Bøger af Tobias Scheer

Following up on the Guide to Morphosyntax-Phonology Interface Theories (2011), written from a theory-neutral point of view, this book lays out the author's approach to the representational side of the interface. The book is thus about how information is transmitted to phonology when an object is inserted into phonological representations (as opposed to the derivational means, i.e. phase theory today). The idea of Direct Interface is that diacritics such as hash-marks in SPE or prosodic constituency since the early 80s, which mediate between morpho-syntax and phonology, are illegal in a modular environment where computational systems can only process domain-specific vocabulary. Direct Interface instead holds that only truly phonological vocabulary can carry morpho-syntactic information. It is shown that of all representational objects only syllabic space qualifies. Couched in CVCV (or strict CV), i.e. Government Phonology, this insight is then applied in detailed case studies of Belarusian, Corsican, Greek and the exhaustive lexical inventory of sonorant-obstruent-initial words in 13 Slavic languages,. In this sense, the book is the 2nd volume of A Lateral Theory of Phonology (2004).

This book presents a development of Jean Lowenstamm's idea that phonological constituent structure can be reduced to a strict sequence of non-branching Onsets and non-branching Nuclei. The approach at hand is known as 'CVCV', and emerged from Government Phonology. Since its very beginnings in the early 80s, the central claim of this theory has been that syllable-based generalisations are due to lateral relations among constituents, rather than to the familiar arboreal structure. This book shows that Standard Government Phonology did not go far enough in implementing this idea. CVCV completes the missing steps: structure and causality are fully lateralised. Detailed discussion is offered how basic phonological objects and processes such as Codas, closed syllables, long vowels, geminates, syllabic consonants, vowel-zero alternations, closed syllable shortening, compensatory lengthening, lenition and the like can be represented within the CVCV frame. The first part of the book is called "e;What is CVCV ?"e;. It presents the properties of the theory. The second part focuses on the reasons why it is worthwhile considering CVCV a valuable and viable approach. The primary goal of the book is not to engage the dialogue with other phonological theories. Rather, it aims at establishing a player in the general game: defining the properties of a theory is always prior to its comparison with other models. In the current OT-dominated phonological scene, then, CVCV appears as a true theory of the 80s insofar as it is representational at core: representations exist and are primitive, rather than arising as accidental results from a heterogeneous set of constraints. The original analyses presented in this book are grounded in the languages that the author is best familiar with, i.e. (Western) Slavic, French, German and some Semitic. Particular attention is paid to diachronic evidence in its relation to the synchronic state of languages.

This book reviews the history of the interface between morpho-syntax and phonology roughly since World War II. Structuralist and generative interface thinking is presented chronologically, but also theory by theory from the point of view of a historically interested observer who however in the last third of the book distills lessons in order to assess present-day interface theories, and to establish a catalogue of properties that a correct interface theory should or must not have. The book also introduces modularity, the rationalist theory of the (human) cognitive system that underlies the generative approach to language, from a Cognitive Science perspective. Modularity is used as a referee for interface theories in the book. Finally, the book locates the interface debate in the landscape of current minimalist syntax and phase theory and fosters intermodular argumentation: how can we use properties of morpho-syntactic theory in order to argue for or against competing theories of phonology (and vice-versa)?