The Interface Between

Morphology and Syntax

by:
Shelda Audita
 Definition
Morphology is concerned with the ways in which words are formed in
the languages of the world.
Syntax is concerned with identifying the rules that allow us to combine
words into phrases and phrases into sentences.
Valency of verb / valency concerns the number of arguments in a
sentence.
Arguments are noun phrase like the subject and object selected by the
verb of the sentence.
 Argument structure and
morphology
Generally, arguments occur obligatory with a verb.
Example :
a. A verb that has 1 argument (intransitive).
- Fenster snores.
b. A verb that has 2 arguments (transitive).
- Fenster devoured the pizza.
c. A verb that has 3 arguments (ditransitive).
- Fenster put the wombat in the bath.
 Passive and anti-
passive
The most obvious example of valency-changing morphology in English is the
passive voice. The example below shows a pair of active and passive sentences:
a. Fenster bathed the wombat. ACTIVE (transitive verb)
A P
b. The wombat was bathed (by Fenster). PASSIVE (intransitive verb)
P PP

- Anti Passive -
For the passive, its the transitive subject that disappears (or is relegated to a
prepositional phrase or a case form other than that typical for subject),
Whereas for the anti-passive, its the transitive object that disappears.
Example from Yidi :
a. Yidi (Dixon 1977: 279)
yiu bua buga-:i
this.ABSOLUTIVE Woman. ABSOLUTIVE eat-ANTIPASSIVE
This woman is eating.
 Causative and
applicative
Causative signal the addition of a new subject argument, which
semantically is the causer of the action. Example from Swahili :
Vitale (1981: 158)
a. maji ya-me-chemka
water it-PER-boil
The water boiled
b. Badru a-li-chem-sh-a maji
Badru he-PST-boil-CAUSE water
Badru boiled the water (lit. caused the water to boil)
Applicative morphology, like causative morphology, signals the addition
of an argument to the valency of a verb. But the added argument is an
object, rather than a subject. Example from Swahili :
Vitale (1981: 44); Baker (1988: 393)
a. ni-li-pika chakula
I-PST-cook food
I cooked some food
a. Ni-li-m-pik-i-a chakula Juma
I-PST-for him-cook-APPL food Juma
I cooked some food for Juma
 Noun
incorporation
Where the object or another argument of the verb forms a single
complex word with the verb-is called noun incorporation. Example from
the Araucanian language Mapudungun :
Baker and Fasola (2009: 595)
a. i chao kintu-ley ta chi pu waka
my father seek-PROG-IND.3SG.SBJ the COLL COW
My father is looking for the cows
b. i chao kintu-waka-le-y.
my father seek- COW-PROG-IND.3SG.SBJ
My father is looking for the cows
 On the
borders
As we saw in the last section, one point of tangency between
morphology and syntax occurs where morphology has an effect on the
argument structure of verbs. There, it was clear that affixes clearly
morphological elements can reduce or increase the number of
arguments that a verb takes clearly a matter of syntax. In this section,
however, are cases where it is not so clear what belongs to morphology
and what belongs to syntax case, in other words, that inhabit a sort of
borderland between the two levels of organization.
 Clitics
Clitics are small grammatical elements that cannot occur independently
and therefore cannot really be called free morpheme.Those clitics that
come before their host are called proclitics, ex: Je taime (I love you).
And those clitics that come after their host are called enclitics, ex: dont,
shes. Two types of clitics:
1. Simple clitics
Anderson (2005: 10) defines simple clitics as unaccented variants of
free morphemes, which may be phonologically reduced and
subordinated to a neighboring word. Example:
a. Ill take the pastrami, please.
b. Id like the pastrami, please.
2. Special clitics
Are phonologically dependent on a host, as simple clitics are, but
they are not reduced forms of independent words. Example from
French:
a. Je vois Pierre.
I see Pierre.
b. Je le vois.
I him see.
c. *Je vois le.
I see him.
 Phrasal verbs and verbs with
separable prefixes
Phrasal verbs are verbs like those in (1) that consist of a verb and a
preposition or particle:
1. Call up telephone
Chew out scold
Put down insult
Run up accumulate
2. a. I called up a friend
b. I called a friend up
c. I called her up
d. *I called up her
 Phrasal
compound
Phrasal compound is a word that is made up of a phrase as its first
element, and a noun as its second element. Example:
a. English (Harley 2009)
stuff-blowing-up effects
bikini-girls-in-trouble genre
comic-book-and-science-fiction fans