Versatility?

[Joan Bybee]

I agree with Lise. Jennifer Hay has also done a lot of very good research on
the loss of transparency of derivational morphology. Plus you can check my
2010 book, Language, Usage and Cognition, for both theory and data on these
points. No need to rely on anecdotes.

Joan

On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 5:38 PM, Lise Menn <lise.menn at colorado.edu> wrote:

> Gary Libben and his group have done a great deal of psycholinguistic work
> on what people consciously and unconsciously know about compounds; it's not
> necessary to rely on anecdote and introspection.  Check out the journal The
> Mental Lexicon. Obviously no one has all the answers, but linguists
> shouldn't ignore the very good science that has been done in this area.
> Lise
>
>
> On Mar 20, 2011, at 5:31 PM, Tom Givon wrote:
>
>
>> Maybe it would be useful to add that among all the pieces of quaint
>> exemplars lie some general principles that have to do with both the semantic
>> & phonological changes that affect compound expressions. Once the two parts
>> co-vary in all (or most) contexts, and once the meaning of the compound
>> drifts away from the original composite meaning of the two parts, there is a
>> growing semantic incentive to cease interpreting it as a composite, given
>> that the predictability of the compound meaning from its parts gets lower &
>> lower over time. In parallel, once two phonological sequences becomes fused
>> as a single word, assimilation & reduction make the similarity to the two
>> original parts less & less obvious. This is a typical "iconic conspiracy" in
>> compounding & co-lexicalization. Ther rest is, as usual, history.  TG
>>
>> ====================
>>
>>
>>
>> On 3/20/2011 4:53 PM, dharv at mail.optusnet.com.au wrote:
>>
>>> I can attest that even in the aircraft industry plenty of people don't
>>> realize that helicopter means helical or twisting wing.
>>>
>>> At 3:45 PM -0600 20/3/11, Sherman Wilcox wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 20 Mar 2011, at 15:26, Pamela Munro wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  The first time the observation about the analyzability of /rooster/ was
>>>>> made here, I thought, sure, I know the ending -/ster/, but what is /roo/?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I routinely ask my students to analyze helicopter. No one can. Everyone
>>>> thinks the word has an -/er/ suffix. Some of them come up with /heli-/
>>>> having to do with the sun, but then they can't figure out what the sun has
>>>> to do with helicopters, or what -/copt/- might mean. Something that chops
>>>> the sun's rays?
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Sherman Wilcox, Professor
>>>> Department of Linguistics
>>>> University of New Mexico
>>>> Albuquerque, NM 871131
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
> Lise Menn                      Home Office: 303-444-4274
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>
> Professor Emerita of Linguistics
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> University of  Colorado
>
> Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics]
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>
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>
>


-- 
Joan Bybee
HC 66 Box 118
Mountainair, NM 87036
505-847-0137