Compounds and syntactic phrases in modern Irish.1. Introduction (1) A subject which has attracted much attention in recent studies of morphology morphology In biology, the study of the size, shape, and structure of organisms in relation to some principle or generalization. Whereas anatomy describes the structure of organisms, morphology explains the shapes and arrangement of parts of organisms in terms of such is the manner in which the formation of compounds should be handled. For a representative spectrum of opinions see Roeper and Siegel 1978, Selkirk 1982, Lieber 1983, Fabb 1984, Sproat 1985, Di Sciullo and Williams 1987, Borer borer, name applied to various animals that are injurious because of their ability to penetrate plant or animal tissues. Among insects, some borers are beetles, e.g. 1988, Roeper 1988, Spencer 1991. The starting point Noun 1. starting point - earliest limiting point terminus a quo commencement, get-go, offset, outset, showtime, starting time, beginning, start, kickoff, first - the time at which something is supposed to begin; "they got an early start"; "she knew from the for this article is a set of data in Irish. (2) In traditional grammars In linguistics, "traditional grammar" is a cover name for the collection of concepts and ideas about the structure of language that Western societies have received from ancient Greek and Roman sources. and descriptions of this language, the category compound is not recognised as such, but at the same time there is a large group of expressions which bear all the hallmarks of words rather than phrases. Briefly, the problem is as follows. There exist in Irish phrasal groups consisting of a noun noun [Lat.,=name], in English, part of speech of vast semantic range. It can be used to name a person, place, thing, idea, or time. It generally functions as subject, object, or indirect object of the verb in the sentence, and may be distinguished by a number of followed by another noun in the genitive genitive (jĕn`ĭtĭv) [Lat.,=genetic], in Latin grammar, the case typically used to refer to a possessor. The term is used in the grammar of other languages, but the phenomenon referred to may not closely resemble a Latin genitive; thus a , e.g., mac Sheain "son John-Gen. -- John's son". We wish to claim that many of these are in fact compounds, on the basis of criteria familiar from other studies of this sort, namely, lexical lex·i·cal adj. 1. Of or relating to the vocabulary, words, or morphemes of a language. 2. Of or relating to lexicography or a lexicon. [lexic(on) + -al1. integrity, semantic idiosyncracy, and non-specificity. Having established the existence of this category we turn to a more intriguing in·trigue n. 1. a. A secret or underhand scheme; a plot. b. The practice of or involvement in such schemes. 2. A clandestine love affair. v. problem. This is the existence of phrases which differ from compounds in that they exhibit a lower degree of lexical integrity and are specific rather than generic. At the same time, they seem to behave more like words than syntactic Dealing with language rules (syntax). See syntax. phrases. An example is the phrase fear an ti -- man the house-Gen. -- "the master", which looks very much like any other syntactic phrase, but on closer inspection turns out to possess a number of lexical properties. As we shall see, the Irish data is very similar to the Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew n. The Hebrew language as used from 18th century to the present, and an official language of Israel. Also called New Hebrew. Noun 1. analysed by Borer (1988). We try to point out the parallels between the two systems and ascribe as·cribe tr.v. as·cribed, as·crib·ing, as·cribes 1. To attribute to a specified cause, source, or origin: "Other people ascribe his exclusion from the canon to an unsubtle form of racism" them to properties of universal grammar universal grammar n. Abbr. UG A system of grammatical rules and constraints believed to underlie all natural languages. . 2. Compounds 2.1 Identifying compounds Some authors of Irish grammars claim that compounding is not a productive word-formation process in this language. de Bhaldraithe (1953: 254) can serve as an example: for him a compound is an expression that resembles an English compound A compound is a word composed of more than one free morpheme. English compounds may be classified in several ways, such as the word classes or the semantic relationship of their components. in that the second member is the head and the whole is treated as a single phonological word The phonological word or pword (symolised as ω) is a constituent in the Universal Prosodic Hierarchy higher than the syllable and the foot but lower than Intonational Phrase and the Phonological Phrase. , e.g. muic-fheoil [mik'o:l'] -- pigmeat -- "pork", carn-fholt [karnolt] -- heap-hair -- "heaped hair". This is an uncontroversial statement, and we will not be taking issue with it. de Bhaldraithe also mentions (254: footnote Text that appears at the bottom of a page that adds explanation. It is often used to give credit to the source of information. When accumulated and printed at the end of a document, they are called "endnotes." ) phrases consisting of Noun+Genitive, which, he says, function as semantic units and correspond to compounds in other languages. It is not clear what the status of these phrases is for him. We will argue that on the criterion of lexical integrity these behave more like words than phrases and as such should be regarded as being produced by the word-formation component. There is no obvious formal difference between syntactic phrases and what we claim are compounds. It is as if in English we only had phrases of the sort leg of wood, master of the school, son of John and had to decide whether they were syntactic combinations or lexical units. However, by taking two phrases consisting of Noun+Genitive from Irish and performing some elementary syntactic tests on them, it is possible to achieve at least a crude distinction between compounds and phrases. Below we examine two phrases, cos adhmaid -- leg wood-Gen. -- "wooden-leg" and seol an bhaid -- sail the boat-Gen. -- "the sail of the boat". The first proves resistant to any kind of syntactic operations.
(1)a. One-substitution
A. Ca bhfuil an chos adhmaid?
Where is the leg wood-Gen.
"Where is the wooden leg?"
B. *An ceann adhmaid?
The one wood-Gen.
"The wooden one?"
b. Wh-movement
A. Chonac an chos adhmaid
I-saw the leg wood-Gen.
"I saw the wooden leg"
B. *Cen chos?
"Which leg?"
c. Co-ordination
*cos agus lamh adhmaid
leg and hand wood-Gen.
"wooden leg and hand"
cf. cos adhmaid agus lamh adhmaid
leg wood-Gen. and hand wood-Gen.
"wooden leg and wooden hand"
The syntactic evidence unequivocally indicates that expressions like cos
adhmaid are word-level formations. The semantics of these expressions
confirms this. They tend to have idiosyncratic readings. In the
following examples, the meaning of the whole is not entirely predictable
from the meaning of the parts.
(2) buachaill aimsire
boy service-Gen.
"servant-boy"
bean chunta
woman helping-Gen.
"midwife"
fear ti
man house-Gen.
"host"
maide coise
stick leg-Gen.
"walking stick"
If we turn now to the phrase seol an bhaid we find that it can undergo
the very same operations that cos adhmaid proved resistant to in (1).
(3)a. One-substitution
A. Ca bhafuil seol an bhaid?
Where is sail the boat-Gen.
"Where is the sail of the boat?"
B. Ceann an bhaid?
One the boat-Gen.
"The one of the boat?"
b. Wh-movement
A. Chonac seol an bhaid
I-saw sai the boat-Gen.
"I saw the sail of the boat"
B. Cen bad?
"Which boat?"
c. Co-ordination
seol agus stiuir an bhaid
sail and tiller the boat-Gen.
"the sail and tiller of the boat"
One fact about the syntactic phrases and the word-level phrases immediately strikes us. This is the presence of the definite article definite article n. A member of the class of determiners that restricts or particularizes a noun. In English, the is the definite article. an before the genitive complement in the former. Normally, this implies that the second member of the phrase is specific. In expressions like cos adhmaid on the other hand, the complement is generic. This of course is what we would expect: the same distinction can be observed between compounds and syntactic phrases in English. For example, Spencer (1991: 312) points out that "neither student nor film in student film society serve to pick out any specific student or film". 2.2 The internal structure of compounds So far we have been arguing for the recognition of the word-status of compounds, stressing the ways in which they differ from phrases. However, it would be disingenuous dis·in·gen·u·ous adj. 1. Not straightforward or candid; insincere or calculating: "an ambitious, disingenuous, philistine, and hypocritical operator, who ... exemplified ... to pretend that Irish compounds do not display a certain degree of word-internal structure lacking in monomorphemes and items derived by affixation Noun 1. affixation - the result of adding an affix to a root word sound structure, syllable structure, word structure, morphology - the admissible arrangement of sounds in words 2. . This manifests itself in a number of ways. As far as inflectional in·flec·tion n. 1. The act of inflecting or the state of being inflected. 2. Alteration in pitch or tone of the voice. 3. Grammar a. morphology is concerned, it appears that compounds are headed, with features pertaining per·tain intr.v. per·tained, per·tain·ing, per·tains 1. To have reference; relate: evidence that pertains to the accident. 2. to the whole compound being realised on the head. In English, as Anderson (1992 : 294-295) points out, evidence for this is provided by irregular inflection inflection, in grammar. In many languages, words or parts of words are arranged in formally similar sets consisting of a root, or base, and various affixes. Thus walking, walks, walker have in common the root walk and the affixes -ing, -s, and . Suppletive Sup´ple`tive a. 1. Supplying deficiencies; supplementary; as, a suppletory oath s>. plurals, for example, are found in compounds, e.g. washerwomen, men-of-war. This means that the internal structure of these formations is visible to inflection. By and large, the Irish data confirm this picture. Plural PLURAL. A term used in grammar, which signifies more than one. 2. Sometimes, however, it may be so expressed that it means only one, as, if a man were to devise to another all he was worth, if he, the testator, died without children, and he died leaving one inflection is normally realised on the first element only, i.e., the head. (4) Sg. Pl. sagart paroiste sagairt paroiste priest parish-Gen. priest-Pl. parish-Gen. "parish-priest" "parish-priests" seol deiridh scolta deiridh sail end-Gen. sail-Pl. end-Gen. "end-sail" "end-sails" bean chaointe mna caointe (irregular) woman lamenting-Gen. woman-Pl. lamenting-Gen. "woman lamenter" "woman lamenters" cos adhmaid cosa adhmaid leg wood-Gen. leg-Pl. wood-Gen. "wooden-leg" "wooden-legs" In work such as Lieber (1983), Williams (1981), di Sciullo and Williams (1987), Borer (1988), it is assumed that compounds allow features to percolate percolate /per·co·late/ (per´kah-lat) 1. to strain; to submit to percolation. 2. to trickle slowly through a substance. 3. a liquid that has been submitted to percolation. from their heads to the projection of the new word. What this would mean for Irish is that the feature [+ p1] would percolate from the head to the whole compound. In the first example in (4) above, the feature [+ p1] moves from sagairt to sagairt paroiste, so that the whole compound ends up as [+ p1], even though the morphological mor·phol·o·gy n. pl. mor·phol·o·gies 1. a. The branch of biology that deals with the form and structure of organisms without consideration of function. b. marking is only present in the head. Two marginal plural patterns exist. In the first of these, the genitive non-head is also marked for plural. (5) Sg. Pl. maidc coise maidf cos stick leg-Gen. stick-Pl. leg-Gen.Pl. "walking-sticks" "walking-sticks" dochtuir mna dochtuiri ban doctor woman-Gen. doctor-Pl. woman-Gen.Pl. "woman doctor" "women-doctors" saor cloiche saortha cloch craftsman stone-Gen. craftsman-Pl.stone-Gen.Pl. "stone-mason" "stone-masons" can circe canacha cearc bird hen-Gen. "bird-Pl. hen-Gen.Pl. "chick" "chicks" Normally only the heads of compounds are inflected in·flect v. in·flect·ed, in·flect·ing, in·flects v.tr. 1. To alter (the voice) in tone or pitch; modulate. 2. Grammar To alter (a word) by inflection. 3. , but the double inflection seems to be common as a marginal phenomenon cross-linguistically. One can observe it, for instance, in English appositional ap·po·si·tion n. 1. Grammar a. A construction in which a noun or noun phrase is placed with another as an explanatory equivalent, both having the same syntactic relation to the other elements in the sentence; for example, compounds in plurals like women drivers. (3) The other marginal pattern of forming plurals involves nominative nominative (nŏm`ĭnətĭv), [Lat.,=naming], in Latin grammar, the case usually employed for the noun that is the subject of the sentence. inflectional marking on the non-head only. (6) col ceathrair col ceathracha relation four people-Gen. relation four-people-Pl. "first cousin" "first cousins" croch cheasta croch cheastaiocha cross suffering-Gen. cross suffering-Pl. "cross" "crosses" carn aoiligh car aoilf heap dung-Gen. heap dung-Pl. "dung-heap" "dungheaps" Here, complete lexicalisation has taken place, and the head is no longer recogniscd as such. The headedness of compounds is also manifested in number agreement found on adjectival ad·jec·ti·val adj. Of, relating to, or functioning as an adjective. ad  jec·ti modifiers. Adjectives follow their nouns in Irish.
When they modify a compound they will have the same value for plural as
the head. In broga leathair daora--shoes leather-Gen.
expensive-Pl.--"expensive leather-shoes", the adjective adjective, English part of speech, one of the two that refer typically to attributes and together are called modifiers. The other kind of modifier is the adverb. agrees
with the head in having plural inflection.
Another indicator of headedness is to be found in initial mutations, when they are used to indicate gender agreement. Feminine nouns cause lenition Lenition is a kind of consonant mutation that appears in many languages. Along with assimilation, it is one of the primary sources of the historical change of languages. Lenition means 'softening' or 'weakening' (from Latin lenis in following nouns and adjectives, e.g. bean "woman" would cause a following complement like caointe [ki:n't'o] "lamenting" to be lenited to [xi:n't'o], or a following adjective beag "small" to be lenited to bheag [v'og]. In bean chaointe b/wag [b'aen xi:n't'o v'og]--woman lamenting-Gen. small--"small woman lamenter", both the noun and the adjective are lenited. Thus the head noun affects the adjective despite the intervening complement. This is exactly what would happen in Irish syntax Irish syntax is rather different from that of most Indo-European languages, notably because of its VSO word order. Normal word order The normal word order in an Irish sentence is:
tr.v. af·fixed, af·fix·ing, af·fix·es 1. To secure to something; attach: affix a label to a package. 2. derivatives in this regard: the addition of a suffix suf·fix n. An affix added to the end of a word or stem, serving to form a new word or functioning as an inflectional ending, such as -ness in gentleness, -ing in walking, or -s in sits. tr.v. can cause a change in gender, with a resulting change in the mutation mutation, in biology, a sudden, random change in a gene, or unit of hereditary material, that can alter an inheritable characteristic. Most mutations are not beneficial, since any change in the delicate balance of an organism having a high level of adaptation to its of a modifying adjective. For example, if we add the suffix -acht to the masculine MASCULINE. That which belongs to the male sex. 2. The masculine sometimes includes the feminine, vide an example under the article Man, and see also the articles Gender, Worthiest of blood; Poth. Intr. au titre 16, des Testamens et Donations Testamentaires, n. noun buachaill "herd", we obtain a feminine noun buachailleacht "the act of herding herding 1. natural congregation of animals into groups; see also flocking. 2. management of animals into large groups or herds by humans to facilitate animal husbandry procedures. ". The syntax syntax: see grammar. syntax Arrangement of words in sentences, clauses, and phrases, and the study of the formation of sentences and the relationship of their component parts. will only be sensitive to the gender of the derivative, so that a following adjective like maith [ma] "good" will be lenited because the derivative is feminine, e.g. buachailleacht mhaith [buoxol oxt va] "good herding". But in the case of compounds, it is the head which determines the mutation pattern. Presumably pre·sum·a·ble adj. That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. , gender in Irish, like number, is a feature which percolates from the head to the whole compound. In keeping with the principle of lexical integrity we would expect adjectives to follow the whole compound, just as they follow single words. By and large, this is the case, e.g. buachaill aimsire maith--boy service-Gen. good-Nom.--"good servant-boy". However, there appear to be exceptions to this. Consider the following examples. (7) fear oibre maith fear maith oibre man work-Gen. good-Nom. man good-Nom. work-Gen. "good workman" "good man for working" bean chaointe bhrea bean bhrea chaointe woman lamenting-Gen. fine-Nom. woman fine-Nom. lamenting-Gen. "fine woman lamenter" "fine woman for lamenting" broga leathair maithe broga maithe leathair shoes leather-Gen. good-Nom. shoes good-Nom. leather-Gen. "good leather-shoes" "good shoes as regards leather" ceann tui deas ceann deas tui roof straw-Gen. nice-Nom. roof nice-Nom. straw-Gen. "nice straw-roof" "nice roof as regards straw" Here we find the adjective occurring either after the head or after the whole phrase. However, as the glosses are meant to illustrate, there is a semantic distinction between the phrases on the left and those on the right. The difference between the two can be illustrated in expressions with the adjective mor big. As well as its basic meaning, it can be used as an intensifier in·ten·si·fi·er n. Grammar See intensive. intensifier Noun a word, esp. an adjective or adverb, that intensifies the meaning of the word or phrase that it modifies, for example, very , much like English big in a big baby. When this is the case, it must follow the head. Otherwise, the meaning is the regular one. (8) fear oibre mor fear mor oibre man work-Gen. big-Nom. man big-Nom. work-Gen. "big workman" "great worker" bean siuil mhor bean mhor siuil woman walking-Gen. big-Nom. woman big-Nom. walking-Gen. "big woman tramp" "woman who walks a lot" What this indicates is that the expressions in the right-hand column are not formed by modifying a compound: fear mor oibre is not the same as fear oibre modified by mor. In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke" put differently , we are dealing with a completely different structure here which only superficially resembles that of compounds. We suggest that the genitive is a complement to the adjective, much as in phrases like envious en·vi·ous adj. 1. Feeling, expressing, or characterized by envy: "At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way.... of in English (4). This means that fear mor oibre "big worker" would have the structure N+AP. It has been proposed (e.g. Anderson 1992:311, footnote 9) that compounding involves lexical elements, i.e. elements of the form [X.sup.0]. If this is true, then phrases of the sort we are discussing violate this condition: in fear mor oibre a lexical category In grammar, a lexical category (also word class, lexical class, or in traditional grammar part of speech) is a linguistic category of words (or more precisely lexical items fear combines with an AP mor oibre. This looks more like a syntactic operation, involving constituents of the form X', than compounding (5). We can sum up the characteristics of Irish compounds as follows. (9) 1. They do not allow the syntax access to their constituents, which rules out such operations as co-ordination or extraction, or adjectival modification of heads or complements. 2. They display a more complex word-internal structure than formations derived by affixation: inflectional operations are for the most part realised on the head, which is the first element in the word. One important fact that emerges from the first of the two characteristics listed in (9) is that compounds are formed pre-syntactically. This becomes more significant in the light of the next group of expressions that we wish to discuss. 3. Word-formation and the syntax We have already remarked that the presence or absence of the feature specificity in the complement is crucial in determining whether a phrase is a compound or not. In other words, we distinguish between [+specific] phrases, where the article precedes the complement, and [-specific] compounds, which generally do not contain the article. In this section we look more closely at phrases containing the article. Borer (1988) offers a study of the difference between compounds and what she calls "construct state nominals" in Hebrew: the former are formed before, and the latter after, D-structure. The difference between the two is largely a question of the role of the article in the phrase group. The two constructions are illustrated in the following examples from Borer (1988: 56-57).
(10) a. Construct state nominals
A. manhig ha-kita
leader the class
"the leader of the class"
B. shomer ha-bayit
guard the house
"the guard of the house"
b. Compounds
A. ben ha-melex
son the king
"the prince", not "*the son of the king"
B. rosh ha-ir
head the city
"the mayor", not "*the head of the city"
Borer argues that definiteness is to be regarded as a feature which percolates from the complement to the head in both construct state nominals and compounds. In the former, the definiteness of the complement plays a role in determining the meaning of the whole. In compounds, on the other hand, the definiteness of the complement does not contribute to the meaning of the whole. An almost parallel situation exists in Irish. Let us compare two expressions which resemble each other very closely.
(11) a. fear an ti
man the house-Gen.
"the master"
b. an fear ti
the man house-Gen.
"the host, householder"
In (11a), only the complement is preceded by the article, but both head and complement are definite. In compounds, like the one illustrated in (11b), the article must precede the whole expression, and it is only the head which is definite. Borer argues that in Hebrew both compounds and construct state nominals are formed by the word formation component, the difference being that the formation of the former precedes that of the latter. Given the parallels between construct state nominals and phrases with [+ definite] complements in Irish, it is worth considering whether a similar interpretation would be plausible for the latter. Before attempting to tackle this problem, it is necessary to look more closely at non-compound complex NP's. Consider the following examples.
(12) mac Sheamais
son James-Gen.
"the son of James"
seol an bhaid
sail the boat-Gen.
"the sail of the boat"
At first glance, these examples seem to be of the same sort as fear ti
and it would seem plausible to regard them all as the result of the
application of word-formation rules to syntactic phrases. But there are
two important differences. First, the semantics of phrases like fear an
ti is less compositional than that of the phrases in (12). If we
translate it literally as "man of the house", the meaning "master" is
not necessarily obvious. The same applies to other combinations with the
genitive of "house".
(13) bean an ti
woman the house-Gen.
"the mistress"
mac an ti
son the house-Gen.
"the male heir"
clann an ti
children the house-Gen.
"the children"
In other phrases of this sort, the complement is generic even though it
is definite.
(14) tigh an tabhairne
house the tavern-Gen.
"the pub" (as an institution)
sagart na paroiste
priest the parish-Gen.
"the parish-priest"
tight na mbocht
house the poor-Gen.
"the work-house"
We seem to be dealing here with lexicalisation: the complement loses the feature [+ specific] despite the presence of the article. No such idiosyncracies arise in examples like those in (12): the semantic relation Noun 1. semantic relation - a relation between meanings linguistic relation - a relation between linguistic forms or constituents hyponymy, subordination - the semantic relation of being subordinate or belonging to a lower rank or class between head and complement is roughly equivalent to that of possession, and the meaning of the whole is deducible de·duce tr.v. de·duced, de·duc·ing, de·duc·es 1. To reach (a conclusion) by reasoning. 2. To infer from a general principle; reason deductively: from that of its parts. The second difference between the phrases in (12) and those in (13) and (14) is paralleled by a distinction in Hebrew discussed by Borer. Construct state nominals in this language do not allow complement extraction, whereas this is possible in the case of other phrases; for example, a noun can be moved out of a PP. Borer argues that this can be accounted for if we assume that construct state nominals have become words by the time they reach S-structure. Because of their new status, they do not allow complement extraction. Now if we apply such a test to the Irish data, we find that fear an ti behaves like a word, while other phrases allow movement. Compare a) and b) below.
(15) a. Sin e fear an ti.
That him man the house-Gen.
"That is the master of the house."
*Cen tigh go bhfuil a fhear san ospideal?
Which house that is its man in-the hospital?
"Which is thc house whose master is in hospital?"
b. Sin e mac an fhir.
That him son the man-Gen.
"That is the son of the man"
Cen fear go bhfuil a mhac san ospideal?
Which man that is his son in-the hospital?
"Which is the man whose son is in hospital?"
In (15a) the extraction is ungrammatical un·gram·mat·i·cal adj. 1. Not in accord with the rules of grammar. 2. Not in accord with standard or socially prestigious linguistic usage. un , but it is allowed in (15b). Another feature which serves to distinguish the two kinds of phrase is modification of the complement. This is perfectly normal with syntactic phrases.
(16) Sin e mac an fhir mhoir.
That him son the man-Gen. big-Gen.
"That's the son of the big man."
Sin e mac an fhir ata ag caint.
That him son the man-Gen. who is at talking
"That's the son of the mani whoi is talking."
Once again, this contrast with the behaviour of fear an ti.
(17) *Sin e feat an ti mhoir.
That him man the house-Gen. big-Gen.
"That's the master of the big house"
*Sin e fear an ti ata ag titim anuas.
That him man the house-Gen. which-is at falling down
"That's the master of the housei whichi is falling down."
Clearly, it is necessary to distinguish between two kinds of [+ definite] NP's. On the one hand we have regular, syntactically-formed phrases like mac an fhir. As well as these we have expressions like fear an it. As we have just seen, such phrases seem in many respects to behave very much like words. Ought they then to be included under the heading of compounds? There are a number of objections to such a solution. Unlike compounds, these phrases do not allow inflectional operations on their heads. If the head is pluralised, the meaning changes. For example, if we pluralise Verb 1. pluralise - mark with a grammatical morpheme that indicates plural; "How do speakers pluralize nouns in Japanese?" pluralize inflect - change the form of a word in accordance as required by the grammatical rules of the language fear an ti the meaning changes.
(18) fear an ti fir an tf
man the house-Gen. man-Pl. the house-Gen.
"master" "the men of the house", *"the masters"
If they are compounds, there seems no reason why should not be
pluralised (6).
Furthermore, they do allow certain syntactic operations to take place on
thier constituents. We find a limited amount of co-ordination with such
phrases.
(19) fear agus bean an ti
man and woman the house-Gen.
"the master and the mistress"
* fear agus bean ti
man and woman house-Gen.
"the host and hostess"
We also come across cases of adjectival modification of the head,
alhtough such occurrences are rare.
(20) infon og an ti
daughter young the house-Gen.
"the young daughter"
As we saw in 2.2, this is not possible for compounds. Some of these phrases could be included under the heading of compounds. As we observed above with respect to the examples in (14) like tigh an tabhairne, the complement is non-referential, and there is nothing more remarkable about them than an expression like cock-of-die-walk in English. But phrases like fear an u constitute a more serious problem precisely because they are specific. fear an u means the master of a definite house, as can be seen by the use of demonstratives with such phrases.
(21) fear an ti sco
man the house-Gen. this
"the master of this house"
bean an ti sin
woman the house-Gen. that
"the mistress of that house"
muintir an bhaile ud
people the village-Gen. Yon
"the people of yon village"
Borer (1988: 46) advocates a model of word-formation which she calls
parallel
morphology, whereby the word-formation component, instead of always preceding the syntax, is allowed to operated parallel to it. She argues that word-formation should be regarded as constraining con·strain tr.v. con·strained, con·strain·ing, con·strains 1. To compel by physical, moral, or circumstantial force; oblige: felt constrained to object. See Synonyms at force. 2. representations. The level at which these representations appear is not important, as long as well-formedness is not violated vi·o·late tr.v. vi·o·lat·ed, vi·o·lat·ing, vi·o·lates 1. To break or disregard (a law or promise, for example). 2. To assault (a person) sexually. 3. . This, she claims, is responsible for the different syntactic properties of compounds and construct state nominals in Hebrew. For example, the latter, being formed after D-structure, allow modification of their complement, which is not possible in the case of compounds. Compounds, with their idiosyncratic id·i·o·syn·cra·sy n. pl. id·i·o·syn·cra·sies 1. A structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group. 2. A physiological or temperamental peculiarity. 3. semantics semantics [Gr.,=significant] in general, the study of the relationship between words and meanings. The empirical study of word meanings and sentence meanings in existing languages is a branch of linguistics; the abstract study of meaning in relation to language or , are listed in the lexicon, while the construct state nominals have a fully compositional meaning and are unlisted. If we apply this model of word-formation to the Irish data, it works as follows. Phrases which have a generic complement are entered in the lexicon as compounds: this would include phrases without the article and some phrases with the nonspecific nonspecific /non·spe·cif·ic/ (non?spi-sif´ik) 1. not due to any single known cause. 2. not directed against a particular agent, but rather having a general effect. nonspecific 1. article like those in (14) above. As for phrases with a specific complement, on the whole these are not affected by the word-formation component, i.e., the dominant pattern is for them to behave like other syntactic phrases. The exception are the group we have been discussing, phrases like fear an ti. Unlike Hebrew construct state nominals, which are formed freely and are not listed, these Irish phrases have to be entered in the lexicon, both because of their semantics and also because one cannot predict when they will be formed. In other words, there is an important difference between the Irish and the Hebrew material: the formation of construct state nominals is a systematic process, while that of "nominals" like fear an ti is not. Ultimately, there is not so much which distinguishes regular compounds from these nominals. Both groups are entered in the lexicon. The non-compounds are more marked, in that they allow the syntax a limited amount of access to their constituents, do not undergo pluralisation Noun 1. pluralisation - the act of pluralizing or attributing plurality to pluralization inflection, inflexion - a change in the form of a word (usually by adding a suffix) to indicate a change in its grammatical function , and have specific complements. As we noted above, it would not be appropriate to regard these formations as compounds. On the other hand, the instances of these phrases are not numerous, and their occurrence is not a regular, rule-governed process, so that there would be little justificataion for granting them the status of a main-stream morphological category, like Hebrew construct state nominals. The Irish nominals must be assigned to the margins of word-formation. Borer's model of word-formation seems well suited to her data. To the extent that it gives the word-formation component a role at the syntactic level, it is helpful in interpreting the Irish material, but in the end we are forced to fall back on the by now traditional notions of listing and the lexicon to account for the facts. Parallel morphology is an exciting theoretical development, and it warrants further investigation using different bodies of data. The brief comparison of the Hebrew and Irish material which we have presented illustrates that the model is of general significance; however, the degree to which it succeeds in deepening deep·en tr. & intr.v. deep·ened, deep·en·ing, deep·ens To make or become deep or deeper. Noun 1. deepening - a process of becoming deeper and more profound our understanding of the specific data depends to a certain extent on the language in question. (1.) The research reported in this paper was carried out while I was a visiting scholar A visiting scholar, in the world of academia, is a scholar from an institution who visits a receiving university that hosts him where he or she is projected to teach (visiting professor), lecture (visiting lecturer), or perform research (visiting researcher at Jesus College There are at least two institutions bearing the name Jesus College. Among them are:
