The similarities and differences of four neglected lexical categories: English [VerN]N and [VingN]N, and French [NVveur]N and [NVant]N units

Abstract

Two categories of English lexical units, [V er N] N ( howler monkey ) and “subjective” (i.e. including a subject–verb relation) [V ing N] N ( revolving door ), and two French ones, [NV eur ] N ( singe hurleur ) and [NV ant ] N ( porte tournante ) are examined as a group with regard to their similarities. Beside the fact that they have been largely ignored by previous research, they are all endocentric units with a nominal head and a deverbal modifier, in which the head noun is interpretable as the subject of the verb underlying the modifier. In addition, the suffixes are in 2 × 2 correspondence between the two languages. The characteristics of each of the four categories are reviewed, including non-prototypical members, stress when applicable, and the variety of semantic roles underlying the subjective relation. The semantic differences between the two categories in each language are investigated. The final section contains a discussion of the grammatical (morpholog-ical or syntactic) status of the categories.