Categorial morphology 9780824054816, 0824054814

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RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT TE GRONINGEN

CATEGORIAL MORPHOLOGY

PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van bet doctoraat in de Letteren aan de Rijksuniversiteit

t!;O'

Groningen

op gezag van de Rector Magnificus Dr. E. Bleumink in het openbaar te verdedigen op donderdag 20 december 1984 des namiddags te 4.00 uur

door

JACOB HOEKSEMA geboren te Groningen

1984

DRUKKERIJ VAN DENDEREN B.V. GRONINGEN

PROMOTORES: Prof. Dr. A. Sassen Prof. Dr. J. F. A. K. van Benthem

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.

Writing a dissertation can be a lonesome experience, To get it finished, one has to stay away from friends and social activities as much as possible. Yet one never walks that road alone. It is my pleasure to acknowledge here my gratitude to all those people who helped me along the way, To Albert Sassen, my promoter, I am indebted for his detailed criticisms of earlier versions of this study, but above all for his unceasing support and guidance, I will certainly miss those lovely garden parties at his house in Haren. To my other promoter, Johan van Benthern, I am likewise indebted for valuable criticisms, but even more for his stimulating presence, which kindled my enthusiasm for semantics and helped create the sudden semantic wave in Groningen, It has been a pleasant experience to study and to do research in the department of Dutch Linguistics and Literature at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, I wish to thank all my teachers and fellow students for creating a most agreeable environment, Thank you Theo van den Hoek, Car Hoppenbrouwers, Theo Janssen, Gerrit Brummel, Machteld van Royen, Nanne Streekstra, Wietske Wiersema, Sjaak de Meij, Eric Reuland and Frank Reny for teaching me linguistics -- it took your combined forces to teach me the little I know. A spe'cial word of thanks goes to Frans Zwarts and Ron van Zonneveld. They have been invaluable teachers, colleagues and friends, Frans' work in syntax, later semantics, has always been something like a North Star to me. Ron was responsible for talking me into morphology. Our joint- collaboration on an introduction to morphology started my interest in the field and much of what I know about it dates back to that period, Ron's work in morphology has led me' to consider categorial grammar as a viable framework to study word structure in, My interest in categorial grammar was reinforced by two visitors from Amherst, Deirdre Wheeler and Michael Flynn, I am glad· to have met them, I have always enjoyed and Often profited from the numerous conversations I had with the other junior researchers in Groningen, Crit Cremers, Jan Jullens, Siemon Reker, Nico van der Zee, and, at other departments, Jan van Eijck, Alice ter Meulen, Elias Thijsse, Jan de Vuyst, Christine ter Mars and Leonie de Smet, I thank Jan van Eijck for his conunents on the first three chapters. For checking my English, I thank Steph Robinson, Rich Janda and Eleanor Sapp, All remaining errors are my fault, I'm afraid. The research reported here was supported by the Foundation for Linguistic Research, which is funded by the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research (ZWO), grant no. 17-24-04. I greatly enjoyed working for ZWO and the freedom I was allowed to pursue my various linguistic interests. I thank my relatives and friends for putting up with me and providing moral support, Without them, I don't know whether I would have made it.

Offset

Van Denderen, Groningen

PREFACE. In what follows, I present an account of certain problems of morphological analysis within a theoretical framewoTk that derives its inspiration from recent studies of the lexicon in generative grammar, as well as from the semantic theories of Richard Montague and his followers. The latter influence will be most evident in the choice of categorial grammar as the model of syntactic description and the use of formal interpretations for lexical expressions. The influence of generative studies is equally evident from the choice of the issues to be addressed here, viz, the role of the compositionality principle in word-formation, the analysis of synthetic compounds and the interpretation of nominalisations, all of which figure quite prominently in generative studies of the lexicon, such as Williams (1981), Roeper and Siegel

(1978) and Chomsky (1970). The starting point of this book was the controversy about the proper analysis of synthetic compounds.

Are they, as their name suggest$, really

compounds, or phrasal derivations, or do they constitute a type of wordformation of their own?

All possible pc;isitions have been defended in the

literature, and fOr each of the proposals, sensible arguments have been advanced.

A deeper understanding of the issues involved could only be arrived

at, I concluded, if the questions to be answered were formulated in an explicit and precise way.

For instance, it has been argued, most forcefully by

Botha, that synthetic compounds should be

analysed as phrasal derivations,

since only that analysis would be compatible with a compositional interpretation of these items.

To see whether such an argument holds water, it is

necessary to spell out a formal procedure to interpret lexical expressions and to formulate, within that theory of interpretation, the principle of compositional"ity,

Such a theory is readily available in Montague grammar and has

already been set to work in a number of publications on word-formation.

The

syntactic framework that goes with it, categorial grammar, is not really necessary for the purposes of semantics and indeed some linguists have combined transformational grammar with the type of modeltheoretic interpretation that one finds in Montague grammar (e.g. Mccloskey 1979), or context-free phrase structure grammar (cf, Gazdar 1982),

Nevertheless it appears to me that

categorial syntax has a number of properties which make it particularly well-

opposed to compositional - semantics of some of the affixes involved in

suited for the purposes of lexical analysis,

(Dutch) synthetic compounding, to wit, the nominalisation markers ge- and

For one, it is less redundant

than phrase structure granunars in several respects.

One only needs to speci-

-ing.

I focussed on these affixes because they are interesting in several

fy the semantic domains for the basic, or atomic, categories, and all of the

respects: they are sensitive to aspect, have a different distribution and

other domains of interpretation can be predicted by rule,

different meanings,

For instance, if

the expressions of category A are interpreted in the set X, and the expres-

The semantics given for these items attempts to account

for all of this at once.

sions of category Bare interpreted in the set Y, then the expressions of the

A large part of today's morphology is concerned with the relation be-

derived category A/B are interpreted as members of the set of all functions

tween word structure and phonology.

from Y into X.

word meaning, although generally considered important, receives less atten-

rules.

Also, there is no need for a long list of phrase structure

Only a few very simple combination schemata are needed.

In addition

tion,

The relation between word structure and

Often, the meaning of a word is used as a pretheoretical guide to For instance, if ticklish is analysed as tickle

+

to this, categorial grammar has a very simple and straightforward way to cate-

morphological structure,

gorise affixes: the category of an affix is completely determined by the cate-

ish, while rubbish is not parsed as rub + ish, that is due to the semantics

gories of the bases it attaches to and the derived words that it creates.

of these words,

These properties of categorial grammar make it, in my opinion, a really

able little interest in the meaning of complex words as an object of formal

attractive framework to do morphology in.

linguistics (as opposed to informal observations),

The structure of this book is as follows: first, the general design of a

Besides this fairly trivial aspect, there is often remarkIf this book contributes

to bringing work in modeltheoretic semantics and categorial grammar under

categorial approach to morphology is sketched (chapter one) and some of the

the attention of those who study those elusive objects called 'words', then

notational conventions to be used later on are introduced.

it will have served its purpose well.

Then I discuss

the status of the compositionality principle within this categorial theory and discuss some of the objections that have been raised against it in the literature (chapter two),

In chapter three, I outline an analysis of composition

along categorial lines and introduce a distinction b.etween nominal compounds and relational noun compounds, which turns out to be useful for the analysis of synthetic compounds as well.

In chapter four, the recent literature on

synthetic compounds is reviewed, while in chapter five a categorial analysis of these troublesome items is given, which is nonuniform in the sense that different types of synthetic compounds are treated differently.

Hence the

traditional name "synthetic compound" is not, in fact, theoretically justified on the account to be presented here.

In all cases, the compound analysis

of synthetic compounds as argued for by linguists such as Selkirk and Moortgat, is vindicated, even though a phrasal derivation approach, as pro~osed

by Botha and others, is not ruled out on theoretical grounds, since I

want to allow for a greater amount of interaction between syntax and morphology than the strictly word-based morphology of Aronoff (1976) and his followers admits.

The final chapter, chapter six, is devoted to the lexical - as

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Page

Page

CHAPTER ONE: THEORY OF THE LEXICON

1.1. In the beginning

1

1.2 What is the lexicon ?

2

1.3. Actual and potential words

4

1.4. The mental lexicon

7

1.5. The actual and potential lexicon: a formal sketch

11

2.5. More on head operations

56

2.6. Concluding remarks

62

Notes

65

CHAPTER THREE: COMPOSITION.

67

1.5.1. Phonological representations

12

3.1. Delimitation of the subject

67

1.5.2, Categorial representations

13

3.2. Compounds versus syntactic phrases

69

1,5,3, Semantic representations

13

3.3: Some aspects of the categorial analysis of compounds

73

14

3,4, Relational nouns

80

14

3.5. Adjective compounds

1,6, Lexical rules l. 6 .1. Rule ordering

86

1.6.2. The format of lexical rules

16

3,5,l, Elative compounds

86

1,6,3, Examples of lexical rules

17

3.5.2. Relational adjectival compounds

91

1.6,3.1. One-place operations

17

3.5.3. Other cases

93

1,6,3.2. Two-place operations

18

1.6.3,3. N-place operations

20

1.6.5. Phonological sensitivities

23

1,6,6, Function application and semantic sensitivities

25

1.8. Summary of this chapter

3.7. Summary of this chapter

20

1.6.4. Categorial granunar and subcategorisation

1.7. Interaction between syntax and morphology

3.6. Compounds without a functor-argument structure

27

CHAPTER FOUR: SYNTHETIC COMPOUNDS.

4.1. Synthetic versus other compounds 4,2, Roeper and Siegel's lexical transformation theory

32

Notes

CHAPTER TWO: THE COMPOSITIONALITY PRINCIPLE IN LEXICAL THEORY

98

Notes

30

100 100 103

4.2.1. Outline of the proposal

103

4,2,2, Evaluation

108

4.3. Botha's phrasal analysis of synthetic composition

34

93 97

112

34

4,3.1, Outline of Botha's theory

112

2.2. Prelimary remarks

35

4.3.2, Evaluation of Botha's theory

120

2.3, Arguments against the compositionality principle

38

2,1, Introduction

4.4. The Allen-Meijs-Selkirk account of synthetic composition

126

4.4.1. Meijs' theory

129

2.3.1. The holistic point of view

38

2.3.2. Mismatch between structure and interpretation

41

4,4,2, Discussion of Meijs' theory

130

45

4.4.3. Selkirk's theory

131

2.3.2.1. Lexical relatedness

4.4.4. Discussion of Selkirk's theory

2.3.2.2. The argumentation for the 'noncompositional' structures 2,3,2.~.

47

2.4. The principle of compositionality

52 55

134

136 140

Notes

A digression on Subjacency and the Atom Condition

4.5. Moortgat's theory

)

Page CHAPTER FIVE: A CATEGORIAL THEORY OF SYNTHETIC COMPOSITION,

142

5,1. A classification of Dutch and English synthetic compounds

142

5.2. Deverbal synthetic compounds

146

CHAPTER ONE: THEORY OF THE LEXICON. 1,1, In the beginning. From the days of yore, the main tasks of the linguist have been the writing of granunar books and dictionaries. Both grammars and dictionaries reflect

147

important aspects of language: dictionaries provide the elementary building

5.2.2. Excursus on verb interpretation

149

blocks, and the grammars specify how these blocks are combined to make well-

5.2.3. Towards a modular theory

154

5.2.4. Back to nominalisation

158

5.2.S.

165

it describes generalisations about the basic elements, on the other hand, it

170

studies the ways in which these elements interact and form larger word struc-

174

tures. The latter part of lexical theory has been called 'word grammar' or

5.2.1. Nominalisation

Agentives

5.2.6. Participles 5,3, Denominal synthetic compounds 5,3,l, -er derivations

175

5.3.2. Adjectival denominal synthetic compounds

176

5,4. Summary of this chapter Notes

The theory of the lexicon c·ombines these two aspects: on the one hand,

'word syntax', which seems to be a good name for the _enterprise, In geherative grammar, lexical theory is regaining some of its former popularity, after a period of neglect, but it is still not at the core of cur-

5.3.2.1. Two types of pseudo-compound constructions in Dutch

forrned utterances.

181 188 189

rent linguistic developments -- unlike syntax or phonology. Within the tradition of generative grammar, the main issues concerning lexical theory have been the delimitation of the lexicon (i.e. drawing the border lines between morphology and syntax, and be.tween morphology and phonology) and the determi-

CHAPTER SIX: SEMANTIC PROPERTIES OF DUTCH NOMINALISATIONS,

193

6.1. Introductory remarks

193

6,2, The mass-count distinction

194

6,3, Verbal aspect

200

6,4, Nominalisations and aspectual categories

205

6,5, A semantic account

212

6,5,1, The semantics of verbal aspect

212

6,5.2. Applications of the aspectual semantics

216

6.5.3, The semantics of ge- and -ing nominalisations

220

6,6, Summary of this chapter Notes

223 224

]nation of the internal structure of the lexicon. With respect to these questions, the dissertations of Siegel (1974) and Aronoff (1976) have been rather influential, as well as some articles published in the same period, e.g. Jackendoff (1975). Another issue that has attracted the interest of many investi~ gators has been the pragmatics of word creation (notably the work of Downing (1977) on composition and that of Clark and Clark (1979) on conversion), I will not attempt to give anything like a full account of the developments in lexical theory in these pages. The interested reader may consult

Boo~

(1977, chapter 1) for a good account of lexical theory within generative grammar, Another useful overview is to be found in the introduction of Hoekstra, van der Hulst & Moortgat (1980), where the whole of lexical theory is sketched from the 'lexicalist' point of view. My own work on morphology, to be presented in this study, takes as a starting point these recent developments in generative morphology, as well as the more semantically oriented studies emanating

References

226

from the work of the late Richard Montague. Although my main preoccupation in this study will

be composition, especi-

ally synthetic composition, some matters of larger scope will be treated as

well, including a general sketch of the lexicon as I see it, to which this

are clearly derived from the phrases old maid,

chapter is devoted,

pectively, do not represent regular or productive processes of word-formation,

out of state and cold war, res-

1.2. What is the lexicon ?

ductive types of word-formation, especially in compounding, which involve phra-

but, as I will argue in the following pages, there are clearly regular and proses. It is by no means easy to state with precision what is meant by that

Since generative grammar -- or, more precisely, some prominent representa-

well-known term 'lexicon', The reason for this difficulty seems to be that

tives of that paradigm -- is concerned with the psychological reality of its

there are several distinct conceptions connected with the term,

theoretical constructs, a third, more psychological, conception of the lexicon

One conception of the lexicon is that is the locus of all irregularity

has arisen, If a grammar is a formal representation of the linguistic compe-

in language, or, to put it more bluntly, the junk yard of language, This

tence of an idealised language user, then it is only natural to consider the

view has been rather influential, I gather, and it is certainly reflected

lexicon as the formal representation of that part of the competence which con-

in the position that was assigned tO the lexicon in early generative grammar,

tains the mental dictionary. In the latter conception, the lexicon is related

This particular view of the lexicon is much older, however, since it can al-

to the long-term memory of the language user. From this perspective, there is

ready be found in Bloomfield's Language, where one reads (1933: 274):

little sense in the Bloomfieldian view of the lexicon, according to which

'~The

lexicon is really an appendix of the grammar, a list of basic irregularities". This usage is not followed here. If the lexicon is really just a set of irregularities and arbitrary facts, then, surely, it would not make sense at all to speak of a

11

lexical theory 11 , For a theory, one needs at least some reg-

there is a dichotomy between the rules of grammar, including the word-formation rules, on the one side, and the irregularities and arbitrariness of the lexicon, on the other side, The rules of word-formation are, as Aronoff has put it, once-only rules, which are not applied every time a complex word is uttered, but only once, when the word enters the personal dictionary of the

ulal;'ities. Instead, we will adopt another, also quite familiar, and, for our purposes, more interesting, conception of the lexicon. By 'lexicon', we will understand

speaker, In this respect, the role of word-formation rules is different from that of syntactic rules, which are invoked for every utterance of a sentence

that part of a grammar, which takes care of the vocabulary of the language, in-

(unless, of course, this sentence happens to be memorised, which is possible,

cluding its rules of word-formation, This conception of the lexicon is in line

but less likely). By listing complex words in his/her long-term memory, the

with current work in generative grammar, especially in the so-called

11

lexicalist 11

tradition within that paradigm. By postulating that the lexicon is a distinct component of the grammar, it

language user attempts to balance ease of computation against memory load. From the psycholinguistic viewpoint, several questions become important which are not usually considered by linguists, such as the manner in which

is not claimed that it is autonomous, i.e. not depending on other parts of the

lexical information is actually stored in the brain and retrieved for pro-

grammar. I take it that there is some amount of interaction between syntactic

cessing. In section 1.4., I will briefly return to these issues.

and morphological rules, and that a complete description of the set of (possible)

The psychological notion of the lexicon is certainly quite useful, but,

words of a language such as English or Dutch presupposes a syntactic description

still, it is important to keep it ap~rt from the earlier one. Therefore, when

of certain phrasal constituents. In this respect, I follow linguists such as

talking about the psychological notion, I will use the term mental lexicon,

Bloomfield, to mention just one prime representative of a view pervasive in much

provided this is not already evident from the context, The 'linguistic lexi-

of the older literature, and reject Aronoff's (1976: 21) hypothesis that all reg-

con' is not claimed, to be sure, to be without psycholinguistic relevance --

ular word-formation processes are strictly word-based. To be sure, one might ar-

on the contrary -- but it is an abstraction of the psychological notion, one

gue that formations such as Bloomfield's old-maidish, or out-of-stater, a word I

in which matters of storage and retrieval are simply not considered.

recorded from an episode of Magnwn, p.i., or the formation cold-warrior, which

1.3. Actual and potential words.

ble word if and only if it is in some rule-governed extension of the lexicon. Extensions of the lexicon, such as lexical borrowing, are not rule-governed in

Besides the distinction between a mental and a 'linguistic' lexicon, there

our sense, although, of course, it cannot be denied that there are regularities

is another distinction which appears to be relevant. Several linguists have ar-

in borrowing as well. The set of all possible words will be called the potential lexicon, or, in

gued that one should distinguish between the actual lexicon, the collection of all actual, or type-familiar (to use a term of Meijs 1975), words, and the po-

cases where there is no danger of confusion, simply the lexicon. The set of all

tential lexicon, consisting of all potential, or type-familiar, words.

actual words is the actual lexicon. The actual lexicon is by definition a sub-

Natural-

ly, the actual is always part of the potential, so the actual lexicon is a sub-

set of the potential lexicon, since each actual word can be derived from an ac-

structure of the potential lexicon.

tual word in zero steps, The potential lexicon is the real subject of lexical

The borderline between the actual and the mere potential is, like the bor-

theory. The actual lexicon is more interesting for lexicographers, although, to

derline between the potential and the sheer impossible, often hard to draw. Nev-

be sure, a good knowledge of the actual lexicon is a prerequisite for an accu-

ertheless, these distinctions, though not always perfectly sharp, do seem to be

rate reconstruction of the potential lexicon,

important. Possible, nonactual words are defined as those words which can be

The fact that it is often not at all easy to state which rules of word-for-

formed by means of established rules of word-formation from actual words (in a

mation are productive in the lexicon of a certain period, makes the reconstruc-

finite number of steps, if infinite expressions are disallowed), but which, for

tion of the potential lexicon a rather difficult task for many languages, The

some reason, have not seen fit to achieve the status of recognised members of

mere existence of a regularity in the lexicon does not suffice to prove that

the vocabulary. For example, there is a very general rule of English, which says

there is a productive rule which accounts for this regularity. Suppose, for in-

that from any two common nouns, we may form a new one by concatenating them. Now

stance, that our actual lexicon contains 12 words, with a certain affix X. Must

it would appear that there are many exceptions to this rule, if we consider just

we invoke a rule of affixation to account for these 12 words ? The answer would

item-familiar words. We may concatenate car and thief to form the item-familiar

be negative, I take it, if all of these words turn out to be borrowings from,

word car-thief, but not, for instance, boy and girl to form boy-girl, or girl-

say, classical Greek, for in that case the affixation rule in question would be

boy, since these words do not exist (at least not in my speech), On;:the other

more at place in the grammar of Greek. Only when native speakers start forming

hand, these words might be formed (make up your own interpretation).

words with the same affix, rather than borrowing them, it makes sense to assume

And sure-

ly, it would be quite unilluminating to just list all exceptions to the rule.

there is an actual rule of word-formation which- is responsible for the creation

So we will claim that boy-girl and girl-boy are possible words of English, and

of X-derivations, and hence, that there are possible, but not yet actual, words

just happen to be nonactual at present.

of the same type.

It is important to keep in mind that the notion 'possible word' is defined

One of the main questions regarding productivity is whether it is an abso-

in a strictly linguistic sense. If a word is not possible, according to the def-

lute notion, or just a matter of degree. Schultink (1961) maintains that produc-

inition given above, that does not mean that it will never be part of the actual

tivity is an absolute notion, whereas Aronoff (1976) represents the view that

lexicon. A language may acquire words in all sorts of ways, such as borrowing

productivity can vary for any two rules of word-formation, and therefore must

from other languages, clipping, acronym coining, or by simply adding new simplex

be a matter of degree,

words. Only one of these ways is vocabulary extension by application of the reg-

Productivity in our sense is an absolute notion, because it corresponds to

ular rules of word-formation. And also, the rules of word-formation themselves

the existence, or non-existence, of a rule. However, the other view of producti-

may change in the course of time, thereby making some impossible words possible,

vity seems to make sense as well. When there are two morphological rules work:tng

and some potential words impossible.

in the same domain, we often note that one is more

Rephrasing what was said above, we state that a non-actual word is a possi-

11

active 11 than the other one,

in the sense that there are more actual words generated by one than by the other.

Hence I do not see any point in arguing that 11

OU'e

of these interpretations is the

correct 11 one: these are mutually compatible notions, which only need to be kept

apart. So, in order to avoid terminological confusion, I will reserve the term

activity for the matter-of-degree notion of productivity, As Aronoff has convin-

have not changed

in the mean time. This method, of course, has to be supple-

mented with the intuitions of the investigator and his informants, and with any other evidence available, If one wants to exclude diachronic reasoning, or if one does not trust the

cingly argued, the activity of a word-formation rule may depend on the proper-

method, then one could use psycholinguistic tests, or word-formation tasks in

ties of the base word. For example, Aronoff notes that the suffix -ness is more

which subjects have to form new words with a specified meaning, etc. (cf. Cut-

productively attached to bases of the form X-ous than its rival -ity. In Dutch,

ler 1980 and Aronoff & Schvaneveldt 1978, for examples of this type of psycho-

the diminutive affix -tje can be attached to nouns and adjectives, cf. hoer

linguistic research).

'farmer', boertje 'small farmer', and geel 'yellow', geeltje 'little yellow one'

Not only the origin of a morphological rule can be a mystery: its death

(a banknote). However, the examples of de-adjectival diminutives are far less

may be equally hard to establish. ·The problem is that morphological rules are

numerous than denominal diminutives, and usually have idiosyncratic or special-

in some respects not unlike vampires: they are never quite as dead as they ap-

ised meanings. Hence we may conclude that diminutive formation is very active

pear to be. A lexical rule may sometimes be awakened after a long period of in-

in the domain of nouns, and rather unactive in the domain of adjectives.

activity, or used in an analogical fashion, to create-nonce-formations. (For

If

there are two rules for making comparable derivations, e.g. nominalisations,

examples, cf. Schultink 1961, 1962.) We broach here the difficult question of

then the output of the more active rule is usually considered more 'natural' or

'creative' versus 'noncreative' use of rules. For example, the word picnik, in

likely than the output of the less active one, Activity is by its very defini-

the sense of -'-picture of a spoetnik' (listed in Bauer 1983), is most certainly

tion connected with the actual lexicon, since in the potential lexicon, all lex-

an instance of creative word-formation, in which the inventor did more than sim-

ical are, by definition again, maximally active. The important diachronic question of how it happens that a certain rule be-

ply apply the word-fotmation rules of his or her language. Many other -nik derivations, e.g. computeT'Ylik, or Freudnik, have&' similar_creative, ~r playful,

comes productive, and, after a period of activity, burns out and dies, is out-

flavour, though, perhaps, to a lesser degree. Schultink wants to exclude crea-

side the scope of the present investigation. It is rather obvious that a rule

tive, or, as he terms it, 'intentional', word-formation from the domain of pro-

comes into existence by a gradual process of generalisation and analogical ex-

ductive word-formation. However, creativity and intentionality are to my mind

tension, and not by instantaneous creation or mutation -- unpredictable quantum

also matters of degree, and sometimes hard to establish. In any event, these no-

jumps, found, apparently, in biological evolution, (For a detailed study .of the

tions, if incorporated into a theory of the le-Xicon, would make it rather hard

development of a suffix, -nik, in the late fifties and early sixties in English,

to give an objective basis to the whole enterprise, and hence I will ignore them

cf. Bauer 1983,) If this picture is reliable, then there is a fuzzy borderline

here. Fortunately, the types of word-formation to be studied here will be mostly

between productivity and nonproductivity,

fairly common and regular, and the problems of intentionality are consequently

How does one find out whether a lexical rule is productive ? The most ob-

less urgent.

vious criterion is the following one: a lexical rule is no longer productive if and only if it does not generate new words in the actual lexicon. This criterion is of a diachronic nature and indeed one straightforward way to check the

1.4. The mental lexicon,

productivity of a given rule is to consult two fairly recent dictionaries, in order to see whether the most recent one contains more examples of the rule in question than the other dictionary. Of course, one has to make sure that the two

Since the start of generative granunar in the late fifties, the so-called mentalistic view of linguistic theory has gained quite a few adherents. It is

dictionaries are comparable, so one will usually use two editions of the same

claimed that linguistic theory should provide precise granunars, which not only

dictionary, provided, that is, that the scope or the editor of the dictionary

describe a language correctly, but also can function as models of the mental

capacity of human beings to speak and understand their language. In other words, the grammars postulated by linguistic theory should not only be adequate as descriptions, or algorithms, but also be learnable, efficient to use, and so on. This view is largely due to Chomsky, and has served to make the field of linguistics more appealing to psychologists and philosophers. Without any doubt, the potential lexicon is a rather abstract characterisation

o~

some vital aspects of the mental lexicon, and the grammar a rather ab-

stract representation of the most important features of the linguistic competence of the language user. As I mentioned above in section 1.2,, the linguistic lexicon usually abstracts from certain aspects of the mental lexicon having to do with retrieval of lexical information and its storage in long term memory. For instance, it is known that the lexicon has a certain organisation of its own, one which enable the language user to find a word in his long term memory·very quickly. Facts about the retrieval of lexical items (also known as 'lex-

stress pattern, if that is not predictable). Some non-terminal nodes should also function as exit states

in case the word in question is properly contai-

ned in another word (like war in wardrobe). It is not hard to see why this is a very effective format fbr lexical or. for a word of ten letters, no more than ten decisions ganisation. For instance, have to be made, in order to arrive at its lexical entry (i.e. the data structure referred to above), Contrast this with a search through a linearly ordered list. It might take thousands of decisions (of the type: no, this is not the one) before the right entry is found (unless, of course, the list is ordered in such a way as to speed up the Search) • Nevertheless, this simple and attractive model of lexical storage and retrieval is probably not correct, as Forster (1976) points out, since it predicts that language users can establish the nonexistence of a given word in the same time or less than they need to establish the existence of an equally long

ical access') have been used to form hypotheses about this organisation. A very

word. For instance, if one looks up the word atishnet in a leXical decision

efficient way of retrieval is possible when the lexicon has the structure of a

tree, one may stop after atis, for there are no English words beginning with

lexical decision forest, that is, a set of trees of the following form:

these four letters. For the existing word American, on the other hand, 8 decisions are needed, since after seven letters we do not know whether the word is

Figure 1: A lexical decision tree. A--C--H--E p

/

America, American, or perhaps Americana, etc. So we predict that the nonexistence of atishnet is decided much faster than the existence of American. Forster (1976: 260) informs us that so-called lexical-decision experiments, in which one measures the time needed by a subject to classify a given letter se-

/~E

quence as existent in his/her lexicon or as nonexistent, -show that "familiar

A~T--L-A-

words are classified in around 500 msec., but that nonwords require about 650 N- T - I--C

\ \s

msec. 11 This implies that our simple tree model of the lexicon is not the correct representation. For much more discussion of the organisation of the mental lexicon from the viewpoint of experimental psychology, the reader is referred to

E

\

the above-mentioned paper by Forster, and further to Brown & MCNeill (1966), T--H-E

Fay & Cutler (1977), Bradley (1979), Glanzer & Ehrenreich (1979), Stanners, Neiser, Hernon and Hall (1979), Hurford (1981), Cutler (1982).

Such trees can be seen as transition diagrams of deterministic finite-state automata, the root being the initial state, and the terminal nodes being exit states leading to data structures in the information about the words is stored (such as: its categories, its meaning, and certain phonological properties, perhaps its

While the storage and retrieval has been central in the psycholinguistic literature on the lexicon, there has been very little attention paid to it in linguistic studies. This may seem strange, since the structure of the mental lexicon would appear to be part of linguistic competence, and not of linguistic performance, if we define the latter as the actual use of language in con-

crete situations, So the quest tons at hand are not suitable candidates to sweep

(D') The roots and the desinences of the third person undergo analogical

under the convenient rug of performance,

changes less of ten than those of the other persons.

The reason for this neglect is probably just that the access structure of the lexicon is likely to be quite independent of the rules of word-formation

These generalisations are translations of Mailczak's Hypothese-XIII (1963: 30),

and morphophonemics, the central interests of linguistic investigators of the

Hypothese VII (1958: 388), Hypothese VI (1958: 387) and Hypothese XIV (1963:

lexicon,

34), respectively. The striking parallelisms between (A) - (D) and (A' - D') are hardly

Another field of psycholinguistics seems to have more interest for linguistics proper, and that is language acquisition, Many linguists have drawn

coincidental. Note, by the way, that MaUczak formulates his generalisations

attention to the important role of language acquisition in explaining lexical

are tendencies, not as laws, for there may be exceptions, such as the one men-

changes, For example, the gradual extension of the weak conjugation of verbs

tioned in Sassen (1982: 16), the case of colloquial Dutch third person singu-

in Dutch and other languages is related, in an obvious way, to the little

lar hij hep 'he has', which is formed according to the pattern of the first

child figuring out his language, who overgeneralises the past tense rule of

and the second person singular (the standard Dutch form is hij heeft, an ir-

Dutch to verbs were a strong conjugation should be used, according to the adult

regular formation).

system.

Besides storage/retrieval and language acquisition questions, there is

An interesting example of how certain results of language acquisition re-

a third kind of psycholinguistic research which is relevant for lexical the-

search can be relevant for the linguistic study of lexical change is given in

ory, viz. the study of the conceptual structure of the lexicon: in other words,

Bybee Hooper (1980), where the following generalisations about language acqui-

lexical semantics. Quite a few striking facts have been discovered in this

sition are noted:

area, such as the generalisations about the distribution of basic colour terms reported in Berlin & Kay (1969), Kay & McDaniel (1978) and elsewhere. Especial-

(A) Singular noun forms are acquired before plural noun forms,

ly the fact that neurological facts about visual perception can, to some ex-

(B) Present tense is acquired before past tense,

tent, explain their distribution, is interesting from the psychological point

(C) Indicative mood is acquired before the subjunctive mood.

of view.

(D) The third person singular verb is acquired before other persons.

Psychological work on conceptual domains is related to linguistic work on word fields -- known from structural linguistics and lexicography (cf. Lutzei-

These generalisations, which are generally true, although there may be excep-

er 1981 for a recent discussion). At the moment, such work is often accompanied

tions in the speech of individual children, are paralleled by generalisations

by computer-aided analyses of large bodies of texts or experimental data. It is

based on the study of analogical change, proposed by Mallczak (1958, 1963),

an area where work on artificial intelligence, text analysis, stylistics, etc.,

translated here as:

converges. Since this thesis is mainly concerned with morphological analysis, no attention will be paid to this kind of research on the lexicon, though it

(A') The roots and the desinences of the singular undergo less often ana-

is of genuine interest to the linguist.

logical changes than those of the other numbers. (B') The forms of the present tense less often provoke the renewal of the forms of the other tenses than vice versa,

1,5, The actual and potential lexicon: a formal sketch,

(C') The forms of the indicative mood less often provoke the renewal of the forms of the other moods than vice versa.

In this section, I will present a broad sketch of the general structure and the properties of the actual and the potential lexicon.

What kind of animal is the lexicon ? First of all, it must be somewhat similar to something we all know, a dictionary. A dictionary is a list of words

phonetic transcription, As a matter of fact, we will often be content to use the orthographic spelling of words and affixes, instead of their phonological

in orthographic representation, which provides relevant information about them,

representations. Only when we focus on phonological properties will such trans-

such as their meanings, word-classes, perhaps some examples of their use, etc.

criptions be used.

For linguistic purposes, a phonological representation is more to the point

When such is convenient, we might equip our phonological representations

than an orthographic one, while the alphabetical ordering is irrelevant. Let

with some hierarchical structure along the lines of metrical and autosegmental

us therefore assume that a lexicon is a data structure in which words are lis-

phonology.

ted in an unordered way, and where each word is represented by a specification of its relevant features: its phonological shape, its categories and its meaning. In addition to this data structure, there is a set of operations defined

1.5.2. Categorial representations.

on this data structure, consisting of word-formation rules and morphophonemic rules. The data structure and the set of operations together form the lexicon. 1 Let us first consider the data structure in more detail. Since we do not have a particular ordering of the words in mind, we may view the data struc-

I will use categorial grammar as a general frame-work for the word syntax. Hence the categorial representations will be members 'af the set defined by the recursive statement:

ture as a set of lexical entries. (So it differs from an ordinary dictionary in that it is a set and not a list.) This is a consequence of the abstraction

(2)

X is a category iff:

from the access structure of the lexicon, which is usual in linguistic research, Lexical entries in turn are defined as ordered triples, consisting of a phonological, a .categorial and a semantic component, in that order, The first element will be called the phonological projection of the lex-

(i) (ii)

(iii)

x x x

is a member of the set of primitive categories is of the form V/W, where v and is of the form 'AW, where

v and

w are w are

re;

or

categories; or categories.

ical entry, the second element will be the categoriaZ projection, and the third element the semantic projection. In short hand: if L is a lexical entry,

The set of primitive categories will contain N, NP, and S (Noun, Noun Phrase

then Up(L) will be its phonological projection, rrc(L) its categorial projection

and Sentence), and perhaps some more. For the moment, these three categories

and rr (L) its semantic projection, In a formula: s

will suffice, especially if we add features to the primitive categories in order to distinguish gender or declension classes etc.

(1)

For every lexical entry L: L

The interpretation of these classes will become obvious when we consider the categorial operations associated with them (section 1.6.3.2, below).

In the following subsections, each component of a lexical item will be discussome more detail.

1.5.3. Semantic representations. 1.5.l, Phonological representations. The semantic representations will take the form of expressions of intenAs far as phonology is concerned, we can afford to be rather old-fashioned

sional logic. No attempt will be made to include lexical decomposition, as ad-

in the present study, since we will not be dealing with phonological problems

vocated for instance in the semantic-marker approach of early generative gram-

in any detail, For the purposes of this thesis, it suffices to assume the fea-

mar (Katz & Fodor 1964, Weinreich 1966,

ture matrices of standard generative phonology (cf. Chomsky & Halle 1968), or

incorporated in the model, as Dowty (1979) has shown.

etc.), although this could in fact be

In Montague grammar, the translations of expressions into intensional logic

word formation which crucially employ rule ordering have been confronted with

are usually considered to be superfluous, in the sense that one could just as

ordering paradoxes. If such paradoxes did not arise -- and perhaps there are

well directly interpret the expressions with respect to a model. In fact, our

languages in which they don't -- then I would have no objection to rule order-

practice will in some cases be exactly this, when such appears to be useful

ing statements. However, given the existence of paradoxes in languages such

(cf. chapter 6 for instance).

as English and Dutch, there are two honourable reactions: either, to abandon

It should be clear that we are making rather important abstractions here. Surely the knowledge about the meaning of a word, stored in a speaker's mental lexicon is quite unlike logical formulas,

or their modeltheoretic interpreta-

rule ordering, or, to substantially weaken the theory. A third, less honourable reaction is to ignore the paradoxes. one concrete example I have in mind here is the case of Dutch derivational

tions. The latter are in fact simply not 'in the head' -- as several people

suffixation. Zwarts (1975), drawing on earlier work by Siegel (1974), argues

have pointed out .2 For instance, it is perfectly well possible for someone to

that affixation of stress sensitive suffixes is ordered before the affixation

know the meaning of. a word, without knowing its extension (let alone its ex-

of stress neutral suffixes. This hypothesis explains in a rather elegant way

tension in all possible states. of affairs).

why certain possible suffix strings do not occur in Dutch words, such as -aar +

For some discussion of intensional logic, the reader is referred to Montague (1974), Gallin (1975),

and introductions to Montague grammar, for in-

stance Link (1979), Dowty, Wall & Peters (1981), Gamut (1982).

-ig, or -te + -ig .. However, there are counterexamples, as Schultink has pointed out in a series of papers (e.g. Schultink 1980), such as -aar +-es in words like lerares 'female teacher'. To see that -aar is stress-neutral, note that derivations with this affix have the stress on the same syllable as their verbal bases.

1.6. Lexical rules.

rari9s.

-Es, on the other hand, always bears main stress: cf.

lera.a:xi, le-

When confronted with such counterexamples, or 'paradoxes'., one can ei-

ther weaken the theory and allow for certain, stress sensitive rules to be orIn this section, I will discuss some general aspects of lexical rules.

dered after, or to be unordered with respect to, the affixation rules of stress

Some of them are just notational matters, but others.have a clear empirical

neutral affixes (this is proposed in Booij 1977), thereby greatly reducing the

content, as the reader will discover.

predictive power of the theory, or one drops the ·ordering hypothesis altogether (as Booij now does and most of the recent studies of Dutch morpholo"gy do), Another important candidate for rule ordering is the division of morpholo-

1.6.1. Rule ordering,

gical rules between inflectional and derivational rules. The obvious rule ordering statement would in this case be that rules of derivation have to apply

One important assumption I want to make about lexical operations is

before the rules of inflection. This would account for the often observed fact

that they are not extrinsically ordered with respect to one another. In the

that inflectional affixes are external to derivational affixes (cf. e.g. Bloom-

literature, there has been quite a lot of discussion about the necessity of

field (1933: 222)). However, it appears that even here we do not necessarily

explicit ordering stipulations in matters of phonology and morphology, in

have to appeal to rule ordering to explain the affix order. The distinction be-

which all possible positions have been defended. I would like to maintain

tween inflection and derivation is fuzzy and complicated (see Anderson 1982 for

that there is no need whatsoever for rule ordering. For a defense of rule

a good recent discussion of this old question), but it seems that the best defi-

ordering in morphology, see Siegel (1974), Zwarts (1975), Allen (1978), and

nition of inflection is, that it is the kind of morphology that is relevant to

Kiparsky (1982).

sentence structure. (This is also Anderson's opinion.) Typical inflectional cat-

The problem with rule ordering, as I see it, is not that it is a theoretically objectionable

dev~ce,

but rather, that all explanatory accounts of

egories, such as person and number markers on verbs express agreement or concord with another part of the sentence, usually the subject, though some languages

are known to have object agreement as well, while case markers, another class

Definition (3) is, in fact, not quite satisfactory yet, since it rules out the

of inflectional morphemes, express government by other parts of the sentence,

possibility of word-formation rules operating on phrases. If we want to include

usually verbs or prepositions.

these as well, a more general definition should be considered,

Williams (198la) has invoked this particular property o,f inflection to

Let E be the set of all well-formed expressions in the language under con-

explain affix order: if we suppose that inflectional markers express certain

sideration, (E, of course, is a superset of L.) We may assume that all expres-

syntactic features assigned to the word by its environment and that deriva-

sions of the language have the same format as lexical entries: that is, they

tional structures do not let these features 'trickle down', so to speak, then

have a phonological, a categorial and a semantic component. Now we can replace

inflectional affixes must of necessity be outside the derivational layer. This

(3) by the more general definition

account, which has to be made more precise 3 , of course, is better than rule ordering, for it connects the stacking properties of affixes with the defining property of inflection, and consequently is less arbitrary than rule ordering, for surely, if we just stipulate that rules of inflection follow rules of derivation, then we have not explained anything, for we might just as well expect the opposite order, or no order at all.

(5)

A lexical rule is a function from En into L, where n as in (3).

In fact, definition (5) may be a little too general, at least for English or Dutch, since in these languages usually no more than one phrase is involved in a lexical operation, So we might state the following hypothesis: (6) In English and Dutch, the only rules of word-formation in which E is crucially involved are functions from E (x L) into L.

1.6.2. The format of lexical rules. In this subsection, some general properties of lexical rule$ will be dis-

Examples of such rules will be given in due course.

cussed. As it happens, this discussion will also shed some more light on the format of lexical entries. One basic assumption concerning lexical rules has already been stated:

1.6.3. Examples of lexical rules.

they are not ordered with respect to one another. Lexical rules can be formulated in general as mappings from n-tuples of

1.6.3.1, One-place operations.

lexical entries to lexical entries, or, in other words: Typical one-place lexical ·rules are rules of conversion, or irrrplicit (3) A lexical rule is a function from Ln

into L, where n

1, 2 or arbi-

trary.

transposition.

Other types of one-place rules are Ablaut-operations and

comparable rules, which change, as opposed to combine, their input. Consider for example the rule for the creation of denominal verbs in

(L is the set of lexical entries, or the lexicon, while Ln is the set of n-tu-

English by means of transposition. This rule is the one that relates the lex-

ples over L.) In the case where n is arbitrary, we have a functiOn from L* into L, where L* is defined as follows:

ical entries of the nouns water, butter, iron and so on, to those of the verbs (to) water, butter and iron. One may

(4) L *

analys~

(We consider here transitive cases only.)

this rule as the combination of the phonological iden-

tity mapping (the function mapping each phonological representation onto itself), the categorial operation which sends N to (NP'-S)/NP (the category of transitive verbs), and is undefined for all other categories, and the seman-

tic operation that sends the interpretation of the noun (a set of indivuals,

category assigned to the elements which take an expression of category A to

say) to an activity in which members of the noun denotation are involved (for

their left in order to form a constituent of category B.4 The slashed catego-

a much more elaborate account of the semantics and pragmatics of denominal

ries of the first type will be called rightward-looking functors, or, in more

verbs, cf. Clark & Clark 1979). Call the latter operation h. We now have:

familiar terminology, prefixes, and the slashed categories of the second type

(7) Rule for denominal verb formation DV(w) = , provided that rr (w)

leftward-looking functors, or suffixes. In categories of the form A/B, we call A the nvmerator, and B the denominator. In categories of the form A"- B, we. call B the numerator and A the deno-

8

0

N, un-

defined otherwise.

minator. Symbolically:

V\rw~,

It is not, in fact, necessary in the present framework to handle conversion

(8)

Den(A/B) = ~eff(B,A) = B; Num(A/B) = Den (B,A) =A.

rules by means of one-place operations. It is also possible to use zero-affixes, i.e. affixes without phonological content, and to adjoin these to the bases by the two-place combination rules discussed below. This would simplify

The two-place operations on categories to be employed here are right-cancella-

the grammar, but at the price of a less natural analysis. Zero-affixes are very

tion and left-cancellation (RC and LC, respectively):

old devices in theoretical morphology, but their

s~atus

is not unchallenged,

For example, the postulation of zero morphemes makes necessary certain arbitrary decisions about e.g. their position in' the word: are they prefixes, or

(9)

RC(A/B, B) =

A· '

LC(A, A'B) = B.

suffixes, or perhaps even infixes ? Such questions are impossible to answer. Furthermore, there is clear evidence that not all types of word-formation

In these definitions, the order 0f the categories reflects the order of the

are additive (cf. Sassen 1981, McCarthy 1981 for discussion of cases in Dutch

phonological representations that are to be cbncatenated. This is explicit in

and Arabic, respectively), Hence not all types of word-formation can be descri-

the lexical rules corresponding to the categorial operations defined above,

bed by the combinatory rules introduced below.

which we may baptise prefixation and suffixation: (10) Ji)

1.6.3.2.

Two-place operations.

Pruf(v,w)

Typical two-place operations are rules of affixation and rules of composition. In European languages, such rules are predominant in the morphological component, both in numbers and in scope.

Prefixation:

It is for this type of operation

=

p

p

c

c

s

s

(ii) Suffixation;

Suff(v,w) = 0 0 8

that the categorial system is introduced here. In section 1.5.2., three types of category were distinguished: (1) primitive categories; (2) derived categories of the form A/B; and (3), complex categories of the form A"- B. The interpretation of the slashed categories is as follows: A/B is the category of expressions combining with an element of category B immediately to their right, to form a constituent of category A. Similarly, A"- B is the

Note, by the way, that the operation on the phonological representations is not just concatenation (which is indicated by '+'),but also involves additional bracketing. Therefore, if the phonological representation of the first argument is (XJ, and that of the second argument is (Y], then the representation of the value of the operation is [[X][Y]], and not just [X Y],

The brackets are use-

ful for the description of juncture phenomena, i.e. phonological rules sensitive to morphological boundaries. For more elaborate proposals concerning the

~z1~

representation of juncture, cf. for instance Selkirk (1982), or Strauss (1982),

take an NP and a PP argument, in that order. In categorial terms, the differ-

Since I will not be particularly concerned with matters of juncture in the pre-

ences in valency among these verbs can be indicated in

sent study, the above-mentioned unlabeled bracketings will suffice, This, of

way:

an entirely similar

course, should not be taken to imply a theoretical claim. hit:

VP /NP

sleep: VP 1.6.3.3.

N~place

operations.

put:

In this subsection, we will briefly consider those lexical rules which can be viewed as functions from L

,,

into L. They are needed for certain types

of composition, where any number of elements can be converted ·into a single

(VP/PP)/NP

The differences are merely notational. The fact that all of these three elements are verbs can easily be expressed by defining verbs as elements that cancel out to the category VP 5 '

6

compound, provided they all have the same category. Such compounds fall out-

Hence the well-known objection to the assignment of different categories to

side the domain where categorial grammar can be used profitably, since they

verbs with different valencies, viz., that it does not capture the signifi-

do not appear to have any functor-argument structure whatsoever. For some dis-

cant generalisation that all of these categories involve verbs, as witnessed,

cussion of these rules, the reader is referred to section 3.6. below.

for example, by their morphological properties, such as verbal inflection, is

(Inter-

estingly, such compounds cannot be described by context-free rewrite rules either, unless arbitrary structure is assigned. An entirely similar state of

without force in the present context. An important objection against the Aspects-theory of subcategorisation

affairs has been studied in the early sixties in the area of conjunction --

in combination with c9ntext-free rewrite rule has been formulated in Heny

cf, for instance Chomsky

(1979: 339 ff,):

&

Schlitzenberger 1963.)

This concludes our discussion of examples of lexical rules,

1.6.4. Categorial grammar and subcategorisation. The denominators of the slashed categories introduced above have approximately the same function as the subcategorisation features familiar from stan-

"The internal structure of every strict sub-categorization feature, including those that have to be included in the lexical specification of an item( .. ) precisely mirrors the order and op~iona~ity of the elements in the PS rule expanding the node immediately dominating the item in question, Thus, the lexicon will necessarily repeat information, time and again, which is at least in _part already extractable from the PS rules. No verb can have the feature +[ Manner NP] in English, because no PS rule or combination of PS rules introduces the elements V, 11 NP and Manner in the relevant order,

dard generative grammar. For instance, in a generative grannnar of English, one might choose to distinguish between the verbs hit, sleep and put in the following manner: hit:

put:

no rewrite rules -- only the very general rules of pref ixation and suffixation.

