Lexical Integrity Research Articles

A Descriptive and Experimental Investigation of Recursive Compounds in English: Their Semantic, Syntactic, and Phonological Characterization

The aim of this study is to experimentally capture the semantic, syntactic, and phonological properties of recursive compounds in English. We asked 22 native speakers of English to judge the semantic, syntactic, and phonological properties of 20 recursive compounds that are inherently ambiguous in interpretation (e.g., university entrance exam). We found variations among the participants in each of these three basic aspects. For semantic interpretation, there was a tendency among the participants to prefer left-branching interpretation (‘an exam for university entrance’) over right-branching interpretation (‘an entrance exam in a university’). Using a lexical integrity effect for the syntactic tests, it was found that certain recursive compounds allow for coordination inside. Phonologically, speaker variation was observed in whether and how recursive compounds were pronounced, with 16 participants obeying the Lexical Category Prominence Rule.

Lexical Functional Grammar as a Construction Grammar

Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) is a lexicalist, constraint-based grammatical theory that shares a lot of the basic assumptions of Construction Grammar (CxG), such as a commitment to surface-oriented descriptions (no transformations), and the simultaneous representation of form, meaning, and other grammatical information (no derivations). Nevertheless, LFG is not standardly viewed as a kind of CxG, in particular since its adherence to the principle of Lexical Integrity means that it insists on a strict morphology-syntax distinction where CxG canonically rejects such a divide. However, such a distinction is in fact entirely compatible with CxG assumptions; the actual problem with viewing LFG as a CxG is the difficulty it has in describing the more substantive end of the schematic-substantive spectrum of constructions. I suggest that by replacing the limited context-free grammar base of LFG responsible for this shortcoming with a more expressive formalism (in this case a description-based tree-adjoining grammar), we can obtain a fully constructional LFG, suitable as a formal framework for CxG.

Revisiting isiZulu noun classes: a lexicalist approach

This article seeks to question the lexical integrity (lexicality) of isiZulu noun classes. A noun is a lexical category, hence it would be expected that a noun classifier be a lexical or derivational affixal morpheme. We view noun classes as grammatical words or forms (noun phrases). We regard initial vowels of the existing isiZulu noun classes as the first layer of nominal inflection, as they repeat the vowel of the basic prefix. Since the ‘plural’ is generally considered an inflectional element, the conclusion we reach is that it cannot be used for noun classification either. Hence, the need to revisit the three systems of Bantu classification and reclassify the nouns according to singular basic prefixes.

The V-Neg-V complex predicates, two types of negation, and grammaticalization in Japanese

In this article, I argue for the existence of a complex predicate containing negation in the form of [[V-Neg]-V]. If Neg is a functional category, this will falsify the prohibition against syntactic verb incorporation that picks up a functional head to reach a lexical head, or the Principle of Lexical Integrity, which in effect prohibits merger of any functional category within a complex word or any application of syntactic operation (movement or deletion) that targets part of a complex word. It will be argued, however, that these complex predicates are not considered bona-fide counterexamples to these hypotheses or principles of word formation because negation in Japanese can be a lexical adjective. Moreover, in cases where negation behaves as functional category, I argue that the lexical verb that selects the negation is grammaticalized to an aspectual functional category. The assumptions regarding the syntactic ambiguity of negation and grammaticalization will help us understand how complex predicates expand their host class and ultimately transform into a full-fledged construction. This will also shed light on the issue of whether and how some complex predicates can retain their lexical properties after the entire construction has been grammaticalized. The bidirectional change toward grammaticalization and lexicalization can be understood from a ‘constructionalization’ viewpoint.

Lexical Integrity: A mere construct or more a construction?

