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Putting some order into morphology: reflections on Rice (2000) and Stump (2001) Keren Rice, Morpheme order and semantic scope: word formation in the Athapaskan verb (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 90). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii+453. Gregory T. Stump, Inflectional morphology: a theory of paradigm structure (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 93). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xvi+308.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2003

ANDREW SPENCER
Affiliation:
University of Essex

Abstract

This article reviews two important recent contributions to the theory of morphology, which take significantly different approaches to the subject. Both are centrally concerned with questions of morphotactics. Rice argues that morpheme order in Athapaskan is largely the consequence of universal principles of semantic scope (coded as syntactic structure). Stump argues for a conception of inflection based on the paradigm. There is virtually no overlap between the two books, yet each raises questions that are of great significance for the other. In this review I briefly evaluate each book and then sketch the possibility of a synthesis.

Type
Review Article
Copyright
2003 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

For useful comments I am grateful to two JL referees, and to Farrell Ackerman and Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy. I am especially indebted to Keren Rice and Greg Stump, for generously providing detailed comments on an earlier draft, which helped eradicate various infelicities. Remaining mistakes or misrepresentations are my responsibility.