Maiden, morphology, and more

This chapter offers a brief overview of how Martin Maiden's theoretical interests and empirical foci have developed over the course of his career, starting with his early work on metaphony and moving through to his central engagement with the concept of the morphome. We consider the way his explorations of the structure and history of Romance inflexional systems provide essential diachronic confirmation of the need to recognize such a concept and of the way it relates not only to individual items but to the overall organization of the paradigm. We move on from there to consider the place of the morphome and morphome-based thinking within recent developments in morphological theory and in particular the way different approaches define and in some cases erase!the boundary between morphology and syntax. The chapter concludes with a brief overview of the individual chapters contained in this volume and the light they shed on the relations between periphrasis and inflexion both with respect to Romance and in broader theoretical terms.