V, +[ _ _ _ NP]

sleep: V, +[

In the categorial system, this redundancy is partly resolved, since there are

]

V, +[ __ NP PP]

Further generalisations could be extracted by using nondirectional categories and general serialisation principles in the manner of Flynn (1981, 1983) and Vennemann & Harlow (1977) -- cf. section 5.2.1.4. for discussion. In any event, the present system is already more elegant than the standard generative grammar approach to subcategorisation, since it does not pos-

This notation expresses that hit will take an NP-argument, that steep does not take any argument (ignoring, for the moment, the subject), and that put will

tulate separate rewrite rules and a lexical insertion transformation. Hence the claim that we do not achieve anything by introducing categorial grannnar,

except for some pointless notational innovation, is hardly reasonable. Yet it

1.6.5. Phonological sensitivities.

can be found in some studies on word-formation, such as Moortgat & van der Hulst (1981: 26), and Selkirk (1982: 3). In the latter, the following comment on categorial grammar is made:

In the previous discussion, I have not paid attention to the phonological sensitivities of affixes. In order to treat these in the categorial framework, a slight extension of the formalism is required.

"A categorial grammar is at best a notational variant of a context-free rewriting grammar. In what follows, I have chosen to couch the forma+ theory of word formation in the most familiar terms of the latter sort of model, and leave it to others to argue that it should be done otherwise."

Let us first consider a few examples. The first one is in fact not a mor· taken from English syntax: the distribution of the ·inphologica1 case, b u t is

definite articles a and an. The basic observation is that an is used in front of a vowel, and a elsewhere. We can express this fact by using phonological

I will take up the challenge, and present a case for the categorial approach.

stiboategorisation for the indefinite articles:

I hope to show that categorial grammar is not just 'at best a notational variant', but in fact the best notational variant.

(12)

a: [__ [-syllabic, + consonantal] X]

an:

For instance, in Selkirk's theory, rewrite rules such as the following

[+syllabic, - consonantal] X]

ones have to be stipulated: It is possible to merge such phonological subcategorisation frames with (11) a.

A

b.

N

c.

A

d.

N

=====> =::====;> =====> =====:>

N

Aaff

A Naff A Aaff N

Naff

the

categorial syntactic categories by using the following notation: (13)

a:

NP/[C X]N

an:

NP/[V X]N

where C and V abbreviate the feature combinations [- syllabic, + and so on, Without any doubt, this is far more economical than Aronoff's one-

consonantal] and [+syllabic, - consonantal], respectively, and X

rule-per-affix system, but it is less general. and abstract than the categorial

is any string of segments.

rule schemata for prefixation and suffixation given in section 1.6.3,2. above, which are the only two-place rules needed in the present theory (if we do not

The second example is taken from Dutch morphology. -There is a well-known al-

count rules of infixation, which are problematic anyhow for context-free sys-

ternation between two affixes which are used in the formation of agentive

tems). For composition, it is also possible to argue that the categorial ap-

nouns fr.om verbs: -er and -aar. In short, -aar is used if the verbal stem to

proach is superior to the context-free rewrite system favoured by Selkirk (cf.

which it is to be attached ends in a shwa, followed by an l, n, or r, and in all other cases, the form -er is used (cf. van Haeringen 1951). 5 So we assign

chapter 3. for some discussion). Given that categorial systems of the type proposed here are indeed prova-

the following category to the alloroorph -aar:

bly equivalent to context-free phrase structure grammars (cf. Bar-Hillel 1964), the only relevant criterion for evaluation is formal elegance. In this respect, the categorial system, with its two general rule schemata, is preferable to a

(14) -aar:

[X

s Llv 'N

where L abbreviates the feature combination [+ sonorant, +coronal}

system with a large number of rewrite rules, and largely redundant subcategorisation features for its lexical entries.

The category of the allomorph -er is not so easy. to state. Intuitively, since it is the more general form, it should have the simpler category V"'.N. However,

we must find a way to prevent it from attaching to verbal stems that take -aar. For this purpose, a version of Kiparsky's (1973) Elsewhere Condition must be invoked, which states that general rules are overruled by more specific ones. In this case, the more generally available affix should give way to the one

The notion of compatibility referred to above is intuitively clear. Suppose that [X]

=

[CW], then every string consisting of a consonant, followed by aRy

string of segments, is compatible with [X]. A rigorous definition of compatibility would involve the notion of

with the more limited distribution. Note that a treatment along the lines of

nondistinctness' found in generative pho-

nology (cf. Chomsky & Halle 1968: 336).

(12) above, which assigns complementary environments to the allomorphs, is not satisfactory here, since the complement of the environment specified in (14)

1

The Elsewhere Condition can be formulated as an additional condition on the rules of prefixation and suffixation:

is not a natural class of strings. The incorporation of the Elsewhere Condition in the formulation of the prefixation and sUf fixation

schemata is of-

fered here tentatively, since I have not investigated the consequences of

Elsewhere Condition Pref(v,w) is not defined in case for some v' such that rrc(v') is a

this move in sufficient detail. However, it would seem, that something like

subcategory of TI (v) -- and furthermore, v' and v have the same se-

it should be part of any theory that wants to deal with phenomena such as the

mantic projection -- Pref(v' ,w) is defined.

-aar/-er alternation. I might add, that it does not help to treat the pheno-

Similarly, Suff(v,w) is not defined if for.some w' such that rrc(w')

menon by means of phonological rules (e.g. a rule converting /B/ into /a,/ in

is a subcategory of rr (w) and rr (w')

(17)

c

c

the relevant environments, since the alternation is morphologically conditoned (it does

no~

occur in comparatives, although these are formed with the homo-

phonous marker -er).

s

5

TI (w), Pref(v,w') is defined. s

Note that in general, suffixes are sensitive to the endings of the bases they attach to, whereas prefixes are sensitive to the initial parts of their bases.

In view of the notational innovation in (13), the operations of left

The following condition captures this observation:

and right cancellation have to be revised: RC(A/[X]B, B)

A·,

Constraint Let CON be any string of phonological constants and W be a variable

LC(A, [XJA'-B)

B.

over phonological strings. We now require that every category be of

( 18) (15)

the format W]B' or

where X is any string of phonological symbols. The phonological representations

(i)

A/[CON

of the argument expressions should be compatible with the requirements made by

(ii)

[W CONJB'- A

the functor expression. This is made explicit in the lexical rules of pref ixaThis condition excludes many possible categories, such as categories of the

tion and suffixation, in the revised version given below:

form A/[W CON]B (the category of a prefix sensitive to the ending of the base), (16) (i)

c

=

rr (w) is compatible with [X], and undefined otherwise. p

(ii)

In other words, only one variable per category is allowed, and only one string of constants, and the variable should be as far as possible from the main slash.

Suffixation: Suff(v,w) is as in (10) above, provided that Den(rrc(w))

= [X]A'

(Where A is any category), rr (v) is compatible with [X], and unp

defined otherwise.

CON w ] (the category of prefixes which require that the base contains 1 2 a part with specified properties, e.g. a /k/, somewhere), or A/[CON W CON], etc.

A/[W

Pre fixation: Pref(v,w) is as in (10) above, provided that when Den(n (v))

1.6.6. Function application and semantic sensitivities, It is a well-known observation that affixes are not only sensitive to the

~27~

phonological properties of their bases, but also to their semantic properties.

tions, such as the restriction of comparative and superlative forms to gradable

Consider for instance the Dutch affix -heid, which is used for the formation

adjectives (Kamp 1975), or the restrictions on a-prefixation discussed in Hoek-

of deadjectival abstract nominals: cf. sahoon 'beautiful; clean', schoonheid 'beauty; cleanness', snel 'rapid' ,snelheid 'rapidity', and so on. This suffix has certain phonological restrictions (for instance, it cannot be added to

sema (1982: 48). Note that the device of semantic filtering presupposes that functor categories may be sensitive to the semantic properties of their arguments, but not

adjectives with a final shwa, cf. Schultink 1962: 166), as well as semantic

vice versa. Hence this approach is more restrictive than one which does not ree-

restrictions. It appears that it can only combine with so-called intersective

ognise the f unct i on-argument distinction and also allows sensitivities of argu-

adjectives. Call an adjective 'intersective' just in case it maps the inter-

ments to functors.

pretation of the noun it modifies to a subset of that interpretation. Tall is such an adjective, since the set of tall men will always be a subset of the set of men. Former, however, is not intersective, since the set of former men

1.7. Interaction between syntax and morphology,

is disjoint with the set of men. In other words, A is an intersective adjective if and only if all sentences of the form below are valid .5

In section 1.6. above I have

made sure that lexical rules are defined in

such a way as to allow reference to phrasal constituents, i.e. constituents lar-

(19)

All A N are N.

ger than wor d s, Th e necessi't y o f this rather liberal definition is most obvious in the case of composition. In N+N compounds, the left hand member need not be

Instantiations of this scheme are:

a lexical noun, as it may also be a common noun phrase .consisting of an adjective followed by a noun. An example of the latter kind is Bloomfield's wild-

(20)

All tall men are men. All old boys are boys.

animal-house. In Van Zonneveld (1983: 116)

t~e

following examples from the lin-

guistic literature are cited:

All good friends are friends, All able women are women,

(21)

Complex NP Constraint Deep Structure Projection Rule

The following Dutch adjectives are not intersective in our sense: voo1'!1'1alig

Lexical Category Prominence Rule

'former', zogenaamd

Minimal Domain Principle

'so-called', vermoedelijk 'putative', toekomstig 'future'.

There are no -heid formations corresponding to these adjectives: *voormalig-

Nuclear Stress Rule

heid, *zogenaamdheid , etc, On the assumption that the nonexistence of these

Specified Subject Condition

derivations is not accidental, but systematic, we are obliged to recognise a

Stressed Syllable Rule

semantic restriction on -heid suffixation. 10 It is not feasible to express

Tensed S Condition

this restriction in terms of the syntactic properties of the intensional lo-

Uniform Three Level Hypothesis

gic used for the semantic components of lexical entries. Instead, we will assu~e

that the translation of -heid is interpreted as a function from adjective

d~notations to abstract noun denotations, which is simply not defined for the

A particularly nice example of this type is Botha's (1980) no phrase constraint, which rules out the occurrence of a phrasal constituent inside a lexical struc-

_interpretations of nonintersective adjectives, In other words, we use semantic

ture (Botha does not endorse this constraint himself, cf. chapter 4), and conse-

filtering to rule out the above -heid derivations.

quently rules out its own name as well.

The same device can be used for other semantic sensitivities and restric-

Many other examples of phrasal compounds can be offered. The

~recess

of

~28~

~29=

phrasal composition is extremely productiv.e in modern English, witness for in-

are phrases, and not A+N compounds. First of all, the adjectives have inflected

stance

fonns whenever such is appropriate: for instance, in the example heteluahtballon, the adjective hete has the ending -e, which is typically absent in compounds: cf. zuurkool 'Sauerkraut', instead of ~zurekool. Second, the constit-

(22) low-level phonology high-quality paper

uent has the phrasal accent on the noun, instead of the compound stress pat-

two-place predicate

tern (which places the main stress on the adjective),

wild-goose chase

one might try to account for these phrasal compounds by noting that attributive adjectives usually get the category N/N in categorial systems. By right

In Dutch, the situation is the same, as the following list of examples, which

cancellation, the category of adjective-noun phrases is N, and hence these

could be extended almost indefinitely, will show:

phrases are indistinguishable from lexical nouns, which would account for the fact that they occur as nonhead constituents in N+N compounds. Unfortunately,

(23)

armeluisbuurt

'poor people's district'

blotebillengezicht

'bare-bums face'

find phrasal common nouns in head position, However, such constructions are

derdewereldland

'third-world country'

not attested in either Dutch or English, Moreover, the equation of lexical

drielandenpunt

'three-countries point'

nouns with common noun phrases would make it rather difficult to distinguish

drieletterwoord

'three-letter word

between A+N compounds and A+N phrases. Furthermore, it ·is clear that the dis-

eerste-orde-logica

'first-order logic'

this neat explanation is too simple. By the same reasoning, we would expect to

tinction between complex common noun phrases and lexical common nouns is im-

grote-mensen-wereld 'grown-ups world'

portant for the choice of the determiner in some languages. For instance, in

halve-liter-fles

'half-litre bottle'

Danish the definite article is homophonic

heteluchtballon

'hot-air balloon'

is placed before the common noun if the latter is a phrasal constituent con-

kortebaankampioen

'short-track champion'

taining at least one adjective, but homophonic with an indefinite article and

koudwaterkraan

'cold-water tap'

suffixed to the noun if the latter is a lexical expression. This leads to con-

lagelonenlanden

'low-wages countries'

trasts such as the following:

wi~h

the demonstrative article and

middellange-afstandsraketten 'intermediate-distance rockets' mogelijke-werelden -semantiek 'possible-worlds semantics' open-deur-politiek

'open-door politics'

oudewijvenpraat

'old-women's talk'

(24) a,

[eren]

'

appears to be stronger. This argument is based on irregular fonnations in compound structures. I will 1'llustrate the argument with some data from Dutch. In Dutch, there are two regular plural endings, -en and -s. The distribution

N [eren]

N

(14)

I

klein

A

I

/~

I

kind

klein

N

[ eren]

I

kind

of these is a complicated matter, in which phonological and pragmatic aspects are most prominent (cf. van Haeringen 1947, Hoppenbrouwers 1980). There are

This device, which can be motivated for other purposes as well (such as the

some irregular endings whi_c h Occur in a Small Set of plural nouns only, such as -eren. However, when such a noun is the head of a compound, the compound

percolation of stratal features) seems to be fairly straightforward. The des-

itself will receive the irregular ending as well:

with the relevant feature.

cription is finished if we stipulate that -eren may freely attach to nouns It is rather difficult to distinguish among the. two types of proposals

(11)

kind

'child'

kinderen

'children'

in terms of empirical consequences. The only important difference appears to

volk

'people'

volkeren

'peoples, nations 1

be that the feature solution allows for a cer:tain structural ambiguity, since

ei

'egg'

eieren

'eggs'

the plural suffix may be attached before or after compounding takes place,

'calf'

kalveren

'calves'

kalf

The first option also has two ways to arrive at the plural forms, but these lead to isomorphic structures.

kleinkinderen

kleinkind

•grandchild'

bergvolk

'mountain people' bergvolkeren

eende-ei

'duck-egg'

eende-eieren

mestkalf

'fatted calf'

mestkalveren

One argument in favour of the first option- could be that this approach be generalised to nonconcatenative types of

word~fonnation,

such as the

one involved in the formation of past tenses of strong verbs in English, It is a well-known fact that prefixed forms of strong verbs in English have the same vowel change as the underived forms. Compare for instance

There are several ways to describe these facts. One of them is the following:

(12)

PLUR(XY)

(X+PLUR(Y)), where XY and Y are nouns.

In other words, the plural fonn of a compound structure is expressed on its righthand member. For our example kZeinkind this will yield the following noncompositional · k'nd) structure of the p 1ura 1 : PLUR(k 've~n ~

derenJJ.

= (klein + PLUR(kind)) = lklein+lkin-

understand

understood

(stand

undertake

undertook

(take

took)

forgive

forgave

(give

gave)

stood)

and so on The same is true in Dutch and Gennan (cf. Dutch vergeef - vergaf : geef - gaf;

bezieh - bezog : zieh - zog), as well as in French: devenir - deviens venir - viens

- venu.

This follows inunediately, if the operations in question are performed on

morphological metathesis (cf, Janda 1983), Arabic-type discontinuous morphemes

the heads of the prefixed forms. Similar things happen in the case of irregu-

etc., there is no reason to rule out head operations just because they do not

lar plural formations, such as English goose - geese. The pair Canada goose Canada geese (an example of Selkirk's) shows clearly that the plural is formed

have the format. of context-free rules. Moreover, it is clear that at least

head adjunations do not increase the power of the granunar at all. To see this,

by applying the same operation on the head of the compound. Dutch examples of

consider a context-free granunar G, in which all rules are of the form A

>

this can be found in the Romance part of the vocabulary: vioolsolo - vioolsoli

x B Y, where the underlining indicates the head of the construction, and x

(cf. solo - aoli), Rijksmusewn - Rijksmusea (cf. museum - musea).

and Y are any strings of symbols. To this granunar, we add a head adjunction

These examples have in conunon that they all show the effects of operations that have been carried out on their heads. Suppose that we allow for a special class of head operations, which we may characterise as follows:

operation

f, which prefixes a fixed expression, say a, to the lexical head of

expressions of the category C, and assign the category D to the resultant expression, (Let us assume, for the moment, that a is not a terminal or nonterminal symbol of G.) The result is a new granunar, which will be called G', G'

(15)

is equivalent to a context-free grammar G11 , which we may derive from G by ad-

Head Operations F is a head operation iff F(Y)

of W) together imply that F(W)

z,

and W = XY (where Y is the head

ding rules of the form:

X+F (Y) " x+Z,

The resulting structure of a head operation is a

1

noncompositional

1

(16) a.

Af

>

x

.13.f

y

b.

Af

>

X

ab

Y

structure

of the type proposed by Williams. Yet the way they are defined makes it possible to interpret these structures in a strictly compositional fashion. Similarly, the relation 'derived from' can be defined in a straightforward way for these structures. For example, kleinkinderen is derived from kleinkind, even when we assign it the stn.tcture !klein [kinderen}}, by head adjunction of the plural affix -eren. Head operations other than adjunctions might be vowel change rules, such

for every rule in G of the same form without the £-indices and a, provided - that A = C, or C

a nonterminal symbol of

A G,

and that b is a terminal symbol of G, and B Furthermore,

G11

will contain the rule D

> cf.

From the construction -of G11 it follows that a string w belongs to cf just case the head adjunction of a to (W-a) belongs to D acc?rding to G'. For~ * > w iff f(Jl - a) is a well-formed expression of category G''

as Ablaut, zero derivation rules, etc.

Note, by the way, that this proof does not depend on the fact that we

If we admit head operations as morphological rules, then the 'relatedness paradoxes' of Williams disappear, and we do no longer need his roundabout definition of 'lexically related', Some people may think that head operations are a high price to pay for compositionality, but I would not agree with them. In

adjoin here to lexical heads only. We could JUSt · as we 11 prove the same for ordinary heads (for a formal definition of the notion 'lexical head' in terms 'head', cf. section 2.4.). A similar procedure for converting a grammar with head operations into a

the first place, head operations incorporate a main point of Williams', viz. that the notion 'head' is crucial for the understanding of certain morphological structures. The most direct way to capture this insight is to build in reference to head status in the rules themselves. Implicit in Williams' work is the idea that morphological structures should be handled by context-free rewrite rules.

* > W1

_grammar with context-free rules only can be given if the operations in question head-suffixations. Consequently head operations do not increase the (weak) generative power the grammar. For th e use o f h ead operations in another area, cf, my (1980) of the Dutch so-called verb rais'ng ~ c 0 ns tr uc t'ion, wh ere a h ea d operation

In such a system, head ad-

junction is not a possible operation. Since there are many phenomena which

employed to insert verbs as sisters of the verb cluster that heads the Dutch 4

resist a treatment by context-free rewrite rules, such as reduplication, or

2.3.2.3. A digression on Subjacency and the Atom Condition.

(19) undistracting undisputed

In this section, we will momentarily leave the compositionality issue to

undiscoverable

look into a matter that has been discussed by Williams in connection with his notion 'head of a word', It often occurs that a certain inteiaction of two elements of a linguistic structure is impossible when these elements are too far away from each other, structurally speaking. For example, whenever there are two bounding

This anomaly can be explained if we assume that the f 2

in Montague granrrnar),

Relational nouns are translated as formulas with a free variable:

son==>

(29)

The constituent structure rule in (25) is equivalent to the rewrite

1 2

In addition, relational nouns (indicated by RN in the above rule) are translated as: Ax

[R(x ,x )], where Risa relational constant, 1 1 2 There is another problem, however, with Moortgat's account, to wit, the

The composition rule takes the following form:

status of rule (8) in (25), the rule of term formation·. (26)

[verb+ed]A W

This principle says that if a verb has the subcategorisation frame [~~

In (3), W denotes any string of symbols.

Rule (3)iii is a reformulation of

the less economical rule description given by Rceper and Siegel (they use in fact two rules, the second obligatory after the first, to create the same output).

[word]

(7) First Sister Principle.

affixation:

[verb]

[verb]

W

(ii) -ing affixation: [verb]

===>

general principle:

-er affixation: [verb]

Y

This rule is needed to make verbal composition comply with the following

(3) Affixation

(i)

[word]

X Y], where X and Y are any symbols, no word of category Y can be

incorporated, unless Xis deleted from the frame,

This is effected by (6),

The First Sister Principle has many interesting consequences.

following array of facts, adapted from Roeper and Siegel (1978: 212):

In Roeper and Siegel's formulation, there are also empty positions,

created before the verb, which may serve as landing sites for the elements which are inserted later on and move to the initial position,

This, however,

is not only unnecessary, but also creates a duplication of the rules for affixation.

Consider the

(8)

built well

Well-built

built by slaves

slave-built

built well by slaves

well-built by slaves

built well by slaves

*slave-built well

=107= The ungrammaticality of the last example in the right column is predicted by

(10) Ordering schema

the First Sister Principle, since the incorporated object is not the one in

(3)

first sister position,

(4)

\/(t

The following facts are predicted as well: ( 9) *oft-hearer

*oft-hearing

oft-heard

*well-tuner

*well-tuning

well-tuned

*well-reader

*well-reading

well-read

*widely-noticer

*widely-noticing

widely-noticed

(5)

Regarding the ordering of (3) and (6), nothing can be said.~

A problem with

the present formulation of rule (6) is, that it not only deletes the subcategorised elements between the verb and the inserted word, but also the suffix,

The above difference between participles on the one side and agentives and

if one is attached to the verb.

-ing forms on the other side, is explained by the fact that the rule for

reformulate (6) as:

To avoid this undesirable side-effect, we

past participle formation deletes the NP symbol in the subcategorisation frame of past participles (cf. rule (3iii) above), whereas this symbol is

(11) Variable deletion (revised)

not deleted by the other affixation rules in the subcategorisation frames of the transitive verbs hear,, tune, read and notice.

[[verb] aff]

[[verb] aff] [word] Y

Hence, by the First Sister

Principle, the adverbs, which come after the direct object, cannot be

The result of this reformulation is, that the ordering possibilities are

incorporated.

reduced as well, since variable deletion now has to follow affixat.ion:

However, in this case the explanation given by Roeper and Siegel makes questionable the correctness of their rules, since the ungrammatical cases

(12) Ordering .schema (revised)

could be derived by using variable deletion to get rid of the direct object NP.

After that, the inserted adverb would be in first sister position,

(3)

might suppose, that direct objects should be excluded from variable deletion,

(6)

to save the proposal, but that would not work, given the possibility of cases like

off~season-trading

besides car racing.

(4)

~/

One

I

besides player-trading, and highway-racing

(5)

Nor is the optionality of the direct NP involved, since

the examples in (9) contain verbs which can be used intransitively, e,g.

read.

A final remark is in order on the number of applications of the Compound

By inspection of the above rules, we arrive at the following schema, which shows their intrinsic ordering,

Rule.

Since its output description is different from its input description,

the rule can be applied only once. This appears to be correct, given the nonexistence of cases such as *houses-down-tearing or *down-houses-tearing. Note, however, that Roeper and Siegel analyse both player-trading and offseason trading as verbal compounds, so off-season player trading might be seen as a verbal compound as Well, one that has incorporated two elements instead of one,

We wll leave this matter unresolved.

=109=

=108=

4.2,2, Evaluation, 5

are never inserted as a by-product of the system, or subcategorisation frames where words jump in and out without leaving a trace?

In the preceding section, I have presented a slightly improved version of Roeper and Siegel's theory of verbal composition, been simplified, while another has been corrected,

Some of the rules have The present formulation

Another quite serious difficulty is connected with the status of the rule of subcategorisation insertion itself.

Subcategorisation frames were

introduced in Chomsky (1965) to bridge the gap between the syntactic struc-

does not postulate separate affixation rules for the formation of verbal com-

tures generated by the base component and the newly introduced lexicon.

pounds and for the formation of simple derivations.

put it bluntly, the subcategorisation frames tell you where you may insert a

This ffieets an objection

made by Botha (1980), amongst others, and removes a rather large· redundancy,

lexical item,

since the two types of rules have the same effects as regards meaning, lexi-

the elements of the lexicon,

cal categories, subcategorisation and allomorphy, as Botha makes clear,

Roe-

not make sense.

