[Lexicog] part of speech for phrases

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Koontz John E" <john.koontz at colorado.edu>
To: <lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 5:45 PM
Subject: RE: [Lexicog] part of speech for phrases


> On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Ron Moe wrote:
> > I agree that we need to look at lexical units using each of the three
> > criteria. But my understanding is that 'part of speech' means
'inflectional
> > and/or syntactic class'.
>
> In dealing with Siouan languages I have been driven to conclude that these
> are actually not quite the same thing.  A lot of things that are
> morphologically verbs (or halfway in from being verbs) are used regularly
> in syntactic and lexical terms as nouns.  For example, 'house' might be
> 'he dwells' or 'he dwells there'.  In some languages this might be
> possessed with nominal schemes, while in others 'my house' is 'I dwell
> there'.  Similarly, 'saw' (the tool) might be 'he cuts things with it' and
> 'my saw' might be 'my one cuts things with it' or '(the thing) one cuts
> things with that I have' or 'I cut things with it'.
>
> There are pure noun forms, and nouns can be used as verbs to a certain
> extent, but the only derivational mechanisms are verb derivation and
> clausal syntax, so any derived form has to be a verb, or a clause, the
> latter often reduced to a compound.  There no specific mark of
> nominalization.
>
> Since many of these verbish nouns are quite lexicalized, and may have
> mandatory "indefinite object" prefixes added that would only be added to
> the verb when the object was specifically "indefinite," it's not quite
> possible to do something like
>
> i'base vt cut with, n saw
>
> You would actually have to say something like
>
> i'base vt cut with
> we'base vt-indef cut things with, n saw
>
> But the vt-indef is productive and any vt can have that prefix, so you're
> driven to
>
> i'base vt cut with
> we'base n saw
>
> But we'base is verbal in derivational morphology and may well be
> inflectable as a verb, so you're faced with something like
>
> i'base vt cut with
> we'base [vt-indef]n saw
>
> I'm inclined to conclude that noun and verb in morphological terms is
> something different from noun and verb in syntactic and/or lexical terms.
>
> (Exx. are Omaha-Ponca)
>
> JEK
>
>
>
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