Periphrasis as collocation

Abstract

This paper provides a formal theory of inflectional periphrasis, the phenomenon where a multi-word expression plays the grammatical role normally played by a single word filling a cell in an inflectional paradigm. Expanding on the literature, I first identify and illustrate six key properties that a satisfactory theory of periphrasis should account for: (i) the phenomenon of periphrasis is found in the inflection of all major parts of speech; (ii) the logic of the opposition between periphrasis and synthesis is the logic of inflection; (iii) auxiliaries as used in periphrases are morphosyntactic hybrids; (iv) some periphrases are morphosyntactically non-compositional; (v) periphrasis is independent of phrase structure, but (vi) the parts of a periphrase are linked by a grammatical function. The rest of the paper presents a lexicalist theory of periphrasis, relying on a version of HPSG (Pollard and Sag 1994) for syntax combined with a version of Paradigm Function Morphology (Stump 2001) for inflection. The leading idea is that periphrases are similar to syntactically flexible idioms; the theory of periphrasis is thus embedded within a more general theory of collocation. Periphrasis is accounted for in a strictly lexicalist fashion by recognizing that exponence may take the form of the addition of collocational requirements. I show how the theory accounts for all key properties identified in the first section, deploying partial analyses for periphrastic constructions in English, French, Czech, and Persian.