THE STUDY OF LEXICON IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR, SOME ASPECTS OF WORDS FORMATION

LEOCADIO MARTIN MINGORANCE

Our main conccm in this paf>er 1vill be the exposition of sorne controversia! issues in the

study of the lexical component 1á thin a TG frameKork : the processes of fonnation of new

lexical units.

The main processes of h·ord fonnation (compounding, dcrivation, conversion, etc.) are an

excellent test field for the exploration (and also for an attempt at formalization) of

the crcative capacity of the "ideal spcaker-listener" . This leads us directly to the ques­

tion of whether the native speaker of a language has in his internalized grammar a

specific system of rules which he applies systematically in the creation of new lexical

units from already existing ones .

In TG at least two models have been developed ¡,ith an acceptable degree of completeness.

I am referring to R. B. Lees' The Granrnar of E:ngUsh flominaUzatior.s 1 and to H.E. Brekle's

Generative Satzsemantik im System der engZischen Nominalkomposition2. Chomsky's article

"Remarks on Nominalization"3 is a proposal rather than a model.

The titlc of a very recent article by D. Kastovsky4 : "1\ord-formation, or: At the Cross­

roads of Morphology, Syntax, Semant i es and the Lexicon" could be a good SUlllllary of the

levels of analysis of this field of grammar .

This problem is still far from having been given a satisfactory solution .

The transformabonalist hypothcsi.s, as was first developed by Lees in 1960, starts from

a quite old assumption: that there exists a syntactic relationship bet1•een the members of

complex lexical units; the parallel bet1'een sentence structurcs and 1•ord formation

processcs.

Consequently, these processes should follow the n!les of the syntact ic component .

This idea is not so ne1v as it might appear at first sight . Even th'O outstnnding Indo­

european scholars, J.F. Staal and P. t\iparsky5, have found this conception in Paoini.

ll'e have also found this idea in Grinun's Deuosche Granrnatik, \. 2, in Bn1gmam1 and Del-

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LEOCADIO ~IARTIN mNGORANCE

briick 1 S (;r·urull'i;;:; and in Paul 1 S Pr·inúr,¿a . lt l·:as developed in a more systematic "·ay by

Balll 1áth the introduct.ion of the concepts of "th~me" and "propos", taken from the 7

Prague School. It has been ~!archand 1~ho has applied them systcmatically to the analysis

of English "'ord formntion proccsses.

Lees (1960) has applied this system of an ordered set of transformations to English

nominal compounds. In his system lcxical inscrtion takcs place after severa! transforma­

tions have been applic·d. ll'ith regard to the naturc of these units, Lees points out:

"The nominals gcnerated by the rules

~~hich we shall study hcrein are not

themsclves sentenccs, but rathcr noun-

likc vcrsions of sentences" Op . cit . , p . 54.

ile tahes kernel sentenccs as the starting point, introducing at the same time the concept

of matrix and constituent sentence for the analysis of complex structures. He classifies all English nominal compounds 1nto •uu~:: ~Yl""" vt sem:ence structures, ~Vith subgroups,

according to the functions of the elements of the compound words.

In accordance "'i th the model devcloped in Chomsky 1 s The Logical Str>uctux>e of Linguistic

Theox>y and Syntactic Str>uctux>es , he leaves aside the semantic component, because at that

time no formal apparatus to describe it had been developed8 .

ll'i thin the transformationalist hypothesis the major breakthrough after Lees 1 model 1~as

H. Brekle 1 s Genex>ative Satzsemantik... His model, follo~Ving the gcnerative semantics

approach, especial! y Fillmore 1 s "case grammar", takes proposit ional concepts as primi ü ve

units of description . These propositional concepts ("Satzbegriffe") are propositions

1áthout quantification, modality, etc .

Thcir formal representation is by means of ~~ell-formed formulas of predica te calculus,

follmáng ma inly Reichenbach and Carnap9. The central relational constants of this model

are more or less similar to Fillmore 1 s deep cases . These formulas can also be represented

as tree structures .

