6.877, Sum: [N+V] verbal compounds

[The Linguist List]

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-6-877. Mon 26 Jun 1995. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines: 145
 
Subject: 6.877, Sum: [N+V] verbal compounds
 
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               Ann Dizdar <dizdar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
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1)
Date:          Wed, 21 Jun 1995 13:41:20 +0100
From: (FULLANA at skywalker.udg.es)
Subject:       Summary and Acknowledgments: [N+V] verbal compounds
 
-------------------------Messages--------------------------------------
1)
Date:          Wed, 21 Jun 1995 13:41:20 +0100
From: (FULLANA at skywalker.udg.es)
Subject:       Summary and Acknowledgments: [N+V] verbal compounds
 
Content-Length: 5298
 
SUMMARY AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ON [N+V] VERBS.
 
In March, we sent a message about [N+V] verbal compounds. We were
working on this kind of compounds in Catalan and we wished to know
what happen in other languages. We also asked for references. We
received some messages. We briefly sum them up in 1. In 2. we list
the people which answer us and, although we thank them personaly, we
(re) thank them.
 
1.SUMMARY
    Our request said something like this:
 
    "We are two resarchers at the Universitat de Girona (SP) and we
are working on a kind of Catalan verbal compounding. We sumarize tha
characteristics of these compounds here below. We are interested in
other VO languages with the same (or similar) process of verb
formation.
 
    [N+V]V VERBAL COMPOUNDING IN CATALAN
 
    To be more clear we enumerate the relevant characteristics of our
compounds.
 
    1. First of all, we must say that Catalan is a VO language.
    2. Our compounding looks like a process of Noun Incorporation
where the incorporated noun within the lexical item is the ineternal
argument in the syntactic structure. See (1):
 
        (1) a. El cacador trenca la cama de l'ocell.
            the hunter breaks the leg of the bird
            b. El cacador camtrenca l'ocell.
            the hunter leg+breaks the bird
 
    3. Nevertheless, the noun-incorporation doestn't affect to the
capacity of the verb of assigning acusative case, this is, the
complex verb remains transitive.
    4. This kind of "noun-incorporation" is only possible when the
noun incorporated is a
in inalienable possession noun (IPN) and the new internal argument of
the complex verb is the possessor. See (2) and (3):
 
        (2) a. corferir
            to heat+hurt
              b. colltorcer
            to neck+twist
 
        (3) a. *cadiratrencar
            to chair+break
                 *ferrotorcer
            to iron+twist
 
    5. We hypothesise that the IPN acsts as a kind of modifier in the
complex verbal form and it doesn't act as a verbal argument"
 
     Most of the people gave us references, they are listed below.
Most of the answers coincide with the belief that this kind of
verbal compounds are backformations from adjectives( in -er) or
nominal compounds. Then "to baby sit" comes from "baby sitter" for
example. Another repeated idea is that they aren't productive in
languages as English,  or Romance languages. Nevertheless, we still
claim that both questions, the productiviy and the
backformation,  are not so clear in Catalan. Bertienetto notes that
maybe there is a relation between this  kind of nominal incorporation
and a progressive aspect (it has been also noted in the literature
about the theme; see, for example Miller G. (1993): Complex Verb
Formation, J. Benjamins.). J. Alvarez sent to us an interesting paper
on incorporation  and possessor ascension in Guajiro. In that
language, not only INP are able to be incorported but also other
kind of nouns.
 
    We haven't demonstrated our hypothesis yet but we are carry on
with our research  and any comment is always welcome.
 
REFERENCES
 
ALVAREZ, Jose (1994): "Estudios de Linguistica Guajira". Gobernacion
del Estado de Zulia, Maracaibo, Venezuela.
 
GAVARRO, Anna (1990) :Syntactic Theory and the Grammar of Catalan
Compounds, PhDiss, University of Edinburg.
 
KLINGEBIEL, Kathryn (1989): Noun+Verb Compounding in Western Romance.
Berkeley, University of California Press.
 
ROBINSON, Peter (1988): "Universals of  word formation processes:
noun incorporation in the acquisition of Samoan as a second language"
 
VELAZQUEZ-CASTILLO, Maura (1993): The Grammar of Inalienability:
Possession and Noun Incorporation in Parguayan Guarani. PhDiss,
University of California, San Diego.
 
 
2.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
 
    Jose Alvarez (Universidad de Zulia, jalvar at conicit.ve)
    Pier Marco Bertinetto (Scuola Normale Superiore dei Pisa,
bertinet at sns.it)
    George Aaron Broadwell (SUNY-Albany, g.broadwell at albany.edu)
    Anna Gavarro (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, ilfth at cc.uab.es)
    Jose Ignacio Hualde (University of Illinois,
jihualde at ux1.cso.uiuc.edu)
    Suzanne Kemmer (University of California, San Diego,
kemmer at ruf.rice.edu)
    Arantza Martinez (Univerisitat del Pais Basc, fvmaeca at sd.ehu.es)
    Peter Robinson (University of Queensland,
peterr at lingua.cltr.uq.oz.au)
    Max Wheeler (Univerity of Sussex, maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk)
 
Olga Fullana (fullana at skywalker.udg.es)
Lluisa Gracia (gracia at skywalker.udg.es)
Univerittat de Girona
Dept. Filologia i Filosofia
Pl. Ferrater Mora, 1
E-17071 Girona
Spain
 
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