Morphological component

A component in the grammar in which the word formation rules apply. The question whether there is actually an autonomous morphological component is yet unresolved, and gave rise to Anderson's famous (1982) article "Where is Morphology?". Basically three main approaches can be distinguished. The first approach (e.g. Halle 1973, Halle &amp; Vergnaud 1987) proposes a morphological component which is autonomous from syntax as well as phonology. In the second approach, morphology and phonology are intertwined, i.e., it is assumed that the rules of morphology and phonology apply within a single component: the Lexicon (e.g. Siegel 1974, Pesetsky 1979, Kiparsky 1982). In the third approach, morphology is an integrated part of the syntactic component, which means that both are subject to the same set of principles and/or rules (e.g. Chomsky 1957, Lees 1960, Baker 1988, Lieber 1992). Schultink (1988) and Spencer (1991) provide a survey of the most important theoretical positions held by generative linguists.

Links
Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics