Salzmann (2019a) claims that the phenomenon of displaced morphology in German dialects is a strong argument for the postsyntactic model of morphology posited by Distributed Morphology. This paper shows that it is not: The data are amenable to a purely syntactic account that uses only the tools required by the phrasal syntax, namely, Merge, Move, and Agree. Reordering in verb clusters affects the placement of morphology because it moves a head (a verb) to the equivalent of an A-bar position, which makes it ineligible for further head movement. The next lower head then moves to form a complex head with the verbal morphology, accounting for the appearance of morphology on the ‘wrong’ verb. This paper argues for what ought to be the default model of morphosyntax, one where there is only a single component of grammar for putting all complex forms together, and there are no postsyntactic levels or postsyntactic operations.
