Some new insights into the semantics of English N+N compounds

2010

Based on a 3,093-item corpus, this paper delves into the meaning relationship between the two constituents of N+N compounds. After tackling theoretical questions such as semantic categories and prototypes of compounds, some methodological details are considered and explanations provided on the collection of the corpus. Next, the experimental section examines the semantics of N+N compounding and, by means of various computations, it describes and analyzes to what extent the presence of a given modifier influences the overall meaning of these lexemes. Finally, the aspects from the theoretical and the practical sections are combined, and future prospects on the topic assessed.

2009

In this paper we examine the semantic and pragmatic properties of German A+N compounds and the corresponding phrases (e.g. Altpapier vs. altes Papier). We argue that, although there is a clear and unambiguous formal difference between compounds and phrases in German, no such distinction can be made concerning their semantics and pragmatics. For this reason, neither semantics nor pragmatics alone can predict correctly whether a given A+N combination is realized as a compound or a phrase. Instead, there is an interplay of semantic, pragmatic and syntactic factors * .

Complex lexical units: compounds and multi-word expression, edited by Barbara Schlücker. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2019

This volume deals with compounds (e. g., boat house, softball) and multi-word expressions (piece of cake, dry cough) in European languages. Compounds and multi-word expressions (henceforth MWEs) are similar as they are both lexical units and complex, made up of at least two constituents. The most basic difference between compounds and MWEs seems to be that the former are the product of a morphological operation and the latter result from syntactic processes. This is, admittedly, a very vague distinction. However, as soon as one takes into account more than one specific language (or language family), it seems that this is the closest one may come to a definition that is more or less applicable to the European languages. In fact, in light of Romance examples such as French glace au chocolat, Spanish helado de chocolate ‘chocolate ice cream’ which have often been analyzed as compounds although they contain syntactic relational markers, even the morphological criterion for compoundhood seems to be questionable. Further complicating matters, whereas in many languages compounds are regarded as being opposed to MWEs, in other languages, and particularly in English, compounds are often regarded as a kind of MWE. In addition, for languages that are assumed to have an opposition between compounds and MWEs, the question arises of whether compounds and MWEs act in competition or complementation with regard to the formation of new lexical units. Given this background, the aim of the volume is to present an overview of compounds and MWEs in a sample of European languages. Central questions that are discussed for each language concern the formal distinction between compounds and MWEs (in particular prosodic, morphological, and syntactic properties), the relation between compounding and MWE formation as well as the conclusions concerning the theory of grammar and the lexicon that follow from these observations. Although several comprehensive volumes on compounding and phraseology have appeared in recent (and not so recent) years (cf. Scalise (ed.) 1992; Burger et al. (eds.) 2007; Lieber/Štekauer (eds.) 2009a; Gaeta/Grossmann (eds.) 2009; Scalise/Vogel (eds.) 2010; Gaeta/Schlücker (eds.) 2012), the relationship between compounds and MWEs with respect to their status in lexicon and grammar has received comparatively little attention (cf. Hüning/Schlücker 2015 for an overview). For this reason, this relationship constitutes the central focus of this volume. The aim of the present chapter is to review the language-specific properties, bring them together and compare them against German. German is well-known for its propensity for (nominal) compounding, as compared to, e. g., French. Also, there is a rather clear demarcation line between compounds and MWEs in German, in contrast to English, for instance. Taking German as a reference point may help to shed more light on some of the crucial questions with respect to the compound-MWE relationship in the various European languages such as, for instance, the potential competition between the two processes, or their demarcation line. By way of language comparison, the differences and commonalities between languages – both within language families and across these borders – become clearer, ultimately revealing that a cross-linguistically valid definition of compounds and the demarcation from MWEs may be impossible, given that languages vary greatly in their defining properties and in the number and productivity of compound and MWE subpatterns. The volume contains chapters on English, German, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Russian, Polish, Finnish, and Hungarian. Although this sample is neither complete nor representative of “the” languages of Europe, it nevertheless provides thorough analyses of a large set of central European languages. Importantly, it should be noted that the selection here is mostly due to various practical reasons, rather than an assessment of the relevance of languages. In addition to the languages mentioned, the present chapter also comprises an overview of the North Germanic languages. The structure of this chapter is as follows: Section 2 starts with general considerations about the lexicon and the lexicon-syntax interface and discusses basic notions such as morphological vs. syntactic lexical unit, lexicalization, and the problem of correspondence. Section 3 discusses compounds and MWEs against the background of German, sorted by language families. The chapter ends with a brief conclusion in Section 4.

In this paper the author argues that some components of English compounds do not exist as free lexical item, or that they exist only with metaphorically specified meaning. The compositional meaning of components of such compounds as, for example, 'church goer' may be better preserved in compounds than in free lexical items. The conclusion is that the formation of compounds do not necessarily follow the assumed ordering of lexical levels.

2020

This research examines the semantic aspect of morphological compounding in the English and Tiv languages. The choice of the two languages is motivated by the fact that research works in word formation generally, and compounding particularly, in Tiv language have not taken this dimension. And with adequate studies of this nature in the English language, what is or not obtainable in the Tiv language can be discovered through a comparative method of analysis. The study is designed on a survey method, with both primary and secondary sources of information. The study finds out that a number of these compounds in both English and Tiv languages have heads referring to the categorical elements that have the basic meanings of certain compounds. Again, the English language, just like the Tiv language, is still identified with a number of compounds described as exocentric. These are compounds that are realised holistically without necessarily regarding any of the components as a head. But copu...

Languages in Contrast, 2018

2020

This paper examines and compares the processes of compounding in C’lela and English It investigates the morphological and lexical properties of compounds in the two languages. The objective of the study is to provide an overview of the C’lela compound patterns and to significantly describe how C’lela is unlike or similar to English in the extent and nature of their compounding phenomena. The phrase ‘morpho-lexical operation’ designates a particular linguistic activity that invokes a kind of morphological phenomenon. C’lela and English like in many other languages have distinctive but vibrant compound properties that create new words with a high degree of transparency in which a compound structure correlates consistently with the semantic interpretation of the compound constituents. The paper examines the structure, classification as well as the semantic relations between compound constituents and also the semantic interpretation of the derived compounds in the two languages. The dif...

The notion of compound can be taken as a theoretical concept only if it has a precise definition. In many current discussions it is assumed that such a definition is not available or not possible. Here, I will show how translation can be used as a heuristic to determine a concept of compound that is semantically coherent. This concept includes genitive constructions and constructions of a relational adjective with a noun, but not prepositional constructions in which the preposition expresses part of the meaning. An essential component of the use of compounds for naming is shown to be onomasiological coercion.

Slavia Meridionalis, 2015