The Root and Nothing but the Root: Primary Compounds in Dutch

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Oxford University Press. , 2020

Subordinate and synthetic represent well-attested modes of compounding across languages. Although the two classes exhibit some structural and interpretative analogies cross-linguistically, they denote distinct phenomena and entail different parameters of classification. Specifically, subordinate makes reference to the grammatical relation between the compound members, which hold a syntactic dependency (i.e., head-argument) relation; synthetic makes reference to the synthesis or concomitance of two processes (i.e., compounding and derivation). Therefore, while the former term implies the presence of a syntactic relation realized at the word level, the latter has strictly morphological implications and does not directly hinge on the nature of the relation between the compound members. Typical examples of subordinate compounds are [V+N]N formations like pickpocket, a class which is scarcely productive in English but largely attested in most Romance and many other languages (e.g., Italian lavapiatti 'wash-dishes, dishwater'). Other instances of subordinate compounds are of the type [V+N]V, differing from the pickpocket type since the output is a verb, as in Chinese dài-găng 'wait for-post, wait for a job'. The presence of a verb, however, is not compulsory since possible instances of subordinate compounds can be found among [N+N]N, [A+N]A, and [P+N]N/A compounds, among others: The consistent feature across subordinate compounds is the complementation relation holding between the constituents, whereby one of the two fills in an argumental slot of the other constituent. For instance, the N tetto 'roof' complements P in the Italian compound senza-tetto 'without-roof, homeless person', and the N stazione 'station' is the internal argument of the relational noun capo in capo-stazione 'chief-station, station-master'. Synthetic compounds can envisage a subordination relation, as in truck driv-er/-ing, where truck is the internal argument of driver (or driving), so that they are often viewed as the prototypical subordinates. However, subordination does not feature in all synthetic compounds whose members can hold a modification/attribution relation, as in short-legged and three-dimensional: In these cases, the adjective (or numeral) is not an argument but a modifier of the other constituent. The hallmark of a synthetic compound is the presence of a derivational affix having scope over a compound/complex form, though being linearly attached and forming an established (or possible) word with one

2001

Implementation (NSDI '16) is sponsored by USENIX.

2003

In Dutch, compounds are formed with or without linking elements, cf. zin+s+bouw ‘sentence structure’, woord+en+boek ‘dictionary’ (lit. ‘word book’) and woord+bouw ‘word structure’. The use of linking elements has been the subject of investigations since the dissertation on Dutch compounds by van Lessen (1927), who concludes that linking elements are historic relics of stem allomorphy and case. Rule-based approaches taking a synchronic point of view (Mattens 1970, 1984 and 1987 and van den Toorn 1981 and 1982) conclude that no strict rules, but only tendencies can be formulated, and Krott (2001) shows that the combined effort of these tendencies explains only 32% of the distribution of linking elements in the compounds found in the CELEX database (Baayen, Piepenbrock and Gulikers 1995). Still, speakers of Dutch know how to use linking elements in existing compounds and although variation in the use of linking elements exists, it is not dominant; for most compounds only one form is in...

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2011

... of headedness will be discussed in relation to various categories of compounds. ... [αF] [αF] Template (3)' thus specifies the category of right-headed endocentric compounds of Dutch. ... acquisition is therefore to be defined “in terms of linguistic constructions of varying degrees of ...

Studia Linguistica, 2015

In this article we provide empirical evidence against the claim that morphology contrasts with syntax in dealing with items that are listed in the lexicon. (Jackendoff 1975, Aronoff 1976, Jensen and Stong‐Jensen 1984). More specifically, we distinguish between three types of ANN compounds in Dutch. We show that the structural properties of these types do not show a one‐to‐one mapping with lexical properties, such as having a listed or even idiomatic meaning (see DiSciullo & Williams 1987). On the basis of this, we argue that conclusions on the structure of certain morphologically complex word‐forms should be based on structural properties and not on lexical properties such as idiomaticity or being lexicalized. We propose a syntactic derivation for all types of ANN compounds in Dutch (pace Ackema and Neeleman 2004). Structural differences follow from the level of merge: what we traditionally call morphology is syntax below the functional domain.

Revista Linguíʃtica, 2014

In this paper, we discuss the structural parallelism present in neoclassical and stem-based compounds to suggest that they are both formed in a uniform fashion, from a single underlying structure. Assuming a non-lexicalist approach to grammar-viz., the Distributed Morphology framework-we propose that these compounds' stems are concatenated via a functional projection, in the sense of Di Sciullo (2005, 2009), which receives a one-time categorization. As for the insertion of linking elements, it is the emerged structural configuration that triggers it in the compound structure at the morphological component.

2018

A recent debate in the morphological literature concerns the status of derivational affixes. While some linguists (Marantz 1997, 2001; Marvin 2003) consider derivational affixes a type of functional morpheme that realizes a categorial head, others (Lowenstamm 2015; De Belder 2011) argue that derivational affixes are roots. Our proposal, which finds its empirical basis in a study of Dutch derivational affixes, takes a middle position. We argue that there are two types of derivational affixes: some that are roots (i.e. lexical morphemes) and others that are categorial heads (i.e. functional morphemes). Affixes that are roots show ‘flexible’ categorial behavior, are subject to ‘lexical’ phonological rules, and may trigger idiosyncratic meanings. Affixes that realize categorial heads, on the other hand, are categorially rigid, do not trigger ‘lexical’ phonological rules nor allow for idiosyncrasies in their interpretation.

Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America, 2019

We present a syntactic account of the derivation of two types of attributive nominal compounds in Spanish, Russian and Greek. These include right-headed "root" compounds, which exhibit more "word"-like properties and single stress domains, and left-headed "semi-phrasal" compounds with more phrasal properties and independent stress domains for the two compound members. We propose that both compound structures are formed on a small clause predicate phrase, with their different properties derived from the merger of the predicate member of the small clause as a root or as a larger nominal unit with additional functional projections. The proposed structures provide an explanation of observed lexical integrity effects, as well as specific predictions of patterns of compound formation crosslinguistically. 1. Introduction. A hotly debated issue is to what extent morphological principles are independent from the syntactic ones. There is no agreement on how and why differences between "words," "phrases," and other units proposed to exist in-between these two categories arise. Syntactic approaches to word-formation such as Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993, Marantz 1997 and related work), antisymmetry (Kayne 1994, Koopman and Szabolcsi 2000) and more recently nanosyntax (Starke 2009) derive morphosyntactic properties of different units from the derivational path of their formation. For instance, Marantz (2001) proposes a difference between units created via combinations of functional heads with roots vs. those created at higher levels. In this work, we show additional evidence for this distinction from compound structure. This evidence comes from two distinct types of attributive compounds in Spanish, Russian, and Greek that show several common asymmetries. We will predict these asymmetries in a syntactic analysis in which a distinction is made between compounds that involve merging of roots vs. those that involve merging of larger structures. We adopt a modified Distributed Morphology/antisymmetric framework and propose that the specific compounds discussed in this paper are relative clauses with an internal small clause structure realized as a Relator Phrase (DenDikken 2006). The semantic and formal head of a compound is the subject of the small clause, and the predicate member can merge either as a root or a larger structure (e.g., nP, numP). These two types of options create two types of compounds with distinct properties summarized in Section 2. Thus, compound-distinctive properties, as well as their differences from full syntactic phrases are derived from basic assumptions about syntactic structure and operations which have been developed to account for "purely" syntactic phenomena (phrasal movement, predicate inversion, licensing, quantization, and so on). We also discuss how this account predicts the existence of lexical integrity effects which are usually taken to support a distinction between words and phrases. On our account existence of such effects is

A recent debate in the morphological literature concerns the status of derivational affixes. While some linguists (Marantz 1997, 2001; Marvin 2003) consider derivational affixes a type of functional morpheme that realizes a categorial head, others (Lowenstamm 2015; De Belder 2011) argue that derivational affixes are roots. Our proposal, which finds its empirical basis in a study of Dutch derivational affixes, takes a middle position. We argue that there are two types of derivational affixes: some derivational affixes are roots (i.e. lexical morphemes) while others are categorial heads (i.e. functional morphemes). Affixes that are roots show 'flexible' categorial behavior, are subject to 'lexical' phonological rules, and may trigger idiosyncratic meanings. Affixes that realize categorial heads, on the other hand, are categorially rigid, do not trigger 'lexical' phonological rules nor allow for idiosyncrasies in their interpretation.

Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics, 2016

In Icelandic there are two different types of modifiers within the compound, inflected and uninflected, where the inflected modifiers appear to be peripheral to the uninflected ones. In this paper, it is proposed that this is an effect of compounding being required to combine elements of the same type or size. The inflected modifiers, containing more structure than the uninflected ones, cannot be merged at the same level as uninflected modifiers. This paper also explores two other issues of domainhood within the compound. One being the establishment of domains for morphophonological processes, where it is proposed that the boundaries of morphophonological domains are determined by the edge of the extended projection of the root. The second one being that of special meaning, where it is shown that exocentric compounds with inflected modifiers have exclusively non-compositional meaning, whereas exocentric compounds with uninflected modifiers could have either compositional or non-compositional meaning.