The importance of features and exponents

Terje Lohndal, Michael T. Putnam

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

Formal approaches to bi- and multilingual grammars rely on two important claims: (i) the grammatical architecture should be able to deal with mono- and bi-/multilingual data without any specific constraints for the latter, (ii) features play a pivotal role in accounting for patterns across and within grammars. In the present paper, it is argued that an exoskeletal approach to grammar, which clearly distinguishes between the underlying syntactic features and their morphophonological realizations (exponents), offers an ideal tool to analyze data from bi- and multilingual speakers. Specifically, it is shown that this framework can subsume the specific mechanism of Feature Reassembly developed by Donna Lardiere since the late 1990’s. Three case studies involving different languages and language combinations are offered in support of this claim, demonstrating how an exoskeletal approach can be employed without any additional constraints or mechanisms.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1-36
Number of pages36
JournalLinguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Volume14
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 5 2024

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Language and Linguistics
  • Linguistics and Language

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