bracketing paradox

In GENERATIVE PHONOLOGY, a term used for cases in which two incompatible ways of ORDERING RULES are both well motivated. A rule can be applied to a SUBSTRING containing the MORPHEMES [A B], as part of a STRING [A B C], even though the corresponding morphological CONSTITUENT structure [A [B C]] does not identify [A B] as a WELL-FORMED constituent. A much-discussed example is the constituency of the word ungrammaticality, represented morphologically as [[un[grammatical_ADJ]_ADJ]ity]_N. Because un- is a PREFIX which attaches to ADJECTIVES, and not NOUNS, it needs to be shown to attach to the STEM before the -ity SUFFIX applies. However, phonologically, the opposite situation obtains. Here, the representation has to be [[un[[grammatical]ity]₁]₂], because the -ity suffix triggers a STRESS shift (and other changes) in the stem, and thus has to apply first; un-, which causes no such effects, should apply second.