1. Introduction: the relative absence of modularity in interface thinking

The following text is a piece of my forthcoming book (updated with respect to the first version that was posted on the EGG site) Scheer, Tobias forth. How morpho-syntax talks to phonology. A survey of extra-phonological information in phonology since Trubetzkoy's Grenzsignale. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. The text is "wild" in the sense that cross-references to other pieces of the book are not repaired and appear with an error message; also, there is no guarantee that the reference section contains all items quoted in the text. Introduction: the relative absence of modularity in interface thinking 2 works 25 20 1. Higher and lower cognitive functions, modules and the central system.. On various occasions of the historical survey in Part I, modularity was referred to, and a number of arguments were made in its name. A striking fact is that the interface literature itself does not seem to take modularity into account: it is hard to find any explicit reference, and even harder to find modularity-based reasonings. 1 This is unexpected, to put it mildly, since modularity is part and parcel of the generative approach to language: it is never missing in introductory classes and introductions to the general architecture of grammar in textbooks. Quite opposite of its supposed overarching importance, however, is its influence on theory design. In comparison to straight theories of syntax, phonology and other subdisciplines, this of course is a much more pressing issue for interface theories. The absence of modularity from interface thinking and interface design is certainly one reason for the current situation in OT: modularity is supposed to be in place (OT is a generative theory), but it is systematically violated without this arousing much discussion (§ §Erreur ! Source du renvoi introuvable.,Erreur ! Source du renvoi introuvable.). We have seen that OT is not the only modularity offender (SPE and Distributed Morphology are other cases in point), though. A summary as well as further discussion and classification of generative modularity offenders is provided in §Erreur ! Source du renvoi introuvable. below. A telling example of the absence of modularity in interface thinking was reported in §Erreur ! Source du renvoi introuvable.: the head stone of Prosodic Phonology, the principle of Indirect Reference, is a direct expression of modularity – but it was introduced without any reference to 1 There are number of noticeable (and rather recent) exceptions, including namely the work by Unfortunately …