Versatility?

[Batia Seroussi]

Aya,
I am not sure whether sending attachments is allowed on this list since I
am fresh here as an active contributor. My doctoral thesis, submitted a few
months ago, is still waiting for its final approval.  Anyway, if you are
interested, I will gladly send selected presentations of talks that I gave
and the whole study, as soon as it is approved, to your private mail.
best,
Batia

2011/3/21 A. Katz <amnfn at well.com>

> Batia,
>
> Is your thesis available online? It sounds very pertinent to this
> discussion, and we could all profit by reading it.
>
> Best,
>
>   --Aya
>
>
>
> On Mon, 21 Mar 2011, Batia Seroussi wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>> One of the research questions of my doctorate, performed on native
>> speakers
>> of Hebrew in Tel-Aviv University under the supervision of Ruth Berman,
>> dealt
>> with the degree of compositionality or parsability of Hebrew derived nouns
>> with respect to familarity/frequency. In line with Hay & Baayen, Bybee and
>> others for English, familiarity/frequency interacted with the degree of
>> compositionality, yielding the following equation: more familiar/frequent
>> =
>> less reference to the root, less familiar/frequent = more refrence to the
>> root; Hebrew speakers who were asked to provide free associations, for
>> example, tended to rely on the root extensively when confronted with
>> unfamiliar/infrequent words whereas other types of associations (mainly
>> semantic-pragmatic) were given to familiar/frequent Hebrew derived nouns.
>> Batia Seroussi
>> 2011/3/21 Joan Bybee <jbybee at unm.edu>
>>
>> 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
>>>> 1625 Mariposa Ave       Fax: 303-413-0017
>>>> Boulder CO 80302
>>>> http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/index.html
>>>>
>>>> Professor Emerita of Linguistics
>>>> Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science
>>>> University of  Colorado
>>>>
>>>> Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics]
>>>> Fellow, Linguistic Society of America
>>>>
>>>> Campus Mail Address:
>>>> UCB 594, Institute for Cognitive Science
>>>>
>>>> Campus Physical Address:
>>>> CINC 234
>>>> 1777 Exposition Ave, Boulder
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Joan Bybee
>>> HC 66 Box 118
>>> Mountainair, NM 87036
>>> 505-847-0137
>>>
>>>
>>
>>