Is Syntax All the Way Down?Reflections on the Necessity of Generative Lexicon

Since Chomsky (1970) proposed that words are generated in two sections, Lexicon and Syntax, morphological studies have mainly followed the lexicalist view. From the 1980s and 1990s, realizational morphology gradually emerged and became influential, especially the Distributed Morphology (DM), upholds the view of “Syntax all the way down” ( Halle & Marantz 1993 ). This paper argues that there are many problems about the theoretical framework of realizational morphology and the use of this framework to analyze Chinese word formation. We argue that morphology is an independent system. A generative lexicon containing word-formation rules and generating lexical items with sounds and meanings is necessary. It is important to see both parallelism and systematic differences between morphology and syntax.