Resumen de Inflection, derivation and compounding: issues of delimitation
This chapter presents a non-gradual criterion of distinction between derivation and inflection based on a model of the position of morphology in the architecture of the language faculty. Compounding has an asymmetrical position, since it is assimilated into derivation according to the relevant criterion. In fact, controversies in Spanish morphology mainly focus on two kinds of problems: those of delimitation between derivation and inflection and those of delimitation between compounding and syntactic construction. In fact, it is often said that derivational morphology has the creation oflexemes as a function, while inflectional morphology has as a function the creation of the different word forms of each lexeme. In the author interpretation, the dividing line at the level of the lexeme is not a consequence of two distinct generative systems but of the relevance of syntactic categorization for the language faculty.
