Word syntax

Definition
Word Syntax is a hypothesis proposed by Selkirk (1982) which entails the claim that word structure has to be accounted for by a context free phrase structure grammar. She proposes a variant of the so-called X-bar schema. The maximal projection of W(ord)-structure is identical to the zero level projection in S(sentence)-structure. Furthermore, she proposes the lower-level categories Root and Affix. Affixation rules take the form in (i) and compound rules the one in (ii):

(i) Xn -&gt; Yn Xaf	where n stands for Word or Root (ii) Xw -&gt; Yw Xw

Links

 * Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics