160130 PS Introductory Seminar on Morphology (2016S)

The main goal of this proseminar is to introduce, discuss and evaluate current models of inflectional morphology that are *realizational* (rather than *incremental*) in the sense that morphological exponents realize morpho-syntactic feature matrices that are independently given (for instance, in the form of syntactic structures, or in the form of abstract paradigm cells), and do not contribute morpho-syntactic information themselves (that would not otherwise be present). The theories that we will focus on are Distributed Morphology, Paradigm Function Morphology, Nanosyntax, and, most importantly, Optimaliy-Theoretic Morphology (including more recent developments like Harmonic Serialism and Harmonic Grammar). Empirically, the proseminar will cover a variety of phenomena from various languages, including syncretism, inflection classes, deponency, and extended exponence.