The structural configurations of root categorization

Abstract

This paper discusses the syntax of roots by way of looking at four different views discussed in the literature: (i) roots merged as complements, (ii) roots merged as modifiers, (iii) roots merged either as complements or as modifiers, and (iv) roots merged in a unique way. A lot of time is devoted to (i) and to demonstrate empirical challenges from both the nominal and the verbal domain. With the exception of (iii), the other views entail that roots are introduced into the structure in a uniform way, which is argued to be advantageous. The four different views are all discussed in detail, though the paper argues that it is hard to find solid evidence that solves the question of how roots are introduced into (morpho-)syntactic representations.