Morphome interactions

Abstract

How morphological elements interact with one another is a major concern for both morphological theory and typological research. Morphemes, for example, are usually said to block each other when they are in subset-superset relations to one another. Little is known, by contrast, of how morphomes (i.e. forms with unnatural morphosyntactic distributions) interact with one another. This paper provides an initial typology of morphome interactions, based on whether their forms overlap in the paradigm or not, or whether the distribution of one constitutes a subset of the other or not. In addition, special attention will be paid to the outcome or the resolution of morphome orthogonalities. Focusing on the interaction between the L- and N-morphomes of Romance, the analogical changes related to their orthogonality are surveyed and a constraint isproposed that limits the possibilities of morphome interaction.