To

In other words, they specify the eligible environments for 6

To insert lexical items in them somehow does

It blurs the distinction between syntactic structures and

per and Siegel argue that it is necessary to make the distinction in view of

subcategorisation frames and consequently calls in question the very notions

the fact that some verbal compounds are not matched by corresponding simple

on which the Roeper and Siegel theory is based.

derivations: i.e. alongside of concert. goer or churich-goer we do not find

211) make the following comment on this matter:

goer.

Roeper and Siegel (1978:

However, one can argue that this is just what one expects if not all

possible words are listed in the actual lexicon: derivations without corresponding verbal compounds and vice versa,

Even if the rule for goer is dis-

11

We do not consider the rule of Subcategorization Insertion to be a significant innovation in the grammar. It is in fact much like Affix Insertion."

tinct from the one for church-goer, that would still not explain why the first word is non-actual, while the second word exists,

I cannot agree with this comment, because· it is based on a wrong comparison.

These various changes have been introduced here to make the theory of

The rules of aff ixation operate on lexical

Roeper and Siegel come out as strong as possible, before an assessment of

and their subcategori-

sation frames, to be sure, but they do not insert expressions in

its value is made, First of all, we will consider some nagging technicalities,

e~pressions

ised positions. What hap-

pens when we apply the rule of subcategorisation insertion more than once?

subcategor~

Hence the status of affixation rules is irrelevant to the

issue at hand·: the unclear status of the rule of Subcategorisation Insertion. Another objection to the system of Roeper and Siegel can be based on the

Since the rule of composition (rule (5) above) can be applied only once, as we have seen, there are two possibilities: either one of the inserted words

fact that it does not comply with a general constraint on grammatical operations, formulated in Partee (1979) as the Well-formedness Constraint (WFC). 7

(in fact all but the leftmost one) will remain in the subcategorisation frame

According to this constraint, a syntactic rule takes only well-formed expres-

of the verb, or they will be deleted by using the rule of variable deletion.

sions as its input and only well-formed expressions as its output.

If one or more words remain in the subcategorisation frame, that might block

straint, which is just another formulation of the naturalness conventions that

This con-

lexical insertion, given that the syntactic structures into which the dever-

we find in natural phonology, such as Kiparsky's Alternation Condition (.cf,

bal structure is to be inserted contain maximal phrases in the sense of X-bar

Kiparsky (1968)), rules out underlying structures which never show up in well-

theory, not words - so the subcategorisation conditions will not be met.

formed sentences.

If,

Such abstract structures are rather familiar entities in

on the other hand, we first insert a lexical item and delete it afterwards,

transformational grammar, and the transformational theory of Roeper and Siegel

that would have the same net result as deleting the subcategorised elements

employs them as well.

immediately, except, perhaps, for the semantics, but since Roeper and Siegel

tures which are created by means of subcategorisation insertion, before the

do not provide an interpreted system, that is hard to find out.

The concep-

tual drawbacks are obvious: who wants to generate lexical structures that

The abstract structures I have in mind are the struc-

compounding rule has applied.

For example, the string concert-goer is well-

formed, but it is derived from the string goer concert by means of the

F" {

'~

"'"/

=111=

=110=

compounding rule.

However, this input string is not well-formed according to

anyone's standards,

11

I said, "Mr. Purple People Eater, what•s your line?"

He said, "Eating Purple People and it sure is

Since the WFC appears to be tenable in quite a number of

fine 11 ~

11

difficult areas (including, for instance, the Dutch verb raising construction (cf. Hoeksema 1980)), it would be unwise to abandon it just for the sake of treating verbal compounds by means of a lexical transformation.

A theory in-

And of course the existence of such verbal compounds is to be expected, given that they are extremely common in root compounds.

To mention just a few

corporating the WFC makes far stronger claims about possible grammatical rules

examples, consider such words as pZain-cZothes man, three-card trick, four-

than a theory which does not.

argument to the effect that nontransformational theories compatible with the

coZour probZem, otd-age pension, oZd-paZs act, etc, Another example of that ilk is Roeper and Siegel's own concoction First Sister Principle. For s6me

WFC are inferior to their theory, we have a second reason to reject it.

more discussion, and some more examples, see section 1.7. above.

Since Roeper_ and Siegel have not offered any Note

that the arguments put forward so far are of a broadly theoretical nature; we have no.t yet argued that the theory does not work.

We will now consider some

It does not

make sense to explain these examples away by arguing that all of the adjective noun combinations are lexical compounds in reality, as Roeper and Siegel do for American history teacher, since the stress pattern is clearly phrasal,

cases where it makes false claims. First of all, recall the formulation of rule (4), repeated below:

with stress on the noun, whereas adjective-noun compounds, real ones, that is, have the stress on the adjective - cf. redhead, bl6akhird, hightight

(13) SubcategoPization Insertion. [elx

===>

versus American h1story, naturat Z6nguage etc. For more discussion of the status of the No Phrase Constraint, see the

[wordlx

discussion of Botha's theory in the next section (4.3,). According to this formulation, only words, not phrases, may be inserted in

(1979).

the position of the subcategorised maximal phrase, whose bar-level is lowered to zero at the same time.

However,. it is sometimes possible to have an ad-

Cf. also Carroll

Furthermore, it is unclear how a theory such as the one proposed by Roeper and Siegel would work for an SOV-language like Dutch,

Since the verb

jective-noun combination as the left hand member of a verbal compound,

is in final position in Dutch (dependent) clauses, all of its subcate-

instead of a simple noun.

gorised arguments are to its left.

(This fact, of course, contradicts the No Phrase

So the subcategorisation frame of a Dutch

Constraint, assumed by Roeper and Siegel, Aronoff, and Selkirk, as well as

verb has the form [W

many. other recent studies.)

follow the noun (except for adjectival phrases and determiners - if these are

tively rare, but

on~

Such examples, it must be admitted, are compara-

is already given by Roeper and Siegel themselves (their

fn, 12 on page 213), viz. American history teacher. (14)

One could add:

~],

However, in noun phrases, most of the arguments

to count as subcategorised elements, which seems doubtful),

For example:

boeken Zezen 'reading books' has the object preceding the verb, while in the corresponding noun phrase, we have the reversed order: Zezer van boeken

historical linguistics teacher

'reader of books',

metrical structure erasing

o~

Given the way Roeper and Siegel set up their system, all

these differences must be encoded in the lexical rule which inserts the

natural history teacher

affix -er,

natural language learner

dant, once it is known that the -er suffix creates nouns, since the subcate-

real time parsing

gorisation frame for lezer is not different from that of other types of nouns.

But surely the changes in the subcategorisation frame are redun-

In fact the rule given for English -er suffixation (cf, (4)ii above) is and so on. For a similar criticism of Roeper and Siegel's theory, cf. Bauer (1983: 163-165), who also offers the following lines:

already oversimplified, given that it does not reflect in any way the differences in structure, and hence, one would presume, in subcategorisation, between nominal and verbal phrases in English.

For example, one would assume

=113=

=112= that nouns, including the -er derivations created by rule (4)ii, are subcategorised for an optional relative clause. in this rule.

However, no such provision is made

If one were to make such a provision, it would lead to addi-

tional problems, since one might now try to insert a lexical item in the head

position of the relative clause (whatever that might be), thereby creating the possibility of new and uncalled for verbal compounds. we take relative clauses to be

rnernbe~s

For instance, if

3 of the category V (as suggested in

Jackendoff 1977), then we might insert a verb and derive, e.g., *runs-killer

(15) a, dik - lip - ig thick lip five

week -

c. bo

This constitutes sufficient evidence, I take it, that the analysis of verbal compounds advanced in Roeper and Siegel (1978) cannot be accepted as a basis for a more general theory of synthetic composition.

aff

11

someone/ something that is terribly bent 11

lyt - er 11

er

lion-biter 11

ery

sleep

ing

11

repeated/continual act of sleeping late 11

11

to re-indicate 11

aan - wys

re

In several recent 'publications, especially Botha (1980) and (1981), the

bent

f. laat - slaap

out

h. ge - bly

aff

- s

krom - e

bite

g. her -

4,3. Botha's phrasal analysis of synthetic composition.

-

terribly

late

five weekly 11

ground aff 1rabove-ground 11

d. vreeslik

lion

11

ly

gro~nd

above

e. leeu -

(cf, killer who runs) and similar junk.

"having thick lips"

ed

b. vyf - week - liks

stay

point 1~

lie

"repeated/continual act of not getting up?

According to Botha,

latter of which is a slightly revised version of some parts of the former, Botha has put forward an alternative theory of synthetic composition, which is designed to take care not only of the verbal compounds studied in Roeper and Siegel (1978), but also of denominal synthetic compounds.

"Synthetic compounds in various languages have conventionally been analyzed as morphologically complex words formed by means of affixation on the basis of "word groups1r, 11 syntactic phrases 11 , 11 syntactic constructions 11 or 11 syntagmas 11 , 11 (1981, P• 3)

In the following subsections, I will first consider Botha's theory, as well as some of his data, and then give an evaluation.

We have seen that this is not the whole truth,

At least Bloomfield, one of.

4.3.1. Outline of Botha's theory.

compounds from phrasal derivations, even though he did not present a motiva-

the most influential linguists of this century, distinguished synthetic tion of this distinction, 1

To see what Botha s theory of synthetic composition tries to achieve, it is useful to take a look at his data first.

His examples are drawn from

Most of the older writers do not even appear to

be aware of any distinction between ordinary compounds and synthetic compounds (e.g. Brugmann 1889), so the conventional wisdom Botha refers to,

Afrikaans, but most of them represent types that can be found in modern

which he is trying to rehabilitate in his paper, is not, in fact, a generally

Dutch as well - surely to nobody's surprise, given the close relationship

accepted opinion among traditional linguists,

between these two languages,

ing to see what the arguments are for the reduction of synthetic composition

All of the following formations exemplify types of synthetic compositioµ, according to Botha:

to phrasal derivation.

Nevertheless, it is interest-

If such a reduction would be possible, this would be

much more satisfactory than any analysis which deals with synthetic composition as a type of word-formation sui generis.

Botha calls his reductionist

approach to synthetic composition the "Base Rule Theory (of Afrikaans

=115=

=114=

synthetic compounding) 11 ,

thereby indicating that he does not necessarily

want to claim that his theory is correct for other languages as well.

How-

ever, since ·languages such as Afrikaans, Dutch, German, English and other

These deep structures differ from ordinary Afrikaans surf ace structure phrases in that they do not contain any inflectional elements or functional morphemes such as articles.

In cases where such elements are obligatory for

Indo-european languages have quite similar types of synthetic composition, we

surface phrases, the deep structures postulated by Botha necessarily differ

should not be satisfied with a theory that can account for only one of them,

from the attested surface structures.

To illustrate this point, Botha gives

So one should be free to judge Botha's theory for its merits for these other

the example Zeeu-byter.

languages as well as for its success in dealing with Afrikaans' synthetic

(18e) above,

composition.

the case only if the object noun phrase had a plural ending, or a determiner,

Botha starts his discussion with a number of fundamental claims:

The putative phrasal base of this word is given in

This is not a possible surface VP, however, since that would be

Botha wants to capture this state of affairs by postulating a general condition on the interaction of lexical structures with rules of syntax:

(16) The Deep Structure Hypothesis. Afrikaans synthetic compounds have as their bases syntactic deep

(19)

The Morphological Island Constraint. The individual constituents of the complex words formed by means

structures which are generated by independently motivated base rules.

of WFRs [= Word-Formation Rules, JH] lose the ability to interact with inflectional, derivational and syntactic processes.

(17)

The Affixation Hypothesis. The rules by means of which Afrikaans synthetic compounds are

To understand this constraint, one must bear in mind that Botha assumes that

formed on the basis of deep structure phrases are affixation rules

such elements as inflectional endings, articles and the like are not present

which (i) are also used for the formation of simple derived words,

in deep structure, but provided at a later stage by spelling rules.

and which (ii) apply in accordance with proper constraints.

rules are blocked in complex words, _since thes'e count as morphological islands.

These

We will return to this constraint in the following subsection,

In the case of the examples listed in (15), the syntactic deep structures

where we evaluate Botha's theory.

from which these' have been derived according to the deep structure hypothe-

affixation rule will have the same effects, as regards meaning, lexical Cate-

The Affixation Hypothesis claims that an

sis, are:

gorization and subcategorization, and allomorphy, in synthetic compounds as in the corresponding simple derived words,

(18) a. l[dik] A [lip]N]NP

b. I [vyf]Q [week] NJ NP

It is not claimed that every rule

of affixation can be used for both synthetic compounding· and derivation - the rules that can be employed for synthetic compounds as well as normal derivations form a proper subset of the set of affixation rules.

c.

[jbo]p [grond]NP]PP

d. [[vreeslik]Adv [krom]A]A e. ][leeu]NP [bytlvlvp f.

j(laat]Adv [slaap]V]VP

The second part of the Affixation Hypothesis refers to "proper constraints" on the application of affixation rules,

One of them is Botha's

version of Roeper and Siegel's First Sister Principle: (20) The Contiguity Constraint.

g. [[aan]Prt (wys]V]VP

The affixation rules involved in the formation of Afrikaans syn-

h. ([bly]Aux/V jl~lvlvp

thetic compounds can take as their bases only those deep structure phrases of which the head and peripheral constituent are both

=119=

=118=

The purely structural Contiguity Constraint should be supplemented by rulespecific conditions on thematic roles,

involved is not disclosed by Botha, so this is no more than a hint. The examples in (27) are interesting for another reason as well: they

Since Botha does not elaborate on

this matter and only gives a few examples, we will ignore it here. Botha goes on to show that the phrases that can be used as input for the affixation rules should not be too complex.

These phrases should consist

also refute the Morphological Island constraint, since they contain such syntactic function morphemes as articles and prepositions,

Inflectional

endings such as plural markers may also occur:

of nothing more than a head constituent and a peripheral constituent, the (28) a. tussen - leier - s - kies - ery

latter of which is subject to the following constraint:

between

leader

s

choose ing

b. antler - die - arme - s - verdeel

(26) The Complexity Constraint.

among

The peripheral constituent of an Afrikaans synthetic compound

the

c, tussen

cannot be syntactically complex, i.e. it cannot have internal

This constraint can account for the nonexistence of verbal compounds such as

distribute

s

vriend - e - tweedrag

between

constituent structure;

poor

friend

s

ery

dissension

ing

- saai - ery sow

ing

According to Botha, however, these examples are marginal, In the last part of his paper, Botha wonders whether some types of lex-

*good dark coffee maker, noted in Roeper and Siegel (1978), and its Afrikaans

ical structures, which traditionally have been analysed as synthetic com-

counterparts. The status of this constraint is rather unclear, however, since Botha

pounds, really belong to that category.

immediately starts to falsify it after its introduction, using some data col-

perfect or present particle as the righthand member, such as:

These types are structures with a

lected by De Villiers (1979), including: (29) a. wind - ge

(.27) a. agter - die behind

the

muur - rook - er wall

smoke

die

straat

sit - er

in

the

street

sit

late

in

ery

bed

get

ing

in front in the with

the

f, met - die with

the

c, fel -

er kom

d. voor - in - die e. met - die

long

die - bed the

hand hand

kerk

er

in - die

sak

in

hand

on

the pocket

the

dry

"wind-dried"

draw out

11

elonga te11

ge - haat hate

"fiercely hated 11

and

staan

ery

(30) a. tyd - roof -

stand

ing,

time

Bybel - sweer - ery Bible

ed

fierce ed

sit - er

church sit

hand - op - die

droog

ed

b. lang - ge - rek

er

b. in

c. laat - in

wind

swear

ing

Botha then proceeds to suggest that perhaps some nonlinguistic (i.e. per-

end

consume ing kl ink

end

sound

ing

c. laat - slaap

end

sleep

ing

b, soet sweet late

ceptual) factor is responsible for the ungrammaticality of complex verbal compounds,

However, the nature of the perceptual strategies that might be

The problem with the forms in (29) is, that they can only be derived by means

=120=

=121=

of infixation, if they are really synthetic compounds.

However, Afrikaans

does not have infixes otherwise, and ge- is generally a prefix, not an infix,

the No Phrase Constraint, we can still ask whether synthetic compounds should be analysed that way.

To put it differently, one would have expected to find ge-wind-droog, and

One of the main problems of Botha's Base Rule Theory of Afrikaans syn-

ge-lang-rek, instead of wind-gedroog and lang-gerek. Furthermore, the semantics of especially wind-gedroog is such, that a

structure) theory.

derivation from a phrase is quite unlikely.

makes it more difficult to refute the theory.

have been wind droog.

In this case, the phrase would

In this phrase, the element wind must have the gram-

matical function of subject (an interpretation as direct object being incorrect), and hence it violates the Contiguity Constraint,

thetic compounding is the very fact that it is a base rule (or rather: deep

source of the word leeu-byter

As Botha shows, this source,

(31) a. leeus byt

in the languages of the world), not on sentences.

lions bite

In

b. die leeu byt

addition, the input phrase would not even be grammatical, since it clearly

the lion bite

lacks a direct object, whereas the verb is transitive.

c. 'n leeu byt

In the case of the present particles in (30), no such arguments apply, however.

lion-biter'.

Consider, once again, the

the VP leeu byt, is not a possible surface VP of Afrikaans, unlike, e.g.:

phrases, or transitive verb phrases - cf, Keenan (1980) for a general discusrule~

1

It also violates a

general constraint on passive, viz. that it operates on predicates (e.g. verb sion of passive

This introduces the possibility of abstractness, and

a

lion bite

Therefore it is unclear to me why Botha included them with the

examples in (29).

Botha assumes that features such as definiteness or plurality are not spelt out in deep structure, hence the nonexistence of articles and plural endings in synthetic compounds,

4.3.2. Evaluation of Botha's theory.

However, in the cas,es which most dramatically argue

for a phrasal analysis, such as the ones in (28) above, articles and plural endings are present.

Furthermore, if definiteness and plurality are not

spelt out in deep structure, one would expect that the phrase leeu byt, which First of all, it should be noted that Botha has made some valid points:

underlies all of the VPs in (31), is multiply ambiguous, and that this ambi-

especially the existence of phrasal structure in complex words, which has

guity will show up in the interpretation of the synthetic compounds derived

been ruled out by lexical theories incorporating some version of the No

from it.

Phrase Constraint, as Botha calls it, has been established beyond any able doubt.

reason~

However, the existence of phrasal structure in lexical items

No such ambiguity, however, appears to be present.

Rather, syn-

thetic compounds are rather vague, not ambiguous, as regards their quantificational properties,

For instance, a lion-hunter might have hunted one lion

has been known to linguists for quite a long time - Bloomfield (1933), for

only, or many, or the lion (if there were only one lion around), or the lions,

instance, gives convincing examples from English (e.g. wild-animal house, a

etc.

compound, and old-maidish, a derivation).

fication in relational noun compounds,

Hence it is not clear to me why

the exclusion of syntactic constituents from lexical structures (as stipu-

Cf, also the discussion in section 3,4, of Moortgat's theory of quantiOne might add here, that phrasal derivations containing articles and

lated in Aronoff 1976) could have become a matter of debate in the first

plurality endings can be found in DutC.h as well.

place, or why some linguists still adhere to this doctrine (e.g. Selkirk,

no difference with Afrikaans, except perhaps in the number of examples that

whom we will discuss in the next section),

can be provided,

However, while granting that the analysis of synthetic compounds as phrasal derivations cannot be ruled out on the ground that this goes against

Consider for example:

In this respect, there is

=122=

=123=

(32) a. laag - bij - de - grand - s low

b. door -

at

the

ground

not a kind of dog), following the nonhead part dog.

aff

"vulgar, coarse''

the - week - s

through the

week

formedness Constraint and does not differ in this respect from Roeper and

aff

on working days 11

"week-daily

c. geld - over - de - balk - smijt - erij

money

over

the

strut

d. kat - uit - de - boom cat

out

the

throw

11

ing

waste of money"

kijk - erig

watch

tree

aff

the

bomb

er

Siegel's

lexical transformation

account,

The deep structures postulated by Botha are not only incompatible with the WFC, but also unmotivated, since Botha does not give any independent

11

heedful 11

argument for the absence of functional morphemes in deep structure.

There-

fore the deep structure hypothesis is no more than an empty claim at present, 11

nucl~ar

pacifist''

As regards Botha's Affixation Hypothesis, this seems to be correct, but it still is in need of explanation,

Another problem with Botha's Base Rule Theory is the fact that it does not seem to work for English,

this must count as another draw-

back of the Base Rule Theory.

e. ban - de - born - er

ban

Botha's deep structure theory is not compatible with Partee's Well-

Although Botha motivates his theory only for

Why aren 1 t there some affixes that

are used solely for the purpose of forming synthetic compounds?

Again, this

would seem to follow inunediately from the alternative assumption, viz, that

Afrikaans synthetic composition, it should be accepted only in case it can

synthetic compounds in fact are compounds, with a derivational right hand

be extended without problems to languages which have similar types of syn-

member.

thetic composition.

English, of course, is such a language.

However, Botha's

theory can be made to work only if lexical transformations, of the kind pro-

The more specific claim which Botha derives from the Affixation Hypothesis, to wit, that

pdsed by Roeper and Siegel, are introduced, since English base structures have the order Verb - Object, while English synthetic compounds incorporate the object in preverbal position.

This fact is hard to explain in Botha's

theory, since that theory predicts that the order of the constituents of the VP is reflected by their order in verbal compounds,

This rather obvious fact

is ignored by Botha, who claims that his theory is superior to the theories of Allen (1978) and Roeper and Siegel (1978).

The English facts strongly sug-

gest that the close similarities between Afrikaans verb phrases and verbal compounds as regards the order of their elements, is accidental, rather than a direct consequence of the nature of verbal compounds.

On the other hand,

if it is accepted that synthetic compounds are a subspecies of the class of compounds, and not phrasal derivations, the similarities between English and Afrikaans (or Dutch) verbal compounds, in spite of the different word order in phrases, is to be expected: since the element containing the affix is the head, that element is predicted to be in the right most position, because that is a general property of compounds in Afrikaans as well as English. Hence the fact that dog-owner is not own-dog-er in English is hard to explain in Botha 1 s theory, but quite straightforward if we assume tbat it is a compound - since ocuner then must be the head (a dog-owner being a kind of owner,

11 An affixation rule will have exactly the same effect, as regards meaning, lexical categorization and subcategorization, and allomorphy, on synthetic compounds as on simple derived words. 11 (19_80: 86)

is not correct without further qualification,

It cert.ainly is not true that

aoffee-drinker has the same subcategorisation properties as drinker, its simple derived counterpart, since we can say drinker of tea but not *aoffeedrinker of tea. This difference, of course, was one of the facts Roeper and Siegel tried to account for in their paper. On the other hand, coffeedrinker does have the same properties of subcategorisation as -er derivations from instransitive verbs - and quite naturally so, since coffee drink, the phrase which underlies, in Botha's account, aoffee-drinker, can be seen as a complex intransitive verb phrase. The 'proper constraints' referred to in the second part of the Affixation Hypothesis are all rather problematic. Constraint.

Consider first the Contiguity

According to this constraint, all VP-external elements, such as

subjects and sentential adverbs, are excluded from verbal compounds. the examples given by Botha are not very convincing.

The exclusion of

However,

=125=

=124=

subjects from -er derivations is easily accounted for by the semantics of -er derivation.

In a nutshell, the -er suffix suppresses the subject argument.

