Resolving conflicts with violable constraints: On the cross-modular parallelism of repairs

Abstract

When grammatical constraints impose conflicting requirements on a linguistic expression, this conflict is often resolved by employing a repair operation. This repair can take various forms, for example insertion, deletion or modification of linguistic material. In this paper, I provide a number of case studies in morpho-syntax, showing how there are striking parallels between the repairs employed in phonology and morpho-syntax with regard to the context, type and shape of the repair. Ultimately, it is argued that, given clear similarities between these distinct domains of grammar, repairs should be governed by the same basic principles, namely a system of violable constraints. This view supports the hypothesis of Cross-modular Structural Parallelism (Nevins 2008; Arregi & Nevins 2012).