Subject: summary and acknowledgments : [ n + v ] verbal compounds

content - length : 5298 summary and acknowledgments on [ n + v ] verbs . in march , we sent a message about [ n + v ] verbal compounds . we were working on this kind of compounds in catalan and we wished to know what happen in other languages . we also asked for references . we received some messages . we briefly sum them up in 1 . in 2 . we list the people which answer us and , although we thank them personaly , we ( re ) thank them . 1 . summary our request said something like this : " we are two resarchers at the universitat de girona ( sp ) and we are working on a kind of catalan verbal compounding . we sumarize tha characteristics of these compounds here below . we are interested in other vo languages with the same ( or similar ) process of verb formation . [ n + v ] v verbal compounding in catalan to be more clear we enumerate the relevant characteristics of our compounds . 1 . first of all , we must say that catalan is a vo language . 2 . our compounding looks like a process of noun incorporation where the incorporated noun within the lexical item is the ineternal argument in the syntactic structure . see ( 1 ) : ( 1 ) a . el cacador trenca la cama de l ' ocell . the hunter breaks the leg of the bird b . el cacador camtrenca l ' ocell . the hunter leg + breaks the bird 3 . nevertheless , the noun-incorporation doestn ' t affect to the capacity of the verb of assigning acusative case , this is , the complex verb remains transitive . 4 . this kind of " noun-incorporation " is only possible when the noun incorporated is a in inalienable possession noun ( ipn ) and the new internal argument of the complex verb is the possessor . see ( 2 ) and ( 3 ) : ( 2 ) a . corferir to heat + hurt b . colltorcer to neck + twist ( 3 ) a . * cadiratrencar to chair + break * ferrotorcer to iron + twist 5 . we hypothesise that the ipn acsts as a kind of modifier in the complex verbal form and it does n't act as a verbal argument " most of the people gave us references , they are listed below . most of the answers coincide with the belief that this kind of verbal compounds are backformations from adjectives ( in - er ) or nominal compounds . then " to baby sit " comes from " baby sitter " for example . another repeated idea is that they are n't productive in languages as english , or romance languages . nevertheless , we still claim that both questions , the productiviy and the backformation , are not so clear in catalan . bertienetto notes that maybe there is a relation between this kind of nominal incorporation and a progressive aspect ( it has been also noted in the literature about the theme ; see , for example miller g . ( 1993 ) : complex verb formation , j . benjamins . ) . j . alvarez sent to us an interesting paper on incorporation and possessor ascension in guajiro . in that language , not only inp are able to be incorported but also other kind of nouns . we have n't demonstrated our hypothesis yet but we are carry on with our research and any comment is always welcome . references alvarez , jose ( 1994 ) : " estudios de linguistica guajira " . gobernacion del estado de zulia , maracaibo , venezuela . gavarro , anna ( 1990 ) : syntactic theory and the grammar of catalan compounds , phdiss , university of edinburg . klingebiel , kathryn ( 1989 ) : noun + verb compounding in western romance . berkeley , university of california press . robinson , peter ( 1988 ) : " universals of word formation processes : noun incorporation in the acquisition of samoan as a second language " velazquez-castillo , maura ( 1993 ) : the grammar of inalienability : possession and noun incorporation in parguayan guarani . phdiss , university of california , san diego . 2 . acknowledgements jose alvarez ( universidad de zulia , jalvar @ conicit . ve ) pier marco bertinetto ( scuola normale superiore dei pisa , bertinet @ sns . it ) george aaron broadwell ( suny - albany , g . broadwell @ albany . edu ) anna gavarro ( universitat autonoma de barcelona , ilfth @ cc . uab . es ) jose ignacio hualde ( university of illinois , jihualde @ ux1 . cso . uiuc . edu ) suzanne kemmer ( university of california , san diego , kemmer @ ruf . rice . edu ) arantza martinez ( univerisitat del pais basc , fvmaeca @ sd . ehu . es ) peter robinson ( university of queensland , peterr @ lingua . cltr . uq . oz . au ) max wheeler ( univerity of sussex , maxw @ cogs . susx . ac . uk ) olga fullana ( fullana @ skywalker . udg . es ) lluisa gracia ( gracia @ skywalker . udg . es ) univerittat de girona dept . filologia i filosofia pl . ferrater mora , 1 e-17071 girona spain
