Inflection and Word Formation in Romance Languages

Morphology, and in particular word formation, has always played an important role in Romance linguistics since it was introduced in Diez’s comparative Romance grammar. Recent years have witnessed a surge of interest in inflectional morphology, and current research shows a strong interest in paradigmatic analyses. This volume brings together research exploring different areas of morphology from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives. On an empirical basis, the theoretical assumption of the ‘Autonomy of Morphology’ is discussed critically. ‘Data-driven’ approaches carefully examine concrete morphological phenomena in Romance languages and dialects. Topics include syncretism and allomorphy in verbs, pronouns, and articles as well as the use of specific derivational suffixes in word formation. Together, the articles in this volume provide insights into issues currently debated in Romance morphology, appealing to scholars of morphology, Romance linguistics, and advanced students alike.

Ulrich Wandruszka, University of Klagenfurt:
The volume excels through the combination of a comprehensive theoretical perspective and detailed consideration of known facts and descriptive problems in Romance linguistics, presenting them in a new light. Accordingly, theory-driven and data-driven approaches are featured side by side, complementing each other perfectly. With their diverse theoretical backgrounds, which differ from each other above all with regard to the central issue of the Autonomy of Morphology, the contributions to the volume offer a highly interesting synopsis of descriptive approaches since the era of early Generative Grammar. The texts address synchronic as well as diachronic issues and are written in a way that makes them suitable as a highly useful introduction to the general field of enquiry also for the non-specialist.