For instance, worker can be paraphrased as 'one who works

1

•

Hence the para-

phrase of *John-worker would be 'one who works John', which does not make sense, since

work is intran~itive,

In other derivations, such as

-ing

The non-occurrence of sentential adverbs in verbal compounds is most probably not due to the Contiguity Constraint either. sentence, including VP-internal positions. for Afrikaans.

adverbs,

earth

"earth-quake

ing

b. ambtenaren civil servants c. grand ground

staak

ing

strike

ing

verzak

ing

slide

ing

syntactic or semantic features of the structure, but rather by pragmatic

11

aspects, such as focus and presupposition (given and new, in another termi"civil-servants strike!!

ing

change

sound

11

rise

ing

ing

g. temperatuur - schommel fluctuate

temperature

and probably

superior explanation of the exclusion of sentential adverbs from verbal compounds.

"sound change"

In sum, the Contiguity Constraint is a spurious generalisation,

directly falsified by the Dutch examples in (33) and (34), and not needed for 11

the purpose of ruling out sentential adverbs from verbal compounds.

cost increase"

Another one of the 'proper constraints' invoked by Botha is the Complex-

f. maag - bleed - ing

stomach bleed

More precisely, sentential adverbs are sensitive to a focussed ele-

tion do not play a role in the lexicon, we have an independent

land-slide 11

e, kosten - stijg - ing

costs

nology).

ment to which they are linked; since notions such as focus and presupposi-

verander - ing

d, klank

According to Verhagen's reasoning, which I find quite plausible,

the position of sentential adverbs in phrase structure is not determined by

ing

quake

Very likely, the same is true

But if that is the case, then it is hard to see how the Con-

tiguity Constraint can rule out verbal compounds incorporating sentential

derivations in Dutch, subjects do indeed occur:

(33) a, aard - beev -

As Verhagen (1979)

has argued, Dutch sentential adverbs can be generated almost anywhere in the

"stomach bleeding

11

This constraint, however, is questioned by Botha himself,

since there are quite a number of counterexamples to it in Afrikaans, and,

ing

ing

fty Constraint.

"temperature fluctuation 11

moreover, since there might be an extralinguistic explanation for the phenomena at hand, viz, some

For some more examples, cf. Moortgat (1983a), and Hoekstra (19~4: 258), Other examples of subject-incorporation in verbal compounds, not involving the suffix -ing, but Ablaut, zero-derivation or ge-prefixation are:

1

pracessing strategy',

It seems ta me, that neither

the Complexity Constraint, nor the alternative explanation is on the right track,

The Complexity Constraint, which simply rules out all internal struc-

ture for the peripheral element of synthetic compounds, is too insensitive. In some cases, complex peripheral elements are quite allright, in other

(34) a. bliksem lightning b. kinder

inslag

cases they are not.

stroke

which complex structures are impossible and which ones are allowed.

- gezang

children

chant

c. regen - val rain d. trompet

This is

to be preferred over the alternative proposal, which does not hold any water, First of all, the processing strategy in question is not specified, so the proposal is a mere speculation.

But even as a speculation, it is not very

fall

promising, given that the structures to be ruled out are often less complex

~

than possible lexical items such as the ones in (27), and given_ that some

geschal

trumpet - sounding e. orgel - spel organ

A more correct version of this constraint should specify

play

languages, notably those of the polysynthetic type, are known to have extremely complex word structures, apparently without causing severe trouble to the processing mechanism.

=127=

=126=

(37) Allen-Meijs-Selkirk structures.

The equally unsatisfactory status of the Morphological Island Constraint has already been pointed out.

~ummarising,

by Botha can bear close examination.

none of the constraints proposed

(a)

N

~ /~Aff v I erI deal dope

The Base Ruie Theory of synthetic com-

position is not, in its present state, in a position to give a descriptively

N

and explanatorily adequate account of the properties of synthetic composition.

(b)

A

/~A

N

A

0

N

dark

Aff

I

hair

I

ed

4.4. The Allen-Meijs-Selkirk account of synthetic composition. The main problem for the authors who espouse the structures in (37), is to The third .theory of synthetic composition that we are going to consider in this chapter is probably the one which is currently most popular.

This

theory has been advanced, with certain minor differences, by several lin-

account for the interpretation of synthetic compounds, because, as Botha has emphasised, it is not identical to the interpretation of ordinary compounds, in particular not that of root N+N compounds.

guists, including Allen (1978), Meijs (1980) and Selkirk (1981, 1982), The main claim of these authors is, that synthetic compounds have the structure of ordinary compounds,

In contrast to Botha, who assmnes that the

structure of synthetic compounds as dope d@aler and dark-haired is as indi-

I will not deal with Allen's proposals here (cf, Botha 1980, and Meijs

1980 for some discussion), nor will I deal with the proposals of Moortgat (l983a,b) in this section, tion,

The latter will be considered in the next sec-

Meij s mentions as one of his main, arguments in favour of the struc-

cated in the diagrams in (36), they believe it is preferable to assign these

tures in (38) the problem which is caused by the existence of synthetic com-

words the structures in (37) below.

pounds such as breedgeschouderd 'broad-shouldered' in Dutch, which, if they were to be derived from a syntactic phrase, would force one to assume that

(36)

Botha-structures (a)

A A

NP

V

I

I

dope

deal

ge- is in fact an infix, instead of a prefix - which it normally is. (b)

er

A

N~d

/~N A

I dark

I

hair

This

argument has already been considered by Botha in connection with perfect participle compounds (cf, section 4.3.1 above_) - but this particular type, in which the right hand members are not past partiGiples but so-called pseudoparticiples derived from nouns, is more damaging ti:o his theory, since it is much harder in this case to argue that the examples in question differ from other synthetic compounds.

Examples such as Afrikaans zongedroog can be dis-

missed as synthetic compounds within Botha's theory since they cannot be derived from their putative phrasal base zon droog.

In the case of Dutch

breedgeschoudered, however, there is no reason, within Botha's theory, why this expression could not be derived from the phrase breed schouder, 7his argument is quite interesting, since it cannot be made for synthetic composition in English - Dutch ge- being one of the very few prefixes involved in synthetic composition.

Even more interestingly, the argument can-

not be based on Afrikaans either, since, as

Botha's examples make clear,

this type of synthetic composition behaves differently in Afrikaans, where

=129=

=128= l 0

ge- introduces the whole synthetic compound, witness for instance

composition is not a unified phenomenon, but a mixture of morphological cesses, including composition and phrasal derivation.

rooi

das

ed

red

tie

b. ge

wit

(38) a. ge

shirt

"red-tied

Meij s and Selkirk - emphasising their views on the semantic interpretation .bf

wearing a red tie 11

synthetic compounds. 1

'white-shirted

wearing a white shirt" 4.4.1. Meijs' theory.

c. ge - swart - rnanel

black

ed

After this initial

discussion, we will take a closer look at the specifics of the proposals by

- hemp

white

ed

pro~

frock-coat

11

wearing a black frock-coat 11

In Meijs (1980), it is proposed to make the distinction between item-

In fact, these Afrikaans examples are straightforward cases of phrasal derivation, since the prefix ge- is not attached to adjectives in general,

familiar and type-familia:r words, which corresponds to our distinction between the actual and the potential lexicon, crucial in the interpretation of lexical structures,

which rules out the possible structure

According to Meijs, item-familiar words are interpreted

as units, whereas type-familiar words, that is possible, but not 'existing', or actual, words, are interpreted by analysing them in their item-familiar

A

(39)

/~N

parts. Now consider a typical synthetic compound, such as loslippig 'loose-

A

~A I rooi I ge

lipped =having a loose tongue',

The adjective las

1

loose 1 cannot be ap-

plied to the right hand element lippig 'lipped', since that is not an item-

Aff

familiar word.

Hence it must be applied to the only item-familiar part of

lippig~ viz.

lip, after which the interpretation of the affix is applied to the result of semantically combining las with lip, and the interpretation

das

which is also ruled out by the fact that A-N combinations are nouns, not adjectives in Afrikaans, and leaves room only for the Botha structure

'having a loose lip' is derived. This procedure, of course, is not strictly compositional, since the semantic structure arrived at is different from the syntactic structure postulated,

A

(40)

For Meijs 1 theory to work, it must be assumed that every synthetic com-

/~N'

pound has a member which is not an existing, item-familiar, word.

Aff

~

A

ge

rooi

as we have seen in section 4.1., this need not be the case, lippig~

N

Meijs dismisses such counterexamples as irrelevant, since he

assumes that the word 'harig in roodharig is not the same word or item as ha:t>ig as a simple derivation. He argues for this, at first blush patently ad

We see here that the same constructional type ("extended bahuvrihis", in the

terminology of Marchand (1969))can be used to argue for a compound analysis in Dutch and for a phrasal derivation analysis in Afrikaans.

we have roodharig 'red-haired', containing an item-familiar word,

"ha.rig 'hairy'.

I das

However,

Alongside of los-

The suggestion

emanating from this confusing state of affairs is clearly, that synthetic

hoc, move by pointing out that whenever simple derivations have lexicalised idiosyncratic meanings, this is not true for the corresponding synthetic compound.

=131=

=130=

For example, harig

1

hairy' does not just mean 'having hair', but rather

'having lots of hair' - whereas roodlzarig means 'having red-hair', without any implication as to the amount of red hair.

Even more striking is the dif-

The fourth problem is related to, the third one: not only productive rules of affixation which do not partake in synthetic composition are problematic, but also types of synthetic composition which do not correspond to

ference between the completely idiosyncratic derivation handig 'handy' and

productive rules for simple derivations,

the related synthetic compound vierhandig 'having four hands'.

sented by complex nouns such as· driewieler 'three-wheeler', tweevoeter 'two-

In the same vein, the noun houding 'demeanour, posture', derived from the verb houden 'to hold, to keep', is idiosyncratic in a way not reflected secrecy 1 • In English, by the verbal compound geheimhouding 'secret-keeping the adjective winning, as in e.g. a winning smile, has a specialised meaning,

In this connection, the type repre-

footer', and driemaster 'three-master' is relevant, since -er is not suffixed to nouns otherwise.

13

These four problems constitute sufficient evidence, I take it, that Meijs 1 theory is not satisfactory for our purposes,

'attractive', which is not present in_ corresponding verbal compounds such as 4.4.3, Selkirk's theory.

prize-winning. 4.4.2. Discussion of Meijs' theory.

Selkirk (1981, 1982 chapter 2) advocates a phrase structure approach to

11

composition. The theory proposed by Meijs encounters a number of conceptual problems.

In section 3.2. above we have already briefly considered

Selkirk's ideas,

One of th e goa1 s o f h er proposal is to give a unified

First of all, the interpretation procedure sketched above is not composi-

account of composition and synthetic composition,

tional in the technical sense of section 2.4. above.

Selkirk is not concerned with denominal synthetic compounds.

Against the background

of our discussion of compositionality in chapter 2, this is a rather unfortunate state of affairs.

It would be preferable if the theory could be

As a matter of fact,

To distinguish verbal compounds from root compounds, the following rule is introduced:

reformulated in such a way as to become compositional, Secondly, I do not see sufficient grounds for allotting the item-

(41) Grarrona.tical functions in compounds. (Selkirk 1982: 32)

familiar versus type-familiar distinction a special role in the semantic

Optionally, in compounds, (i) a nonhead noun may be assigned any

interpretation of lexical structures, since it does not appear to be relevant

of the grammatical functions assigned to nominal constituents in

for other constructional types than synthetic composition.

syntactic structure, and (ii) a nonhead adjective may be as.Signed

For instance, it

does not have any import for the interpretation of syntactic phrases.

12

Thirdly, the procedure proposed by Meijs is too general, since it pre-

any of the grarilmatical functions assigned to adjectival constituents in syntactic structure.

dicts that every productive rule of af fixation can be used for the purpose of forming synthetic compounds.

However, as Botha (1980) has argued for

Afrikaans, and I will claim-for Dutch, English and German, this is not the case.

Consider for instance Dutch -heid derivations, or English -ness

derivations.

These do not occur in synthetic compounds: *zeer-rtat-heid or

its English equivalent *very-wet-ness.

Parallel to Botha's (1981: 21)

Afrikaans examples', we have slaap 'sleep', and verslaap 'oversleep' in Dutch, but not *verlaatslaap corresponding· to the phrase laat slaap 'sleep late', etc.

The same is true, mutatis mutandis, for German.

Neither do we find the

word *Zaatverslaap, which can be generated and interpreted in Meijs' system.

To motivate this rule, Selkirk notes a difference between tree-eater and

tree-devou:r>er.

The first word is ambiguous, since it can either mean,

one who eats trees', or 'someone who eats in trees',

t

some-

The second word, on the

other hand, is unambiguous and can only mean 'someone who devours trees'. Related to this difference is the difference i n t ransi·t·iv i ty b etween eat and

devou:r>: the direct object of eat is optional, that of devour obligatory. transitivity of the verbs is inherited by the -er and -ing derivations:

The

=132=

rules specify this.

(42) a. Mary is an avid eater of pasta.

To constrain the possibilities, Selkirk pro-

the following condition:

b. Mary is an avid eater, c. Mary is an avid devourer of pasta.

(45) The First Order Projection Condition.

d, *Mary is an avid devourer.

All non-subject arguments of a lexical category Xi must be satisfied within the first order projection of xi.

The application of non-application of rule (41) provides us with two possible

structures for N+N compounds, including verbal ones: (46)

b.

N

(43) a.

N

~

The first order projection (FOP) of a category

N

N

N

/~

Definition.

i: l

is the category

~ that immediately dominates Xn in syntactic representation (i.e. in either S-syntactic or W-syntactic structure).

N

(No F)

(=OBJ)

is here word-syntax, S-syntax sentence-syntax.) According to Selkirk, this condition excludes verbal compounds where a

where F denotes a grammatical function.

is incorporated, for example:

The subscript (=OBJ) is an ad hoc notational device of Selkirk's.

A more

rigorous notation is provided in Kaplan and Bresnan (1982), where the basic

(47) a. *The hours for [girl swimming} at this pool are quite restricted,

notions of Lexical Functional Granunar, the theory Selkirk is assuming, are

b. *There's been a lot of [weather changing} around here lately.

introduced. The idea behind the diagrams in (43) is rather simple,

c, *[Kid eating] makes such a mess.

deVOUI'

A verb such as I do not see how the exclusion

is excluded from (43b), but can appear in the structure (43a), since

only that structure provides an OBJ for the verb,

Eat, on the other hand,

does not need an OBJ, so it can appear in both structures. The grammatical functions, e.g. SUBJ, OBJ, etc., are specified for each verb in its predicate argument structure.

Note, furthermore, that the entire generalisation is spurious, at for Dutch, as we have seen in section 4.3,2, in connection with Botha's Constraint.

Here is an example of such a strucit.

ture, in Selkirk's notation:

of (47a-c) follows from the

It would only follow if the first word, all, is replaced by all and

English examples like earth-quake also militate

l 5

Another observation made by Selkirk is that all non-subject arguments of (44)

(SUBJ)

ha,nd: ( Agent,

(OBJ)

(TO OBJ)

Theme,

I Goal

This matrix stipulates that the verb to hand has three arguments, with the

head of a compound must be satisfied within the compound immediately the head.

This excludes, e.g., the phrase *tree-eating of pasta,

of the following expressions: (48) a. *toy handing to babies

thematic relations Agent, Theme and Goal, which are expressed by the subject,

b. *boot putting on the table

the object and the object of to, respectively.

c. *book giving to children

all annotated on the phrase structure rules.

The grammatical functions are In principle, any position in

a tree can be associated with a given grammatical function, if the phrase

=135=

=134= (49) a.

~{baby

(51) a, breek

toy handing

break

b. *table boot putting

b. drink

c. *children book giving

-

ijzer iron

1

crow bar'

water

drink - water

'drinking water'

c, eet - lepel

This generalisation follows from condition (45), but, regretably, there are

eat

also counter-examples, which Selkirk could have found in the paper she criti-

-

d. lees

cises, Roeper and Siegel (1978):

spoon

-

'table spoon 1

boek

read - book

'fiction book'

e, schrij f - papier

(SO) a. car racing on highways

write

b. hand-made by Indians

paper

'writing paper 1

c. slave-built in factories However, corresponding verbal compounds do not exist, 17

In oth'er words,

(Other examples will be given in chapter 5)

there are no compounds of the type *schrijf-beginner 'write-beginller ~ some-

Note that it would not help to .. Cl"ilim that the PPs in (50) are modifiers, in-

one who starts to write'.

Consequently, the theory advanced by Selkirk is

stead of arguments, for modifiers must be treated just like arguments in Sel-

encumbered with the same type of problems as the theory of Roeper and Siegel:

kirk' 8 model, if one wants to deal with verbal' compounds such as highway

it predicts verbal compounds which do not exist,

raoing, Indian-made or factory..:.bui"7,,t.

1

1i

So t;he First Order Projection Condi-

To be sure, Selkirk's

theory makes better predictions, but it is still not descriptively adequate, What is worse, the illformedness of cases like Dutch *schrijf-beginner may

tion is probably too strong.

well be related to the ungrammaticality of English *go-starting, given that these expressions differ only in the affix,

4.4.4. Discussion of Selkirk's theory.

But if that is t,he case, then

the explanation of the illformedness of the English example suggested by The central part of Selkirk's theory consists Of. two claims: (1) syn-

Selkirk is probably spurious, since it does not work for· the Dutch example,

thetic compounds are generated by the same rules that generate ordinary com-

Furthermore, the nonexistencB; of English *go.;.starter is al.so unexplained in

pounds, and (2) the interpretation of verbal compo~nds is·mediated by the

Selkirk's theory, as Botha (1983': 10 ff,)· notes, since English, as well as

optional rule for assigning granunatical functions to the nonhead member. To motivate claim (1), Selkirk mentions the nonexistence of formations

Dutch, has [V N] compounds: swear ~ord, s~rub woman, rattle snake, etc, Botha further notes that English has [Adv'N] verbal compounds, e.g. fast-

such as go-st

NP NP

B

c

Case Assignment Rule IV. N

NP NP[by]

The features assigned by these rules are spelt out as prepositions in nomin(composition)

D

alisations such as the explosion of hydrogen gas, the selection of a woman by

the Democratic candidate and so on, (For t h e last example, we must use the It is not difficult to see that if we assume category assignment schemata of the form in (22) for all functor expressions, we have a system which is equi-

rule of PP-exchange as well.) Next, we specify the ordering properti'es of re 1 ational · nouns. For this, the following word order convention is proposed:

valent to a grammar which incorporates generalised composition as a syntactic rule. However, we need not do so, for there are expressions which do not seem

(29)

to have the possibilities of combination that composition rules would predict,

Word Order Convention III.

x

such as affixes which do not partake in synthetic compounding. Such affixes

y

->

X/Y if Xis reducible to N, and Y is NP ors.

will not be assigned schemata of the same type and generality as (22). This feature provides the present system with more descriptive freedom, but apart

This convention applies t o b o th Eng l'is h an d Dutch expressions. A few examples:

from it, the two mechanisms, composition and category assignment schemata, (30) a.

are equivalent. The comparison of the present account with Moortgat's work is somewhat

N

b.

NP[of]

c.

NPT01T

complicated by the fact that Moortgat does not state the composition rule in the syntax of his system, but rather in the semantics (the syntax is formul-

N

S [that]

ated in generalised phrase structure terms). To make a direct comparison, I

N

-->

N/S[that]

-->

N/NP[of]

-

·>

(N/NP[of])/NP[by]

NP[by]

have translated Moortgat's ideas into the categorial model. Note that in a GPSG syntax the behaviour of nontransparent affixes could well be dealt with

The categories in (30) are assigned to announcement in the following eXamples:

by making some affix-particular stipulations about percolation of subcategorisation features 1 or some similar device, since the combinatory possibili-

(31) a, announcement that John died

ties are not completely governed by the semantic type of the expressions.

b, announcement of the victory

Given that affix-particul.~1.r stipulations will have to be made anyway-, this

c. annnouncement by the vicar of the marriage

would be a sensible alternative to the present treatment. Let us now introduce some additional case assignment rules for arguments

A nominalisation does not have to have as many arguments as the verbai base

of nouns:

For instance, besides the 'complete' nominalisation the destruction of Rome,

by the Spaniards, which specifies both the subject and the object arguments (27)

Case Assif!l1"'ent Rule III. N

N

NP"

NP[of]

of the v~rb, we may also have the destruction of Rome and the destruction by

the

Span~ards, and even just

the destruction. The most straightforward way to

deal with this fr ee suppression of arguments is to introduce the following reduet ion rule:

=163=

=162=

However, these rules have to be revised a little bit in order to accommodate

(32) Argument Reduction of Relational Nouns. N

-->

lx

relational nouns with more than one argument, as in:

N

$

(34)

police protection

Note that this rule is not limited to the reduction of NP-arguments. Other arguments, notably 8-arguments, may be omitted as well, cf. his suggestion

that We split the loot and his suggestion.

12

,

13

politiebescherming tegen

(35)

Mafia

against the Mafia

misdaadbestrijding door de crime

The interpretation of the argument reduction rt.ile can be stated in the

de

fighting

by

politie

the police

terms of our discussion in section 5.2.1. We have to be careful, however, because we are no longer dealing with verbs here, but nominal interpretations.

A

relational noun can be interpreted as a function from. an n-tuple of appro-

priate arguments into noun denotations, that is, into predicates. But then there is also a relation Rn+l which holds of A •• An+l just in case the func1 f, sends A1 .. An to a predi-

tion interpreting the relational noun, call it

cate that holds of An+l" This relation may not be generated by a first order relation in all cases, since it is possible that some of the arguments are propositions or other n?n-individuals. We may, however, consider a relation

These examples show that both subjects and direct objects of relational nouns can be incorporated.

Example (34) , b Y th e way, i s a f urt h er counterexample to

Selkirk's First Order Projection Principle (cf. section 4,4,3.), since the nonsubject argument is satisfied outside the compound structure. Also, we must remove a redundancy from the rule of specifier formation, since the directionality of the specifier (a right-looking functor) already follows from Word Order Convention III-, if we extend this to cover cases where

Y is reducible to N.

So I propose the following revised version:

such that every quantifier argument of the former relation is replaced by an individual argument. Again, we will postulate that every relation of the former type is "generatedu by one of th€. latter type in the manner of definition ( 6 ) , provided we make some necessary technical adjustments, l

lational that noun.

f'

noun and

Let

f

Specifier Formation for Relational Nouns x

+

(Revised)

N N

ti.

$

For a formal statement of the interpretation of argument reduction we need a few terminological conventions.

(36)

denote the interpretation of the re-

f(23) (x)

+

N

$ NP[@]

denote the interpretation of the reduced version of

The function

f

is uniquely associated with a relation

holds of A •• An B, just in case f(A ) •. (An) holds of B. 1 1 another relation Rf.

Rf

Rf

which

is generated by

*

From rule (36) one could easily get the impression that only nouns are incorporated in relational noun compounds.

H~wever,

we know from (5) above

that in -ing nominalisations, adjectives car. be incorporated as well.

Now

we could state a new rule of specifier formation for adjectives, but that is (33)

Interpretation of Argument Reduction

in fact unnecessary, since the rules adopted so far turn out to be sufficient

Rf*

for an analysis of the type of compound listed in (5 II).

=the relation that holds A2 •• An+l for some A1 •

such as warden 'become'. This, in turn, uniquely specifies the value off'. The application of the present account of nominalisations to synthetic compounding is quite straightforward.

The rules generate relational nouns

and following the analysis of Moortgat (1983a,b), we may employ the same rules which deal with relational noun compounds to analyse compounded nominalisations.

Consider a verb

We may assume t h at one o f its categories is

A"- (NP ".S), since it is combined with adjectives to form verb phrases.

If we

add ing to it, then, by the category assignment scheme for -ing, the resultant category will be as indicated below:

--- -

=165~

=164=

they did, that would make the entire distinction between arguments and modi-

-ing

word

(37)

~p

s J:l.P_ A

I \

fiers senseless,

To be sure, there are theories which claim exactly this,

notably the categorial grammar calculus of Lambek (1958), which freely allows

!!_ ____B!'___

function-argument interchange.

A

It is possible to provide a straightfortvard

modeltheoretic semantics for this system (cf. van Benthem 1983).

I take it,

however, that there is sufficient motivation for retaining the distinction cf. Keenan (1979) for linguistic evidence for the functor-argument distincN

tion,

NP

-A-

The fact. that our theory does not allow the incorporation of modifiers immediately accounts for the impossibility of adverb incorporation in Dutch

The derived word wording is combined with an adjective to its left, according

-ing nominalisations.

to the following rule:

synthetic composition where we do find adverb incorporation.