AbstractThis paper reviews the so-called Lexical Integrity Principle, resting on the assumption that morphology and syntax are distinct components of grammar. In the forty-odd years since its original formulation, this principle has repeatedly come under fire. Phrasal compounds ([[Lexical Integrity]NPPrinciple]Nbeing an example!) are often adduced as counterevidence, but I here argue that phrases generallydon’tappear inside compounds and that the principle therefore cannot be so easily discarded. The claim that parts of words cannot be syntactically manipulated has remained relatively unchallenged, which is another reason to uphold some aspects of Lexical Integrity. The separability of particle verbs, though, presents a well-known potential problem. I address recent voices that particle verbs, despite neuroscientific evidence of their lexical status, are not words, maintaining theycanbe items with word status, given for example their occurrence in the [VtheNtaboo-wordout ofNP] construction. A constructionist approach to alternation phenomena offers a solution to the separability issue, which consists in having schematic particle verb constructions whose grammatical status (and not just word order) is underspecified. As words, particle verbs stay together; as phrases, their parts can separate. To salvage the Lexical (or, better, Morphological) Integrity of words, this paper proposes a principle –a construction of sorts – that is a generalization emerging from how we use words.

The Syntax-Morphology Interface in Ancient Greek

Abstract Even though syntax and morphology are generally taken to be distinct components of language, two morphological structures in Ancient Greek—denominal adjectives and compounds—possess syntactical properties in that their morphemes, rather than the whole words, participate in select syntactical processes. These phenomena, occurring at the boundary between syntax and morphology, ostensibly violate the generative Lexical Integrity Principle. Nonetheless, instances of such phenomena can be found in various Ancient Greek sources. These instances, traditionally treated as ad sensum constructiones or as syntactical mishaps, are not bereft of internal consistency, and in fact form their own well-organized subsystem and even obey an implicational hierarchy.

Spanish L2 Chinese Learners' Awareness of Morpho-Syntactic Structures in the Reading Comprehension of Splittable Compounds.

Reading comprehension is never considered a simple task in linguists’ views as it requires a full set of linguistic knowledge, such as word decoding, understanding syntactic and morphological structures, and deriving proper meanings from these structures in a given context. Bearing the simple view of reading, the primary goal of this study is to explore whether the split presentation of Chinese splittable compounds influences the recognition of the compounds in second language (L2) Chinese reading comprehension, and how the reading skills, i.e., word decoding and linguistic comprehension, cooperate to complete this reading comprehension task. Splittable compounds (SCs) in Chinese are typically verbs composed of two constituents with limited separability. The separable property of SCs and their vague morpho-syntactic status are supposed to cause difficulties for L2 Chinese learners in recognizing the compounds. Especially for those whose native language manifests lexical integrity, the split presentation of the compounds may invite the L2 Chinese readers to process them with a mechanism different from that for their non-split forms. To the best of our knowledge, the efforts on investigating this issue are insufficient. In this study, 27 Spanish speaking L2 Chinese learners were invited to complete tasks including reading and interpreting 6 selected SCs in the split and non-split forms, rating their familiarities with each SC and reporting the syntactic category of the SCs based on their existing linguistic knowledge. The results, showed that the split presentation of SCs did cause challenges for L2 Chinese learners in recognizing the compounds in the reading process, regardless of their Chinese proficiencies. The L2 Chinese participants performed significantly worse in recognizing split SCs in salient Verb-Object structures than recognizing those in unsalient Verb-Object structures. These findings underscore the importance of linguistic comprehension in L2 Chinese in-text word reading comprehension and suggest words as the basic processing units.

No escape from categorization: an insider’s view of compounds

There has been a surge of syntactic research on compounding, joining a large literature on the nature of roots and phase theory. In an attempt to probe into the syntactic domain for idiosyncratic interpretation and to account for lexical integrity effects, some recent studies on compounding have argued that root compounds are made up of two free acategorial roots directly merged in syntax, without undergoing categorization. The main goal of such an approach is to extend the phase domain in order to maintain two uncategorized roots awaiting further Merge operations. When a category head is merged on the top of this compounded structure, it will trigger its Spell-Out, and as a result, both roots will be identified as a single syntactic object for the purposes of movement and binding, and will be assigned a fixed, non-compositional interpretation. In this article, we argue that categorially non-individuated roots are not legitimate LF and PF objects, alongside Panagiotidis (2011, 2014, 2015). Consequently, any syntactic object made up of two or more uncategorized roots will induce formal crashing at the interfaces. We claim that root categorization cannot be analyzed neither as a matter of parametric variation, nor as an optional derivational step. Additionally, we propose that lexical integrity effects can be straightforwardly accounted if we assume that the unifying characteristic of compounds is the presence of a category head merged on the top of two categorized roots. Finally, we claim that non-compositional domains are not determined by categorization. Rather, non-compositionality is assigned at LF, through a set of LF instructions associated with roots in a particular syntactic environment.

