Cover not available
Article published In:
Transcategoriality: A crosslinguistic perspective
Edited by Sylvie Hancil, Danh Thành Do-Hurinville and Huy Linh Dao
[Cognitive Linguistic Studies 5:1] 2018
► pp. 77–105

Accounting for transcategorial morphemes

Theoretical and methodological issues

| University of Orléans
| University of Orléans

The article presents a morphemic account of transcategoriality, with detailed illustrations (e.g. English but and even, French encore, tout, meme, Latin to French morpheme /tant/) of the approach. After making explicit the paradigmatic differences between exoskeletal and endoskeletal approaches, and showing that ultimately it can be summarized in terms of existence or not of grammar-free morphemes becoming lexemes through grammatical and contextual insertion, it turns to the issue of knowing what an exoskeletal non-categorial meaning can be. It introduces at this stage the notion of fractality, before making explicit and detailing the method which allows isolation of a morpheme’s indicational semantics. The whole approach is finally illustrated with the study of the whole distribution of French /tant/, first semantically in synchrony before extending the tests to Latin data, showing that polysemy, transcategoriality and plurisemy are various forms of the same issue.

Keywords: transcategoriality, exoskeletal morphemes, endoskeletal lexemes, fractality, plurisemy
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Transcategoriality
    • 2.1To have or not to have transcategorial semantic units?
      • 2.1.1Paradigmatic dimension of the issue
      • 2.1.2Framing the way research has to be conducted: endoskeletal approaches
      • 2.1.3Framing the way research has to be conducted: exoskeletal approaches
        • 2.1.3.1Transcategoriality and exoskeletality
        • 2.1.3.2Transcategoriality and conversion
    • 2.2Predicting non-autonomous uses from autonomous ones?
      • 2.2.1Illustrations
      • 2.2.2So-called free or autonomous uses are not semantic atoms
      • 2.2.3Exoskeletal analysis of so-called “free” uses
      • 2.2.4Transcategoriality and the non-listing of listemes
  • 3.Establishing transcategoriality
    • 3.1Illustration of the issue
      • 3.1.1Semantic transparency
      • 3.1.2Semantic presumption
      • 3.1.3Semantic doubts
    • 3.2Semantic dilemma, semantic issues
      • 3.2.1English but
      • 3.2.2English even and French même
      • 3.2.3French encore
      • 3.2.4French toujours and /tou(s/t)/
    • 3.3Semantic identification of the encoded indications(s)
    • 3.4Non-directionality at the morpheme level
  • 4.Understanding transcategoriality
    • 4.1Non-autonomy of lexeme polysemy
    • 4.2Other conclusions concerning the semantics of transcategorial units
    • 4.3What can an exoskeletal meaning be?
    • 4.4Fractality
    • 4.5Semantic unification and the exoskeletal/endoskeletal relationship
  • 5.Transcategoriality of French tant since Latin: a case study
    • 5.1A single transcategorial unit or autonomous lexemes?
    • 5.2Semantic webs and continuities in the polysemy of tant
      • 5.2.1The stable polysemy of /tant/ from Latin to contemporary French
    • 5.3Identifying sigma
      • 5.3.1Method
      • 5.3.2Expected results
      • 5.3.3Illustration: some uses of /tant/
    • 5.4Testing synchronic morphemic indications in diachrony
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 August 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.00014.nem
References

