Subject: synthetic compounds summary

dear colleagues , in april i sent a query to linguist about synthetic compounds . i received over 30 replies . i have tried to respond personally to all of the replies , but a couple of my messages bounced . i apologize to anyone i missed . i appreciated all of the response i received . i am proud to be a part of intellectual community where so many people are eager to share their hard won knowledge . a summary of what i have learned follows . it can be divided into four parts . part 1 presents some questions about what i had taken as given in my initial query . part 2 consists of a bibliography of works that i and others have found useful in our research on compounds . part 3 . is a table showing the data i have so far . i encourage you to look over it may surprise you or you may disagree with what i say about your favorite language ( if you do please write me , i know very little about most of these languages and have no way of judging if what i have read about them is the widely accepted view . in part 4 i explain the project i am currently working on and make yet another call for data ( no matter how much i get i want more ) . i hope that this summary is useful for most of you and interesting to at least some . part 1 : i got some very interesting replies to my query which instead of or in addition to offering data , questioned the very notion of synthetic compounds that i had based my query on . my post was as follows : i am looking for information on synthetic compounds like the english " truck driver " and the french " essuie-glace " where one element of the compound is a verbal and the other element is interpreted as its object . i am trying to find out if there is any connection between the ordering of the elements in these compounds and the ordering of the elements in a vp . i already have information on how these compounds are formed and used in english , french , spanish , italian , dutch , igbo , and jacaltec , but have been unable , despite hours in the library , to find information on other languages . the questions fell into two main categories ? 1 . what did i mean by " synthetic " compounds ? on the surface this seems like a simple terminological question but it goes much deeper than that . in researching this type of compounds i have seen them called by any number of names ; deverbals , verbals , v + n , v + o , nominalizations . . . . . i do n't know where the term " synthetic " comes from i just use it because it was the one i was taught . each of these terms has its own merits and faults and reflects the theory of compounding the user ascribes to , which is all well and good but it makes research in this area very difficult . another problem arising in part from or simply reflected in the plethora of terms for this type of compounds is the fact that no two linguists define the group in the same way . for some a synthetic compound can only be made up of a verbal and noun that can be interpreted as its direct object ( dishwasher , face painting ) for others the noun can be an oblique object as well ( theater goer ) and other will call any compound with a verbal element a synthetic ( examining room ) . for the purposes of my current work i am only interested in the first type ( v + do ) , in fact only the subset where the compound is understood to be a person or object that preforms the action ie . a dishwasher : something / one that washes dishes . 2 . why did i think that " driver " of " truck driver " was a " verb " it is obviously a " noun " ? why was n't i looking at the ordering of nps instead of that of vps ? admittedly at first glance the compound " truck driver " does seem to be made up of two nouns " truck " and " driver " . in fact i cannot at this point think of any compelling argument against this view except that words like " driver " tend to be semantically weak and except in a few case like that of " driver " unless they appear as part of a compound they have no meaning out of context . compare " grower " with " apple grower " . the french compounds present even better support for the verb based view . the " essuie " of " essuie-glace " ( windshield-wiper ) is a straight forward verb form . there is no french noun " essuie " ( * wiper ) thus french synthetics at least cannot be n + n compounds , and if we want a unified theory of synthetics then english synthetics cannot be n + n either . if you want to comment on either of these questions , please do so directly to linguist . i think either of them could lead to a good general debate and i have already said all i have to say about these