Heinz Giegerich investigates the way in which alternations in the sound patterns of words interact with the processes of word formation in the language. Drawing examples from English and German, he uncovers and spells out in detail the principles of "lexical morphology and phonology," a theory that has in recent years become increasingly influential in linguistics. He queries many of the assumptions previously made in it to produce a formally coherent theory that offers new accounts of some central phenomena in the phonology of English.

Bringing together the subjects of English compounding and Chomsky's theory of Lexicalism, Heinz Giegerich demonstrates in this new study the impossibility of drawing a line between compounds and phrases, and therefore between the lexicon and the syntax, the two grammatical modules of Lexicalism. Proposing a new model of grammatical modularity, where the lexicon and the syntax overlap 'like slates on a roof', Giegerich examines long-standing and unresolved questions about the difference between English compounds and phrases. With its detailed study of compound words in English and its...