[Lingtyp] CfP WS at SLE2017 "When Noun Meets Noun: A Cross-Linguistic Look at Complex Nominals"

[Steve Pepper]

** Apologies for cross-posting **

*When Noun Meets Noun: A Cross-Linguistic Look at Complex Nominals*

Date: 10-Sep-2017 - 13-Sep-2017
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
Contact Persons: Steve Pepper (stevepe at iln.uio.no), Francesca Masini (
francesca.masini at unibo.it)
Linguistic Fields(s): Typology, Word-formation, Compounding, Semantics
Call Deadline (provisional 300-word abstracts): *25-Oct-2016*

*Meeting Description*

The workshop will investigate the strategies employed by the languages of
the world to create complex denotations by combining two nominal (or
nominalizing) elements.

In Germanic languages this is usually achieved through compounding (e.g.
Ger. *Eisen.bahn* [iron.track] ‘railway’), but other languages use other
constructions. Thus, Romance typically employs prepositional compounds
(e.g. Fr. *chemin de fer* [track PREP iron] ‘railway’), while Slavic
favours relational compounds (e.g. Rus. *železnaja doroga* [iron.ADJZ road]
‘railway’). Turkish has an izafet construction (*demir.yol.u*
[iron.road.IZ] ‘railway’) and elsewhere possessives abound (e.g.
Malagasy *lala.m.by
<http://lala.m.by>* [road.PER.iron] ‘railway’). In all of these examples,
the constituent meanings, the resultant meaning, and presumably also the
underlying cognitive processes, are essentially identical, but the
constructions are quite different. What they have in common is that they
serve to name a complex concept via the combination of two “Thing-roots”
(Haspelmath 2012), between which there is an unstated (or underspecified)
relation. They are all binominal naming constructions (BNCs).

In terms of Štekauer’s model of onomasiological word-formation BNCs are
Type 3 naming units, in which “the determined (actional) element is not
linguistically expressed” (Štekauer 1998). This perspective prompts two
further refinements to the concept of BNCs. The first is the exclusion of
complex nominals of Štekauer’s Type 1 and Type 2 that contain an
“Action-root”. As a consequence, synthetic compounds like *truck-driver*
are considered out of scope. The second is based on the recognition that
nominalizing affixes, like Eng. *-er* and Slovak *-ica*, and noun
classifiers like Bora *-heju* (‘hole-like object’), constitute the “base”
in a Type 3 complex nominal. As a consequence, adnominal nominalizations
(e.g. Slovak *želez.n.ica* [iron.ADJZ.NMLZ] ‘railway’), and noun classifier
constructions (e.g. Bora *túú.heju* [nose.CM(hole)] ‘nostril’), fulfil the
basic criterion and are considered very much in scope.

This approach to complex denotation cuts across traditional boundaries
between morphology and syntax, and between compounding and derivation: it
“divides the cake” in a new way that might reveal new insights into
language and conceptualization. The goal of this workshop is therefore to
explore semantic and morphosyntactic aspects of BNCs as defined here, along
with frequency, productivity, and competition between different strategies
(cf. Rainer 2013), across a broad range of languages. In particular, papers
are sought that investigate BNCs through:

   - Studies of individual languages, especially lesser-studied and non-SAE
   languages
   - Contrastive studies of languages, in particular those closely related
   genetically
   - Typological and areal studies
   - Studies that address cognitive aspects of complex nominals


*References*

Haspelmath, Martin. 2012. How to compare major word-classes across the
world’s languages. UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics, Theories of
Everything 17, Article 16. 109–130.
Rainer, Franz. 2013. Can relational adjectives really express any relation?
An onomasiological perspective. SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics
10(1).
Štekauer, Pavol. 1998. An onomasiological theory of English word-formation.
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20161003/c210943f/attachment.htm>