Morphology Research Group

Welcome to the homepage for the Morphology Research Group at NYU Linguistics.

Scroll down to read about our research: people in the group, professional activities, resources and our publications (papers and presentations).

People

Faculty

Alec Marantz: Distributed Morphology, morphology, syntax, neurolinguistics
Maria Gouskova: Morphology-phonology interface, phonology and the lexicon, cyclicity, reduplication
Stephanie Harves: Morphosyntax, case, argument structure, agreement
Gregory Guy: Morphology-phonology interface, lexical frequency effects, morphological variation
Richard Kayne: Relation and interaction of morphology and syntax
Anna Szabolcsi: Morphosemantics, sub-word compositionality

Graduate Students

Teon Brooks: Neurolinguistics, psycholinguistics, compounding
Daniel Duncan: Sociolinguistics, variation, change, grammaticalization
Itamar Kastner: Morphosyntax, nonconcatenative morphology, neurolinguistics, sign languages
Kuo-Chiao Lin: Morphosyntax, Distributed Morphology, case, argument structure, agreement
Yining Nie: Morphology, morphology-phonology interface, tense
Yohei Oseki: Morphosyntax, neurolinguistics, language acquisition
Mary Robinson: morphosyntax, case, agreement, and acquisition
Adina Williams: Neurolinguistics, syntax-semantics interface, semantics of inflectional morphology
Vera Zu: Morphosyntax, word-internal composition, categories, agreement

Alumnae and Alumni

Meera Al Kaabi. Neil Myler. Katie Wallace. Joseph Fruchter. Inna Livitz. Patricia Irwin. Jim Wood. Laura Rimell. Jason Shaw. Oana Săvescu Ciucivara. Thomas Leu. Lisa Levinson.

Morphology at NYU

MorphBeer

Our reading group, MorphBeer, meets regularly to discuss various papers in morphology suggested by students and faculty. We also enjoy beer and truncated compounds.
[Fall '15, Spring '15, Fall '14, Spring '14, Fall '13, Spring '13, Fall '12, Spring '12, Fall '11]

Labs

We work with our colleagues at the MorphLab on neural correlates of morphological processing and production and the Phonetics and Experimental Phonology Lab on phonology and exponence.
Morphology talks are held as part of the joint Syntax/Semantics Brown Bag series.

Conferences at NYU

Roots IV
FASL 24 Workshop on Approaches to Slavic Morphology
Workshop on Language Production

Links and Resources

Conferences outside NYU

Root Bound, Roots, Roots III
Workshop on Theoretical Morphology (WOTM) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Core Mechanisms of Exponence Network
Mediterranean Morphology Meeting (MMM, on odd years)
International Morphology Meeting (on even years)
American International Morphology Meeting 1, 2, 3
Workshop on Locality and Directionality at the Morphosyntax-Phonology Interface (CrISP)
Workshop on the Representation and Selection of Exponents (WoRSE, CASTL)
Exploring The Interfaces: Word Structure (McGill/UQAM)
Morphology and its interfaces (Lille)
Workshop on Comparative Morphology and Morphological Theory (London)
Cross-linguistic Comparison of Indo-Germanic and Semitic Languages (Konstanz)
Allomorphy: Its logic and limitations (HUJI)

Resources

The English Lexicon Project
CELEX and WebCelex
Aralex

Publications: Papers

To Appear

Becker, Michael and Maria Gouskova. Source-oriented generalizations as grammar inference in Russian vowel deletion. Linguistic Inquiry.

King, Joseph, Tal Linzen and Alec Marantz. Syntactic Categories as Lexical Features or Syntactic Heads: An MEG Approach. Accepted pending revisions, Linguistic Inquiry.

2015

Al Kaabi, Meera. The Anatomy of Arabic Words: The Role of the Root in Representations and Processing. Doctoral dissertation, NYU.

Fruchter, Joseph, Tal Linzen, Masha Westerlund and Alec Marantz. Lexical preactivation in basic linguistic phrases. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 27:10, 1912-1935.

Fruchter, Joseph and Alec Marantz. Decomposition, Lookup, and Recombination: MEG evidence for the Full Decomposition model of complex visual word recognition. Brain and Language 143, 81-96.

Gouskova, Maria and Tal Linzen. Morphological conditioning of phonological regularization. The Linguistic Review 32:3, 427-473.

Gouskova, Maria, Luiza Newlin-Łukowicz and Sofya Kasyanenko. Selectional restrictions as phonotactics over sublexicons. Lingua 167, 41-81.

Gwilliams, Laura and Alec Marantz. Tracking non-linear prediction in a linear speech stream: Influence of morphological structure on spoken word recognition. Brain and Language 147, 1-13.

Kastner, Itamar. Factivity mirrors interpretation: The selectional requirements of presuppositional verbs. Lingua 164:156-188.

