbare Wirkung von den Bildern auf den Betrachter ausgeht. Man fühlt sich hineingezogen in die Aufnahmen (sic!), wird insofern Teil des Bildes, das dadurch seinen Abbildcharakter verliert, stattdessen Assoziationen und persönliche Erfahrungen und Empfindungen hervorruft, die unmittelbar berühren − manchmal angenehm, manchmal vertraut, mitunter auch abstoßend. Dass dieser Effekt gelingt, ist dem Kölner Fotografen Christof Klute zu verdanken, der von Beginn an konzeptionell in die Buchgestaltung einbezogen war. Insofern erfährt man im eigenen Erleben die Wirkkraft eines Dings (hier: ein Buch mit guter grafischer Gestaltung und kunstvollen Fotografien) und begreift so intuitiv, worum es den Autoren geht, ohne kaum mehr als den Titel des Buchs gelesen zu haben.

Inferential–realisational analyses formalise a language’s inflectional morphology in terms of a mapping from a lexical index and a representation of morphosyntactic properties to a phonological form. Round (2009) has argued that the Australian language Kayardild requires the postulation of an intermediate level of representation, identified with Aronoff’s (1994) notion of a ‘morphome’. This morphomic level serves to express patterns of identities of exponence abstracted away from the actual forms of exponents, and its use makes possible the expression of certain identities of form which defy expression by means of Rules of Referral (Zwicky 1985, Stump 1993). This paper considers identities of form that span the inflection–derivation divide in Kayardild and shows that they too are coherently captured by assuming that a morphomic level of representation is present. A consequence is that lexical stems must possess a morphomic representation in addition to their representations on other levels.

This article approaches the debate between lexicalist and syntactic accounts of derivational morphology from a semantic viewpoint. It is argued that the debate between lexicalist and syntactic accounts of event nominalizations may not be solved without thoroughly investigating the different semantic components which potentially influence the characteristics of the derivatives, i.e. (i) the semantics of the nominalization procedure as such, (ii) the meaning of the derivational bases and (iii) the meaning of the nominalization suffixes. Concentrating on the latter component, the article presents a semantic analysis of the French nominalization suffixes –ment and –age in order to reveal the significance of the suffix meanings for the debate concerning the proper treatment of event nominalizations.