Distributed morphology
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In linguistics, distributed morphology is a theory of morphology first described in 1993 by Morris Halle and Alec Marantz. The central claims of distributed morphology are that the morphemes that make up words are manipulated by syntax, and that the actual lexical items are not inserted into the sentence until syntactic operations are finished. In other words, the word order of the sentence is worked out before there are any actual words present. Words are drawn from the mental lexicon that best match up with the structure that the syntax has created.
For example, to create the sentence, "the dogs ate the meat," the word 'dogs' is inserted after a noun root with the meaning [DOG] combines with a feature [plural]. At the end of the derivation, the English word 'dogs' is inserted in the appropriate spot - ie., where the syntax decides to place the subject. Also, a verbal root meaning [EAT] will combine with a [past tense] feature and [3rd person plural] feature. The closest matching word in English is 'ate', which is inserted where ever the syntax has determined that the verb should go. We should note that the [3rd person plural] feature is not actually matched in English, because there is a total lack of person/number agreement in the past tense in English:
I ate we ate you ate you ate s/he ate they ate
Of course, many other languages do have active person/number agreement that must be matched. Consider the same verb conjugated in the past tense in Portuguese:
eu comí nós comémos tu comeste vós comestes ele/ela comeu eles/elas comeram
Thus, the same sentence in Portuguese would enter the verb 'comeram', since it is the best match for the combination [EAT] [past tense] [3rd person plural]. The words cannot be entered until the features are combined in the right way