UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 12 (2000)
M-selection and phrasal affixation
PETER ACKEMA & AD NEELEMAN
In this paper we argue that selectional properties of affixes should be
distributed across a morphosyntactic AFFIX and a morphophonological /affix/.
The AFFIX selects a node with particular categorial features, but it does not
specify an X-bar theoretical level. The /affix/ selects a head (or more
precisely phonological word), but it does not care about syntactic category.
Traditional m-selection (that is, selection of a head of a particular category)
can only obtain if the AFFIX corresponds to an /affix/. In other circumstances,
the AFFIX may freely attach to a syntactic phrase. This gives some insight into
effects of zero affixation, certain types of bracketing paradoxes and so-called
‘mixed categories’.
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