VN Phrasal Compounds in Cinyanja

This article aims at discussing verb-noun compounds with a locative prefix in the nominal part of the compounds in Cinyanja. The singular and plural forms of the compounds have been presented to show that the complex forms are nouns. With regard to the internal structure, the compounds show that they have a phrasal structure. Since verb-noun compounds in this study resemble the structure of synthetic compounds in English, the analysis of these words followed the syntactic approach. The results show that internally, the compounds with a locative have a verb phrase internal structure, and follow the verb-argument word order. In the syntactic context, it is shown that the compounds with the phrasal internal structure function as determiner phrases because they can appear in the subject and object positions in simple sentences and relative clauses. Further, the entire compound word can be modified by adjectives, and be coordinated with simple nouns, which suggests that the compounds with a locative are indeed determiner phrases. Finally, with the application of the lexical integrity hypothesis, the results reveal that the compounds with the locative in the nominal part are genuine compounds because they adhere to the lexical integrity principle.

Macro-events in Verb–verb Compounds from the Perspective of Baseline and Elaboration: Iconicity in Typology and Grammaticalization

In Talmy’s typology of event integration, macro-events are classified into five types (motion, temporal contouring, state change, action correlating, and realization) by the framing event. Examining compound verbs representing macro-events cross-linguistically, this paper argues that macro-events can be classified into two types from the viewpoint of “elaboration” (Langacker 2016): augmentation (motion, state change, and realization) and adaptation (temporal contouring and action correlating). Based on iconicity, compound verbs can be said to be the best candidates for encoding conceptually integrated complex events considering their high lexical integrity. This paper shows that the two types of macro-events in compound verbs are distinct in the order of the framing event and the co-event, the representation of the framing event, and their lexical integrity. These results suggest that the differences in baseline/elaboration organization iconically emerge as explicit differences in linguistic forms, indicating the validity of the “iconicity of structured mapping in compounds”.

Dephrasal adjectives in Polish – A case of syntax-inside-morphology

The present paper is part of a larger project which investigates the issue of “syntax-inside-morphology” in the domain of Polish word-formation. In what follows, we explore the thus far unstudied territory of dephrasal adjectives, such as tużpopołudniowy ‘right-after-noon’ and ponadstustronicowy ‘over-one-hundred-page’ built on phrasal bases subjected to suffixation.
 It is generally acknowledged that the Polish word-formation system is not designed to comprise phrasal compounding – a word-formation type which has come to be considered a flagship representative of the morphology-syntax interface (see Szymanek 2017 and Pafel 2017). Nevertheless, one may come across a number of Polish word-formation patterns, such as the class of nouns derived from PPs (e.g. nausznik ‘earmuff’ [[naP uszyN]PP -nik]N) or synthetic compound words (e.g. bydłobójnia ‘abattoir’ [[bydłN-o-bójV]VP -nia]N) which should clearly be considered legitimate members of the global “syntax-inside-morphology” community (see Kolbusz-Buda 2019a).
 In what follows, we want to argue that Polish dephrasal adjectives should be recognised as a case of morphology-syntax interplay on a par with the already attested cross-linguistic material. The phrasal character of the Polish data to be discussed in this study is so strong that researching this sui generis type of derivation seems not only a valid linguistic undertaking but also one with important implications. The study may have far-reaching consequences for the descriptive adequacy of the Polish word-formation system and point to new directions in the discussion on the morphology-syntax interface. The morphological structure of the adjectives to be discussed will be juxtaposed with the class of Polish compounds proper, in particular, synthetic compounds – a word-formation type which can be considered the closest in its morphological make-up to the presented material. Offering such a comparative perspective seems necessary as the adjectives to which we choose to refer as products of dephrasal suffixation are casually classified as compounds. Moreover, although Polish does not note any cases of phrasal compounding, the morphological structure of the adjectives in question will be additionally examined to discover potential parallels between the two word-formation types. The reason behind this undertaking is two-fold. Firstly, as has already been mentioned, dephrasal adjectives are classified as compounds; secondly, they contain a phrasal unit.
 In our analysis, we draw on a revised version of the Lexical Integrity Hypothesis, i.e. Lieber and Scalise’s (2007) Firewall Theory, which belongs to the current of the so-called mixed models of word-formation advanced in the recent years by, for instance, Ackema and Neeleman 2004 and Pafel 2017, allowing for a limited intermodular interaction between morphological and syntactic domains.

