<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
<html><head><style type="text/css"><!--
blockquote, dl, ul, ol, li { padding-top: 0 ; padding-bottom: 0 }
--></style><title>Re: [Lexicog] Percentage of idioms vs single
words</title></head><body>
<div>It seems to me that there are two sets of assumptions in play in
this discussion. First, what does it mean to be lexicalized? And
second, what is the role of pragmatics?</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>Let's
look at the lexicalization question first. If you believe that
productive analyzability precludes lexicalization, then you are forced
to conclude that<i> forest fire</i> is not a lexical item. I'd argue
to the contrary. Just because a phrase has a productive analysis does
not preclude its being a lexical unit. Thus I'd say that<i> forest
fire</i>,<i> house fire</i>,<i> campfire</i>,<i> brush fire</i> are
all lexicalized, while<i> tree fire</i>,<i> city fir</i>e, and<i> roof
fire</i> are not. I don't believe that this can be determined by any
straightforward syntactic or semantic test. Although I've selected a
set of phrases that all have locative readings, the first four have
something "special" about them.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>1)<i>
forest fire</i> There's an important sense in which<i> forest
fires</i> are a regular topic of discussion -- at least here in the
American West where they are an annual problem. Whether it's the
frequency of usage that gives<i> forest fire</i> its lexical status
I'll leave to the corpus linguists to decide. I'm only registering an
introspective fact that a<i> forest fire</i> seems like a thing to me
in a way that a<i> tree fire</i> doesn't.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>2)<i>
house fire</i> If you think about all the things the expression<i>
house fire</i> could mean and doesn't, e.g. the fire in the fireplace
in the house, coupled with the fact that it's a reasonably common
occurrence both physically and lexically, and you have a reason<i>
house fire</i> is a lexical item and<i> city fire</i> or<i> roof
fire</i> isn't. (<i>City fires</i> are very common in the real world,
they're just not talked about in that way.<i> Roof fires</i> aren't
the most common kind of<i> house fire</i> but they are usually talked
about as<i> house fires</i>.)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>3)<i>
campfire</i> This needs no explanation. This is not just a fire in a
camp. It refers to a very specific kind of fire. That alone warrants
listing as a lexical entry.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>4)<i>
brush fire</i> Again the semi-idiomatic use of the word<i> brush</i>
in this expression makes it an obvious lexical entry.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>The
pragmatic question is equally tricky, but it depends, in part, on the
view you have on lexicalization. If you believe that that which can be
analyzed, must be analyzed, then the following observations probably
won't have much traction for you.</div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>Some
background first. On the question of English compound nouns, we seem
to have forgotten Judy Levi's 1978 work on compounds. She observes
that there is added semantic content in compounds of a fairly limited
sort which is not explicit. The cited examples in a Levi type
framework go like so:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>a<i>
wood fire</i> is a<i> fire USING wood</i></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>a<i>
forest fire</i> is a<i> fire IN (the) forest</i> (actually
LOCATIVE)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>and</div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>an<i>
electric fire</i> is a<i> fire CAUSED BY electricity</i></div>
<div><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>(BTW, I have to say<i> electrical fire, *electric fire</i> for
me)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>I would argue that the fact that there are standard
interpretations means that information has to be listed in the lexicon
in some way. There are three options:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>1) associate the added semantics with the head noun.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab>
</x-tab><i>fire</i> in compounds N<i> fire</i> =<i> fire AT LOC</i> N
or<i> fire USING</i> N or<i> fire CAUSED BY</i> N</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>2) associate the added semantics with the modifying noun</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab>
</x-tab><i>forest</i> in compounds<i> forest</i> N = N<i> AT LOC
forest</i>, etc.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>3) associate the added semantics with the compound</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab>
</x-tab><i>forest fire</i> =<i> fire AT LOC forest</i></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>It's a whole paper to show that 1) and 2) are fraught with
problems (although 1) fares better than 2)). Needless to say, I favor
3), whose only problem is that it may come close to making the lexicon
encyclopedic. (I'd argue that that's not a problem, but a necessity
anyway.</div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>But
there remains the problem of pragmatics. The fact that one can force a
non-standard interpretation of a lexicalized phrase pragmatically does