subjects at the moment . part 2 : synthetic compound bibliography ( warning some citations are incomplete , i hope this does n't cause anyone too much trouble ) adams , valerie . an introduction to modern english word - formation . new york : longman bauer , laurie . english word formation . cambridge : cambridge university press ( 1983 ) - - - . the grammar of nominal compounding : with special reference to danish , english , and french . odense : odense university press , ( 1978 ) . beard , robert . lexeme - morpheme base morphology . suny press ( this summer ) booij , g . and t . van haaften . " on the external syntax of derived words : evidence from dutch . " yearbook of morphology 1 . ( 1988 ) : 29-44 . chao , yuen - ren . a grammar of spoken chinese . berkeley : university of california press . ( 1968 ) ( pages 415-434 ) chi , telee r . ra study of verb - object compounds in mandrin chinese in thompson , s . a . & lord , c . ( 1974 ) approaches to the lexicon . ucla papers in syntax , # 6 . los angeles : university of california press . - - - . a lexical analysis of verb - noun compounds in mandrin chinese . taipei : crane publishing co . ( 1985 ) . chung , karen steffen . verb + noun function describing compounds . bulletin of the college of liberal arts , national taiwan university no 41 ( 1994 ) 181-222 craig , c . the jacaltec language . bloomington : indiana university press , 1973 ( has a nice section on word formation ) darmesteter , arsene . traite de la formation des mots composes dans la langue francais comparee aux autres langues romanes et au latin . paris : librairie honore campion ( reprint of 1893 work ) ( 1967 ) drapeau , lynn . aspects de la morphologie du nom en montagnais . thesis . universite de montreal . ( 1979 ) . - - - . " les noms composses en montagnais " recherches linguistiques a montreal : montreal working papers vol . 12 , may 1979 linguistique amerindinenne i : syntax algonquienne gavarro , anna . syntactic theory and the grammar of catalan compounding . dissertation university of edinburgh ( 1990 ) greenberg , gerald r . " stress in polish compounds . " lingua : international review of general linguistics . 70 : 2 - 3 ( nov . 1986 ) : 163-170 . koptjevskaja - tanm , maria . nominalizations . new york : routledge , 1993 . lehmann , w . p . " proto - indo - european compounds in relation to other proto - indo european syntactic patterns . " acta linguistica hafniensia 1969 , 3-20 . lehmann , ( w . p . ) ? theoretical basis of indo - european linguistics . routledge ( 1993 ) ( pages recomended to me 64 , 148-50 , 255 - 6 ) leiber . r . " phrasal compounds in english and the morphology - syntax interface . " papers from the parasession on agreement in grammatical theory . 202-22 . - - - . " argument linking and compounds in english . " linguistic inquiry vol 14 ( 1983 ) - - - . deconstructing morphology ( 1992 ) leonard , rosemary . the interpretation of english noun sequences on the computer . amsterdam : north holland ( 1984 ) levi , judith . " the syntax and semantics of complex nominals " in studies in modern hebrew syntax and semantics ed cole north holland publishing ( 1976 ) pgs . 9-55 . li , c . n . and s . a . thompson . mandrin chinese : a functional reference grammar . berkeley : university of california press . ( pages 73-81 ) lloyd , paul m . verb - complement compounds in spanish . tubingen : max miemeyer verlag . ( 1968 ) nwaozuzu , g . i . " nominal compounds in igbo . " afrika und ubersee : sprachen kulturen . 70 : 2 , 225-244 . selkirk , elisabeth o . the syntax of words . cambridge , ma : mit press , 1982 . spencer , andrew . morphological theory . oxford : basil blackwell , 1991 thiele , johannes . la formation des mots en francais moderne . translated by andr clas . montreal : presses de l ' universite de montreal , 1987 . varela , soledad . " the organization of the lexical component : noun - compounds in spanish . " acta linguistica scientiarum hungaricae . 1986 , 36 : 1 - 4 . 235-44 . vogel , irene . " phonological evidence for level ordering in italian word formation . " acta linguistica scientiarum hungaricae . 1986 , 36 : 1 - 4 . 