In the description of more complex structures he follm~s Lees 1 analysis of matrix and

constituent sentences, which in his model means the insertion of a propositional concept

into another by means of special symbols.

lú th the use of t1~0 operators, 1~hich he calls Q and "lambda", thc process of selection of

topi e and comment, ~Vhich 1vill become, respectively, the determinatum and the detenninans

of the compound or derived '"ord, is started.

Not surprisingly, Brcklc 1 s book, an 1'HabDitationschrift", had ~larchand as advisor .

Although he also postulates a deep syntactic levcl and a transfotmational component, he

54

THC S'l'UDY OF LCXICO!I: IN GENERJ,TIVC GM!o!NAR

has only dcvclopcd thc scmantic componcnt.

As 1vc can scc, Brcklc's is a vcry po~;crful modcl, which allows us thc dcscription of thc

systcm of thc languagc, i.c . , in thc case of lcxical units, actual and possible fonna­

tions . A modificd vcrsion of Brcklc's modal has bccn applicd by W. Kursclmcr 10 to thc

study of Gcnnan nominal compounds 1n 1974. Lees himsclf, in an article published in

197011

, proposcd thc introduct ion of a scmantic component .

On thc othcr hand, Chomsky's 1967 lcxicalist hypothcsis, 1·1as thc natural rcaction

against thc problcms ariscn 1\'ith thc application of Lees' transformational modc1 12 .

Chomsky postulatcs a strict scparat ion bct1-:ccn thc syntactic componcnt and thc lexicon.

l.cxical inscrtion should takc place hcforc transformations . For Chomsky , only syntactic

proccsscs follo"· regular pattcrns of fonnation. Thcreforc, thcy are thc only oncs

susceptible of undcrgoing transfonnations. On the othcr hand, lcxical proccsscs are idio­

syncratic and thcir productivity is rcstrictcd .

Chomsky, foll01-:ing Bloomficld ' :; 13 idea that "thc lcxicon is an appcndix of thc grammar,

a list of basic irrcgularitics", considcrs thc lcxicon as "thc full sct of linguistic

irrcgularities" 14 .

llis most important and bcst-knOh'Tl innovation is pcrhaps the introduction of the "X­convcntion" to account for thc colllTlOn clcmcnts in thc interna! structure of, for

instancc, a vcrb and its dcrivcd nominal . X is a variable 1-:hich could stand for thc

syntactic categorics N,V or Adj . For instancc, "proposc" and "proposal" 1\'0uld

constitutc a single lcxical cntry . Undcr thc nodo N it 1\'0uld takc thc physical fonn

"proposal" and undcr thc nodo V, "proposc" .

A suhstantial modification of this proposal has bccn madc by R.S. Jackcndoff 15 in

1975. Instcad of thc X-convention, he proposcs "distinct hut rclatcd lcxical cntries" .

In thc case of compounds , for instancc, cach onc 1\'0uld havo a complctcly spccíficd

lcxical cntry ,,ith a morphological n .. '<lundancy rule and a scmantic onc. To indicate the

rclation hct1,·een the compound and its constitucnt parts, he uses an arro" pointing

in two di rcct ions as a symbol .

The paraphrasc is spccif1cd, indicating thc scmantic rclation bcti\CCn thc parts of the

compound .

This proposal is \'Cry intcrcsting, bccause of the spccification of thc scmantic componcnt .

. Jackcndoff's paraphrascs are in most cases likc Lees' sentenccs. llc applics thc srunc

schcmc to derivation and other 1'ord fonnation proccsses. This proposal 1\0uld he 1\0rth

bcing explorad in more detail.

,\s regards dcrivational morphology, "·e"¡ 11 !cave asido in this papcr ~1. llalle's 1973

SS

LEOCJ\DIO i·u'IRTI:X mNGORANCE

articlc 16, D. Sicgcl's 197·1 ~I.I.T. l'h. D. tlisscrtation 17 antl ~l. Aronoff's 1976 mono-

18 graph .

