Thoughts on morphomes, on a Scandinavian background

Abstract

Since Aronoff (1994), the notion of morphomic patterns, i.e. inflectional patterns without complete motivation from outside of morphology, has gained popularity, especially in works on Romance (e.g. Maiden 2016a). However, the approach has also been criticized. Bowern (2015) suggests that there is very little evidence for autonomously morphological patterns arising. This paper presents a number of Scandinavian counter-examples to her claim. Bermúdez-Otero & Luís (2016) present a number of meta-theoretical objections against the notion of morphomic patterns. Arguments are presented to the effect that a number of these objections are less significant than they appear; some are even misguided.