[Lexicog] Nouns

[billposer at ALUM.MIT.EDU]

The fact that a word like "grits" has some behaviors that are not
those of a Noun Phrase is readily accounted for by the fact that
it is ALSO a noun. Nouns form plurals with <s> (really /z/); phrases
do not. The points that Ron makes are well taken, but they are all
quite familiar, and I see nothing that is problematic for the view
that there are degenerate Noun Phrases that happen to consist of nothing
but their head noun. 

With regard to the status of expressions like "have a fit", it is probably
not correct to treat them simply as verbs, but again I see no incompatiblity
between that and existence of phrases consisting only of a single word.

I also think that isn't correct to treat this as simply an issue of
syntax versus semantics. It may look that way because in some cases
the motivation for treating a complex expression as a single word may
be that it seems to function as one semantically. However, there are
many cases in which complex expressions behave like single words
in ways other than semantic. Moreover, it doesn't work to generalize
the notion that there are mismatches between syntax and semantics
and say that there are multiple levels of representation (e.g.
morphological, syntactic, and semantic) all pairs of which may be
mismatched, which is the approach taken in Jerry Sadock's "autolexical"
theory, among others.

For example, consider Japanese "periphrastic verbs", consisting of
a "verbal noun" (mostly borrowed from Chinese) and the verb "do".
There are actually three kinds of these. One kind is unequivocally
lexical: the nominal part and verbal part can't be separated; the
"do" part deviates in various ways from the normal (irregular) conjugation
of "do", etc. They fail all of the tests for phrasal status as well
as differing in 11 non-diagnostic ways from the "true" periphastics.
(For those who know Japanese, examples are aisuru "to love", assuru
"to exert pressure", and zonziru "to know".)

A second kind is unequivocally phrasal. The verbal noun takes accusative
case; the object if any is in the genitive. The verbal noun can be
separated from "do". This kind might be an example that could
be analyzed as a syntax/semantics mismatch.

The third kind, however, cannot be so analyzed. In the third kind,
the verbal noun is not casemarked. The object, if any, takes accusative
case (mostly - as with non-periphrastic verbs a few take dative objects).
An example is: eigo     o  benkyo si-te iru
               English Acc study  do-ing is
		(s)he is studying English

There is a whole literature on this construction, and in part of that
literature it is treated as a mismatch. On one well known account
(Kageyama's) these things start out as phrases but at a certain point
in the derivation are glommed together into something that henceforth
is treated as a single verb.

The prediction made by such an account is that the phrasal and lexical
properties will assort in a particular way - at any given level of
representation they will behave one way or the other. That prediction
is false. I go into this in detail in a paper available on my
web site: http://www.billposer.org/Papers/japper.pdf "Japanese
Periphrastic Verbs and Noun Incorporation", but the point is
that at every level of representation this construction behaves
in some ways like a single verb and in other ways as a phrase.
As a result, mismatch analysis don't work.

Bill



------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 
Home is just a click away.  Make Yahoo! your home page now.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/DHchtC/3FxNAA/yQLSAA/HKE4lB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 

 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    lexicographylist-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/