Una nota sobre el morfo cero: el imperativo y la vocal temática

Abstract

A note on zero morphs: imperatives and theme vowels. The notion of ‘zero morph’ has been extremely controversial in morphological studies since Nida (1948), with the consequence that many authors have argued that such objects cannot be used as ingredients in morphological analysis (for instance, Scalise 1983). This article offers an argument from Spanish that supports their existence: without a zero morph corresponding to the third person singular inflection it becomes impossible to account for the distribution of forms like sal ‘come out, imperative’, vs. sal-e ‘comes, indicative present’.