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.

Much of contemporary linguistics presumes that affixes are monomorphemic. I discuss the opposite perspective, according to which complex affixes may themselves arise through the conflation of simpler affixes. The evidence in favor of this perspective is extensive and varied. As I show, this includes evidence of the following sorts: an affix may be paradigmatically opposed to a combination of affixes; two affixes may overlap in both their form and the content that they express; an affix’s alignment may vary according to whether it is alone or accompanied by some other affix; the content expressed by a combination of affixes may not be directly deducible from the content of those individual affixes; and the appearance of an affix in some word form may depend on the presence of a more peripheral affix in that word form. I explain the theoretical significance of this evidence with particular attention to its implications for developing an inferential-realizational theory of inflectional morphology.