Defaults in Morphological Theory

Chapters in this volume describe morphology using four different frameworks that have an architectural property in common: they all use defaults as a way of discovering and presenting systematicity in the least systematic component of grammar. These frameworks - Construction Morphology, Network Morphology, Paradigm-function Morphology, and Word Grammar - display key differences in how they constrain the use and scope of defaults, and in the morphological phenomena that they address. An introductory chapter presents an overview of defaults in linguistics and specifically in morphology. In subsequent chapters, key proponents of the four frameworks seek to answer questions about the role of defaults in the lexicon, including: Does a defaults-based account of language have implications for the architecture of the grammar, particularly the proposal that morphology is an autonomous component? How does a default differ from the canonical or prototypical in morphology? Do defaults have a psychological basis? And how do defaults help us understand language as a sign-based system that is flawed, where the one to one association of form and meaning breaks down in the morphology?

Nikolas Gisborne is Professor of Linguistics and Head of Linguistics and English Language at the University of Edinburgh. His main interests are in event structure and its relationship to morphosyntax, the lexicon, and language change. His book The Event Structure of Perception Verbs was published by OUP in 2010. He is the co-editor, with Willem Hollmann, of Theory and Data in Cognitive Linguistics (Benjamins 2014). Andrew Hippisley is Chair of the Linguistics Department at the University of Kentucky, having previously worked a research fellow in the Surrey Morphology Group. He is the author, with Dunstan Brown, of Network Morphology (CUP 2012) and co-editor of Deponency and Morphological Mismatches (with Matthew Baerman, Greville G. Corbett, and Dunstan Brown; OUP 2007) and of The Cambridge Handbook of Morphology (with Gregory Stump; CUP 2016).