compounding and attributive modification

[Andrew Koontz-Garboden]

Thanks very much, Martin!  Very interesting.  And yes, I agree that
findings like the ones you report from Bauer could not be taken as
evidence for a particular synchronic description.  I had just thought
that if such mismatches hadn't been reported, then it would be odd to
report one.  But, as you point out, I guess we don't always know
whether an NA order is really an IHRC or an attributively modified
noun.

I'll certainly take a look at the Bauer paper, and I definitely do
want to know more about the morphosyntax of the NAdj/ModHead languages
(e.g., if they independently have internally headed relative clauses).
 Hopefully Bauer's paper will shed light on this.

Thanks again,

Andrew



On 30/01/06, Martin Haspelmath <haspelmath at eva.mpg.de> wrote:
> There's a paper by Laurie Bauer (in the 2-volume handbook "Language
> typology and language universals, ed. by Haspelmath et al., 695-707) on
> "Compounding" in a typological perspective, where he investigates this
> and related questions in a world-wide sample of 36 languages.
>
> He finds that there seems to be a unidirectional implication from AdjN
> order to ModHead order in compounds: his sample has only a single
> language (from South America) with AdjN and HeadMod order (p. 697):
>
> NAdj & HeadMod 10
> NAdj & ModHead 11
> AdjN & HeadMod 1
> AdjN & ModHead 9
>
> Thus, Ulwa's pattern (NAdj & ModHead) is actually the majority pattern
> in Bauer's sample. But note that such typological data cannot be used
> for or against a particular synchronic description anyway, because Bauer
> cannot claim to have looked only at "real" adjectives, to the exclusion
> of "apparent" adjectives that "in reality" are internally headed
> relative clauses. Maybe "in reality" all 11 languages in Bauer's sample
> are like Ulwa...
>
> Martin
>
>
>
> Andrew Koontz-Garboden wrote:
>
> >Hello.  Does anyone know of any literature that addresses the
> >relationship between headedness in compounds and headedness in
> >noun/adjective attributive modification?  (Or, save that, does anyone
> >simply have any idea/hunch whether there's any relationship?)  What I
> >have in mind is the following.  In the compound in (1a), the head is
> >man (ie, a frogman is a kind of man).
> >
> >(1)
> >a.  frogman
> >b. the white house.
> >
> >Similarly for (1b), which is a kind of house.
> >
> >In the attributive construction in (2), the head is "dog" (i.e., an
> >ugly dog is a kind of dog).
> >
> >(2) an ugly dog
> >
> >Someone suggested to me that there might be a relationship between
> >headedness of compounds like those in (1) and attributive
> >constructions in (2).  So, the question I pose is:  if compounds are
> >right-headed, do attributive constructions tend also to be, and vice
> >versa?  Similarly for left-headedness?
> >
> >Among the reasons I ask is that in Ulwa, a Misumalpan language I'm
> >working on, there is a mismatch in headedness of constructions like
> >those in (1) and (2), as shown in (3), a kind of woman, and (4), a
> >kind of man.
> >
> >(3) was sirau
> >    water maiden
> >   `mermaid'
> >
> >(4) al yuuhka
> >   man tall
> >  `a tall man'
> >
> >
> >I have independent reasons for actually believing that what look like
> >attributive constructions (ie, (4)) may instead be internally headed
> >relative clauses.  I'm wondering if the mismatch in headedness between
> >compounding and attributive modification can be taken as a(n) (perhaps
> >weak) argument.  So, if anyone knows of any literature that addresses
> >this question (or has evidence one way or another), I'd be grateful.
> >
> >Thanks,
> >
> >Andrew Koontz-Garboden
> >
> >--
> >Andrew Koontz-Garboden
> >Department of Linguistics
> >Margaret Jacks Hall, Bldg. 460
> >Stanford University
> >Stanford, CA 94305-2150
> >
> >andrewkg at csli.stanford.edu
> >http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~andrewkg/
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de)
> Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6
> D-04103 Leipzig
> Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) +49-341-980 1616
>
>
>
>
>
>