2016. Nominal valency and N+V compounding in Mano. Syntax of the World's Languages, Mexico City. (original) (raw)
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In Campos, H. and P. Kempchinsky, Evolution and Revolution in Linguistic Theory, Georgetown University Press, Washington D.C., 1995, pp. 302-315, 1995
2020
This research examines the semantic aspect of morphological compounding in the English and Tiv languages. The choice of the two languages is motivated by the fact that research works in word formation generally, and compounding particularly, in Tiv language have not taken this dimension. And with adequate studies of this nature in the English language, what is or not obtainable in the Tiv language can be discovered through a comparative method of analysis. The study is designed on a survey method, with both primary and secondary sources of information. The study finds out that a number of these compounds in both English and Tiv languages have heads referring to the categorical elements that have the basic meanings of certain compounds. Again, the English language, just like the Tiv language, is still identified with a number of compounds described as exocentric. These are compounds that are realised holistically without necessarily regarding any of the components as a head. But copu...
Modes of compounding in Bantu, Romance and Chinese
Italian Journal of Linguistics, 2011
This article presents a cross-linguistic survey of endocentric root NN and exocentric VN compounds in a set of typologically and historically unrelated languages, with a special focus on Bemba (Bantu), Italian (Romance) and Mandarin Chinese.
Determining Compoundhood in Ígálà: From Universal to Language Specific Focus
Journal of Universal Language
In spite of the fact that compounding is really pervasive in the world's languages and despite the huge volume of literatures on compounding in languages, a critical assessment of the extant literature on compounding reveals that providing satisfactory criteria for defining and or determining compoundhood still requires both language specific and cross-linguistic investigations for dependable linguistic generalizations. As it were, there are hardly any universally
On the Relation between Lexical V-V Compounds and the Compounding Parameter
2017
This paper proposes that one of the parameters required for Japanese V-V compounds (JVVCs) is the Compounding Parameter (TCP) (Snyder 2012, 2016). In support of this proposal we show that Generalized Modification (GM) applies in JVVCs. In addition, we note that the type of JVVCs in which V1 merges into V2 directly (V-V type) bears a morphological resemblance to N-N compounding, in that no linking element is present. This suggests that V-V-type JVVCs are similar to N-N compounding. Moreover, in a spontaneous-production study using CHILDES, Aki, a Japanese-speaking child, first produces V-V-type JVVCs and N-N compounding at age 2;05, and next, he produces JVVCs in which there is a linking marker between V1 and V2 (V-i-V type) and other complex predicates at 2;07, all during a relatively short period. The paper thus gives support from the perspective of a CHILDES-based Japanese language acquisition study to Snyder’s (2012, 2016) hypotheses regarding TCP and GM.
On holistic properties of morphological constructions: the case of Akan verb-verb nominal compounds
Acta Linguistica Hafniensia , 2017
Akan verb-verb nominal compounds exhibit unusual formal and semantic properties, including extreme formal exocentricity, where the composition of two verbs yields a noun some of whose semantic properties may not be directly coded in the constituents, and argument structure suppression, where no argument of either constituent can occur in the compound. The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, I delineate the membership of the class, showing that some of the constructions listed in the literature as verb-verb compounds do not belong to the class; they have formal features that betray them as affix-derived nominals. Secondly, I discuss the rather idiosyncratic properties of the compound. I argue that the form class is inherited from a metaschema for compounding in Akan which bears a nominal output category. Again, it is a unique constructional property of Akan verb-verb compounds that, unlike other verb-involved compounds, they do not allow any argument of the constituents to become part of the compound. These extra-compositional holistic properties can be accounted for straightforwardly in a framework like Construction Morphology which does not assume that every property in a construction must emanate from its constituents. This study provides evidence for the view that constructions can have holistic properties.
Compounding and its locus of realization: Evidence from Greek and Turkish
Word Structure, 2013
This article deals with the locus of realization and the grammatical nature of compounds. First, it suggests that a proper delineation of compounding should be given on formal grounds and that an approach relying on pure semantics is misleading. Second, it proposes that the diversity of views for defining compounding and the variety of theoretical approaches that are put forward for the analysis of compounds are highly dependent on the data under examination. Third, it defends the position that compounding cuts across two grammatical domains, morphology and syntax, assuming that they are distinct structure-building modules. On the basis of their structural properties, compounds can be distinguished into morphological objects and phrasal units bearing an atomic status, depending on the language one deals with. The first category includes compounds resulting from morphological rules (or templates/schemas), and involves units specific to morphology; the second category contains phrasal...
Lexicalization and morphological activation as criteria for Japanese compound verbs
Italian Journal of Linguistics
The paper deals with Japanese complex predicates made of a Verbal Noun and the light verb suru 'to do'. It tries to shed light on the question whether they should better be classified as lexicalized units rather than syntactic constructions on the one hand, and as compounds activated morphologically rather than syntactically on the other hand. It takes into account that suru-predicates appear essentially in two possible forms: (a) VN-suru and (b) VN-o suru (where -o is an accusative marker). A set of parameters is examined, leading to the conclusion that the two constructions are similar in taking an intermediate position between compound words and syntactic structures as concerns lexicalization, while being respectively closer to compounds activated morphologically (a) and syntactically (b). * This second construction, which we will call (pre-theoretically and on practical purposes) a compound verb construction, can be