Reviewed by Omaima Ayoub, Islamic Foundation School

This book portrays a complex picture of distributed morphology (DM), a modern framework that was proposed in the early 1990’s within the government and binding tradition and the minimalist program as an alternative to other models of universal grammar. In this book, Daniel Siddiqi provides an overview of the major parts of DM (i.e. argument selection, the structure of the verb phrase, nominal compounds in English, stem allomorphy and suppletion) and proposes some revisions to the model (e.g. minimize exponence, eliminate readjustment rules, incorporate a feature blocking system).

Part 1 includes three introductory chapters. Ch. 1 ‘Syntax within the word’, provides a synopsis of the major elements of DM. Ch. 2, ‘Distributed morphology’, details the fundamentals of DM and demonstrates how it is different from lexicalist minimalism. Ch. 3, ‘Morphological operations in DS: From spellout to PF’, outlines three morphological processes in DM (i.e. morphological merger, fusion/fission, and readjustment rules).

Part 2, ‘On a theory of root allomorphy’, comprises five chapters. Ch. 4, ‘Root allomorphy’, offers an analysis of root allomorphy within DM and exhibits a functional application of the new economy constraint (minimize exponence). Chs. 5 and 6, ‘Simplifying DM’ and ‘Expansion of the fusion analysis’, propose some revisions to the DM framework by highlighting the merits of a new constraint. Ch. 7, ‘Inflection in compounds’, explains how the same constraint can be used to propose a novel analysis for the blocking of regular inflection in English nominal compounds. Finally, Ch. 8, ‘Interim conclusions’ provides a summary of Part 2 as a whole.

Part 3, ‘Argument selection’, consists of five chapters. Ch. 9, ‘Argument selection within distributed morphology’, briefly surveys the phenomenon of subcategorization (i.e. argument selection) and describes how it is treated within this framework. Ch. 10, ‘Minimize exponence based account of subcategorization’, outlines the effects of fusion on an analysis of the argument selection of a verb. Ch. 11, ‘Subcategorization expanded’, discusses how a model based on the minimize exponence constraint would handle the behavior of verbs (e.g. polysemy of verbs, structural coercion, and dative alternations). Ch. 12, ‘The nature of verbs’, explores two possible analyses for the category selection of a verb within the DM framework and examines how DM might handle the phenomenon of verb classes. Finally, Ch. 13, ‘Interim conclusions’, sums up Part 3.

Part 4, ‘Odds and ends’, includes three chapters. Ch. 14, ‘Event semantics’, argues that the new minimize exponence constraint has a potential influence on the relationship between syntax and event semantics, whereas Ch. 15, ‘Typology and theory’, uses English data to detail some of the typological predictions for the inclusion of minimize exponence in the universal grammar model. Finally, Ch. 16, ‘Conclusions’, wraps up the book by recapitulating all four parts.