ABSTRACT
This chapter points out that 'morphonology', both in the European and in the American tradition, does not escape the charge of illegitimacy: it is a putative domain of linguistic structure perennially open to the accusations either that it is atavistically historical in its perspective or that the phenomena it covers are reanalysable in purely morphological or purely phonological terms. It shows that a genuinely interactive conception of morphonology is frequently ruled out a priori by the sharp separation of morphology and phonetic processes, and by the tendency to exclude from consideration non-minimally distinctive phonetic variations. The term morphonology was first brought to prominence by Trubetzkoy. He identifies three subdomains of morphonological enquiry: the study of the phonological structure of morphemes; the study of the combinatory modifications; and the study of the series of phonetic mutations. The chapter focuses on some attempts to identify conditions on morphologization.
