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book: Morphology-Semantics Mismatches and the Nature of Grammatical Features
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Morphology-Semantics Mismatches and the Nature of Grammatical Features

  • Peter W. Smith
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2021
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About this book

Hybrid nouns have a morphological shape that doesn’t match their semantic interpretation. Such nouns pose clear and interesting questions for the nature of grammatical features. For instance, how does a single feature contribute distinct information values to different components of the grammar? Furthermore, what does this observation reveal about the syntax, often taken to mediate between the morphology and the semantics?
This book studies hybrid nouns and argues that a single grammatical feature is comprised of two halves, a semantic half and a morphological half, that coexist in the syntax before being sent to the respective interfaces. Viewing features in this way allows us a new look at numerous types of hybrid nouns, such as Imposter constructions, nouns of collection, as well as nouns like ‘furniture’ that straddle the mass-count distinction. Moreover, the study of the agreement patterns of hybrid nouns shows that semantic features behave differently to morphological features under agreement, providing a novel insight into the nature of the mechanism that underlies morphosyntactic agreement.

Author / Editor information

Peter W. Smith, Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt, Germany.


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I

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VII

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IX

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XIII

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XV
Part I: A formal model of feature mismatches

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3

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17
Part II: Hybrid nouns and the syntax of agreement

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47

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79

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129
Part III: Mass Nouns

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171

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183

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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
April 19, 2021
eBook ISBN:
9781501511127
Hardcover published on:
April 19, 2021
Hardcover ISBN:
9781501517198
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Front matter:
13
Main content:
268
Tables:
25
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