It is less successful, of course, in other types of It will be

necessary to treat these cases in an entirely different manner - see the next (38)

section,

Word Grider Convention IV

x A

+

A "'.X, if X is reducible to N.

e well-motivated, since it correctly This convention, by the way, appears to b predicts that affixes of the category

N

A are

suffixed.

Note that after addiilg the adjective, we get a relational noun, so fur-

ther arguments cou ld b e a dd e d • (39) a. de

Th1·s i·s a correct result,

volwassenwording

the adult

cf.

Agentives.

In this section, we will consider synthetic compounds of the· dog owner_, word processor_, wind generator, etc. type, i;e. compounds consisting of an incorporated element, usually, but not always, a noun, a verbal stem, and an

van haar kinderen

becoming of

he.r

children

rtthe coming of age of her children'!

b. de

5.2.5.

15

overwinning door de vijand the enemy by the victory

bekendmaking van de

the known-making of "the enemy's announcement of the victory"

affix, usually either -er, or one of its latinate competitors, -or and -ator. All of these have in common that their subject argument is already bound by the affix; in other words, it is impossible to incorporate a subject argument in these cases.

This is not due, of course, to a general prohibition of

subject incorporation, as Botha and Selkirk have suggested, but rather to the semantic properties of the agentive suffixes in question. It appears that for agentive compounds the same analysis can be proposed

Note also that (39b) is a further counterexample to Selkirk's First Order

as for the compounded nominalisations in the preceding section.

The only

thing which we must specify here is the category of the agentive suffixes. Projection Condition. I like to end this discussion of compounded nominalisation with a short remark about modifiers.

For this, the following assignment is proposed:

The present analysis does not allow the incorpora-

tion of modifiers, because incorporation, as we have seen, is viewed here as Modifiers, however, the filling of an argument o f a re 1 a ti ona1 ex p ression • do not give rise to relational expressions taking them as arguments, for if

(40)

-er, -or

~

"'

~166~

=167=

There 'are also cases of incorporated adjectival arguments, parallel to what we encountered in, the case of nominalisations,

( 42) a. zoekers

Such compounds, e.g. Schoon-

maker 'clean-maker= cleaner', are treated in the same way as the correspond-

listeners

Let us now consider incorporated adverbial elements, which are inter-

preted as modifiers of the verbal stem.

-

b. alleen - beers

rule

er

11

er

field glasses"

'Let us assume now that the synthetic compounds in (41) are generated or

g. hard fast

-

accepted by the same rules which introduce A+N compounds such as blackboard.

er

-

"nudist"

Some additional meaning postulates will make sure that the correct interpre-

er

tations are arrived at.

er

"sweet talker"

For the introduction of A+N compounds, we have rule (Sb) of section 3.2,

zeil - er sail

In our system, this means that the sisters of the ad-

verbs have been subject to the operation of argument reduction (rule (32)

er

walk

talk

criminals

above).

e. naakt - loop - er

nice

op oorlogsmisdadigers

compounds in (41) are in fact attached to elements of the category N, and not to relational nouns.

d. laat - kom - er

f. mooi - praat

hunter of war criminals"

Hengelo

These facts strongly suggest that the adverbial elements incorporated in the

"dictator, autocrat"

er

watch

naked

11

our program

hunter at war

c. verre - kijk - er

come

seekers of truth''

er

dry

late

to

travelers to d. jager

far

11

c. reizigers naar Hengelo

Here are a few Dutch examples:

(41) a. snel - droog - er

alone

truth

b. luisteraars naar ons programma

ing nominalisations.

fast

naar waarheid

searchers to

at our disposal, which I repeat below as (43):

er (43) Specifier Formation.

Such examples are not very numerous in my material, although a few adverbs occur relatively often, such as snel 'fast, quick'.

x x

Interestingly, it appears

+

+

A N/N

that these compounds are different from relational noun compounds in one important -respect: they do not, in general, allow inheritance of arguments.

Note, by the way, that it is not possible to remove the specification of di-

For example, it is odd to say laatkomer naar het feest 'late-comer to the

rectionality in the output category, since we must allow for N"-.N elements as

party', or mooiprater over politiek 'sweettalker about politics

well, such as the feminine suffixes -ess in English, and -es, -in, -se in

verrekijker naar de sterren, lit.

1

far-looker at the stars'.

1

,

or

There are excep-

Dutch.

Hence it is not possible to relegate the specification of the

result~

tions to this rule, if it is one, such as alleenheerser over de onderwereld

ant category as a right-looking functor to a general word order convention.

Note further that -er derivations do not

For the interpretation of A+N compounds, no special rules have to be intro-

'single ruler of the underworld'.

generally disallow inheritance of complements, as- the following examples,

duced.

taken from Sassen (1980: 150), will show:

as A+N phrases.

I will assume here that A+N compounds are interpreted in the same way All differences in meaning between phrasal combinations and

compounds are due to

lexicalisation,

For example, there is a well known

difference between blackbroad and black board.

The former, but not the latter,

=169=

is a school utens±1,

which does not have to be black (there are also green

intersection with the set of male objects.

This difference is

For gradable adjectives such as big, an interpretation along these lines

not systematic, or predictable by rule, but an idiosyncratic property of the

is not satisfactory, since bigness, unlike masculinity, is dependent upon the

ones), whereas any board that is black is a black board. compound in question,

Note that phrases may also undergo semantic speciali-

sation - witness the many idiomatic expressions consisting of an adjective and a noun (e.g. brown sugar for heroin, or blauwe boon in Dutch, lit. 'blue bean bullit').

The fact that A+N compounds almost always have specialised inter-

pretations is simply due to the competition of corresponding phrases: if the meaning of the compounds were to be strictly regular, there would be no spe-

class of objects under consideration.

For instance, a big flea is not simply

a member of the intersection of the set of fleas with the set of big individuals.

In a general context, this

intersection might well be empty,

might admit the existence of big fleas.

yet one

A big flea is just a flea which is

big for a flea, i.e. when the comparison class is the set of fleas. Relative adjectives, such as good, are context-dependent in still another

cial need to list them in the actual lexicon, since the phrases would be suf-

way: e.g. a good doctor is not just good, nor is he good for a doctor, but

ficient then.

rather it is someone who is good as a doctor.

Consequently there is a strong pressure towards specialisation

In fact, the relevant parameter

may be narrowed down even further, as in He is a good doctor when it comes to

in this area. The general drift of this specialisation is not a matter on which a semantic theory is likely to shed light.

For example, a blackboard might

sending bills. Adjectives like beautiful are ambiguous on Siegel 1 s account between a

just as well have acquired the meaning 'black board used for a darkroom', or

reading as a measure adjective and one as a relative adjective.

something similar, and its present interpretation is a matter of coincidence

phrase beautiful dancer is ambiguous between the reading 'beautiful for a

from our point of view.

dancer' and the reading 'beautiful as a dancer'.

In the case of A+N compounds where N is a deverbal noun, the interpretation is not that of the adjective applied to the noun, but rather applied to

So the

The latter reading is equiva-

lent, or should be equivalent, to 'someone who dances beautifully.'

I state

as a meaning postulate:

the verb interpretation, although this difference is not always perfectly clear.

However, in the case of compounds like mooiprater the difference is

(44)

Meaning Postulate 1.

obvious enough: a mooiprater is someone who talks beautifully, and not a talk-

llAll(llerll(llVll)) = lleIJI (llAll(llVll))

er who is beautiful.

where A is any relative adjective, and Va verb.

This distinction is reminiscent of one discussed by

Siegel (1979), the distinction between the intersective reading of beautiful

dancer, which refers to those dancers who are beautiful, and its relative

This postulate can be applied to some of the compounds in (41), e.g. mooipra-

reading, which refers to those who dance beautifully.

terJ since mooi, like its English translation beautiful can be used both as a

The only difference

between these cases and the compounds in (41) is, that the former are phrases

measure adjective and as a relative adjective.

(their stress patterns bear witness to that) and the latter words.

to use this particular meaning postulat~ in all of the cases listed in (41)>

So it

However, it is not possible

seems entirely appropriate to use the same kind of solution to the problem of

since some of the adjectives in question are.not relative adjectives at all.

the correct interpretation of the compounds as Siegel has proposed for the

For instance, the compound alleenheerser is such a case,

phrasal expressions.

sense to interpret alleen 'alone, singlet in a relative fashion: in fact it

For absolute or intersective adjectives, we may assume denotations that assign to a certain predicate a subset of that predicate, which is defined as the intersection of that predicate with a given other set,

For instance, the

adjective male is interpreted as the function which assigns to any set its

It does not make

cannot be used prenominally at all, compare Hij is alleen 'He is alone' with

*een alleen meisje 1 an alone girl'. However, it is possible, it appears, to analyse alleenheerser as a derivation from the phrasal verb alleen heersen (cf, the discussion of such derivations in section 5.2.1. above)

An argu-

ment for this analysis can be based on the existence of the nominalisation

=170=

=171=

alleenheersing, listed in Van Dale's dictionary.

Nominalisations, as we have

noted in the previous section, do not allow the incorporation of adverbial/

Let us now concentrate on compounded past participles. Here is a list of examples:

adjectival elements, so the noun alleenheersing can only be derived from a

phrasal verb.

(46)

The same solution, derivation from a phrasal verb, must also be adopted for the formation naaktloper,

There is some evidence for

the existence of a

phrasal verb naaktlopen, since it can appear in the verbal cluster: (45) Men

zegt dat

They say

hij niet heeft willen naakt lopen

that he

not

has

wanted naked walk

"They say that he did not want to be a nudist 11

(For alleen heersen, the appearance in the verbal cluster seems to be less

Past participle Compounds in Dutch. a. handgeweven

11

hand-woven 11

b. zongerij pt

11

sun-ripened"

c. huisgebonden

"house-tied"

d. zelf-gericht

"self-oriented"

e. dichtbevolkt

11

densely populated 11

f. veelbesproken

11

much discussed 11

g. hardgebakken

"hardboiled"

In English, similar constructions can be found:

acceptable, although still possible, I believe.) (47)

Past Participle Compounds in English. a, self-made

5. 2 .0.

Participles.

b. Hong-Kong made c. earth-bound

In this section, I will discuss synthetic compounds with a participle

d. self-contained

as right hand member - either a past or passive participle, or a present

e, sex-starved

participle.

f. Chicago-born

Together with past participle compounds, I will also treat com-

pounds with a -baar or -able suffix, which are semantically related to pas·-

g. oft-told

sive verbs.

h. hardboiled

Let us first consider past participles.

These are formed in Dutch by

adding -d to a verbal stem if its ending is voiced, and by adding -t otherwise.

Furthermore, if the stern does not contain a prefix, the prefix ge- is

i. soft-spoken j. well-written

i. ill-considered

added as well. I will not attempt to give an account of the distribution of ge- here.

The compounds in question are all adjectives.

Notice also that their right-

Some authors, e.g. Schultink (1973), de Rooij-Bronkhorst (1980), propose a

hand members are passiVe participles, i.e. participles which can occur in the

deletion rule which eliminates ge- before an affix.

passive construction, and not simply past participles.

It is interesting to note

A past participle can

that ge- is sensitive to the occurrence of a prefix in spite of the fact

be used as a passive participle just in case it is derived from a transitive

that it is not structurally adjacent to it in the sense of Siegel (1977),

verb (in English), or from a transitive or intransitive verb in Dutch.

cf. the structure: (ge-)[[ver+hoor] d].

This can be seen as counterevidence

pounds such as well-laughed do not occur, since laughed is not a possible pas-

to both Siegel's Adjacency Constraint, which rules out such sensitivities,

sive participle.

and .to Williams' Atom Condition, because the affix is a property of the

like than past participles, which are more verb-like,

verbal stem, not of the head element, which would be

-d,

on Williams' account.

Com-

It is well-known that passive participles are more adjectiveSince English and Dutch

=172=

=173=

have hardly any verbal composition, the only compounds that can arise are

innemend 'winning' in Dutch.

formed with passive participles.

change in meaning, as in the case of winning and innemend.

This explains why the compounds themselves

are adjectives, not verbs.

Sometimes, the adjectival use is matched by a

It is possible to form compounds with present participles,

An exceptional case, in this respect, is example (47i), soft-spoken,

In (48) be-

low, a few Dutch examples are presented, and in (49) some English examples,

since it is not attributed to words or things which can be spoken, but to speakers.

Instead, one would have expected soft-speaking.

(48)

In accordance with the analysis of nominal synthetic compounds in the preceding sections as relational noun compounds, I will now propose

to

a. angstwekkend

1

b. doeltreffend

'target-hitting

fear-arousing'

c. hoopgevend

1

The passive

d. langlopend

'long-standing'

analyse the compounds at hand as relational adjective compounds. This analysis is not hard to defend for cases like (46c,d).

Present Participle Compounds in Dutah.

hope-giving

successful, efficient'

1

participles in question have prepositional arguments: gebonden aa:n huis 'tied

e. oogluikend

'eye-closing'

to home', and gericht op zichzelf 'oriented to himself 1 , which are 'bound' or

f. schrikbarend

'fright-creating = fearful 1

satisfied by the initial constituent in the compound.

g. tijdrovend

'time-robbing = time-consuming 1

strumental arguments,a similar approach will be proposed, although some

h. veelzeggend

'much-saying = significant'

linguists would call th'ese elements optional modifiers.

i. welluidend

'well-sounding'

j. zwaarwegend

1

For agentive and inIn this case, the

guiding principle is simplicity of description: it would be a complication to

heavy-weighing

important'

analyse the cases in (46a,b) and (46c,d) differently. One of these examples, oogluikend, is used as an adverb only, as in oogluikerui

As for adverb-participle compounds, it is not necessary to make any special assumptions.

toezien

The participles are modified by the adverbs in just the

1

connive at 1 , meaning literally: 'by closing an eye 1 •

same way as they are in syntactic phrases, the only difference being that the adverb cannot follow the participle in these compounds.

Often, it is hard to

(49)

Present Participle Compounds in EngUsh.

tell whether a particular combination is a syntactic phrase, or a compound,

a. easy going

For instance, Roeper and Siegel (1978) cite carefully-considered and

b. everlasting

frequently-told as verbal compounds, but without the hyphen one· could equally

c. far-reaching

have supposed that these formations are free syntactic combinations.

d. good-looking

In

Dutch, there are similar borderline cases, including many of the examples

e. hard-working

cited in Meijs (1980) as adverb - participle compounds.

f. high-flying

Let us now take a look at present participle compounds.

In Dutch,

g. job hunting

present participles are formed by adding -end to a verbal stern, whereas in

h. land--owning

English they are formed by adding -ing.

i. odd-seeming

The verbal character of these

participles is evident from the fact that they may govern accusative noun

j . plain-speaking

phrases, whereas adjectives normally govern only prepositional noun phrases

k. profit-sharing

in both languages: cf. killing the ants and proud of his country in English,

1. sea-going

and haar prijzend 'her praising

m. time-consuming

of her':in Dutcb. 16

=

praising her' versus trots op haar 'proud

On the other hand, it is equally clear that many present

participles can be used as adjectives, e.g. winning in

a winning smile or

I

=175=

=174= The formal analysis of these compounds is identical to that of the passive participle compounds discusseq earlier. Dutch cases is their stress pattern:

reason for this stress pattern is not clear to me.

The

1. -ed

narrowminded

2. -er

threemaster

The suffix -end does not

generally attract stress, while the examples in (46), whic'h have stress on

show that the pattern is not typical of adjectival com-

pounds in general,

Affixes in English denominal synthetic compounds.

~!!f~------------------------~~~~E!~------------------------

unlike the English compounds, the Dutch

ones have main stress on the second member: angstwekkend, .veeZzeggend.

the first member,

(51)

The only remarkable thing about the

I will not treat the suffix -en here, since the number of synthetic compounds formed with this affix is very limited.

Perhaps it is motivated by the wish to distinguish these

compounds from the corresponding phrases, which are almost identical, except for the stress pattern: Crngst Wekkend, veel zeggend> zwaar wegend.

In English,

5.3.1. -er derivations.

there is no need to do this, because the word order is different in phrases: compare time-consuming with consuming time, hard-working with working hard.

The type exemplified by Dutch driemaster is extr_emely homogeneous. of the initial constituents in this type of compound are numerals.

All

For a

list of all such compounds in Van Dale's dictionary, see Hoeksema &

5.3. Denominal synthetic compounds.

van Zonneveld (1981: 32), which contains 54 examples,

Not counted are irregu-

lar formations such as onderzeeer 'undersea-er= submarine' and tegenvoeter A quick look at the lists in (1) and (2) of section 5,1. will tell us that the number of affixes involved in the formation of synthetic compounds with a denominal head is far less than that of the affixes involved in the formation of deverbal synthet.ic compounds.

Similarly, the number of elements

that can be incorporated is smaller: basically, just adjectives are incorporated. Let us start here with a list of affixes and examples,

In (50), Dutch

examples are listed, in (51), English ones.

(_50)

'against-footer= antipode'.

Other words which do not seem to belong to this

type are zwartebander 'black belter' and plattelander 'flat-lander= country man, inhabitant of a rural area',

In the last two examples,

th~

initial

adjectives are inflected and the stress is on the noun, This clearly shows that these examples are phrasal derivations and not real compounds.

A similar argument can be given for such English formations as firstnighter, fourth-grader, left-hander, which all -have a phrasal accent 'on the noun, However, the words of the threemaster type may also have this stress patternJ though not in every case, it seems. Threedecker, twoseater have

Affixes in Dutch denominal synthetic compounds,

compound stress,

~!!f~----------------------~~~~E!~-------------------------------

only the cases with a numeral first member seem to be synthetic compounds.

1. ge-

2. -en

..

-D

breedgeschouderd geel-koperen

'broad-shouldered'

'made of yellow copper'

3. -ig

langharig

'longhaired'

4. -er

driemaster

'threemaster'

The Dutch cases all appear to have compound stress,

So

To account for these formations, a simple category assignment rule will suffice: (52)

a, -er

+

b. -er

+

Note that the category assignment in (52b) makes a direct link between -er and the selection of a numeral adjective.

This is crucial·, since otherwise

=174=

=175=

The formal analysis of these compounds is identical to that of the passive participle compounds discusseq earlier. Dutch cases is their stress pattern:

(51)

The only remarkable thing about the

~!!~~------------------------~~~~£!~------------------------

unlike the English compounds, the Dutch

ones have main stress on the second member: angstw8kkend, .veelziJ.ggend.

reason for this stress pattern is not clear to me.

The suffix

The

-end does not

generally attract stress, while the examples in (46), which have stress on the first member,

1. -ed

narrowminded

2. -er

threemaster

I will not treat the suffix -en here, since the number of synthetic compounds

show that the pattern is not typical of adjectival com-

pounds in general.

Affixes in English denominal synthetic compounds.

formed with this affix is very limited.

Perhaps it is motivated by the wish to distinguish these

compounds from the corresponding phrases, which are almost identical, except for the stress pattern: O:ngst wekkend, veez zeggend, zw&ar wegend.

In English,

5.3.1. -er derivations.

there is no need to do this, because the word order is different in phrases: compare time-consuming with consuming time, hard-working with working hard.

The type exemplified by Dutch driemaster is extremely homogeneous. of the initial constituents in this type of compound are numerals.

All

For a

list of all such compounds in Van Dale's dictionary, see Hoeksema & 5.3. Denominal synthetic compounds,

van Zonneveld (1981: 32), which contains 54 examples,

Not counted are irregu-

lar formations such as onderzeeer 'undersea-er= submarine' and tegenvoeter A quick look at the lists in (1) and (2) of section 5,1, will tell us

'against-footer= antipode'.

that the number of affixes involved in the formation of synthetic compounds with a denominal head is far less than that of the affixes involved in the formation of deverbal synthetic compounds.

man, inhabitant of a rural area',

Similarly, the number of elements

In the last two examples,

th~

initial

adjectives are inflected and the stress is on the noun. This clearly shows

that can be incorporated is smaller: basically, just adjectives are incor-

that these examples are phrasal derivations and not real compounds.

porated.

A similar argument can be given for such English formations as first-

Let us start here with a list of affixes and examples,

In (50), Dutch

nighter, fourth-grader, left-hander, which all have a phrasal accent 'on the noun. However, the words of the threemaster type may also have this stress pattern, though not in every case, it seems, Threedecker, twoseater have

examples are listed, in (51), English ones. (50)

Other words which do not seem to belong to this

type are zwartebander 'black helter' and plattelander 'flat-lander·= country

Affixes in Dutch denominal synthetic compounds. ~!!~~----------------------~~~~l2!~

1. ge-

..

-D

compound stress.

_______________________. _______ _

breedgeschouderd

2. -en

geel-koperen

'made of yellow copper'

langharig

'longhaired'

4. -er

driemaster

'threemaster'

So

only the cases with a numeral first member seem to be synthetic compounds.

'broad-shouldered'

3. -ig

The Dutch cases all appear to have compound stress.

To account for these formations, a simple category assignment rule will suffice:

(52)

a. -er

+

b. -er

+

I I '

I

I I

Note that the category assignment in (52b) makes a direct link between -er and the selection of a numeral adjective.

This is crucial, since otherwise

--------- -·---··

=177=

=176= it would be hard to explain

of the threedecker type.

why only numerals occur in the left hand position

Note further that the interpretation of the affix

-er depends on the category assigned,

Threedeckers have three decks, and two

seaters two seats, but first-nighters do not have the first night, nor do New Yorkers have New York.

"The term 'extended bahuvrihi compounds' is to be understood as descriptive of the pattern only. Historically speaking, the cases of suffixed bahuvrihi compounds are few." (1969: 265)

The interpretation of N "".N - er seems to be much more

context-dependent than the interpretation of N "- (Anum"- N) -er.

This consti-

A similar development has taken place in German and Dutch, with this difference, that these languages have preferred to make use of the suffix -ig, instead of exploiting the past participle suffix, which, however, can be

tutes an additional argument for not analysing threedecker simply as a deriva-

found in a relatively small number of compounds,

tion from the phrase three deck(s).

velopment of extended bahuvrihi's in Dutch, see van Lessen (1928), where some

For an account of the de-

attendant etymological questions are dealt with as well.

In (54) below,

pseudo-participle compounds are given, in (55) some specimens of -ig com-

5.3.2.

Adjectival denominal synthetic compounds.

pounds.

In English, there is only one main type of adjectival denominal synthetic compound, the one involving the suffix

-ed.

(S4)

Examples of this type

are listed below: (S3) a, black-haired

Dutch examples: I. Pseudo-participle compounds. a. blauwgeaderd

'blue-veined'

b. blondgelokt

1

c. breedgeschouderd

'broad-shouldered'

blond-locked'

d. kortgerokt

'short-skirted'

b. cruel-hearted

e, roodgebiesd

'having red pipings'

c. empty-headed

£. zwartgedast

1

black-tied 1

d. high-spirited e. kind-hearted

(SS)

Dutch examples:

II.

-ig compounds.

f. many-headed

a. blauwogig

'blue-eyed'

g. three-valued

b, donkerharig

'dark-haired'

h. white-hulled

c. grootschalig

'large-scaled 1

i. wrong-headed

d. kleingelovig

'of little faith'

e. openhartig

'open-hearted, frank'

For a large collection of examples, cf. Meijs (1975: 163-4), as well as Mar-

£. roodharig

1

chand (1969: 266).

Marchand calls these compounds 'extended bahuvrihi com-

red-haired'

g. snelvoetig

'swift-footed'

pounds', because historically, some of these have been derived from bahuvrihi

h. trouwhartig

'true-hearted'

compounds, such as paleface and lightfoot, by adding the overt adjectival

i. veelhoof dig

'many-headed 1

marker -ed.

Originally, these bahuvrihi's could be used both as adjectives

j. zesjarig

'six year old'

and as nouns,

17

but in order to distinguish the two uses, the adjectival com-

pounds have been marked with -ed.