,\s a general evaluntion of both hypothescs, thc lcxicalist and thc transform<Jt!onalist ,

,,·e cvultl say that thc latter tries to analyzc thc systcm of the languagc, alloh·ing trans

fonnations an extraordinary p01,·cr . Thc lcxicalist hypothcsis is more conccrncd '"ith thc

nonn . ll'i th rcgard to infonn:.n ion cost, thc !ex ical ist hypothesis rcstricts thc trans­

fonnational component at the expense of thc lcxical componcnt . Pcrhaps thc most sound

argwncnt of the tlcfcntlcrs of thc lcxicalist hypothcsis is that transfonnations must be

mean i ng prcscrv ing and thc ''ho le proccss must be rccoverablc . i\ccord i ng to this hypo­

thcsis , this docs not happcn in a trnnsfonnational study of lexicon .

:\cvcrthclcss ¡.,·e shoultl makc a fwKlamcnta1 distinction: bcth'ccn nc'' fonnations or coinagcs

and lexicali:cd complcx ¡.,ords . Thc lattcr shoultl be cntcrcd tlircctly in thc lcxicon , be­

cause once~~ ''ord has come into cxistcnce , it is l 1kc a pcrson : it dcvclops its own

personal i ty and i ts OMl ''ays . But whcn a speaker of a languagc c rea tes a nCI,. lcxical uni t, 19 "cin tlurchsichtigcs \l'ort" as 11.~1. Gaugcr "·oultl ca l ] it, i .c . a complcx 1\'0rd ,,·hich can

be undcrstood just knOI, ing thc mcaning of its constitucnt JX! r ts , in thc ovcnvhelming

majority of cases he docs it by applying spccific rules , scmantic , syntactic , morpho­

logica 1.

1\c can sce these processes more clearlr in an ana l ysis of the relations bet1-:cen syntagmas

and compow1ds and the passing from one typc to anothcr , with the progressive acquisition

of the phonological , morphological and graphemic characteristics of a single wor d .

\\'e havc collected some cvidcncc of this process in our Ph. D. disser tation about

compotmding processes in English and Spanish20 . 1\c have dcvised a model ,,·ith a semantic

component akin to Berkle ' s , with propositional conccpts , and a decp syntactic component ,

1\'ith simple sentcnces in their so-called " logical fonn": S-V-0-Adv . Each element of t he

dccp syntactic component is subcategorized to allow for selcction restrictions . The ve rb

is subcatcgorized fol101dng Fillmore ' s "case frame" proposal.

1\e havc classificd a corpus of around 4000 nominal compounds and syntagmas collccted from

diffcrent sourccs: novel , thcatrc plays , poctJ·-y , comics , magazines and nc,,·spapers ,

advcrt i scmcnts and tcchn ica 1 lea flcts .

1\'c have found that these "transparent" syntagmas and compounds havc thc samc scmantic

and dccp syntactic structurc nnd the samc syntactic behaviour . They can be fo1med using

a 1 imitcd set of scmantic and syntactic structurcs . Wc find thc diffcrcnccs bct"·een thcse

fomations in both languages in lheir phonological and morphological structurc .

t\s Kasto\·sky's litlc points out, 1\0rd fo1mation processes are scmantic , S)'ntactic, morphoh

logic<ll and also phonological .

T!IE STUDY OF LEXICON IN GENERATIVE GRA/1t·;,\R

lt 1!' only l·:ith dK' study of tilc interact ÍOll of t],csC' i'our len'] S tilat hC' <':111 ll:l\'t' ;¡ <..:Or.l·

plctc all'Ollllt of tl.c- structurc oC l·omplex lexicll unit:-;.

:-,O TE S

1 . Lees, R. B.: rhe Gr•QJ.??!Q.t' e A é'nglish ;iomir:ali;;ation;' , The Hague: Mouton, 1960 .

2 . Breklc , H. E.: Gv.el•caiv~ Sat:;smr.anti:.: im System del' englischen .'lomir:aZKomposition.

~lunich: Fink , 1976 (1st . ed . 1970) .

Chomsky , N. : "Reamrks on Nominalization" , ~n R. Jacobs & P. Rosenbaum: Readings ¿r; ~r:glish

1 ¡•a;;s: ·r·ma •. i, ·Y'.<.:.l vi•amn:~r·, \~altham , ~lass ., 1970 . (The article was written in 1967) .

