Call for papers

The workshop addresses the issue of how to combine the right base with the right affix.

Consider, for instance, the English plurals box-es and ox-en. Many contemporary models of grammar propose that speakers do not need to store complex words like boxes and oxen as such, but that they can store only their parts (i.e., box and -es are stored as separate units). This allows us to construct complex words by assembling these smaller parts, while at the same time, reducing the number of stored items. However, the challenge for such models has always been to connect the right plural (-es or -en) with the right root, so that we do not end up assembling ‘incorrect’ words such as *box-en or *ox-es.

Similar issues arise for the allomorphy of roots. Once we segment words like smart-er into two parts, the question becomes how to block the productive rule so that it does not derive incorrect forms like *good-er instead of bett-er.

In the current literature, the issue goes under various names, such as ‘selection,’ ‘allomorphy,’ ‘suppletion’ and others. The standard approach to this problem is to rely on creating arbitrary classes of roots (‘irregular plurals,’ ‘strong verbs,’ ‘class I/II/III,’ etc.), and making the rules of exponence sensitive these classes, so that -en ultimately attaches only to ‘Class II irregular plurals’ (or whatever the label). However, the need to postulate such arbitrary and meaningless classes defeats its own purpose, since the process of assembling the words (that we had broken apart) can only proceed correctly if we somehow provide brute-force lists of what combines with what.

The very format of contextual rules is also suspicious: they basically just restate the facts. Can we find an alternative? Can we have a theory of how roots and affixes combine without brute-force statements of the sort `this form of the root appears to the left of this suffix’? Any potential answer to these question should also be able to account for cases where the distribution of two allomorphs is only partially complementary and may be accompanied by differences in meaning (worst vs. baddest; people vs. persons, etc).

We welcome contributions addressing the specific forms that this issue takes in various generative decompositional models (DM, the exo-skeletal model, minimalist morphology, Nanosyntax). Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

  • How to best analyze root classes: is it (im)possible to go beyond arbitrary lists?
  • How to best analyze allomorphy: what is the mechanism by which roots and affixes select each other?
  • How far in the string of affixes can we observe root-affix selection? (the issue of locality)
  • Is there a prefix/suffix asymmetry in allomorphy, and if so, why?
  • Are there cases where two allomorphs are sometimes in competition, sometimes in free distribution? If so, how to analyze them?


We invite abstracts for 30 minutes oral presentation, followed by 10 minutes of discussion


Deadline for abstract submisson

January 20 2019

Extended: January 30 2019

Notification of acceptance

March 1 2019

Abstract guidelines

  • abstracts should be in a PDF format
  • submissions are restricted to a maximum of one single-authored and one co-authored abstract (or two co-authored abstracts)
  • they should be no longer than 2 pages of A4, a font size 12
  • at the top of the 1st page only the title will be given, abstracts must be anonymous

Please submit your abstract only through the EasyChair system: follow this link.