Volume 40, Issue 3-4 - On the identity of roots

This paper attempts to articulate the essential nature of the notion ‘root’ in the morphosyntax. Adopting a realizational (Late Insertion) view of the morphosyntactic model, the question of whether roots are phonologically individuated, semantically individuated, or not individuated at all in the syntactic component are addressed in turn. It is argued that roots cannot be phonologically identified, since there are suppletive roots, and they cannot be semantically identified, since there are roots with highly variable semantic content, analogous to ‘semantic suppletion'. And yet, they must be individuated in the syntax, since without such individuation, suppletive competition would be impossible. Roots must therefore be individuated purely abstractly, as independent indices on the √ node in the syntactic computation that serves as the linkage between a particular set of spell-out instructions and a particular set of interpretive instructions. It is further argued that the syntactic √node behaves in a syntactically unexceptional way, merging with complement phrases and projecting a √P. The correct formulation of locality restrictions on idiosyncratic phonological and semantic interpretations are also discussed.

This paper, a commentary on Harley 2014, explores cases of disuppletive roots, such as destroy/destruct , persons/people , and worse/badder , the predominant approach to which is to assume that these come from different roots. We adopt a monoradical approach to such cases, claiming that they always involve the same root, but that the suppletive allomorphy is conditioned by the presence or absence of additional functional heads in the structure. We also posit that defective verbs in Spanish, an extreme case of disuppletion (whereby one of the exponents of this root is ineffable), receive a straightforward analysis as a case of contextually limited allomorphy, following Harley's postulate that certain formatives may have no elsewhere item on either the LF or the PF side (the Encyclopedic List and the Exponent List, respectively).