Hockett (1954) divides morphological theories into three types: Item-and-Arrangement, Item-and-Process, and Word-and-Paradigm. In Item-and-Arrangement and Item-and-Process theories (including many contemporary theories of generative phonology like Distributed Morphology and Nanosyntax), inflected words are made up of stems which combine with other pieces (Item-and-Arrangement) or undergo a series of processes including but not limited to affixation (Item-and-Process). Such theories aim to explain how morphosyntactic features like case, tense, and number are expressed on a given stem, but do not consider relations between inflected forms except to the extent that they can be said to share morphosyntactic features. By contrast, in Word-and-Paradigm models, inflected words are units within a larger whole—a paradigm—and the object of study is how speakers relate these paradigm cells to one another.

This course will survey a diverse range of theoretical and empirical approaches to morphology that differ in the role they ascribe to paradigms: some deny their existence as a formal property of morphological systems, others allow for related forms to influence one another to enforce paradigm uniformity, and still others place them front and center as the object of morphological study. We will see how some theories of morphology are better equipped to answer certain questions than others, and discuss the sorts of patterns that have been used to argue for particular views of paradigms.

Some previous experience with morphology or morphophonology is helpful but not required.

Level: intermediate