English Noun Plurals: A Cyclic Account

Abstract

This article describes Cyclic Morphology, a theory of morphological generation that falls into the category of theories which Stump (2001) calls lexical–realizational. An account of the morphology of English noun plurals is given in order to illustrate the workings of the theory. Technical terms in the theory are explained and exemplified. It is shown why the theory can be classified as lexical, and argued that a lexical theory is to be preferred over an inferential one: first, it allows all morphological generation to take place in the lexicon, thus avoiding the problem of accounting for derivation that takes place after inflection; and second, a lexical theory requires a grammar with fewer components, and may be more economical than an inferential theory.