Myler, Neil. Stem Storage? Not Proven: A Reply to Bermúdez-Otero 2013. Linguistic Inquiry 64:1, 173-186.

Szabolcsi, Anna. What do quantifier particles do?. Linguistics and Philosophy 38, 159-204.

2014

Ettinger, Allyson, Tal Linzen and Alec Marantz. The role of morphology in phoneme prediction: Evidence from MEG. Brain and Language 129, 14-23.

Myler, Neil. Building and Interpreting Possession Sentences. Doctoral dissertation, NYU.

Szabolcsi, Anna, James Whang and Vera Zu. Quantifier Words And Their Multi-functional(?) Parts. Language and Linguistics 15:1, 115-155.

Wood, Jim. Affirmative semantics with negative morphosyntax: Negative exclamatives and the New England So AUXn’t NP/DP construction. In Raffaella Zanuttini and Laurence R. Horn (eds), Micro-Syntactic Variation in North American English, 71-114. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wood, Jim. Reflexive -st verbs in Icelandic. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 32:4, 1387-1425.

Wood, Jim and Halldór Ármann Sigurðsson. Let-causatives and (a)symmetric dative-nominative constructions. Syntax 17:3, 269–298.

2013

Fruchter, Joseph, Linnaea Stockall and Alec Marantz. MEG masked priming evidence for form-based decomposition of irregular verbs. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7:798.

Gouskova, Maria and Michael Becker. Nonce words show that Russian yer alternations are governed by the grammar. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 31:3, 735-765.

Harves, Stephanie. The Genitive of Negation in Russian. Language and Linguistics Compass 7:12, pp. 647-662.

Lee-Kim, Sang-Im, Lisa Davidson and Sangjin Hwang. Morphological effects on the darkness of English intervocalic /l/. Laboratory Phonology 4:2, pp. 475-511.

Linzen, Tal, Sofya Kasyanenko and Maria Gouskova. Lexical and phonological variation in Russian prepositions. Phonology 30:3, pp 453-515.

Marantz, Alec. Locality Domains for Contextual Allomorphy across the Interfaces. In Ora Matushansky and Alec Marantz (eds.), Distributed Morphology Today: Morphemes for Morris Halle. MIT Press.

Marantz, Alec. Verbal argument structure: Events and participants. Lingua 130, pp. 152-168.

Marantz, Alec. No escape from morphemes in morphological processing. Language and Cognitive Processes 28:7, pp. 905-916.

2012

Erker, Daniel and Gregory Guy. The role of lexical frequency in syntactic variability: Variable subject personal pronoun expression in Spanish. Language 88:3, pp. 526-557.

Gouskova, Maria. Unexceptional Segments. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 30:1, pp. 79-133.

Irwin, Patricia. Unaccusativity at the Interfaces. Doctoral dissertation, NYU.

Rimell, Laura. Nominal Roots as Event Predicates in English Denominal Conversion Verbs. Doctoral dissertation, NYU.

Wood, Jim. Icelandic Morphosyntax and Argument Structure. Doctoral dissertation, NYU.

2010

Gouskova, Maria. The phonology of boundaries and secondary stress in Russian compounds. The Linguistic Review 27:4, pp. 387-448.

Kayne, Richard S. Toward a Syntactic Reinterpretation of Harris and Halle (2005). In R. Bok-Bennema, B. Kampers-Manhe & B. Hollebrandse (eds.) Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2008, Selected papers from 'Going Romance' Groningen 2008, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 145-170.

Pre-2010 (selected)

Kayne, Richard S. (2009) Some Silent First Person Plurals. In J.M. Brucart, A. Gavarró and J. Solà (eds.) Merging Features. Computation, Interpretation, and Acquisition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 276-292.

Kayne, Richard S. (2008) Expletives, Datives, and the Tension between Morphology and Syntax. In T. Biberauer (ed.) The Limits of Syntactic Variation, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 175-217.

Leu, Thomas (2008). The Internal Syntax of Determiners. Doctoral dissertation, NYU.

Gouskova, Maria (2007). The reduplicative template in Tonkawa. Phonology 24:3, pp. 367-396.

Levinson, Lisa (2007). The Roots of Verbs. Doctoral dissertation, NYU.

Kayne, Richard S. (2003) Person Morphemes and Reflexives in Italian, French and Related Languages. In C. Tortora (ed.) The Syntax of Italian Dialects, Oxford University Press, New York, 102-136.

Publications: Presentations, Manuscripts, Etc.

2016

Gouskova, Maria and Suzy Ahn. Sublexical phonotactics of English -er suffixes. LSA.

Kastner, Itamar. A non-uniform account of intransitive verbal forms in Hebrew. LSA.

Szeredi, Dániel. Evaluating segmental and sublexical solutions for exceptionality in vowel harmony. LSA.

