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Lexeme-Morpheme Base Morphology - LMBM

Lexeme-Morpheme Base Morphology (LMBM) is known for its rigorous distinction of lexemes and grammatical morphemes. The theory is formally described in Lexeme - Morpheme Base Morphology, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1995. This site explains one of the four basic hypotheses of LMBM: The Separation Hypothesis. For the other three, the Aristotelean Hypothesis, Unitary Grammatical Functions, and the Base Rule Theory, refer to the book. In this document you may click 'Outline of the Theory' below to begin a short overview of the Separation Hypothesis, or click any of the subsections to move directly to a specific topic, including general topics outside LMBM but related to the study of morphology. The appropriate address for comments and questions is located at the bottom of this page.
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Outline of the Theory

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Lexemes and Morphemes
• 3. The Separation Hypothesis
• 4. Morphemes
• 5. Lexical Derivation
• 6. Inflectional Derivation
• 7. Morphological Spelling (Realization)
• 8. Conclusion
• 9. References
• II. Author's Bibliography
• III. Papers and Workshops on Instructional Technology
• 1. Educational Entrepreneurship in the Internet Revolution (Middlebury 1997)
• 2. The New Imagination in the Classroom (Educause 1998)
• 3. The Noteless Classroom (AACE 1997)
• 4. Will the 21st Century Need Universities? (Haverford 1998)
• 5. Will Universities be Necessary in the 21st Century? (Bucknell 1999)
• 6. Workshops on Classroom Technology
• IV. Preliminary Notes on Checking Theory
• V. LMBM and Word Syntax
• VI. Dictionaries

I.Introduction

Lexeme-Morpheme Base Morphology is a complete set of lexeme-based morphological theories and hypotheses including the following:

• 1. The Separation Hypothesis, that lexical and inflectional derivation are distince from affixation (phonological realization);
• 2. The Universal Grammarical Function Theory, whereby the functions of inflectional and lexical derivation are one and the same;
• 3. The Base Rule Hypothesis, that universal functions must originate in a base component if we are to explain both lexical and syntactic (inflectional) derivation;
• 4. Stephen Anderson's General Theory of Affixation, which predicts the placement of all affixs and clitics;
• 5. The Defective Adjective Hypothesis, which claims that adpositions are adjectival pronouns in a class with case endings and hence grammatical morphemes rather than lexemes.
• 6. A morphological performance theory which includes:
• a theory of lexical stock expansion processes
• a theory of normal speech errors
• a theory of pathological speech errors (morphological agrammatism)

The LMBM lexicon is exclusively the domain of lexemes which are defined specifically as noun, verb, and adjective stems and the lexical categories which define them (Number, Gender, Transitivity, and so on). All other meaningful material must belong to the closed set of closed categories of grammar and are handled by 'morphology' in the general sense (derivation plus affixation). LMBM, then, distinguishes itself from other lexeme-based theories in that it maintains a pristine distinction between lexemes and grammatical morphemes and consequently predicts this distinction at every level of language and speech.
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Comrie, Bernard (Autor)
Language Universals and Linguistic Typology
Syntax and Morphology

Kurzbeschreibung
Since its first publication, Language Universals and Linguistic Typology has become established as the leading introductory account of one of the most productive areas of linguistics - the analysis, comparison, and classification of the common features and forms of the organization of languages. Adopting an approach to the subject pioneered by Greenberg and others, Bernard Comrie is particularly concerned with syntactico-semantic universals, devoting chapters to word order, case making, relative clauses, and causative constructions. His book is informed throughout by the conviction that an exemplary account of universal properties of human language cannot restrict itself to purely formal aspects, nor focus on analysis of a single language. Rather, it must also consider language use, relate formal properties to testable claims about cognition and cognitive development, and treat data from a wide range of languages. This second edition has been revised and updated to take full account of new research in universals and typology in the past decade, and more generally to consider how the approach advocated here relates to recent advances in generative grammatical theory.

Über den Autor
Bernard Comrie is chair of the department of linguistics at the University of Southern California. He is the author of many publications including Aspect and Tense, and is editor of Studies in Language.