245-260 . vogel , ( irene ) ? and ? napoli . the verbal component in italian compounds . in proceedings of the linguistic symposium on romance languages xxii . eds jon amastae , grant goodall , and mario montabetty . philadelphia : john benjamins ( to appear ) wilco , g . ter stal and paul e . van der vet . two - level semantic compounds . wonderly ( 1951 ) international journal of applied linguistics zwanenburg , ? . " morphological heads : french compounding and germanic prefixation " in theoretical analyses in romance linguistics eds laeufer and morgan . part 3 the following table summarizes the data from all the languages examined . " ? " indicates holes in the data language vp order compound order v affixed n affixed pie ov ov ? ? sanskrit ov ov ? ? latin free / ov ov ? ? french vo vo no no italian vo vo no yes spanish vo vo no yes english vo ov yes no dutch vo ov yes no german vo ov yes no danish vo ov yes no swedish vo ov yes no icelandic vo ov yes no russian free ov yes no serbo - croatian free / vo vo yes yes polish vo vo yes no welsh vo vo yes yes ov yes no igbo vo vo yes no jacaltec vo vo yes no pulaar vo vo yes yes finnish vo ov yes yes west armenian ov ov ? no mandrin chinese ? vo no ? irish gaelic vo vo yes ? thai svo svo ? ? galacian vo vo ? no / yes hebrew vo vo yes ? no czech ? vo ? ? japanese ? ov yes ? if your favorite language ( s ) is ( are ) missing or you disagree with what i have here please read the next section and send me the data i need to set things right . part 4 in the paper i am currently working on i amattempting to see which of two theories makes the correct predictions about the surface form of synthetic compounds . the first theory , based on hawkins view of parsing , predicts that the surface form of synthetics will differ as much as possible in ordering and affixation from the corresponding vp so that the listener will not confuse the two . the second theory , based on any number of generative theories of word formation , predicts that synthetics and vps will be as similar as possible so that the derivation of synthetics will be as simple as possible . thus english with the affix - er and different word orders for synthetics and vps conforms with the first theory and french with a similar ordering conforms with the second . basically i need data from as many languages as possible in order to see which of the two theories makes the most accurate prediction . i am putting severe limits on the data which i am considering . i am only looking a one subset of synthetics , those with an agentive reading . by this i mean compounds indicating people or instruments that are the agent of the corresponding vp , like the english " truck driver " and " dishwasher " or the french " porte-parole " and " essuie-glace " . i chose this subset because it is the most semantically distinct from the vp . the problems caused by a listener confusing agentive compounds and the vps would be the more severe than with any other subset and thus this is the environment where one would most expect to see evidence for the first theory . if the first theory does indeed make correct predictions , i might consider other types of synthetics and try to see if there is any type of hierarchy within synthetics based on how semantically distinct they are from their corresponding vps . however that is later , for now i just need data about agentive synthetics . if you are willing to send me data on any of the languages missing above please include at least 1 . the name of the language in question ( so i can look it up to get other typological information ) 2 . two or more examples with a morpheme by morpheme gloss and a free gloss 3 . simple sentences with the corresponding vps glossed as above 4 . the plural and feminine forms of examples if they exist 5 . and a judgement of how productive this compounding process is in the language 6 . any other comments you think are helpful for example french ( francais ) ( l ' ) essuie-glace " wipe ( v stem / 3rd sing ( depending on analysis ) - glass ( n stem ( sg / fem ) ) " " windshield wiper ( n sg masc ) " ( le ) porte-parole " carry ( v stem ) - speech ( n stem ) " spokesman ( n sg masc ) " il essuie la glace . " he ( nom ) wipes ( 3rd sing pres ) the ( fem sing ) glass ( fem sing ) ? elle porte la parole . " she ( nom ) carries ( 3rd sing pres ) the ( fem sing ) speech ( fem sing ) . les essuie-glaces ( pl ) no fem exists les porte-paroles ( pl ) la porte-parole ( fem ) this pattern is very productive in french especially with - er verbs . these compounds are always masculine regardless of the gender of the nominal element . " essuie " and " porte " independently can only be interpreted as verb stems of 3rd singular pres . they cannot be used as nouns or adjectives . phillipe barbaud at universite du quebec a montreal wrote a nice paper ( the name of which escapes me ) on french compounds in the late 80 's thanks again to all those who replied to my first query . i hope this summary has been of some use . heather anderson hmanders @ indiana . edu 322 memorial hall iu bloomington , in 47405