If everything is syntax, why are words so important? An a-morphous but non-lexicalist approach

AbstractThis paper presents the hypothesis that words (and not morphemes) are the minimal units of connection between sound and meaning in human languages. Such a proposal implies the definition of the word as a categorized syntactic derivation that is linked in memory to a representation in the sensorimotor system. The main implications of the hypothesis are the following: (i) A non-lexicalist model is compatible with the phenomena of lexical integrity and lack of productivity that motivate lexicalist models. (ii) It can be concluded that bound morphemes (roots and affixes) are neither syntactic nor conceptual entities, but purely morphophonological ones. Morphemes are side effects of linguistic change operating as resources to optimize the processing and memorization of words. And (iii) a neo-constructionist conception of words is made compatible with a paradigmatic morphology.

Root and semi-phrasal compounds: A syntactic approach

We present a syntactic account of the derivation of two types of attributivenominal compounds in Spanish, Russian and Greek. These include right-headed “root” compounds, which exhibit more “word”-like properties and single stress domains, and left-headed “semi-phrasal” compounds with more phrasal properties and independent stress domains for the two compound members. We propose that both compound structures are formed on a small clause predicate phrase, with their different properties derived from the merger of the predicate member of the small clause as a root or as a larger nominal unit with additional functional projections. The proposed structures provide an explanation of observed lexical integrity effects, as well as specific predictions of patterns of compound formation crosslinguistically.

Связанные сочетания имен и глаголов в мано

This paper addresses noun plus verb combinations in Mano, a South Mande language, and suggests novel syntactic and semantic criteria for distinguishing compounds from the free combinations of noun phrases and verbs. Nominal and verbal components of all N+V combinations in Mano are systematically detachable, and certain N+V combinations contradict the Lexical Integrity Hypothesis and the No Phrase Constraint, all of which are against the definitions of compounding as a formation of “single words”. Nonetheless, the contradiction and circularity of valency assignment in the nominal component and the combination itself make such combinations more syntactically bound than corresponding free combinations of a NP and a V. These criteria can be considered an argument in favor of defining certain N+V combinations in Mano as compounds, and all these criteria applied together present a complex picture where N+V combinations should be considered, more or less, compound-like with no clear division between free combinations and compounds.

Lexical integrity and suspended affixation in two types of denominal predicates in Korean

Central to the debate on the demarcation of morphology and syntax is the position staked out by the Lexicalist Hypothesis, which holds that morphology and syntax are distinct systems which interface with each other in a particular way. Proponents of the Lexicalist Hypothesis point to a suite of diagnostics collectively known as lexical integrity tests (Bresnan and Mchombo 1995) as evidence pointing to the fundamental difference between morphology and syntax. The tests revolve around the apparent failure of principles of phrasal syntax at the threshold of words. If morphology and syntax constitute a unified rule system, as assumed in current approaches such as Distributed Morphology, such failure is not predicted. It is surprising therefore that lexical integrity has not played a significant role in arguments for Distributed Morphology (Lieber and Scalise 2007). The purpose of this paper is to introduce two types of denominal predicates in Korean, which are distinguished by the fact that lexical integrity is observed in one but not the other type. I explore how the behaviors of the two classes of denominal predicates can be modeled using the theoretical and empirical machinery of current DM, in particular, the distinction between roots and words. While this is a welcome result, it turns out that DM predicts that more languages should behave like Korean in allowing massive violations of lexical integrity. I provide an analysis of the differences between languages like Korean that allow selective access of word-internal structure by syntactic principles and languages like English where such access is prohibited by focusing on the mechanics of Vocabulary Insertion and complex head formation. The paper concludes with the implications of the analysis of the two types of predicates in Korean for both lexicalist and DM architectures of morphology and syntax interaction.This article is part of the special collection: Suspended Affixation

