[Lexicog] Deriving verbs and lexicography

[Rudolph Troike]

Mike wonders if we are wandering too far from lexicography,
but David's Nahuatl intuitions undoubtedly inform his sense
that we are not. The descriptive question is never which
way words developed historically -- "edit" derived by back-
formation from "editor", but we would cheerfully accept
"editor" as being formed by the addition of "-or" to "edit"
in a synchronic description. Linguistic descriptions are
not simply expressions of intuitions, but reflect models
chosen by the describer.

On the light verb + N(P) analysis, the light (no pun) came
on for me after years of pondering the question of why, in
asking a question of an action verb (or predicate), in
English and every other language I have looked at informally,
we use the deconstruction

   DO + WHAT  :  "What is he doing?" Answer: "He's working."

Since "what" quintessentially identifies a [-Human] NP, it
is clear in the grammar that the verb {WORK} must in some
sense "contain" the unexpressed light verb {DO} + an NP. So
synchronically from the point of view of the grammar it is
not imaginary hocus-pocus to describe the "deep" semantic/
syntactic structure in the form of a tree diagram in which
the NP has been incorporated into the light verb, over-
writing it, so to speak.

Eventive verbs, at least in English, can be queried with
"WHAT HAPPENED?", and this use of appropriate questions
can be a revealing basis for classifying verb types.

An important part of lexicography, it seems to me, is to
include information in definitions which will on the one
hand be of immediate practical use to a language user, and
on the other (sic!) make it possible to relate the item
to other languages, and ultimately to universals. It is
helpful to see how information is "bundled" in lexical
items in one language, but distributed elsewhere (or not
specified at all) in another. We think of {THROW} as a
lexical primitive, but in Navajo it must be decomposed
as "to CAUSE to MOVE", and even that is not enough, for
in Navajo there is no lexical primitive {MOVE}, since in
Athabaskan languages the shape of the object is incor-
porated into the motion verb, so that "a round object
moves" differs from "a long object" moves, etc. In English
we routinely incorporate information on MANNER in verbs of
motion, whereas this information must be expressed outside
of the verb in others. From a lexicographic perspective,
it is relevant to recognize this.

    Rudy

    Rudy Troike



 
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