(2.) The data are taken from contemporary descriptions and dictionaries of Modern Irish: the most important of these are O Cadhlaigh 1940, de Bhaldraithe 1953, O hAnluain 1960, O Donaill 1977. The letter h after a consonant consonant Any speech sound characterized by an articulation in which a closure or narrowing of the vocal tract completely or partially blocks the flow of air; also, any letter or symbol representing such a sound. indicates lenition, e.g. bean [b'aen] 'woman' : a bhean [o v'aen] 'his woman'. Gen. in glosses indicates the genitive. Unless otherwise stated, forms are given in the nominative singular. (3.) Borer (1988: 57) describes an almost identical situation in Hebrew. Normally, only the head is made plural, e.g. ben melex - son king - 'prince' : bney melex - son-Pl. king - 'princes'. However, she does admit that one occasioanlly finds plural marking on the complement as well, e.g. ben dod - son uncle - 'cousin' : bney dodim - son-Pl. uncle-Pl. - 'cousins'. (4.) English docs not allow attributive at·trib·u·tive n. Grammar A word or word group, such as an adjective, that is placed adjacent to the noun it modifies without a linking verb; for example, pale in the pale girl. adj. 1. adjectives with complements for the most part. The nearest thing to the phrases we are discussing would be something like a good day for fishing, or a bad shop for meat. (5.) Or at least if it is to be recognised as compounding, it will have to be given a special status, as involving elements belonging to both phrasal and lexical categories. (6.) Certain parallels from English prompt themselves. We can pluralise compounds like man of God : men of God, but idioms like the man in the street are immutable IMMUTABLE. What cannot be removed, what is unchangeable. The laws of God being perfect, are immutable, but no human law can be so considered. ; of. * the men in the street, * a man in the street. REFERENCES Anderson, Stephen R. 1992 A-morphous Morphology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP) is a publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534, and one of the two privileged presses (the other being Oxford University Press). . Booij, Geert - Jaap van MarLe (eds.) 1988 Yearbook of Morphology. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Borer, Hagit 1988 "On the morphological parallelism An overlapping of processing, input/output (I/O) or both. 1. parallelism - parallel processing. 2. (parallel) parallelism - The maximum number of independent subtasks in a given task at a given point in its execution. E.g. between compounds and constructs", in: Geert Booij Jaap van Marle (eds.), 45-65. de Bhaldraithe, Tomas 1953 Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge: an Deilbhfocht, Baile Atha Cliath: Institiuid Ardleinn Bhaile Atha Cliath. Di Sciullo, Anna-Maria - Edwin Williams 1987 On the Definition of Word. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Fabb, Nigel 1984 Syntactic affixation. [Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation dis·ser·ta·tion n. A lengthy, formal treatise, especially one written by a candidate for the doctoral degree at a university; a thesis. dissertation Noun 1. , MIT.] Lieber, Rochelle 1983 "Argument linking and compounding in English", Linguistic Inquiry Linguistic Inquiry is a leading international peer-reviewed journal in generative linguistics published by the MIT Press since 1970. Ever since its foundation, it has been edited by Samuel Jay Keyser. Many seminal linguistic articles first appeared on its pages. 14: 251-286. O Cadhlaigh, Cormac 1940 Gnas na Gaedhilge. Baile Atha Cliath: Oifig an tSolathair. O Donaill, Niall 1977 Focloir Gaeilge-Bearla. Baile Atha Cliath: Qifig an tSolathair. O hAnluain, L.A. 1960 Graimcar Gaeilge na mBraithre Criostat. Baile Atha Cliath: An Gum gum, colloidal plant substance gum, term commonly applied to any of a wide variety of colloidal substances somewhat similar in appearance and general characteristics, exuded by or extracted from plants. . Roeper, Thomas 1988 "Compound syntax and head movement", in: Geert Booij -- Jaap van Marle (eds.), 187-228. Roeper, Thomas - Dorothy Siegel 1978 "A lexical transformation for verbal compounds", Linguistic Inquiry 9: 199-260. Selkirk, Elizabeth 1982 The Syntax of Words. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Spencer, Andrew 1991 Morphological Theory. Oxford: Blackwell. Sproat, Richard 1985 On deriving the lexicon. (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.] Williams, Edwin 1981 "On the notions lexically-related and head of a word", Linguistic Inquiry 12: 245.274. |
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