[Lexicog] Nouns

[Sebastian Drude]

I would like to reinforce some of Mike's arguments and to direct your
attention to the possibilities to deal with these problems in a
Word-and-Paradigm framework.  The main point I would like to make is
that our analytical capacities are much broader when we accept that
forms of lexical words need not be single (phonological) words (which
usually are written separated by spaces in orthographies of many languages).

Ron wrote:

> There are three types of complex forms--derivatives, compounds, and 
> phrases.

I believe that there is word formation in morphology and in syntax.
If something has a lexical meaning on it's own, it is a lexical word and
hence should be listed in a dictionary.

In morphology, new stems are formed by derivation and composition
(sometimes stem-internal changes such as ablaut or conversion occur, too).
In syntax we have derivation and composition too, leading not to new
stems but to lexical words (identifiable by semantic and possibly
syntactical criteria) that are "*idioms*" - in the sense that idioms are
lexical words ALL forms of which are complex, that is, consist of more
than one syntactic base form ('word').  (Forms of non-idiom words can
also be syntactically complex if auxiliaries occur as in _has_gone_, a
form of the lexical word _to_go_.)

Once a conception is accepted which allows for complex (analytical,
periphrastic) forms of lexical words, many of the problems for
Item-and-Arrangement or Item-and-Process models in dealing with the
definition of "word" and of word classes such as nouns disappear.

In English, the situation is complicated by the fact that even entities
which probably could be best analysed as *morphological* compounds such
as _hot_dog_ are often written as separate orthographical words -- but,
as Mike pointed out, orthography is not a valid criterion for the
analysis of spoken language.  In English, one of several useful
identificational criteria is placement of stress -- if my English does
not fail, I believe a _hot_dóg_ (animal) is different from a _hót_dog_
(food).

> There are several problems, both theoretical and practical, in 
> assigning a part of speech to a multi-word lexical item.

This is, in my terminology, to idioms.  But all lexical words, having or
not complex forms, belong to a part of speech.

> for example 'of course'. Although it looks like a prepositional 
> phrase, it is not. It functions as a conjunction (or perhaps as a 
> pragmatic particle).

I guess this is indeed rather a 'pragmatic particle' in some reasonable
sense (a special kind of adverb?).  I cannot imagine uses of _of_course_
as a coordinating or subordinating conjunction.
The part of speech is determined by its function.

> Phonologically it is a single word,

I am not so sure about this, but even if it would turn out to consist of
two 'words' (syntactic base forms), it can still be a lexical word.

> Other lexical phrases are not fixed.

I do not understand 'fixed' here -- are you referring to fixed order?

> Take, for example, the idiom 'have a fit':

This could be analyzed as an idiomatic verb.

> In other words 'have a fit' is a sequence of words syntactically, but
>  a single unit semantically.

In a word-and-paradigm approach as I am advocating here, these are
regular lexical words.

> 'Have a fit' is a semantic event, but it is not a syntactic verb.

For me, it is.  It happens to be constructed internally by combining a
noun and a verb, but once you accept _has_gone_ as a usual form of the
verb _to_go_, nothing hinders you to treat _were_having_fits_ as a form
of an idiomatic) verb.

> So what do we call something like 'have a fit'? Obviously it is not a
>  word. 'Part of speech' is a function of words. Therefore it has no 
> part of speech. In the part of speech field you could call it a 
> 'clause fragment' or 'idiom' or 'lexical phrase' or phrasal lexeme', 
> but please don't call it a 'verb'.

I would advice to call it a verb, it is a verb by formal (showing verbal
inflection for person, tense, number etc.), functional (functioning as
the head of a propositional phrase) and semantic (having a single
concept as lexical meaning) criteria -- a verb which happens to be an
'idiom' or 'lexical phrase' or phrasal lexeme'.

> And don't call 'hot dog' a 'noun phrase', 'compound', or 'noun'.

I would call it a noun, be it composed by morphological or by
syntactical means (I guess, by morphological means).

> If you call the ones written as phrases 'compounds', your parser will
>  choke.

Most parsers (and even simple interlinearization tools such as
Shoebox / Toolbox) are heavily based on underlying Item-ans-Arrangement
or possibly Item-and-Process models.  In such models, only single
phonological words can belong to parts of speech and all syntactic
constituents are single words.  These are not the only, and in my view,
not the preferable, models.

> The difficulty in handling lexical phrases becomes painfully obvious 
> when you try to parse and/or interlinearize them.

True, but that means for me that we have to work on better tools which
are compatible also with Word-and-Paradimg theories.

> Unfortunately the study of lexical phrases is not as well developed 
> as the morphology and syntax of single words. Someone needs to write 
> the definitive book on the subject. (Or is there a good book out 
> there?)

I cannot recommend a book, but a good starting point is the handbook
article "Notion of Paradigms in Grammar" by H.-H. Lieb in the deGruyter
Handbook on Lexicology (see reference at bottom).

Mike wrote:

> I would not think of the compound noun "hot dog" as an NP, but rather
>  as a compound noun.  A "compound noun" would be a sub-type of 
> "noun", in the sense that a compound noun can appear anywhere in 
> syntax that a plain noun might appear (assuming semantic 
> compatibility).

Exactly.
Non-compositionality of meaning is a mandatory criterion for being a
lexical word, but this does not necessarily mean that lexical words with
a compositionally still derivable meaning are ruled out as single
lexical words.

>> In the meantime I would recommend that you leave the part of speech
>>  field for lexical phrases empty or simply assign them to 'Phrase' 
>> (abbreviation: Phr.).
> 
> That's reasonable for many cases, including idioms.  It is not good 
> advice for compounds, I claim, precisely because they are not 
> necessarily phrases, but they do have a specific behavior--their 
> distribution is that of nouns.

Exactly.

> There are also other sorts of multi-word constructions that are not 
> phrases, such as particle verbs in English: "bring...to" (as in "The 
> referee brought the boxer to")

This could be analyzed as a case of syntactic derivation, or maybe
composition.  German particle verbs are usually syntactically derived
(idiomatic) lexical words.

Best, Sebastian

Reference:

Lieb, Hans-Heinrich. 2005. ''Notions of paradigm in grammar''.
In: D. Alan Cruse et al. (eds.). Lexikologie / Lexicology:
Ein internationales Handbuch zur Natur und Struktur von
Wörtern und Wortschätzen / An international handbook on
the nature and structure of words and vocabularies. Vol.2.
Berlin etc.: de Gruyter. (= Handbücher zur Sprach- und
Kommunikationswissenschaft 21.2). 1613-1646.
Abstract:
http://www.germanistik.fu-berlin.de/il/+en/papers/p2005-01-en.html

-- 
|   Sebastian   D R U D E         (Lingüista, Projeto Aweti / DOBES)
|   Setor de Lingüística   --  Coordenação de Ciências Humanas (CCH)
|   Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi,  Belém do Pará   --  CNPq  --  MCT
|   Cx.P. 399  --  CEP: 66 040 - 170  --  Tel. e FAX: (91) 274 40 04
|   Email:   sebadru at zedat.fu-berlin.de    +   drude at museu-goeldi.br
|   URL:   http://www.germanistik.fu-berlin.de/il/pers/drude-en.html



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