The 'traditional' distinction of compounds into endocentric (Eng. doorknob) and exocentric (pickpocket) is based on the presence or absence of a head constituent (Bloomfield, Language, Holt, New York, 1933); since the early eighties, the syntactic notion of 'head' has been extended also to derivation, claiming that English derivational suffixes, as e. g. -ness, are heads, either in an absolute sense or in a categorial sense (see Williams Linguist Inq 12:245-274, 1981; Lieber On the organization of the lexicon, Indiana university Linguistics Club, Bloomington, 1981; Lieber, in Yearbook of morphology 1989, Foris, Dordrecht, 1989; among others). In this paper, we shall first review some key issues in the morphological notion of head, illustrating well-known problematic cases, and then we shall discuss the Construction Morphology approach to headedness in derivation and compounding (Booij in The Oxford handbook of compounding, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009; Booij, in Cross-disciplinary issues in compounding, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 2010a, 2010 Booij, Construction morphology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010b). The stipulation of a hierarchical lexicon with subschemas expressing intermediate generalizations is a powerful theoretical device in accounting for a phenomenon as headedness variation, as we shall show with a Vietnamese case study; also, inconsistencies in word-class assignment in derivation will be dealt with in a constructionist perspective. Moreover, we shall discuss the consequences of a constructionist approach to the distinction between compounding and derivation. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

Arcodia, G. (2012). Constructions and headedness in derivation and compounding. MORPHOLOGY, 22(3), 365-397 [10.1007/s11525-011-9189-2].

Constructions and headedness in derivation and compounding

ARCODIA, GIORGIO FRANCESCO
2012

Abstract

The 'traditional' distinction of compounds into endocentric (Eng. doorknob) and exocentric (pickpocket) is based on the presence or absence of a head constituent (Bloomfield, Language, Holt, New York, 1933); since the early eighties, the syntactic notion of 'head' has been extended also to derivation, claiming that English derivational suffixes, as e. g. -ness, are heads, either in an absolute sense or in a categorial sense (see Williams Linguist Inq 12:245-274, 1981; Lieber On the organization of the lexicon, Indiana university Linguistics Club, Bloomington, 1981; Lieber, in Yearbook of morphology 1989, Foris, Dordrecht, 1989; among others). In this paper, we shall first review some key issues in the morphological notion of head, illustrating well-known problematic cases, and then we shall discuss the Construction Morphology approach to headedness in derivation and compounding (Booij in The Oxford handbook of compounding, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009; Booij, in Cross-disciplinary issues in compounding, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 2010a, 2010 Booij, Construction morphology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010b). The stipulation of a hierarchical lexicon with subschemas expressing intermediate generalizations is a powerful theoretical device in accounting for a phenomenon as headedness variation, as we shall show with a Vietnamese case study; also, inconsistencies in word-class assignment in derivation will be dealt with in a constructionist perspective. Moreover, we shall discuss the consequences of a constructionist approach to the distinction between compounding and derivation. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
Articolo in rivista - Articolo scientifico
Morphology, Chinese, Compounding, Derivation
English
2012
22
3
365
397
none
Arcodia, G. (2012). Constructions and headedness in derivation and compounding. MORPHOLOGY, 22(3), 365-397 [10.1007/s11525-011-9189-2].
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10281/45455
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