Tag: Compounding

Free Download Compounding in Modern Greek By Angela Ralli (auth.)
2013 | 302 Pages | ISBN: 9400749597 | PDF | 2 MB
One of the core challenges in linguistics is elucidating compounds-their formation as well as the reasons their structure varies between languages. This book on Modern Greek rises to the challenge with a meticulous treatment of its diverse, intricate compounds, a study as grounded in theory as it is rich in data. Enhancing our knowledge of compounding and word-formation in general, its exceptional scope is a worthy model for linguists, particularly morphologists, and offers insights for students of syntax, phonology, dialectology and typology, among others. The author examines first-tier themes such as the order and relations of constituents, headedness, exocentricity, and theta-role saturation. She shows how Modern Greek compounding relates to derivation and inflection, and charts the boundaries between compounds and phrases. Exploring dialectically variant compounds, and identifying historical changes, the analysis extends to similarly formed compounds in wholly unrelated languages.

Free Download Heinz J Giegerich, "Lexical Structures: Compounding and the Modules of Grammar "
English | ISBN: 0748624619 | 2015 | 152 pages | PDF | 807 KB
An original study of both structural entities originating in the lexicon, and the structural characteristics of the lexicon as a module of formal grammar, this book makes two contributions to our understanding of the formal grammar of English. Firstly, it presents a coherent theory of ‘compounding’ in English. There is a long-standing but unresolved dispute in the literature as to whether certain constructions (e.g. LONDON ROAD, DENTAL TREATMENT) are compound words or syntactic phrases. The question is important because in other cases the distinction is clear-cut (RING ROAD, FREE TREATMENT respectively), and because it impinges on central assumptions regarding the organisation of the grammar.Secondly, the book suggests an alternative to the commonly assumed sharp division of the grammar into the ‘lexicon’ and the ‘syntax’. The lexicon-syntax distinction facilitates important new insights in the nature of compounding in English. However, Heinz Giegerich argues that the Lexicalist assumption of a sharp divide between the modules cannot be upheld: the two modules overlap, such that there are constructions in English that are simultaneously compound and phrase. He suggests an alternative, tripartite, structure comprising three successive, and significantly overlapping, modules: the lexicon proper, the morphology and the syntax.The book illustrates a grammar that is rather different from that envisaged in Lexicalism (while still retaining that theory’s basic insights) and provides a better understanding of some of the most recalcitrant problems in English word formation.