Chapter published in:
Extravagant Morphology: Studies in rule-bending, pattern-extending and theory-challenging morphology
Edited by Matthias Eitelmann and Dagmar Haumann
[Studies in Language Companion Series 223] 2022
► pp. 131–154

Linguistic extravagance in compounds and idioms – an analysis of morphological marking

| University of Wuppertal
This paper investigates the role of morphological marking as the driving factor for linguistic extravagance in idioms and compounds in German and English. It argues that formal structural properties of morphological marking alone can account for compounds that are regular, i.e., compositional, productive and recursive, as well as for those that are non-compositional, non-productive and non-recursive and in that sense irregular or extravagant. Furthermore, the paper shows how the formal analysis for compounds can be extended to idioms in German and English, which are similar to compounds in the sense that they display categorial unfaithfulness and non-compositional form-meaning correspondence and yet are different from compounds in that they contain additional functional structure to the structure that can be identified in compounds. The paper draws on the exoskeletal model of Borer (2005a, b, 2013) for the analysis of compounds and idioms, which – unlike other approaches to morphological marking – can account for extravagant as well as expected aspects of these forms strictly in terms of the formal grammatical properties.
Keywords: compounds, idioms, exoskeletal vs. endoskeletal syntax
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Two types of (nominal root) compounds in German and English
  • 3.An exoskeletal approach to syntax
  • 4.Back to compounds
  • 5.Next up: Idioms
    • 5.1A first approximation
    • 5.2Tentative extensions
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 March 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.223.06bau
References
Bauke, Leah S.
2014 Symmetry Breaking in Syntax and the Lexicon. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2015 Review of Hagit Borer: Taking form: Structuring sense volume III. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Linguistische Berichte 243: 116–130.Google Scholar
2016 Parametric variation in nominal root compounding. In Rethinking Parameters, Luis Eguren, Olga Fernandez-Soriano & Amaya Mendikoetxea (eds), 203–235. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2019 Syntactic variation in compounds and idioms: some insights from a root-based analysis. Linguistische Berichte 259: 349–390.Google Scholar
Borer, Hagit
1984 Parametric Syntax: Case Studies in Semitic and Romance Languages. Dordrecht: Foris. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2005a In Name Only: Structuring Sense. Volume 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2005b The Normal Course of Events: Structuring Sense. Volume 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2013 Taking Form: Structuring Sense. Volume 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2017 The generative word. In The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky, James McGilvray (ed), 110–133. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam
1970 Remarks on nominalization. In Readings in English Transformational Grammar, Roderick A. Jacobs & Peter S. Rosenbaum (eds), 184–221. Waltham, MA.: Ginn and Co.Google Scholar
1995 The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
2001 Derivation by Phase. In Ken Hale: A Life in Language, Michael Kenstowicz (ed), 1–52. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Gallego, Angel
2010 Phase Theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Grohmann, Kleanthes
2007 Spelling out dynamic interfaces. Linguistic Analysis 33(3–4): 197–208.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray
1997 The Architecture of the Language Faculty. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Katamba, Francis
1993 Morphology. London: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Kovecses, Zoltan & Szabó, Peter
1996 Idioms: a view from cognitive semantics. Applied Linguistics 17: 326–355. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lohndal, Terje
2020 Syntactic categorization of roots. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Mark Aronoff (ed), Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mukai, Makiko
2013 Recursive compounds and linking morpheme. International Journal of English linguistics 3(4): 36–49. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Narita, Hiroki
2009 Full interpretation of optimal labeling. Biolinguistics 3(2–3): 213–254.Google Scholar
2011 Phasing-in full interpretation. PhD Dissertation, Harvard University.
Nunberg, Geoffrey, Sag, Ivan & Wasow, Thomas
1994 Idioms. Language 70(3): 491–593. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Plank, Frans
1994 Inflection and derivation. In The Encyclopedia on Language and Linguistics. Volume III, Ron E. Asher (ed), 1671–1678. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Roeper, Thomas W., Snyder, William & Hiramatsu, Kazuko
2002 Learnability in a minimalist framework: root compounds, merger and the syntax-morphology interface. In The process of Language Acquisition, Ingeborg Lasser (ed), 25–35. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Roeper, Thomas W. & Snyder, William
2005 Language learnability and the forms of recursion. In UG and External Systems, Anna-Maria DiSciullo (ed), 155–169. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Scalise, Sergio
1986 Inflection and derivation. Linguistics 22: 561–581.Google Scholar
Selkirk, Elisabeth
1982 The Syntax of Words. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Spencer, Andrew
1991 Morphological Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zhang, Niina
2007 Root merger in Chinese compounds. Studia Linguistica 61(2): 170–184. CrossrefGoogle Scholar