not mean that all the interpretations of the phrase are pragmatically
driven. We have to account for preferred readings.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>Levi
also points out that there are parallels between compounds and
adjectival forms (as in the variants<i> electric fire</i> vs.<i>
electrical fire</i>). Many of the adjectives in these pseudo-compounds
are not usable as predicative adjectives.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab>
</x-tab>*<i>That engineer is electrical.</i></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>This is apparently the only source of non-predicative adjectives,
which further supports the treatment of such phrases as units. (A
fuller discussion can be found in Levi.)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>I
should add a quick final note that working on Sayula Popoluca over the
past years I have run across clear syntactically testable distinctions
in lexicalization between complex forms of identical analysis. This is
why I feel strongly that analyzability is not a test for non-lexical
status. (Nobody said language was easy.)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Rich Rhodes</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Patrick Hanks wrote:<br>
> ...D) be unnecessary because they are<br>
> really part of the grammar not the lexicon - an 'electric fire'
is<br>
> just a type of fire ..."<br>
><br>
> D) is not true, unfortunately. If it were true, 'forest
fire' would<br>
> be synonymous with 'wood fire'. But both these MWEs (which are
not in<br>
> ordinary dictionaries) have distinctive conventional meanings,
which<br>
> an ideal dictionary would state explicitly. A forest fire
is out<br>
> there in the forst, and a wood fire is at home in your house (or
in a<br>
> camp, for cooking).<br>
<br>
Isn't there a slippery slope here, grading off into encyclopedic
knowledge?<br>
That, or I'm missing the point.<br>
<br>
At its simplest, a forest fire is a fire where the fuel is a forest,
while a<br>
wood fire is a fire whose fuel is (any) wood. And in fact there
can be lots<br>
of different kinds of wood fires besides the two you mention: a fire
in a<br>
boiler on a ship, where they're burning wood instead of coal or oil; a
house<br>
that's on fire, where one is contrasting the burning of wood with
burning of<br>
something else (perhaps some toxic substance contained in the house);
etc.<br>
I guess it doesn't seem to me that listing in your dictionary the
kinds of<br>
things that contain wood, and can therefore be part of a wood fire, is
very<br>
useful. And the fact that a forest fire is not in your home is
simply a<br>
result of the fact that we don't have forests in our houses. (I
wish I<br>
did.)<br>
<br>
Or maybe your point is that if 'forest fire' and 'wood fire' were<br>
synonomous, we could just as well refer to a forest fire as a wood
fire?<br>
But it seems to me that there's a Gricean reason for this: all forest
fires<br>
are wood fires, but not vice versa, and we try to be somewhat
explicit.<br>
<br>
(Now if Disney built a forest in California out of--what
else--plastic, and<br>
it caught fire, we might conceivably call it a forest fire; and then
we<br>
might want to distinguish 'wood forest fires' from 'plastic forest
fires'.<br>
But I don't want a plastic forest in my house :-).)<br>
<br>
Putting it differently, a "city fire", "prairie
fire", "building fire" etc.<br>
all have much the same kind of meaning as "forest fire": a
fire in a<br>
location; while "paper fire", "oil fire",
"coal fire" etc. are like "wood<br>
fire": a fire burning a substance. But that's because
forests (etc.) are<br>
locations, while wood (etc.) is a substance. Isn't this just
pragmatics/<br>
encyclopedic knowledge, rather than convention?<br>
<br>
In sum, compound nouns are notoriously productive in English, with
the<br>
meanings of productive compounds being determined for the most part
by<br>
pragmatics. I'm not sure I see the sense (pardon the pun) in
doing a<br>
dictionary of that (or if you do create such a work, calling it a<br>
dictionary).<br>
<br>
Mike Maxwell<br>
LDC</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>
maxwell@ldc.upenn.edu<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<x-sigsep><pre>--
</pre></x-sigsep>
<div
>******************************************************************<br
>
<br>
Richard A. Rhodes<br>
Associate Dean, Undergraduate Division<br>
Interim Director, Office of Undergraduate Advising<br>
College of Letters & Science<br>
113 Campbell Hall<br>
University of California<br>
Berkeley, CA 94720-2924<br>
Phone: (510) 643-4184<br>
FAX: (510) 642-2372<br>
<br>
******************************************************************</div
>
<!-- |**|begin egp html banner|**| -->
<br>
<tt><hr width="500">
<b>Yahoo! Groups Links</b><br>
<ul>
<li>To visit your group on the web, go to:<br><a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/</a><br>
<li>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:<br><a href="mailto:lexicographylist-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com?subject=Unsubscribe">lexicographylist-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com</a><br>
<li>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the <a href="http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/">Yahoo! Terms of Service</a>.
</ul>
</tt>
</br>
<!-- |**|end egp html banner|**| -->
</body>
</html>