On the Causative/Anti-Causative Alternation as Principle of Affix Ordering in the Light of the Mirror Principle, the Lexical Integrity Principle and the Distributed Morphology

This contribution is organized as follows: in section 1, I propose a formulation of the Mirror Principle (MP) based on syntactic features; the examples will be taken from Causatives and Anti-Causatives that are derived by affixes (in Russian, Czech, Polish, German, English as compared to Japanese and Chichewa) by head-to-head movement. In section 2, I review some basic facts in support of a syntactic approach to Merge of Causatives and Anti-Causatives, proposing that theta roles are also syntactic Features that merge functional affixes with their stems in a well-defined way. I first try to give some external evidence in showing that Causatives and Anti-Causatives obey a principle of thematic hierarchy early postulated in generative literature by Jackendoff (1972; 43), and later reformulated in terms of argument-structure-ordering principle by Grimshaw (1990:chapter 2). Crucial for my paper is the working hypothesis that every syntactic theory which tries to capture the data not only descriptively but also explanatively should descend from three levels of syntactic representation: a-structure where the relation between predicate and its arguments (and adjuncts) takes place, thematic structure where the theta-roles are assigned to their arguments, and event structure, which decides about the aspectual distribution and division of events.

Phrasal compounds are compatible with Lexical Integrity

Abstract As phrasal compounds seem to be words that contain syntactic phrases they are a prominent case against the strict separation of morphology from syntax. However, it is not obvious at all that phrasal compounds do contain syntactic phrases. First, as for phrasal compounds whose non-head constituent is a quote, there is every reason to assume that they are NN compounds – whether or not the quote is the quote of a phrase. Second, taking the different types of phrasal compounds into account it is justified to assume that they do not contain syntactic phrases if one acknowledges phrase-to-word conversion.

Compositionality, lexical integrity, and agglutinative morphology

Based on morphological phenomena found mostly in Japanese, a highly agglutinative language, this paper investigates how we might approach intra-word compositionality in a manner faithful to lexical integrity. First, we observe some word-formation phenomena that seem to apparently contradict lexical (or morphological) integrity and ‘direct compositionality’. These involve mismatches -- bracketing paradoxes -- between morphological constituency vis-à-vis syntactic or semantic constituency. We also survey how researchers have dealt or would deal with instances of such mismatches. Upon concluding that these mismatches are not obstacles to direct compositionality or lexical integrity, an even more drastic bracketing paradox, namely, the one involving the sized inalienable possession construction is introduced as a case study to give the concept of direct compositionality a further stress test. The viability and, arguably, advantage of a direct compositional semantically-oriented (as opposed to syntactic) approach to word-formation is demonstrated. Finally, after a summary of the paper, further conceptual issues regarding compositionality and word-formation are taken up.

Bu-nouns in TashlhitAn oft-overlooked complex morphosyntactic corpus

This paper presents a corpus of Tashlhit bu-nouns, in which bu generally expresses the possessor of what the inner noun refers to. Comparison with other dialects of Amazigh is undertaken, revealing the cross-dialectal complexity of this type of nominal formation. Notwithstanding their morphosyntactic intricacy, which challenges Greenberg’s Universal 28, the Lexical Integrity Hypothesis and the No Phrase Constraint, bu-nouns have been dealt with only sporadically and have at times even been overlooked. The presentation will shed light on the inflectional alternations inner bu-nouns exhibit, the existence of an alternative periphrastic expression, the pluralization pattern of these nouns, their alienable vs. inalienable possession patterns, as well as the possible recursion of the bu-noun affixes.

Non-Canonical Compounds in the Discourse of Electrical Engineering

Taking into account some general definitions of compounds found in the pertinent linguistic literature and their frequent syntactic features (such as fixed order and recursiveness) we have analysed and investigated semantic compositionality and some other features pertaining to these linguistic items. Furthermore, we have drawn attention to the possibility of implementing certain criteria in connection with the distribution of non-canonical compound constituents. It has been pointed out that distributional evidence is applicable for English non-canonical compounds in electrical engineering discourse. Moreover, distribution is used as an indicator of lexical integrity of these linguistic items. Apart from fairly clear cases, different examples of English non-canonical compounds taken from the specialised discourse of electrical engineering have been examined by way of illustration and certain results of our analysis have been presented.