However, Marchand goes on to note that

The greater activity of the second type is evident from an inspection of Van Dale's dictionary of Dutch: the last printing but one contains about 870 examples of -ig compounds and 55 examples of the pseudo-participle type.

18 -

-- -

....

=178=

=179=

Most of the extended bahuvrihi's are not derived from actual compounds, as Marchand has noted.

In some cases, it is still possible to assume such

an analysis, e.g. in the case of Dutch drieJwekig 'triangular', bolvormig 1

globular-shaped', and bleekneuzig

1

palenosed

1

,

which can be related to the

More difficult to deal with is a problem raised by W. Wiersema: the compounds rechtshandig and linkshandig ('right-handed' and 'left-handed', respectively), cannot be derived from corresponding phrases: instead of the adjectives rechts and links, the forms rechter and linker have to be used, as Although r

corresponding compounds driehoek 'triangle', bolvorm 'globe shape' and bleek-

in: de rechter en de linker hand 'the right and the left hand',

neus 'palenose = tallowface'.

mention this as a problem for Botha's phrasal analysis, I have to confess

It is not entirely clear, however, whether it

is advisable to assume such a derivation, even for these forms, since the

that I do not have an explanation for the choice of rechts and links instead

interpretation of these compounds

of rechter and linker either, so the real argument for rejecting Botha's

is not entirely compatible with it, it

For instance, driehoekig means 'having three angles', not 'having a

seems,

triangle'.

A Botha-type analysis of this example as a phrasal derivation

would correctly predict this reading.

However, the interpretation of -ig is

often quite vague in the case of ordinary derivation, cf, for instance

kattig

1

catty', where -ig seems to mean 'like a',

The extended bahuvrihi's can be analysed along the same lines as the denominal synthetic compounds of the th:I'eedecker type, by means of a special category assignment rule:

This reading would make

sense for d:t>iehoekig as well, since triangular can also be paraphrased as 'like a triangle'.

theory remains the lack of inflection. 19

(56) a.

-ed

+

b.

-ig

+

So the matter remains unresolved.

The lack of compound bases for most of the representatives of the extended bahuvrihi types has led to the supposition that these words are de-

Dutch pseudo-participle compounds are not dealt with here,

rived from syntactic phrases, like first-nighter, which, as I argued in the

elaborate treatment of their formation to the next section.

preceding section, is derived directly from the phrase first night, This analysis has been discussed in section 4.3 (and 4.4.).

Here are a few sample derivations:

One of the

arguments against the phrasal-derivation analysis is the lack of inflectional elements,

I postpone a more

(57)

kind

vrt

In Dutch, adjectives get the inflectional ending -e before non-

neuter nouns (as well as before neuter nouns if the article is definite), so one would expect this ending to show up in the phrasal derivations as well.

A

A

N

In the pre-

ceding section, the phrasal derivation zwartebander has been discussed, which in fact has the inflected form of the adjective zwart.

So this is an

important drawback of the phrasal-derivation analysis, Another problem, discussed in 4.4., is the status of ge-.

A

A

This element

is clearly a prefix, but Botha's analysis would make it an infix, a category not found otherwise in Dutch,

N'(A,A)

LJ

We have seen that Botha's constraint against word-internal inflection does not hold, and is refuted by his own evidence from Afrikaans.

r

This argument, originally made_ by Meijs, is

As for the interpretation of these affixes, we will assume the following translation rule:

not that strong, especially not if we allow head adjunction as a morphological operatio_n.

In that case we could view ge- as a prefix which is head-

adjoined to the [A+N] phrase. sion.

See also van Zonneveld (1983) for some discus-

(58) -ed and -ig are interpreted as

AP AM Ax[ay[HAVE (x,y) & M(P)(y)]]

T .

=180= where P is a predicate variable, and M a predicate-modifier variable.

This

=181= 5.3.2.1. Two types of pseudo-compound constructions in Dutch,

translation implies the following interpretation for kindhearted: Axf3:Y[HAVE

(x,y) & kind' (heart')(y)]J,

tions, which have not been properly distinguished in the literature, because

this is a correct result.

It might be interesting to note here, that HAVE should be interpreted as 'inalienable possession', such as the possession of body parts or characteristic properties.

In this section I will discuss two types of pseudo-compound construc-

Provided we interpret HAVE in the right way,

Thi.s notion, to be sure, cannot be analysed here- in formal

semantic terms, but is to be studied in psychological terms,

Whenever the

of their great superficial similarity, 20 phrases,

Also, relational nouns are excluded by definition in (56);

In order to establish this distinction, a number of tests will be

applied. The first type, the type of real pseudo-participle compounds, is exempli-

possession relation is more accidental, it seems difficult to form an extended bahuvrihi compound.

I will argue here that some pseudo-

participle constructions are words, while others are in fact syntactic

fied here by the word breedgeschouderd, whereas the second type, the phrasal

Perhaps

one, is exemplified by zwaargebowvd 'heavily built= of sturdy build', which

these nonoccurrences are accidental, but I suspect they are not, given that we

is often spelt as one word, but which must be considered a syntactic phrase.

we look in vain for *threesistered, *crueZfathered, or *manyfriended.

Before giving the arguments to distinguish the two types, I want to con-

do not find them in Dutch either. It might be considered objectionable that the interpretation in (58), which corresponds to the category assignment rules in (56), is intended for

sider some of their common features, in particular the category of the left hand member.

the synthetic composition construction only, while the normal derivation con-

Meijs (1980) has proposed the following structure for breedgeschouderd:

struction, to which e.g. Zanded and conceited in English, and kattig catty', moedig 'plucky', harig 'hairy' in Dutch belong, will be interpreted by a

(59)

1

separate, although related, rule.

A

/~A

However, as in the case of -er, it appears

Adv

that there is much more variation in the interpretation of simple derivations than in the interpretation of synthetic compounds,

For instance ha:ndig

I

A

'handy' is not interpreted as 'having a hand 1 or 'having hands', schattig

/1~ V d

ge

I

'cute', derived from sahat 'treasure' does not mean 'having a treasure', and pissig 'resentful' derived from pis 'piss' does not mean 'having piss'. This list could be extended, but the pattern is clear: -ig indicates a much less

N

breed

clearly defined relation in simple derivations than in synthetic compounds,

I

schouder

although its basic meaning, involving inalienable possession, is found in most simple derivations.

However, the greater semantic variation in simple

derivations might be taken as evidence for an account which does not try to

I believe this diagram is basically correct.

impose one rule of interpretation on both simple derivations and synthetic

Meijs assumes a derivation by way of transposition.

compounds.

1

For the right hand member, The noun schouder

shoulder' is converted into a vertal stem, which, in turn, is adorned with

the affixes ge- and -d of past and passive participles.

According to Meijs,

all pseudo-participles are in fact ordinary participles, derived from possible, but not alway& actual, verbs which are converted nouns.

In other words,

a word like feathered is derived from the implicit verb 'to feather', and

,--,

~1s2~

=183=

geschouderd from a likewise nonexisting, but possible verb schouderen.

This

Fixed expressions of ten reflect earlier stages of the language, and the same

account is attractive because of its simplicity: it does not presuppose

is true of lexical items,

special rules for pseudo-participles and explains why pseudo-participles are

used in participle-compounds, such as:

as similar to real participles as they in fact are.

On the other hand, it

might seem unnatural to make such heavy use of nonactual verbs, but that is a matter of taste, and not a genuine objection. evidence in favour of Meijs' analysis,

The erstwhile adverbial variant of good is still

11

well-spirited 11

b. welgebouwd

11

well-formed 11

c, welgeluimd

11

well-tempered 11

(61) a. welgeaard

Furthermore, there is other

In Dutch, there are some pseudo-

participles, such as getalenteerd 'talented', derived from talent, which

d. welgemanierd

'

have an additional affix, such as -eer in this example, which is typically a

e, welgemond

11

f. welgevormd

"well-formed"

verbaliser, i.e. an affix which makes verbs out of other elements, in this case nouns.

Interestingly, the verb does not exist independently (that is,

outside the pseudo participle),

So the implicit transposition assumed by

Meijs for schouder in (59) is made visible here by the affix -eer.

Similar

l I

well-mannered' 1

1

well ~mouthed"

Many of these formations have more recent variants with goed, which can be used as an adverb in present-day Dutch, and has replaced wel: goed geboUJ.Ud,

examples can be given with the prefixes be- and ont-, which are also ver-

goedgeluimd, goedgevormd.

baliSers (cf. van Haeringen (1949), Sassen (1968) for some further discussion).

ber of compounds strongly suggests that the left hand members are adverbs,

If the right hand members of the pseudo-participle construction are in

Nevertheless, the fact that wel occurs in a num-

A second indication is the nonoccurrence of numerals in the participle

fact real participles, then it makes sense to analyse the left hand compon-

construction.

ents as adverbs, since adverbs a.:re typical modifiers of participles, and not

hand component, e.g. drielettergrepig 'trisyllabic', tweemotorig 'twin-

as adjectives.

engined', zespotig

In Dutch, the distinction between adjectives and adverbs is

hard to draw, however, since there is no special adverb marker comparable to English -ly.

Synthetic -ig compounds very often have a numeral as the left 1

sixlegged 1 , etc.

A rough estimation is that one third to

one half of the 870 examples of this construction in Van Dale's dictionary has a cardinal numeral as its left hand component.

In spite of this fact, it is still possible, I believe, to argue that Meijs 1 categorisation is correct.

First of all, there is the well/goed

alternation, which is found in English as well: well is the adverb, good is the adjective.

In Dutch, this alternation has gradually disappeared and wel

is used as an adverb only in a small nuffiber of occasions: (1) as an adverb of confirmation,

21

comparable to English e~phatic do; (2) as a particle, with

This makes it all the

more surprising that there are virtually no examples of the pseudo-participle construction which have a numeral as the initial member.

The explanation of

this fact is straightforward: numerals are not used as adverbs.

Hence they

do not have the category which is required for the left hand members of this type of compound. It is interesting to take a look at English.

In English, there is no

various uses; (3) in old-fashioned language and idiomatic expressions, where

restriction whatsoever on the incorporation of numerals in the pseudo-

the adverbial use has presevered, e.g.:

participle construction, witness such examples as two-edged, two-faced, three-

headed> threeZegged, and four-leaved. (60)

This shows, I believe, that the Eng-

Mage bet U wel bekomen!

lish pseudo-participle construction is a mixture of two different types of

May

word-formation, the one being related more to the Dutch -ig construction and

11

it you well agree!

Much good may it do you! 11

the other related to the Dutch pseudo-participle construction, sometimes

To see that

adverbs are incorporated as well as numerals, note that English

also has overt adverbial left hand components, such as well (e.g.

=184=

=185=

well-mannered, well-minded, well-tempered, etc) , and -Zy adverbs, e.g. the

The cases in (65) do not distinguish the phrasal constructions from the com-

following ones taken from Meijs (1975: 167):

pounds, since the compounds do not have comparative and superlative forms either.

(62)

a. a heavily-armoured beetle

This is probably due to a general prohibition of comparative and

superlative formation for participles (most participles have periphrastic

b. the softly-carpeted offices

comparatives: e.g. ontzet 'appalled', meer ontzet 'more appalled', meest

c, a fully-fledged word

ontzet 'most appalled').

d. his crisply-worded message

The second test is questioning the adverb by hoe 'how' •

This is pos-

. in the case of compounds, the whole comsible for the phrasal construction; This type, however, appears to be far less common than the other one, which has clearly adjectival elements.

pound must be questioned and preposed:

For instance, we find 'glib-tongued', in-

stead of 'glibly-tongued', 'full-blooded' and not 'fully-blooded', etc, We will return to the English cases shortly,

(66)

a. Hoe zwaar is hij eigenlijk gebouwd?

Let us first consider a

pseudo-participle constructions, a phrasal one and a compound one.

in fact

How heavy is he

few arguments that should establish the existence of two distinct types of

b. Hoe slecht is de

The two

built?

baas gehurneurd?

is the boss tempered? How bad "How bad is the boss' temper? 11

types are clearly related, but the differences between are equally obvious. The arguments to be presented here are based on a number of tests.

c. Hoe fijn

The first test is the formation of comparative and superlative degrees.

is haar gezicht gevormd?

How delicate is her

For phrasal combinations, it should be possible to freely form comparative

11

face

shaped?

11 How delicately shaped is her face?

and superlative degrees of the initial adverbs, but not of the entire combination, since that is, by assumption, not a word.

This prediction is borne

This test clearly shows the difference with the compound breedgeschouderd:

out by zwaargebow»d and a number of other phrasal combinations: (67) (63)

a. zwaargebouwd

'of sturdy build'

b. slechtgehumeurd

'ill-tempered 1

c. fijngevormd

'delicately formed'

a. *Hoe breed is die

man geschouderd?

How broad is that man shouldered? b.

Hoe breedgeschouderd is die man?

Other ways of preposing an adverb show the same difference: (64)

a. zwaarder gebouwd

'of sturdier build'

b. slechter gehumeurd

'worse-tempered 1

c. fijner gevormd

'more delicately shaped'

(68)

Zo

That heavy is he 11

(65)

not

built

His build is not that sturdy"

a, *zwaargebouwder b. *slechtgehumeurder c. *fijngevormder

The forms in (64) are not found for some real compounds, e.g. breedge-

schouderd,

zwaar is hij niet gebouwd.

hreder geschouder d, or breedst geschouderd are slightly odd.

breed is hij niet geschouderd. That broad is he

not

shouldered

=186=

The third and final test consists of the substitution of the adverb by a pronoun.

Pseudo-participles follow the· pattern in (72), not the one in (73):

Again, we expect this to be possible of the case of free syntactic

combinations, but impossible in the case of compounds.

This prediction is

(74)

a.

correct, as the following examples show:

Hoe is hij gebouwd? How is he

built?

b. *Hoe gebouwd is hij? (70)

a,

Pi et is net

zo gebouwd als zijn vader,

Piet is just so built 11

b.

as

his

How built

Piet has the same build as his father 11

Hoe is de

These facts are essentially the same in English.

baas vandaag gehumeurd?

How is the boss today

is he?

father

How are the two types of pseudo-participle cbnstructions in Dutch re-

tempered

lated?

nwhat is the boss' humour today? 11

Given that there are no meaning differences or other differences

which are not directly related to the word/phrase distinction, it is most natural to assume that the words are agglutinated phrases, i.e. phrases which

(71)

a. *Piet is net

zo geschouderd als zijn vader,

Piet is just so shouldered

as

his

have been converted in words.

father

This type of conversion is responsible for

many compounds (e.g. many N+N compounds are originally Genitive + Noun

b. *Hoe is Pi et geschouderd?

phrases, e.g. beginner's

How is Pi et shouldered?

luck~

menswear), cf. the discussion in section 3.2.

Let us noP consider the rules involved in the formation of the phrasal construction,

Assuming the correctness of Meijs 1 account of pseudo-partici-

These tests clearly show that breedgeschouderd is a word, and not a syntactic

ples, we need (1) a conversion rule for making verbs out 'of nouns,, as well

phrase, whereas zwaargebouwd and slechtgehumeurd are syntactic combinations,

as (2) normal categorisation rules for the participle affixes, and (3) a

not words.

rule for making adverbs out of adjectives.

In .addition to this, it is possible to show that the pseudo-

participles in the phrasal construction behave like other participles and not as ordinary adjectives, by using evidence from pied-piping.

Adjectives are

These rules are all independently

needed. Returning now to English, it seems best to assume that ·there are both

obligatorily pied-piped with hoe 'how', while participles are never pied-

pseudo-participle combinations (both phrasal and lexical) of the Dutch type,

piped:

and combinations which must be analysed along the lines of the preceding section.

(72)

a.

Hoe is bet gebeurd?

happened?

How is it

"How did i t happen?"

b. *Hoe gebeurd

is het?

How happened is it?

Marchand ,(1969: 265) mentions well-mannePed and well-natured, among others, as phrasal combinations, although he notes that they are rather odd without well.

a, *Hoe is het laat? How is i t 11

b.

late?

What time is it?"

Hoe laat is het? How late is it?

For instance,

it is hardly informative to say that someone is 'natured', simply because everybody has a lnature 1 , so to speak.

(73)

But this is probably due to pragmatic factors

What is interesting is the nature of that nature,

1

=189=

=188= Notes

5.4. Summary of this chapter. The categorial analysis of the class of lexical expressions traditionally referred to as 'synthetic compounds' has failed to characterise them as a natural class,

Some are analysed as relational-noun compounds, such

as maneater and wind generator, or as relational-adjective compounds, e.g.

moth-eaten, others as normal or root compounds, for instance Dutch mooiprater 'sweettalker', and still others as compounds where the right hand member is the functor, e.g. left-handed.

To the extent that the present theory is

well-motivated, this constitutes an argument against the recognition of synthetic compounds as a morphological type sui generis, something which has been a leading idea of much recent work.

Only a few special stipulations

have to be made for synthetic compounds in the present theory, notably the additional category assignments for -er compounds of the threedecker type and -ed and Dutch -ig compounds such as redhanded and blaU1JJogig 'blue-eyed', I have argued that these additional category assignments are independently motivated by semantic differences between ordinary derivations with these affixes and synthetic compounds, Furthermore some differences between Dutch and English pseudo-participle compounds, as well as some differences among Dutch pseudo-participle compounds themselves, have been scrutinised.

1 0n page 23, Selkirk also mentions heat-sensitive, and other compounds with sensitive could be added. However, the pattern seems to be restricted,

2 For ease of reference, I have included 0 as an affix, even though the theory of conversion sketched in chapter 1 does not envisage phonologically null affixes. 3 In English, this type of derivation is clearly not productive (cf, Roeper & Siegel 1978: 233), since only a few cases exists, e.g. onlooker, bystander and outgoing.

4 such as sneZpersing, lit. 0 fast pressing 11 , name of a device for putting the printing bar with one move of the hand in the required position. 5This is not the only possible definition in Montague grammar. Another, equally popular interpretation is the one given in Montague's PT(, where intransitive verbs correspond to sets of individuals (or their characteristic functions). The interpretation given here is the one endorsed by Keenan & Faltz (1978), among others. 6only extensional models are considered here. Note further that the direction of the slashes is irrelevant, so when I write S/NP, I mean to include NP '\·S as well, and similarly for other categories. 7 There is another interpretation for transitive absolutes, dis,cussed in great detail in Dowty (1981), where the missing argument is not interpreted as an existentially bound variable, but rather as a contextually interpreted argument. Consider for instance the following little conversation:

It was argued that there are

two main types of pseudo-participle combinations, one with an adjectival left

(A) (B)

John has a scar. Yes, I noticed.

hand member and one with an adverbial left hand member. In Dutch, only the latter construction occurs,

The latter construction has both phrasal and

lexical representatives. In order to arrive at maximally simple category assignment statements in the case of nominalisations, certain modifications of the categorial framework have been proposed, especially special word order conventions and

In this case, the missing argument of the verb notice refers back to the previous sentence, uttered by speaker A. Interestingly, such interpretations occur most readily, if not exclusively, with verbs that take sentential arguments. When the missing argument is interpreted as a proposition, everything seems fine, but when it is interpreted as an individual the result is often quite odd:

case assignment rules, which may form the basis of a more "modular" theory

(A) ?Why do you distrust Jim? (B) 'Because I know. (Meaning: Because I know him.)

of syntax within a broadly categorial model.

Compare this with: (A) (B)

Mary is pregnant. I know.

One would like to treat these cases and the 'normal 1 type of transitive absolute in the same way. The differences in interpretation may then be ascribed to pragmatic factors, the same factors, perhaps, that involve the specific

=191=

=190= interpretation of existential quantifiers. Consider for example the last conversation, Speaker B tells speaker A that he knows something, and since

N

(ii)

NP

NP

knowing something is hardly remarkable, pragmatic considerations such as the

Gricean Cooperation Principle lead to a specific interpretation of the missing argument. If such a pragmatic explanation holds water, it would appear to have some advantage over the account proposed by Dowty, which involves the introduction of Cooper-style pronouns in the semantics, However, there are other cases where the present account leads to difficulties, such as the reciprocal readings of intransitive occurrences of symmetric predicates, e.g.: (i)

We met in Vienna.

(ii) They married last spring. 8 There is, of course, also the 'impersonal' passive, which applies to a subset of the intransitive verbs, but not, in fact, to verbs like bevaZZen. For some discussion of passive in Dutch, see Hoekstra (1984), den Besten (1981), and, from a different point of view, Perlmutter. (1978).

9Historically speaking, aZZer is a free morpheme, being the genitive case of alZen 'all'. Nowadays, aZler is restricted to a _few fixed phrases, and to superlatives, So it is correct to call it a prefix, especially since its original meaning 1 of all' is fading away, as in een alleraangenaamst gesprek 1 a very pleasant conversation'. 10 This has been established to the satisfaction of most linguists in Koster (1975), although superficial examination of the main clause would lead to the conclusion that Dutch is an SVO language. This is due to an interfering factor, the verb second restriction in main_ clauses. For discussion of this restriction and some proposals concerning its proper treatment in the categorial frame-work, see van der Zee (1982), Steedman (1983), Houtman (1984), Zwarts (to appear). 11 There is a rule of interpretation corresponding to PP-exchange, to make sure it does not have any semantic effects: (i)

Let f be the function interpreting an expression subject to PP-exchange, then the interpretation of that expression after PP-exchange has been applied will be f', where f' (x) (y) = f(y)(x).

12 This rule is not ordered with respect to the rules of case assignment and PP-exchange. This makes it possible to have subjects of nominalisations expressed both by of and by phrases. The first possibility occurs when case assignment is applied after argument reduction: (i)

N

NP NP

+

N

NP

+

The second possibility occurs when case assignment is applied before argument reduction:

N

+

NPToff NP[by]

+

N P[by] NP[of]

+

N

NP[by]

We need both possibilities for pairs such as an announcement of the police and an announcement by the police. 13 There is a difference between the use of by and that of of, part of which may be stylistic. Usually, by is better when the degree of agentivity is high and of is better in other circumstances. For instance, hope, which does not denote actions, but states, only takes of: hope of the people, rtot *hope by the people. On the other hand, destruction of the Spaniards strongly favours an object-reading for the of-complement, since the agentivity of the verb destroy requires a by-phrase for the expression of the subject, I will not try to shed any light on this murky area, but note that the situation is exactly the same in Dutch, where the preposition door has the same function as English by. 14

Let Rn be such a relation, then we may define *Rn as the function AO .,}_Q,[Q.(Ax.[ •. [Q (Ax [Rn x .. xn])] •• ])], where i :;;;rne, it is likely that language users do in fact have where there is no reference to quantities, but rather to substances, abstract entities which are realised by quantities,

Such sentences can be true

even in the absence of quantities of the substances in question,

I will not

consider the use of mass nouns as names for substances here, nor will I explore the ontological status of these substances,

For discussion of these

matters and the philosophical problems related to them, the reader is reApart from the assumption that mass noun denotations are closed under an operation of summation and contain at least two members, I will not stipuIn particular, I will not assume here that mass

noun denotations are closed under a part-of relation in the sense that if a is a member of a mass noun denotation, and b is a part of a, then b will be in the same denotation set as well.

The problem with this assumption is that

it rules out the existence of mixed substances.

To use an example borrowed

from Hoepelman & Rohrer (1980), a quantity of ginger cake may have a part which is just ginger, and therefore does not belong to the denotation set of the mass noun gingercake.

to be thought of as denoting sets of quantities with minimal parts.

Both

possibilities should be compatible with a theory of mass noun interpretation, For that reason I will not assume that ever~ element in the denotation set of a mass noun must have proper parts in the same set (this assumption would rule out the existence of minimal parts of a quantity), nor will I assume here that if a quantity of a substance X has a proper part, then this part will be a

ferred toter Meulen (1980) and Pelletier (1979).

late further requirements.

minimal parts in mind, whereas abstract mass nouns, such as time, do not seem

quantity of X as well (this assumption would rule out mixed substances, as well as quantities which have parts of a different type, such as quantities of furniture, parts of which might be just wood, or steel, or velvet). To model these general ideas about mass term denotations in a formal system, I will make use of structures in which the set of individuals is associated with a summation operator

The case of furni-

ture is especially interesting, because here we have a mass noun which does not refer to a mixed substance, but rather to a substance that has quantities

(similar to Link's (1983: 308) join

operator), which gives it the structure of a join-semilattice (which need not be atomic),

The set of individuals, E, is ordered by the relation

we define in the standard way by:

Similarly, if I scratch a piece of wood off my

furniture, that piece of wood is not itself furniture.

