Inflection at the morphology-syntax interface

What is inflection? Is it part of language morphology, syntax or both?What are the basic units of inflection and how do speakers acquire and processthem? How do they vary across languages? Are some inflection systems somewhatmore complex than others, and does inflectional complexity affect the wayspeakers process words? This chapter addresses these and other related issuesfrom an interdisciplinary perspective. Our main goal is to map out the place ofinflection in our current understanding of the grammar architecture. In doingthat, we will embark on an interdisciplinary tour, which will touch upon theoretical,psychological, typological, historical and computational issues in morphology,with a view to looking for points of methodological and substantialconvergence from a rather heterogeneous array of scientific approaches and theoreticalperspectives. The main upshot is that we can learn more from this thanjust an additive medley of domain-specific results. In the end, a cross-domainsurvey can help us look at traditional issues in a surprisingly novel light.