[Lexicog] Circumfix?

[Mike Maxwell]

Kenneth Keyes wrote:
> Regarding the question of how circumfixes are to be displayed in a 
> dictionary, the previous discussions reminded me of paired conjunctions 
> (not circumfixes) in Mandarin Chinese. For example, the paired 
> conjunctions 虽然。。。但是 suiran /sʷejʐan/ danshi /danʂɯ/  "although" 
>  is displayed in Chinese grammars as having an elipsis between them to 
> demonstrate that the appearance of each at the head of both clauses is 
> obligatory. 

English has some paired conjunctions, too: both-and, either-or, 
neither-nor.  It also has particle verbs, at least one of which (to 
bring someone to) obligatorily takes the direct object between the verb 
and the particle (unlike most particle verbs, which allow or even 
require the particle to be adjacent to the verb: pick up s.t., pick s.t. 
up).

There are many other sorts of lexical items in English that allow or 
require other things to appear "inside", many of which are idioms. 
There's a construction with more-than, for instance, which takes NPs or 
Adjectives:

	He's more machine than man.
	That's more of a problem than a help.
	He's more slow than obstructive.
         (cf. *He's slower than obstructive, at least in the
         same sense)

I suspect there's a literature on the subject of discontinuous idioms.
-- 
	Mike Maxwell
	Linguistic Data Consortium
	maxwell at ldc.upenn.edu

	"When I get a little money I buy books;
           and if any is left I buy food and clothes."
	--Erasmus


 
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