Template morphology and inflectional morphology

Abstract

In recent years, attention has been drawn to the possibility that morphology might be of two radically different types; these two types have been labelled — infelicitously, in my view — as layered morphology and template morphology. Intuitively, a morphological expression exhibits template morphology if the ordering of its affixes follows not from the properties of the individual affixes themselves (or of the rules introducing them) but from an independent stipulation about the ordering of these affixes (or rules). By contrast, a morphological expression exhibits layered morphology if the ordering of its affixes is simply an effect of the properties of the individual affixes themselves (or of the rules introducing them). Here, I shall address two fundamental questions about the distinction between template and layered morphology, namely (1) and (2):

• (1) How does the distinction between template and layered morphology relate to the distinction between inflectional and derivational morphology?

• (2) What form should templates take in an adequate theory of morphology?

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Seventh International Morphology Meeting in Vienna in February 1996; I would like to thank the members of that audience for a number of helpful comments. I would also like to thank anonymous reviewers for their suggestions.