How marginal are phrasal compounds? Generalized insertion, expressivity, and I/Q-interaction

Abstract

For several reasons, phrasal compounds like I-told-you-so attitude are a typical case of a marginal type of word-formation: (i) integration of a phrase into the word should not be allowed (violation of the No Phrase Constraint), (ii) lexical integrity is weakened (violation of the Principle of Lexical Integrity), (iii) they display an expressive flavour typical of marginal morphology. Using the mixed model of Ackema and Neeleman (2004) that allows for insertion from phrasal syntax into word syntax (Generalized Insertion) it is shown that phrasal compounds are by no means marginal from a purely theoretical point of view. However, the expressivity of marginal compounds has to be explained. Drawing on experimental data, it is shown that ad hoc phrasal compounds are understandable and witty to a high degree. These results are explained within the Presumptive Meanings approach of Levinson (2000) that develops the notion of Generalized Conversational Implicature (GCI). It is shown that the expressivity of ad hoc phrasal compounds stems from a word-level conflict between observing the I-principle (that favours the enrichment of underdetermined structures) on the one hand, and the Q-principle (that requires maximal information) on the other.