Besides affording a way of modeling deviations from canonical morphotactics, rule composition makes it possible to see apparently recalcitrant morphotactic patterns as conforming to canonical criteria if these are assumed to cover composite rules as well as simple rules. I examine an apparent deviation from the integral stem criterion in Sanskrit and apparent deviations from the rule opposition criterion in Latin, Limbu, and Sanskrit. Each of these phenomena can be reconciled with the canonical criterion from which it apparently deviates if this criterion is assumed to cover composite rules as well as simple rules. All of these are cases in which deviation from the minimal rule criterion facilitates conformity to other canonical morphotactic criteria.

In this chapter, I discuss the preliminary assumptions of the rule-combining approach to morphotactics and advance the two fundamental hypotheses that underlie it: the morphotactic holism hypothesis and the morphotactic variety hypothesis (Section 1.2). In Section 1.3, I review previous proposals that provide empirical support for the morphotactic holism hypothesis, which (unlike the morphotactic variety hypothesis) is not a novel idea. In Section 1.4, I discuss the nature of canonical morphotactics, for which I introduce ten criterial characteristics, construed in rule-based terms. In Section 1.5, I give examples of phenomena that possess these characteristics as well as of phenomena that do not apparently possess them. The morphotactic phenomena to be analyzed in the following chapters deviate from some of these canonical characteristics, but reinforce conformity to others provided that a rule-combining approach is assumed. In Section 1.6, I anticipate the range of topics to be discussed in subsequent chapters.