Zu, Vera. Representing the Seat of Knowledge at the Left Periphery in Newari. LSA.

2015

Various faculty (Gallagher, Gouskova, Kayne, Marantz). Talks at Roots IV.

Duncan, Daniel. A Freezing Approach to the Ish- Construction in English. PLC 39.

Kastner, Itamar. Arabic consonants as bootstrapping for segmentation and acquisition. MMM10.

Kastner, Itamar. Nonactive voice in Hebrew and elsewhere: Between unaccusativity and agentivity. PLC 39.

Kastner, Itamar. Syntactic versus phonological generalizations in Hebrew verbal morphology. NELS 46.

Kastner, Itamar and Frans Adriaans. Consonant representations aid in learning segmentation and phonology for Arabic but not English. BUCLD 40.

Kastner, Itamar and Vera Zu. Blocking and Paradigm Gaps. Ms., NYU.

Kouneli, Maria. Plural marking on mass nouns: Evidence from Greek. Workshop on Gender, class and determination.

Lin, Kuo-Chiao. Bimoraic reduplication in Harmonic Serialism. BLS 41.

Oseki, Yohei. Is Suppletion Local? Evidence from Ainu. NELS 46.

Oseki, Yohei and Kunio Kinjo. Wh-Concord = Syntactic Movement + Morphological Merger. PLC 39.

Wood, Jim and Alec Marantz. The interpretation of external arguments. Ms., Yale University and NYU.

Zu, Vera. A Two-Tiered Theory of the Discourse. WCCFL 33.

Zu, Vera. Competition and Obviation from French to Newari. NELS 46.

2014

Ahn, Suzy. The role of faithfulness in imperfect overlapping in Korean blends: A nonce word study. AMP (Phonology) 2014.

Gouskova, Maria and Sonia Kasyanenko. Generalization as sublexical phonotactics: A nonce study of Russian allomorphy. AMP (Phonology) 2014.

Kastner, Itamar. Nonconcatenative Morphology with Concatenative Syntax. NELS 45.

Kastner, Itamar and Vera Zu. Paradigm Gaps in the Hebrew Passive: Licensing, Referentiality and Agentivity. WCCFL 32.

Myler, Neil, Einar Freyr Sigurdsson and Jim Wood. Predicative possession builds on top of attributive possession: evidence from Icelandic. GLOW 37.

2013

Ahn, Suzy. Faithfulness conflict in Korean blends. PLC 37.

Gouskova, Maria and Tal Linzen. Less than words: Morphological effects in lexical variation. Phonology 2013.

Gouskova, Maria and Luiza Newlin-Łukowicz. Selectional restrictions as phonotactics over sublexicons. Phonology 2013.

Kastner, Itamar and Kathryn Davidson. Nominalizing Clauses: Evidence from ASL and a New Typology of Embedding. In Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research (TISLR) 11.

Lin, Kuo-Chiao. Morphology-prosody interface: Stress pattern in Budai Rukai. PLC 37.

Myler, Neil. Predicative Possession in Cochabamba Quechua: Syntax and Interpretation. NELS 44.

Myler, Neil. Violations of the Mirror Principle and morphophonological “action at a distance”: the role of “word”-internal Phrasal Movement and Spell Out. LSA.

Săvescu Ciucivara, Oana and Jim Wood. Re- prefixation and Talmy’s Parameter. Proceedings of NELS 41, pp. 273-286.

Schwindt, Luiz Carlos. Prosodic word and morphological derivation in Brazilian Portuguese. Phonology 2013.

Szabolcsi, Anna. Quantifier particles and compositionality. Proceedings of The 19th Amsterdam Colloquium.

Vaux, Bert, Neil Myler and Karlos Arregi. Number marking in Western Armenian: a non-argument for outwardly-sensitive phonologically conditioned allomorphy. LSA.

Wallace, Katherine. A Concatenative Approach to Semitic Templatic Morphology. Ms., NYU.

Wood, Jim. The unintentional causer in Icelandic. Proceedings of NELS 41, pp. 193-204.

Zu, Vera. Probing for Conversation Participants: The Case of Jingpo. CLS 49.

2012

Irwin, Patricia. Presentational unaccusativity: Argument structure and information status. LSA special session, "Information Structure and Discourse: In memory of Ellen F. Prince."

Lee, Sang-Im. Syntax-based phonological asymmetries: The case of adjective reduplication in Mandarin Chinese. NELS 43.

Lin, Kuo-Chiao. Post-syntactic operations: Morphological locality in Saaroa. CLS 48.

Myler, Neil. Cliticization feeds agreement: A view from Cuzco Quechua. NELS 43.

Szabolcsi, Anna. Compositionality without word boundaries: (THE) MORE and (THE) MOST. SALT 22.