Editing Distributed morphology (section)

===Derivation===

The Y-model of [[Minimalist Program|Minimalism]], as well as the syntactic operations postulated in Minimalism, are preserved in Distributed Morphology. The derivation of a phrase/word proceeds as follows:

# A subset of the '''Lexicon''', i.e. some combination of interpretable and uninterpretable features, and category-neutral lexical roots (e.g. √CAT) enter the computation. These features specify structural relations, which are satisfied via the operation of syntactic operations, such as Merge, Move or Agree. For example, if node A has a [+ plural] feature, while node B has no value assigned to the feature [plural], then node B could become [+plural] if it is in the right configuration with node A for Agree to apply. The category-neutral roots combine with a categorizer e.g., N-, A-, V- and turn into a respective category noun, adjective or verb. Once all relations specified by the features present in the numeration are satisfied, the syntactic derivation is complete; there is a configuration of terminal nodes, with different combinations of features and their values, and roots but without phonological content assigned to these nodes. At spell-out, the traditional division to [[logical form (linguistics)|logical form]] (LF) and [[phonetic form]] (PF) of the Y-model takes place. 
# 	At LF, the '''Encyclopedia''' is responsible for the semantic interpretation of the terminal nodes. Any non-compositional and idiosyncratic meaning associated with the bundles of features and lexical roots present at the end of the syntactic computation is assigned at this stage. 
# 	After syntactic operations are complete, certain morphological operations (see below) apply before any assignment of phonological content to the terminal nodes.
# 	Once these morphological operations are complete, phonological content is finally assigned to the terminal nodes, through '''competition''' of vocabulary items for insertion. How does competition work? Each terminal node contains a bundle of features and all vocabulary items compete for insertion into the terminal nodes. The vocabulary item that wins the competition and is inserted in a certain terminal node is the item that is most highly specified for that node. For example, if at the end of the derivation there is a terminal node with the features [+past, + plural, +3rd person] and the lexical root √PLAY, then the phonological content that will be assigned to the node will be the one corresponding to "played" because the most highly specified vocabulary item for this node is the item /d/  <-->  [___, +past, plural, 3rd person]. It is important to note that this vocabulary item does not exactly match the features of the terminal node; however, it wins the competition because in English it is the most highly specified vocabulary item for the specific values of features present in the node. Competition for insertion is governed by the Subset Principle, the following version of which is from Halle (1997):
:''The phonological exponent of a Vocabulary Item is inserted into a morpheme in the terminal string if the item matches all or a subset of the grammatical features specified in the terminal morpheme. Insertion does not take place if the Vocabulary item contains features not present in the morpheme. Where several Vocabulary items meet the conditions for insertion, the item matching the greatest number of features specified in the terminal morpheme must be chosen.''<ref name=Halle/>