Lexical Phonology/Morphology

 Lexicon plays the key role in the Grammar.

 The model establishes a relationship between
lexicon and phonological as well as morphological
component.
 Phonology and Morphology have a strong linkage as
the name of the model itself implies.

Traditional view
Bloomfield (1933:274) comments : ‘The lexicon is
really an appendix to the grammar, a list of basic
irregularities.’
Moreover, in lexicon we have an arbitrary relationship
between form and meaning.
Thus the Lexicon is conceived of as a prison which
contains only the lawless.
All processes which are regular were dealt with by
the rules of the grammar.
Nature of Lexicon
 Lexicon contains unpredictable, idiosyncratic
information about Phonological, Lexical,
Grammatical and Semantic information.

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Phonological information

 It is an information about the pronunciation of the

word. The Lexical representation contains
distinctive feature matrix showing the representation
of the words.
Some information relate to the suprasegmental features.
For instance,
Affix –ee : escape/ i`skeip/+ ee/i:/escapee /iskeipi:/
-ity : electric/i`lektrik/ +-ity/iti/ electricity /ilek`trisity/
The affix –ee is an auto-stressed affix while –ity being
pre-accenting attracts stress to the immediately preceding
syllable.
Lexical information
 Lexicon also contains a list of forms which are
exceptions to the particular rules as well as
statement of sub-regularities in a language. For
example,
sheep +zero affix sheep
On the other hand, agenda, data represent a minor sub-
system with plural ending –a.
Lexicon also needs information about various subclasses
for the words. Some morphological and phonological
rules apply only to certain subclasses. For instance,
Suffix –ity applies for the forms like banality, community
of Latin or French ( exception : oddity)

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Simiarly, / / only occurs for the English words of French
origin, leisure, pleasure, rouge etc.
Grammatical information
 The words require information about their
grammatical category like [+Noun], [+Adj] etc.
For example, -ly can be attached to the Adjective for
forming Adverb.
Similarly, application of P. Rule depends on the
grammatical information ( wife+-spl wifes/waiv.z/. The .
P. Rule : /f/ /v/ / --+ -s]pl ).The rule does not apply for
the –s as a genitive marker (wife+- Sposs  wifes/waifs/).
Semantic information
 This type of information is also required for
phonological and morphological processing. For
example.
unhappy : *un-sad unwell: *un-ill unexciting: * un-boring

The prefix un- is not freely attachable to an adjective at the

negative end of the implied evaluative scale.

Bengali atul /tul/ ‘incomparable’ : atul /otul/ ‘personal

name’. Semantic information is required for application of
the vowel-height assimilation rule.
Modern view
 Generative linguists reject the view that lexicon is
merely a list of irregularities. It is true that the
lexicon is partly list-governed. But there exist

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 extensive and far-reaching lexical regularities
resulting from the operation of general principles.
For instance, a lexicon is subject to specific generalised
phonotactic constraints which function as a filter for
defining phonologically well-formed words. English glad
is accepted as a word, but *glab is a potential
word.However, *lgab is non-permissible.
In other instance, non-nativised foreign words with non-
permissible sound sequences are adjusted to bypass the
phonotactic filter. English bench inch screw > Bengali
benci inci iskrup etc.

 In Generative Grammar, lexicon is recognised as a

central component of the grammar. It contains not
only idiosyncratic properties of words and
morphemes, but also regular word formation rules
and P. Rules.
 Lexicon is not now a storehouse, but like a kitchen
where we do process our food.

Basic assumptions of Lexical Morphology

 Word rather than the morpheme is regarded as the

key unit for morphological analysis.
 There is a coupling between the rules that build the
morphological structure of a word and phonological
rules responsible for the way a word is pronounced.
 Morphological component of the grammar is
organised in a series of hierarchical strata.In fact all
the rules found in the lexicon are organized in
blocks called strata/ levels/layers arranged
hierarchically.
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Word-based analysis
 In LM, word plays the pivotal role. This is in
contrast with the model of the earlier American
structuralists in which morpheme plays the central
role.
This was earlier advocated in word-and paradigm
morphology (WP) by Hockett (1954), Robins (1959)
revised and elaborated by Matthews (1972), Anderson
(1977,1982,1984).
First assumption : Logical ground in favour of ‘word’

 Word is the minimal signalling unit of

communication. Word must be independently
meaningful, but morph need not be.
In fact, morphs do not have a clearly identifiable meaning.
They can only be interpreted in the wider context of word
as a whole.
pre.fer: re.fer ad.mit : com.mit de.ceive : con.ceive

 The morpheme-based theory faces major problems

due to cumulative and overlapping representations
of morphemes in the fusional languages.
 There are morphological processes in which input is
normally a word, not just a morpheme.
 Compounding : Words are the inputs to the
rule.
School+teacher = school-teacher

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 cp. Bengali telebhaja gāye-halud etc.
 Affixation : The processes that have fully
formed word as their inputs.
 Conversion : It is a change of the word-class of
the pre-existing word without any overt change
in the shape of the word.
narrowAdj narrowV staffN staffV

Structure-preserving constraint
 LM operates with a morphological stipulation that
the output of each layer of derivation must be a
possible words in that language. So, output of a
layer of derivation cannot violate the well-formed
constraints on words (as in the derivation of the.
English word unlawfulness).
Lexical rules must be structure-preserving.
Bantu : i. ba- lab a ‘they see’
they see basic verbal affix
ii. tu- lab- is- a ‘we cause to die’
we see cause BVS

 In this language, all words end in a vowel but

morphemes need not be. The verb roots and verbal
suffixes end in a consonant.
The structure preserving constraint apply on words but not
to morphemes. BVS is added at the end of the word.
Being a semantically empty formative, it is attached to the
stem for meeting well-formedness requirement.