'+'

(6)

x • y

iff

x + y

y

~. which

=199=

=198= Read x

~

y as: x is a part of y,

between the individuals of E.

The part-of relation is a partial order

Mass noun denotations are subsets of E such

that if x and y are in it, then x+y will be in it as well (in other words,

such as the referent of the definite description all the gold in the uni-

verse. In the case of -ing nominalisations, matters are somewhat less clear.

they are closed under summation -- the property of cumulative reference),

Many -ing nominalisations are in fact countable, as the following examples

and furthermore we require that a mass noun denotation is neither empty nor

with plural forms will show:

a singleton set.

(As a matter of fact, it is not really necessary to exclude

the empty set as a possible mass noun denotation, as long as there is a possible world in which the denotation is not empty, so we can in fact distinguish it from a count noun denotation,)

11

(7) a. de ontp lo ff ing

the explosion"

"the explosions"

b. de ontploffingen

Count noun denotations are subsets

of E that are not closed under summation, and following our intuition that counting involves discrete entities we may in fact make the stronger assump-

"the walk11

(8) a. de wandeling b. de wandelingen

11

the walks 11

11

the encounter"

11

the encounters"

11

the conquest"

tion that no sum of two elements of a count noun denotation will be in the same denotation.

One might object to this by claiming that if we join two

rooms, for instance, by taking out a wall, we get a new room, but here, it

(9) a. de ontmoeting b. de ontmoetingen

seems, we create a room by destroying two smaller ones, for after the union of the two rooms, we are left with only one, and the constituting parts no longer exist as individual rooms.

In some cases, this matter is more diffi-

cult to decide, especially if we consider count nouns such as group or

(10) a. de verovering

"the conquests 11

b. de veroveringen

set~

so this property of anti-.accumulation may be too strong for a general logic

However, there are also mass noun cases, such as geldontwaarding

of count nouns.

devaluation =inflation'.

Consider now what the mass noun property means for ge-nominalisations,

1

money-

It appears that mass noun nominalisations with

the suffix -ing are not just a bunch of irregularities.

For instance, nom-

Since-we assume here that deverbal nominalisations denote properties of

inalisations of derived verbs with the prefix ver- often have mass noun prop-

possibilities, it entails at least that possibilities should have the struc-

erties, as Franciska de Jong pointed out to me:

ture of a semi-lattice as well. patible?

What happens if two possibilities are incom-

For instance, a state of affairs in which a dog is barking and

Donald is drunk is incompatible with a state of affairs in which a dog is barking and Donald is sober.

b.

(cf, geet "yellow")

become yellow 0

vergeel

11

vergeling

11

yellowing

verarm

11

impoverish 11

verarming

"impoverishment"

vereenzaam

11

11

*vergelingen

Yet both states of affairs would correspond to

the Dutch nominalisation het geblaf van een hand ("the barking of a dog 11 ) . In order not to complicate the description, we will in fact assume here that such unions are well-defined,

(11) a.

(12) a. b.

(cf. arm

11

poor 11 )

*verarmingen

However, no realistic course of events will

contain such a state of affairs.

Also, if two states of affairs are compat-

ible, but discontinuous in time, we will assume that their sum is defined. This will lead to states of affairs which are scattered individuals in the sense that they are not continuous in the temporal dimension.

(13) a. b.

become lonely"

vereenzaming "isolation, process of becoming lonesome 11 *vereenzamingen

This corre-

spollds to quantities of matter which are scattered in the spatial dimension,

What these cases appear to have in common is there reference to gradual

-r change without a definite endpoint, a process of becoming more X, where X is the state or property indicated by the adjectival base.

(15) A. States

There are also

a. know English

examples of count nouns derived by -ing nominalisation from verbs with the

b. be riCh

prefix Ver-, such as:

c. have two sisters

B. Activities

(14) a. verandering

11

change 11 (cf. ander 'other, different 1 )

d. walk

b. verbetering

11

improvement" (cf. beter 'better')

e. talk

c. verovering

"conquest"

d. vereniging

11

(cf. over 'over, above')

f. follow a suspect

club, association" (cf. enig 'one, united 1 )

c. Accomplishments g. paint a masterpiece

In some of these cases, e.g. vereniging, the noun has acquired some idiosyn-

h. walk to Groningen

cratic meaning aspects which may well be responsible for its count noun character.

For example, when vereniging is used in the basic sense

11

i. kill a pig

act or

D. Achievements

process of unification", it does not have a plural counterpart, but it does

j. find a penny

have one in the other, unpredictable, sense "club, association",

k. reach the

It should also be pointed out here that some Dutch -ing derivations denote properties of concrete objects, instead of events.

top

1. recognise his father

Consider woning,

which, like its English translation dwelling, does not denote states or

States and achievements are alike in that they do not seem to take time:

events, but rather concrete objects, such as houses.

states, because they do not involve change, which is the sign and marker of

Again, the relation

with the verbal meaning is not completely regular and will be ignored in this study.

Needless to say, whenever -ing derivations denote classes of discrete

objects, instead of events or possibilities, they will be count nouns.

time, and achievements, because they are thought of as instantaneous events. Activities and accomplishments, on the other hand, do take time.

This bi-

partition is important for an understanding of the uses of the progressive tense, as Vendler has noted.

Only the time-taking aspeC;tual classes are com-

patible with the progressive: 6.3. Verbal aspect, (16) a. *John is knowing English.

The mass-count distinction is reflected in the aspectual classification of verbs in more than one way,

In this section, we will, after a brief dis-

cussion of verb classi-fication, look into the details of this relationship,

b.

John is talking.

c.

Jill is painting a masterpiece.

d. *Jill is finding a penny.

As our starting point, we will take the well-known Vendler classification of verbal aspect classes in four disjoint sets 3 : states, activities, accom-

plishments and achievements. (15) below:

Each type is illustrated by some examples in

The aspectual class of a verb phrase is not completely determined by the verb. The presence of arguments or modifiers may be partly responsible for the aspectual class,

In this respect, the count-mass distinction is directly

find+ mass object, for instance, is an activity phrase, whereas find + count object is an achievement phrase. This is shown by the different

relevant:

I I

;,

=203=

=202=

(20) a. *A gallon of water leaked through John's ceiling foi six inonths.

behaviour of these phrases with respect to for-phrases:

b. (17) a,

b.

Water leaked through John's ceiling for six months.

walk for an hour

Note that the subjects in these sentences differ with regard to the mass-

find money for an hour

count distinction.

c. *find a penny for an hour

So this is the first respect in which the mass/count

distinction is relevant for a theory of aspect: mass objects or subjects In general, for-phrases do not combine with achievements (cf. Dowty: 1979:

60).

In Dutch, modifiers like een

Wi,Y'

lang "an hour long" have the same

determine other aspectual classes than count objects or subjects. The second respect in which the mass/count distinction is important is in the classification of aspectual categories themseives.

property:

States and accom-

plishments have a mass character, whereas accomplishments and achievements (18) a.

Kees vond

een uur

Kees found an

lang geld

een uur

Kees found an

fo~

ties are not discrete entities,

an hour 11

of sand.

cent on the beach

"Kees found a cent on the beach for an hour

For instance, a period of walking will have

subperiods of walking -- just as a quantity of sand will have subquantities

lang een cent op het strand,

hour long a

This has to do with the fact that accomplishments

and achievements are viewed as individual events, whereas states and activi-

hour long money on the beach.

"Kees found money on the beach

b. *Kees vond

have a count character.

op het strand,

On the other

~and,

while an accomplishment, such as the conquest of

a city, may have several distinct parts, those parts themselves are not con-

11

quests of that city. For some discussion of the cooccurrence restrictions between aspectual classes and temporal modifiers in Dutch, cf. Verkuyl (1972),

As Verkuyl

The two divisions we have so far considered, the one between time-taking (+duration) and timeless

(-dur~tion)

events and the one between mass and

argues, not only arguments and modifiers of the verb, but even the subject

count events gives rise to a first characterisation of aspectual classes in

may help determine the aspectual category.

terms of two binary features:

(19) a. *Maandenlang overleed de

Here are some of his examples:

patient aan geelzucht.

+Duration

"The patient died of jaundice for months" b.

(21) Feafure Schema for AspeatuaZ. CZ.asses,

Maandenlang overleden de patienten hier aan geelzucht.

-Duration

! ---------------------------------! Activity

State

1 Accomplishment

Achievement

"For months the patients here died of jaundice"

t----------------------------------1

Note that (19a) is O.K. without the temporal modifier, so its ingrammatical-

1---------------------------------~

ity must be due to a clash between the aspectual properties of the subjectpredicate combination and the requirements of the modifier.

Since (19b),

which differs from (19a) only in the subject, is grammatical, the oddness of (19a) must be related directly to the contribution of the subject. In English, the situation is not different, and we may adduce similar examples, such as the following ones from Dowty (1979: 63):

-Count +Count

The relevancy of the count/mass distinction for the aspects has been noted by a number of authors, e.g. Hoepelman & Rohrer (1980), Armstrong (1981), Mourelatos (1978), and Taylor (1977).

However, the classifications proposed

by these authors do not always coincide with ours.

Taylor, for example, as-

1

sumes Aristotle s trichotomy of verbs, ,which distinguishes state-verbs, energeia-verbs (corresponding to Vendler 1 s aCtivities) and kinesis-verbs (corresponding to accomplishments and achievements),

The Vendler-classification

"204"

=205"

is more useful, however, than Aristotle's trichotomy, because the distinction between accomplishments and achievements, which is not made by Aristotle and Taylor, is of genuine linguistic importance, as is evidenced, for instance, by

their difference behaviour with respect to the progressive, cf, (16) above. Mourelatos, on the other hand, retains Vendler's classification, but assumes a hierarchical structure of the aspectual categories:

the flow of time: some state of affairs has to exist afterwards which did not exist before.

This is the motivation behind Dowty's (1979) BECOME-operator,

an important element of his Aspect Calculus.

By focussing on the temporal

aspects of the verb classes, we are bound to exclude other equally important features, and a more complete description of the aspectual classes will have to consider them -- not just change, but also agentivity and causation, notions which are discussed in some detail in Dowty's study.

(22)

Situations

6.4. Nominalisations and aspectual categories. states

occurrences (actions)

Since the mass-count distinction is reflected in the grammar of Dutch by

r

i

the nominalisation markers ge- and- -ing, the former being mass nouns and the

processes (activities)

events performances)

latter being count nouns in many cases, we might venture the hypothesis that only +Count propositions may be norninalised by-ingand only -Count propositions by ge-.

In that case we could derive the countability of the nominali-

sation directly from the countability of the underlying proposition. developments (accomplishments)

punctual occurrences (achievements)

hypothesis, however, turns out to be untrue.

This

For instance, we may. derive

+Count nominalisations from -Count expressions, in particular, from activity verbs:

This schema is rather interesting, because it captures both Aristotle's trichotomy and Vendler's four-way partition.

However, it is unable to treat

states and achievements as natural classes, unlike the schema in (21) nor does it recognise activities and accomplishments as forming a class of their own. evant.

This does not mean, of course, that Mourelatos' scheme is wrong or irrelNor do I

wa~t

to claim that the diagram in (21) catches all of the

essential properties of the aspectual classes.

Schema (21) only presents a

classification of the four aspectual types according to two parameters, countability and duration.

This does not mean, however, that other parameters

might not be just as relevant.

And, in fact, it seems that the major divi-

sion in Mourelatos' tree diagram, between states and the other classes (the ones beginning with A-), is linguistically motivated.

(23) a. de

wandeling

the walk b. de

vernedering

the humiliation c, de

belegering

the siege d. de

uitzending

the broadcasting e. de

aarzeling

the hesitation

The parameter in ques-

tion is change: states do not involve change, all other types do.

Change, of

course, is not a strictly temporal notion, since it concerns more than just

All of these nominalisations have plural counterparts.

To see that they are

really derived from activity verbs, note that the verbs in question can cooccur with een uur (dag, maand) Zang "for an hour (day, year)":

(24) a. een uur

(25b), with an adhortation to' make another walk.

lang wandelen

"to walk for an hour

We can make sense of this if we assume that the activity walking is

b. een uur lang vernederen 11to humiliate for an hour

transformed into an accomplishment in the -ing nominalisation,

0

is expressed by Vendler (1967: 101-2) in the following way:

d. een uur lang uitzenden "to broadcast for an hour" e. een dag lang aarzelen 11 to hesitate for a day" bs in question are either state or activity verbs (cf. Consequently, the Ver nly achievement, but also accomplishment Verkuyl 1972, who shows that not O of the type een uur Zang). We can show that verbs are bad with modifiers

h ey occur in the Dutch proh t en to the verb gressive construction, which is -formed by adding aan e ~~· (litterally:'at the'+ infinitive marker): We Waren aan he t wandelen °we were the verbs in question are not stative, because

The differ-

ence b~tween activities, such as walking and running, and accomplishments

c. een maand lang belegeren 11 to besiege for a month"

walking'1,

This is impossible, of

course, after the first command,

11

t

11

ze waren nag aan het aarzelen "They were still hesitating , etc.

·nali"sati·ons in (23) are derived from activity verbs, Therefore the count nom 1 that is, from -Count expressions. What seems to happen in these cases is · that an activity is transformed into an accomplishment in order to make it a countable type of event, A walk, for instance, i s no t some stretch of time during which walking is going on. Rather, it is something with a definite 11 starting point and end. The count nominal -wa:ndeling ''walk differs in this respect from the mass nominal gewandeZ "walking11,

Consider for instance the

following pair of sentences:

"It appears, then, that running and its kind go on in time in ·a homogeneous way; any part of the process is of the same nature as the whole. Not so with running a mile or writing a letter; they also go on in time, but they proceed toward a terminus which is logically necessary to their being what they are. Somehow this climax casts its shadow backward, giving a new color to all that went before, 11 It is clear that this distinction is the one Which sets -wa:ndeling aside from geUJandet. If we can form accomplishments from activities in -ing derivations, we might wonder whether the reverse is possible as well: to derive -Count nominals from +count verbs by affixation of ge-.

If this would be possible,

we would have strong evidence for the claim that nominalisation is not a semantically trivial operation,

At first sight, it appears that such cases

exist, in particular -Count nominals derived from achievement verbs (which denote punctual events), e.g. gekuch 'coughing' from kuchen 'to cough',

geknap 'snapping' etc.

However, as Comrie (1976: 42-3) notes, verbs· like to

cough may denote punctual events, but they also have an iterative reading, where they indicate repetition of punctual events.

The iterative readings

behave like activities, hence it is possible for these verbs to occur in the progressive construction:

(25) a. Hou op met dat gewandel! Stop that walking! b. Hou op met die wandeling!

(26) a, She was coughing. b. Cabies were snapping all the time.

Stop that walk! In (26), the progressive forces the iterative reading. The first command indicates that a .certain activity, i.e. walking, should stop, whereas the second one has no such implication: only a particular walk should not be prolonged. In fact, one might continue, after uttering

Sentence (26a) can-

not be interpreted to mean that she was engaged in the act of a single cough. Since there is independent evidence for the claim that verbs such as

kuchen "cough" can be used both as achievement and as activity verbs, it is

=209=

=208= possible that the ge-derivations in question are derived from activities. And this is evidently the case, because these nominalisations have strictly

Verb phrases such as een huis hoWiJen "to build a house" have an object that comes into existence by the activity denoted by the verb -- hence the term "effected obJ·ect",

the iterative reading, cf. :

(27)

a. Dat gekuch maakt me gek! 11

However, wh en t h e preposition aan is added, as in aan

een huis bouwen

11

fected object.

Most importantly, when the verb has an affected object, the

(lit.) to build at/ on a house" we are dealing with an af-

aspectual class of the combination is Activity, not Accomplishment.

That coughing is driving me crazy!"

This

explains the difference between the following ge-nominalisations:

b. De gasten hoorden geklop. "The guests heard knocking"

(30) a.

b. *bet gebouw van dat huis

In both examples, we have repetitions of punctual events, of coughs and knocks.

het gebouw aan dat huis

There is no semelfactive reading (that is, a reading where only one

Cf. aiso: punctual event is meant). When an iterative reading does not exist, ge-nominalisations of verbs indicating punctual events are semantically anomalous, cf,

kJ.Jartje "finding of a quarter 11 • complishments are bad.

*gevind van een

(31) a.

''Writing on that book must stop"

In the same way ge-nominalisations of ac-

Compare the following examples:

Het geschrij f aan dat boek moet uit zijn,

b. *Het geschrijf van dat boek mo et uit zijn, "Writing of that book must stop"

(28) a. Dat geren is vermoeiend. '

1

That running is fatiguililg

11

b.*Dat geren van een rnijl is vermoeiend. 11

That running of a mile is fatiguing"

(32) a,

Dat gelees in bet donker is slecht voor je ogen. "That reading in the dark is b.ad for your. eyes 11

b, *Dat gelees van Oorlog en Vrede is slecht voor je nachtrust. 11

That reading of War and Peace is bad for your night's rest"

These examples also show that the anomaly of (28b) is not due to the element

geren, which is acceptable, but rather to the aspect of the whole nominal-

Again, we see that accomplishments do not have goo d ge-nominalisations.

Some

cases are better, because a repetitive reading is ava1'lable, and consequently ised phrase. There is an interesting parallel case with verbs taking either an

the phrases in question are in fact interpreted as activities:

effected or an affected object (cf. Verkuyl 1972, section 2.4.3.) such as

bouwen.

Consider for instance the following examples from Verkuyl (1972):

(33) Al dat gedraaf naar huis is zinloos. "All that running home is pointless"

(29) a. De aannemer bouwt al maandenlang aan dat huis. 11

The building-contractor has now been working on (the

construction of) that house for months"

Ge-nominalisation requires not only -Count as p e c t , b u t a 1 so +D uration · aspect, since states are generally excluded:

b.*De aannemer bouwt al maandenlang dat huis. 11

The building-contractor has now been building that

house for months 11

(34) a. *bet geweet van bet antwoord "the knowing of the answer"

I

I

=211=

=210= b. *het geblijf in de 11

(3 7) a. Tina kwakkelt

stad*

the staying in the town"

the living among

the Indians

"Jan's resembling e. *bet gesta 11

b. De

11

his

van de

father" 5

boek

flutter

wind.

in the wind

c. Het vet spettert in de

pan.

The fat sputters in the pan

11

the standing of the solution

in that book

11

The fat is sputtering in the pan"

d. Het zonlicht schittert op de

It has been argued by Knapper (1984) that ge-nominalisations are possible cook, to boil',

health

"The flags are fluttering in the wind"

oplossing in dat

. only i f t h ere i s a con t ro 11 ing su b'Je ct •

vlaggen wapperen in de

The flags

op zijn vader

d. *Jan's gelijk

haar gezondheid.

"Tina is ailing 11

c. *bet geleef tussen de Indianen 11

met

Tina is-in-various-shapes with her

Hi's example i's the verb koken 'to

The sunlight glitters

bergtoppen.

on the mountain tops

"The sunlight is glittering on the mountain tops"

Sometimes, this verb has a controlling subject, sometimes

it doesn't have one: All of these have acceptable ge-nominalisations: (35) a.

De

aardappels koken,

( 38) a. Tina's gekwakkel met haar gezondheid

are boiling

The po ta to es

11

b.

Marie kookt goed.

b. bet gewapper van de vlaggen

Marie cooks well

1 '

in de

wind

the fluttering of the flags in the wind 11

c. bet gespetter van het vet in de pan

In (35b), Marie is the controlling subject, whereas (35a) lacks a controlling subject.

Tina 1 s ailingness 11

11

Only (35b) has a ge-nominalisation:

the sputtering of the fat in the pan 11

d. het geschitter van het zonlicht op de bergtoppen (36) a. *Het gekook

van de

The boiling of b.

Het gekook

the potatoes

"the glittering of the sunlight on the mountain tops"

lang.

,takes too long Given the acceptability of these examples, we must conclude that there is no

van Marie is niet goed.

The cooking of 11

aardappels duurt te

Marie is not

Marie' s cooking is not good

evidence that the existence of a controlling subject is required for ge-nominalisation. We must therefore assume that the nonoccutrence of ge-nominal-

good 11

isations of stative verbs is not due to the f act t h at stative verbs do not If Knapper is right, this might explain why the nominalisations in (34) are bad, since state verbs usually do not have a controlling subject.

For ex-

have controlling subjects, but rather to their statiVe character, Summarising the conclusions of this section, we have:

ample, to know does not have one, since it is odd to say that John knows English on purpose.

(39)

The same holds for verbs like resemble and live.

However, it turns out that Knopper's generalisation is spurious. are many instances of ge-nominalisations without controlling subjects. sider for instance the following sentences:

There

Conclusions. (i)

States and activities are -Count, accomplishments and

(ii)

States and achievements are -Duration, activities and accom-

Con-

achievements are +Count. plishments are +Duration;

----~

I

=210=

b. *het geblijf in de 11

stad 4

(37) a. Tina kw"akkelt

the staying in the town 11

d. *Jan's gelijk

e.

'~bet 11

gesta

11

the Indians 11

van de

his

11

oplossing in dat

the standing of the solution

vlaggen wapperen in de

The flags

father"

boek

5

flutter

wind,

in the wind

The flags are fluttering in the wind 11

c, Het vet spettert in de

in that book11

health

Tina is ailing"

b. De

op zijn vader

"Jan's resembling

haar gezondheid,

Tina is-in-various-shapes with her

c. *het geleef tussen de Indianen "the living among

met

pan,

The fat sputters in the pan "The fat is sputtering in the pan"

It has been argued by Knapper (1984) that ge-nominalisations are possible only if there is a controlling subject, cook, to boil'.

d, Het zonlicht schittert op de

His example is the verb koken 'to

The sunlight glitters

Sometimes, this verb has a controlling subject, sometimes

11

bergtoppen.

on the mountain tops

The sunlight is glittering on the mountain tops"

it doesn't have one: All of these have acceptable ge-nominalisations:

(35) a,

De

aardappels koken.

The po ta to es

b.

are boiling

(38) a. Tina's gekwakkel met haar gezondheid

Marie kookt goed.

11

Marie cooks well

11

In (35b), Marie is the controlling subject, whereas (35a) lacks a controlling subject,

Tina' s ailingness"

b, bet gewapper van de vlaggen

in de

wind

the fluttering of the flags in the wind 11

c. bet gespetter van bet vet in de pan

Only (35b) has a ge-nominalisation:

"the sputtering of the fat in the pan" d, bet geschitter van bet zonlicht op de bergtoppen

(36) a, *Het gekook

van de

The boiling of b.

Het gekook

aardappels duurt te

the potatoes

lang.

"the glittering of the sunlight on the mountain tops"

.takes too long

van Marie is niet goed,

The cooking of

Marie is not

Given the acceptability of these examples, we must conclude that there is no

good

evidence that the existence of a controlling subject is required for ge-nom-

"Marie's cooking is not good 11

inalisation.

We must therefore assume that the nonoccurrence of ge-nominal-

isations of stative verbs is not due to the fact that stative verbs do not If Knapper is right, this might explain why the nominalisations in (34) are bad, since state verbs usually do not have a controlling subject.

For ex-

have controlling subjects, but rather to their statiVe character, Summarising the conclusions of this section, we have:

ample, to know does not have one, since it is odd to say that John knows English on purpose,

The same holds for verbs like resemble and live.

However, it turns out that Knopper's generalisation is spurious, are many instances of ge-nominalisations without controlling subjects. sider for instance the following sentences:

(39)

There

Conclusions. (i)

Con-

States and activities are -Count, accomplishments and achievements are +Count.

(ii)

States and achievements are -Duration, activities and accomplishments are +Duration;

I

i

=213=

=212= (iii) Ge-nominalisations are -Count,

-ing nominalisations are

The models I am assuming here are 7-tuples