Explaining derivational morphology as the convergence of codes

Language users have a remarkable ability to create, produce and comprehend complex words. Words such a. undercut and bakery appear to be composed of u nits, traditionally called morphemes, that recombine in rule-like ways to f orm other words, such as underline and cannery. however. morphological syst ems are quasiregular: they are systematic and productive but admit many see mingly irregular forms. Thus, bakery is related to bake and cannery to can but what is the groce in grocery' There is no bread in sweetbreads, liver i n deliver, corn in corner or ginger in gingerly. Such words exhibit partial regularities concerning the correspondences between form and meaning, the treatment of which has important implications for linguistic and psycholing uistic theories.. This article describes an approach to morphological pheno mena called the convergence theory, in which morphology is a graded, inter- level representation that reflects correlations among orthography, phonolog y and semantics.