Compound or phrase? Analogy in naming

Schlücker, Barbara; Plag, Ingo

doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2011.04.005

Cited by 24 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…It could be tempting, then, to ground the derivational mechanism that produces an order for multiple prenominal adjectives on tokenbased analogy. Such an approach builds on patterns stored in the mental lexicon based on exemplar frequency, with the choice between two alternatives dependent on the frequency value of a pattern (see, for example, Baayen et al 2010;Schlücker and Plag 2011). The degree of conventionalization of a pattern is essentially a statistical matter in such an approach, in which rule-based, categorial factors are regarded as irrelevant.…”

Section: A Pragmatic Account Of the Markedness Of Reversed Ordersmentioning

confidence: 99%

How real are adjective order constraints? Multiple prenominal adjectives at the grammatical interfaces

Kotowski

Härtl

2019

Linguistics

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Adjective order restrictions on attributive adjectives (AORs) have been subject to debate in modern linguistic research for a long time. Most generally, the question whether AORs can be located in grammar as such in rule-based fashion is still unsettled. In the current paper, we largely argue against this view and claim that several of the core data to be explained are preferences based on norms rather than rules. A pragmatic explanation is offered to account for marked or apparently ungrammatical examples. First, we demarcate AORs in the narrow sense against data based on truth-conditional differences, show the sole hard constraint to be found in a distinction between object- and kind-modification, and introduce several of the factors argued to drive AORs in the literature. A large-scale corpus study on German AAN-phrases shows a hierarchy of relative adjectives preceding absolute ones to reliably predict preferences, while temporariness and weight do not. We then illustrate that norm-based preferences can be overwritten via discourse linking and implement markedness in out-of-the-blue contexts pragmatically based on the M-principle. Speculating that AORs in the narrow sense have their origins in more general cognitive principles, our findings support approaches that locate the better part of AORs outside the realm of core grammar.

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Section: A Pragmatic Account Of the Markedness Of Reversed Ordersmentioning

confidence: 99%

How real are adjective order constraints? Multiple prenominal adjectives at the grammatical interfaces

Kotowski

Härtl

2019

Linguistics

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“…These two examples suggest that, in addition to the aforementioned internal structural factors (e.g., when the noun involved is singular, the compound construction is preferred), the choice between the compound and the two phrasal constructions in a context where both are allowed may be lexically conditioned. The choice in these situations can also be very well explained by the “analogical” model proposed by Schlücker and Plag (2011). According to this model, speakers’ selections are based on the “family bias” related to the words in the compound, e.g., with the words child/children , it has an extremely strong - free compound bias, much stronger than that for the word danger .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is important to note that recent studies on German adjective+noun (A+N) compounds versus A+N phrases (Schlücker & Hüning 2009; Schlücker & Plag 2011) have found that the semantic-functional distinction between compounds being used for naming and phrases being used for description is not always true. Schlücker and Hüning’s (2009:228) analysis shows that not all A+N compounds are noncompositional with a special meaning (the hallmark structural and semantic features of compounds) and, equally importantly, some (lexicalized) A-N phrases are actually noncompositional with a special meaning, leading them to the conclusion that “the functional split between compounds and phrases describes [only] a tendency rather than a rule.” Schlücker and Plag’s (2011:1550) empirical study, which asked subjects to produce new concepts from a given adjective and a noun, produced a similar finding: like compounds, A+N phrases are also used for naming in German, although compounds are used much more in this function. According to Plag (2003:59-60), besides labeling, word formation also performs the functions of “syntactic recategorization” and expressing “an attitude,” as can be seen in (1) and (2), taken from Plag (2003).…”

Section: Background and Research Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Use of the -Free Compound and Free of and Free From Phrasal Constructions

Liu

Zhan

2015

Journal of English Linguistics

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Using data from the 400-million-word Corpus of Historical American English (COHA) and the 450-million-word Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), this study investigates both diachronically and synchronically the use of the -free compound and its counterparts, the free of/from phrases. A close examination of the frequency, distribution, and structural and semantic functions of the constructions yields the following key findings. First, frequency-wise, free of has exhibited a steady slow growth, and free from has declined dramatically; in contrast -free has increased enormously, although its archaic use in the senses of 'free to' and 'free with' disappeared by the 1940s. Second, the -free compound boasts a high potential productivity index. Third, while both the compound and the phrasal constructions may be used as predicative and postnominal adjectives, objective complements, and adverbials, only the -free compound is used as a prenominal (attributive) adjective. Fourth, whereas the -free compound is used almost exclusively nonreferentially, the free of/from constructions are used significantly more referentially. Fifth, even in the contexts where the constructions may all be used, often only one is allowed or preferred due to certain internal structural and semantic factors. Finally, condensation of information along with changes in language and life styles appears to have driven the increased use of the compound over its phrasal counterparts, although the phrase free of charge has resisted the change: its high frequency likely has blocked its *charge-free compound counterpart.

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“…Complex words that share one or more morphemes form word families, and there is a wealth of evidence that word families form an important ingredient in the structure of the mental lexicon (Schlücker and Plag 2011;Schreuder and Baayen 1997). Constructional idioms can be seen as characterizations of specific types of word families consisting of compounds that either have the same modifier constituent or the same head, and with a special bound meaning for the common constituent.…”

Section: Degrees Of Productivitymentioning

confidence: 99%