New Horizons in Morphology as Syntax: My Three Published Papers

MaS (Morphology as Syntax) is a framework which asks the question of whether putative morphological phenomena can be can be accounted for in terms of syntactic principles and operations. In MaS there is no morphological component, nor are there any post-syntactic morphological operations.

So far, I have been able to publish three papers in this framework. I list the papers, and their abstracts below, in chronological order. These three papers are enough to get a general feel for the framework, and some tools to begin working with it.

I would really love to hear from people who are doing work in a related spirt, taking syntax seriously in the analysis of putative morphological generalizations.

1. Spanish usted as an Imposter (2021, Probus, with Francisco Ordóñez)

Abstract: Across dialects, Spanish uses the third person forms usted and ustedes to refer to the addressee. In this squib, we propose an imposter analysis of these forms in the framework of Collins and Postal (2012. Imposters. MIT Press, Cambridge.). (link)

2. Towards a Theory of Morphology as Syntax (2023, Studies in Chinese Linguistics, with Richard Kayne)

Abstract: Phenomena traditionally thought of as morphological can be accounted for in terms of syntactic operations and principles, hence bringing forth questions that traditional morphology fails to ask (for instance, concerning the licensing of empty morphemes). The language faculty contains no specific morphological component, nor any post-syntactic morphological operations. (link)

3. A Syntactic Approach to Case Contiguity (2025, Continua)

Abstract: Building on the empirical results and theoretical insights of Caha (2013), I show howto derive the Case Contiguity Constraint in a syntactic theory of morphology. In particular, I show how to derive *ABA in the domain of case syncretism without appeal to late insertion. (link)