Publisher's Synopsis
This volume exposes the inadequacies of morpheme or stem based theories of morphology and introduces the two versions (the Montreal version, called Whole Word Morphology, and the `lexicase` one) of a radically a-morphous morphology, somewhat mischievously designated, by Starosta, as `seamless morphology`. It also makes clear their many shared assumptions and principles as well as the differences between them.
A number of contributors deal with `compounding` and `incorporation`, two of the toughest problems in maintaining the seamless position. Other contributions show the advantages of that position in analysing synchronic and diachronic problems connected with lexical derivation in Arabic, Bangla, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Spanish and Micronesian languages.
