Lexical compounds, syntactic compounds, and truncation

[R. Rankin]

Many thanks, Willem!!  I'll read it as soon as I return from the Siouan
Conference.  You should come to the SACC sometimes -- you can't spend all your
time with Athabaskan -- you need to have contact with some REAL languages once
in awhile!

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: <rwd0002 at unt.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Cc: <napshawin at msn.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 12:43 PM
Subject: Lexical compounds, syntactic compounds, and truncation


> Quoting "R. Rankin" <rankin at ku.edu>:
>
> > I think it's often impossible to distinguish so-called syntactic from
> > lexical incorporation in Siouan because, for many verbs, the two processes
> give homophonous results.  Skata/+ACQ-kata does have two forms, distinguished
by
> > accent, but the fact that both have phonological truncation strongly
suggests
> that there is not a hard-and-fast line between the two types of incorporation,
> and, that,in fact, what we have is a continuum between what were earlier and
> later lexicalizations of particular compounds.  Given the lexeme-by-lexeme
> nature of compound formation, this would not be surprising.
> >
> > You gonna give us a preview of your solution, Wim?  :-)
>
>
> Hi Siouanists, Bob, Violet:
>
> Sure, Bob.  (By the way, I just sent you a copy of the Serial verbs paper,
> comments most welcome, there is still time for revision).
>
> Following Chambers (1978), I view lexical and syntactic compounding (or
> incorporation) as a matter of stress placement and reduction: there is only
one
> stress (on the second syllable)in lexical compounding, there are two stresses
> in syntactic compounding, and the second one gets reduced.  In stripping there
> are no stress changes at all.  How does lexical vs. syntactic vs. stripping
> match up with truncation?
>
> In noun incorporation of the lexical kind, there is usually truncation,
> sometimes coalescence (de Reuse 1994:204-205).  In noun incorporation of the
> syntactic kind, there is never truncation (although coalescence might be
> possible). In noun incorporation of the stripping kind, there is neither
> truncation nor coalescence.
>
> In verb compounding (or incorporation, or, as I prefer to call it: verb
> serialization) the situation with regard to truncation is quite different.  In
> verb compounding of the lexical kind there is always truncation (unless of
> course the first verb is not truncatable by its phonological nature, e.g.
> because it is monosyllabic, or the last syllable is untruncatable).  In verb
> compounding of the syntactic kind, there is always truncation as well (again
if
> phonology allows it).  And in a third kind of serialization: verb stripping
> (i.e. two verbs in a construction without any stress reduction), there is
> truncation as well!  So truncation has something to do with serialization, but
> not with the lexical vs. syntactic vs. stripping distinction.
>
> (A difference between lexical and syntactic serialization on the one hand, and
> verb stripping serialization on the other hand, is that in lexical and
> syntactic noun stripping ablaut occurs (unless of course truncation occurred),
> but in verb stripping serialization ablaut never occurs).
>
> But, back to the John Kyle's original examples:
>
> (1) shka'l-oma'wani I travel playing
> and
> (2) shkal-o'mawani I go about to play.  These are in Boas and Deloria (74,
84).
>
> Can someone recheck on these?  Violet? The theory of meaning I develop in my
> paper (no time to explain here) predicts that (1) is not a syntactic compound
> at all, but a case of verb stripping, hence the unreduced stress.
>
> And does (2), apparently a lexical compound, have the correct stress pattern?
> (Disturbingly to me), my theory predicts a syntactic compound: *shkal(primary
> stress)-oma(reduced stress)wani.
>
> I generally agree with Bob's view of lexicalization of compounds on an
> individual basis, and if my theory is wrong, I will have to account in that
way
> for shkal'o'mawani.  I have been trying hard to make generalizations where
form
> and semantics can be predicted from each other to some extent, even though the
> semantics of Lakota serial verbs are subtle, and the formal variables are
many:
> stress pattern (i.e. the difference between lexical compounds, syntactic
> compounds, and stripping), truncation (yes or no), and ablaut (yes or no).
>
> Best,
>
> Willem J. de Reuse
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>