References

Anderson, S.
(1992) A-Morphous morphology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aronoff, M.
(1976) Word formation in generative grammar. Cambridge (Ma): the MIT Press.Google Scholar
Aronoff, M. & Anshen, F.
(1998) Morphology and the lexicon. In Spencer Andrew & Zwicky, A. (Eds.), The handbook of morphology (pp. 248–271). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Baudouin de Courtenay, J.
(1895) Versuch einer Theorie phonetischer Alternationen: Ein Kapitel aus der Psychophonetik. Strassburg/Crakow. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beck, D.
(2002) The typology of parts of speech system: The markedness of adjectives. New York & London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Benveniste, E.
(1966) Problèmes sémantiques de la reconstruction. Problèmes de linguistique générale, 11, 289–307.Google Scholar
Blakemore, D.
(1989) Denial and contrast: A relevance theoretic analysis of but . Linguistics and Philosophy, 121, 15–37. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Borer, H.
(2003) Exo-skeletal vs. endo-skeletal explanations: Syntactic projections and the lexicon. In Moore, J. and M. Polinsky (Eds.), The nature of explanation in linguistic theory (pp. 31–65). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bouchard, D.
(1995) The semantics of syntax. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Broschart, J.
(1997) Why Tongan does it differently?: Categorial distinctions in a language without nouns and verbs. Linguistic typology, 11, 123–165. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cadiot, P. & Visetti, Y. M.
(2001) Pour une théorie des formes sémantiques. Paris: PUF. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Di Sciullo, A. M. & Williams, E.
(1987) On the definition of Word. Cambridge: MIT press.Google Scholar
Dixon, R. & Aikhenvald, A.
(2002) Word: A cross-linguistic typology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fraser, B.
(1998) Contrastive discourse markers in English. In A. H. Jucker and Y. Ziv, (eds.), Discourse markers: Descriptions and theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gaffiot, F.
(2016 [1934]) Dictionnaire Latin-Français. Gréco, G. (Dir). E-editing.Google Scholar
Gasiglia, N., Nemo, F. & Cadiot, P.
(2001) Meaning and the generation of reference. In Bouillon, P. (ed.), Generative approaches to the lexicon. Université de Genève.Google Scholar
Heine, B. & Kilian-Hatz, C.
(1994), Polysemy in African languages: An example from Baka. In Geider, T. & Kastenholz, R. (eds), Sprachen un Sprachzeugnisse in Afrika. Köln: Rudiger Köppe Verlag.Google Scholar
Hengeveld, K.
(1992) Non-verbal predication: Theory, typology, diachrony. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Horchani, B.
(2018)  Le complexe sémantique tant en français . PhD Thesis. Universitéd de Orléans.Google Scholar
Kay, P.
(1990) Even. Linguistics and Philosophy, 131, 59–111. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Launey, M.
(1994) Une grammaire onmiprédicative. Paris: CNRS éditions.Google Scholar
Mosegaard-Hansen, M. B.
(2009) Particles at the semantics/pragmatics interface: Synchronic and diachronic issues. A Study with special reference to the French phrasal adverb. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Nemo, F.
(1999) The pragmatics of signs, the semantics of relevance, and the semantic/pragmatic interface. In K. Turner (ed.), The semantics-pragmatics interface from different points of view (pp. 343–417). Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
(2001a) Pour une approche indexicale (et non procédurale) des instructions sémantiques. Revue de Sémantique et de Pragmatique, 9–10, 195–218.Google Scholar
(2001b) Morpheme semantics and the autonomy of morphology: The stable semantics of (apparently) unstable constructions. In Mary Andronis, Christopher Ball, Heidi Elston, and Sylvain Neuvel (eds.), CLS 37: The Panels. Papers from the 37th Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Vol. 21. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
(2002) But (and mais) as morpheme(s). Delta (Sao Paulo), 18–2.Google Scholar
(2003) Indexicalité, unification contextuelle et constitution extrinsèque du référent. Langages, 1501, 88–105. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2005) Morphemes and lexemes versus morphemes or lexemes. In G. Booij, E. Guevara, A. Ralli, S. Sgroi & S. Scalise (Eds.), Morphology and linguistic typology. Siculorum gymnasium (pp. 253–272). Université de Catania.Google Scholar
(2006) Discourse particles as morphemes and as constructions. In Kerstin Fischer (Ed.), Approaches to discourse particles (pp. 415–448). Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
(2007) Reconsidering the discourse marking hypothesis. In A. Celle & R. Huart (Eds.), Connectives as discourse landmarks (pp. 195–210). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2014) Interprétabilité ou grammaticalité ? Les listèmes comme interface entre sémantique et morphologie. Revue de Sémantique et Pragmatique, 35–36, 105–144.Google Scholar
Petit, M.
(2009) Discrimination prosodique et représentation du lexique: application aux emplois des connecteurs discursifs. PhD Thesis, University of Orléans.Google Scholar
Pustet, R.
(2000) How arbitray is lexical categorization ? verbsvs adjectives. Linguistic typology, 4–2, 175–212.Google Scholar
Robert, S.
(2003) Vers une typologie de la transcatégorialité. In S. Robert (ed.), Perspectives synchroniques sur la grammaticalisation: Polysémie, transcatégorialité et échelles syntaxiques (pp. 255–270). Louvain: Peeters.Google Scholar
(2003) Polygrammaticalisation, grammaire fractale et propriétés d’échelle. In S. Robert (ed.), Perspectives synchroniques sur la grammaticalisation: Polysémie, transcatégorialité et échelles syntaxiques (pp. 85–120). Louvain: Peeters.Google Scholar
(2004) The challenge of polygrammaticalization for linguistic theory: Fractal grammar and transcategorial functioning. In Z. Frajzyngier, A. Hodges, and D. Rood (Eds.), Linguistic diversity and language theories (pp. 119–142). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Scalise, S. & Guevara, E.
(2005) The lexicalist approach to word-formation and the notion of the lexicon. In Pavol Štekauer & Rochelle Lieber (Eds.), The handbook of word formation (pp. 147–187). Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vogel, P. & Comrie, B.
(Eds.) (2000) Approaches to the Typology of Word Classes. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wartburg, W. V. & Bloch, O.
(2009 [2002]) Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française. Paris: PUF.Google Scholar
Wilson, D. & Sperber, D.
(1990) Forme linguistique et pertinence. Cahiers de linguistique française, 111, 13–35.Google Scholar
(1993) Linguistic form and relevance. Lingua, 1–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar