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The Structure of Compounds

As we see from examples (1)–(3), a compound noun may consist of a noun, adjective, preposition, or verb on the left and a noun on the right, a compound adjective may consist of a noun, adjective, or preposition followed by an adjective, and a compound verb may consist of a preposition followed by a verb:

(1) Nouns

a. N N b. A N c. P N d. V N

apron string high school overdose swearword

sunshine smallpox underdogw whetstone

mill wheel sharpshooter outbuilding scrubwoman

hubcap well-wisher uprising rattlesnake

living room onlooker

fighter bomber afterthought

tongue-lashing uptown

teacher training inland

schoolteacher

bull’s-eye

(2) Adjectives

a. N A b. A A c. P A d. (V A)

headstrong icy cold overwide None

honey-sweet White-hot overabundant

skin-deep worldly-wise underripe

nationwide easygoing ingrown

seafaring hardworking underprivileged

mind-boggling highborn above-mentioned

earthbound widespread

heartbroken farfetched

 

(3) Verbs

a. (N V) b. (A V ) c. P V d. (V V )

None None outlive None

overdo

underfeed

offset

uproot

overstep

More complex structures are possible as well, since compounding is in principle recursive. Consider, for example, the noun–noun compounds bathroom and towel rack. Together these can form a noun–noun compound, (4a), which can itself appear as part of a noun–noun compound. (4b), which in turn may appear as part of a noun–noun compound, (4c), and so on.

a. N[N[N[bath]N N[room]N]N N[N[towel]N N[rack]N]N]N

b. N[N[N[N[bath]N N[room]N]N N[N[towel]N N[rack]N]N]N N[designer]N]N

c. N[N[N[N[N[bath]N N[room]N]N N[N[towel]N N[rack]N]N]N

<…> My claim is that all of the compounds of types (1)(3) in English are generated by a system of word structure rules such as this, that is, that the grammar of compounding in English consists simply of a set of context-free rewriting rules. Specifically, I am claiming that the compound types of (1)(3) are generated by the following set of rewriting rules:

(5) N

N → A N

V

P

N

A → A A

P

V → P V

<…> The sort of compounding in (1)–(3) could be referred to as native compounding, to distinguish it from the sort of compounding of (in part) Greek origin, which is common in specialized, sometimes learned terminology: telescope, metamorphosis, erythrocyte, kilometer. Such compounding forms a discrete system.

The paradigms of compound types given in (1)–(3) contain several gaps. Among the missing are compound verbs and adjectives whose left-hand member is a verb: v[V V]v, A[V A]A. These simply do not exist in English. By contrast, the compound noun type N[V N]N is attested, though rare, e.g., swearword, scrubwoman. Also missing from the paradigms (1)–(3) are the verb compound types V[N V]V and V[A N]V. Indeed, this arrangement of the facts implies that the only verb-on-the-right verb compound type of English is the one consisting of a preposition plus verb. Admittedly, one might contest the absence of the V[N V]V and V[A V]V types from (3), for the language does contain verbs which seem to display this structure:



(6) Verbs

N V A V

a. globe-trot sharpshoot

stage-manage dry-clean

air-condition

window-shop

mass-produce

b. browbeat new-model

hand-carry whitewash

line-dry roughcast

house break

Marchand argues, however, that all of these are back-formations, which he terms pseudocompound verbs, coined with reference to already existing nominal or adjectival compounds. The words of (6), for example, were coined on the basis of those in (7):

 

(7) a. Noun

N N A N

globe-trotter sharpshooter

stage manager dry cleaning

air conditioning

window-shopping

mass production

b. Adjectives

N A A A

browbeaten new-modeled

hand-carried whitewashed

line-dried roughcast

housebroken

If indeed, as Marchand argues, all compound verbs like those in (6) presuppose the existence of noun and adjective compounds as lexical items, then such types are to be distinguished in terms of their derivation from the compounds of (1)–(3), whose existence does not presuppose the existence of compounds of other types. While concurring with Marchand’s assessment of verbal compounding in English, Adams gives some examples that appear to suggest a (limited) direct formation (not back-formation) of verb compound types, e.g., chain-smoke. However, it is not clear that the sporadic existence of such types, an innovation in English, yet reflects a change in the basic rules for verb compounds in English. Assuming the correctness of Marchand’s claim, I have excluded the verb compounds of (6) from the paradigms (1)–(3). These paradigms thus represent the types of compounds that the system of word structure rules generates directly, without recourse to back-formation. Back-formation, however it is to be conceptualized (and formalized), is taken here to be a qualitatively different sort of phenomenon, not part of the strictly generative system of the morphological component, which consists of the word structure rules of the language.

The fact that there exist systematic gaps in the paradigms of com­pound types in English is of some importance. Insofar as these gaps can be shown to be particular to English and not to follow from universal principles, the grammar of English must encode them. This means in particular that the grammar of compounding must explicitly mention the combinatorial possibilities of categories within the compounds belonging to the different categories Noun, Adjective, and Verb. In other words, the rules of the system must be formulated in terms of specific syntactic category names. <…>

The case that the gaps in the English compound paradigms do not follow from universal principles is easily made, for the compound types missing in English do occur in other languages. For example, verb compounds consisting of two verb constituents seem commonplace; they are found in as widely disparate languages.<…> Verb compounds consisting of a head verb plus an “incorporated” noun, presumably not derived via back-formation, are also not uncommon; v[V N]v compounds of this sort occur in Vietnamese (Thompson (1965)) and Chinese (Newnham (1971)), and v[N V]v combinations are found in Iroquois. Shoshonean, and elsewhere (Sapir (1911)). <…>

In sum, we have seen that a grammar of a language must include some system of rules explicitly demarcating the range of possible compound types of the language (by mentioning specific categories).


Date: 2016-04-22; view: 1385


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