4 . Kastovsky , O. : "11ord- formation , or : At the Crossroads of Morphology , Syntax , Sernantics

and the Lexicon" , Pol :a Li>,gui::;t..ica, x , 1/2 , 1977 .

5 . a . Staal , J . F .: " Room at the Top in Sanscrit . Ancient and Modern Descriptions of

Nominal Compounds", Ir>.doir•anian Joul"na~, 9 , 1966 .

b. Kiparsky , P . & J . Staal: "Syntactic and Semantic Relations in Pál)ini ", Poundations

of Language, 5 , 1969 .

6 . Bally , Ch . : Lingu i;; tiqw génél"a le e i linguis tique ;'mntaiae . Bern , 1965 .

7 . Marchand , H.: The Cat..egol"iec and Typec of P'f'esent-day English !-lo't'd- foY7710.tion . Nunich :

Beck , 1969 (1st ed . 1960) .

8 . This model , without development of the transformational component , has been applied to

the study of French nominal compounds by C. Rohrer (8 .1. ) . A. Giurescu (8 . 2.) has applied

a simplified version of the transformational component to the generation of Romanian ,

Italian , French and Spanish compounds .

L. Gleitman (8 . 3 . ) has tried to evaluate, in an experiment with d~fferent types of speak­

ers , the regularities in thc paraphrases of diffcrcnt types of three-word compounds. She

has applied Lees ' model in thc syntactic classification of thesc compounds. J . Praninskas

(8 . 4 . ) also follows Lees ' analysis in her 1968 study of thc processcs and patterns of

tradc namccreation .

8 .1. Rohrer , c .: é·~e !·.'o't't:;u.sanur.cnt.sL!.;;ung im model"nl'n F!•anzb'st:::ef; . Ph . o. diss . Erlangcn : 1967 . (Advisor: E. Coseriu).

8 . 2 . Giurescu. A. : Les mot:; c:om¡ o<>é-.: .lar.:; le:~ langues l"Oir..:mcs. The Hague: ~louton, 1975 .

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LEOCADIO HARTIN ~!INGORANCE

8 . 3 . Glcitman , L.: Ar: Exver·iment- Cvnc:eT'I:ing the lj[;e and Po•(• ption o." Compound i.'o­mitYJ.l;; O'J r:ngli:;fl .)r •aker•;; . Ph . D. diss . Pcnn:;ylvania Univ ., 1967 . (AdVlSOr : H. HiZ) .

8 . 4 . Pran inskas , J . : T1•a<ie llame Ct·eation : ?l'oc:e;;ae:; a na Pa íter>ns . The Hague: Mouton , 1968 .

9 . a. Reichcnbach , H. : Elemeni:.; o[ Symbolic Logic . N. York , 1947 . b . Carnap , R. : In­

it''J(luvtion io Sym&oli< · Logi1· and It:; Applic:ation:.; . N. York , 1958 .

1 O. KÜrschener , 1·: . : Zur• .:yntak ti:;..:hen Be;;ehr•eibung deut:;c:her> ;!omir>.alkomposita . Tubingen :

Nicmcycr , 1974 .

11. Lees , R. B. : "Problems in the Grammatical Analysis of English Noun Compounds ", in M.

Bienásch & K. Heidolph: Pr·ogr>e.:~; 'n l.inguia ti<:;; . The Haguc : Nouton , 1970 .

12 . Bcfore Chomsky ' s "Remarks on Nominalization " thc first comprehensive model describing

thc structure of the lexicon which postulated a non-transformational solution was Gruber:

a. Studies in Lexical Relations. Ph . D. Diss.: t·l.l.T. , 1965 . (Advisor : N. Chomsky) . b . '!'he

'·':metí m o[ ih< uexico1· ·r· ¡. ·Y'rr:a 1 Deacr•irtiV• ;:r•·:J.'Jr.<li' . Technical Memorandum . Systems

Developr-,·nt Corp . Santa Mónica , Cali f.

13 . Bloomfield , L .: J~nu~age . London: Allen & Unwi~ , 1973 , p . 274 .

14 . Chomsky , N.: op . cit .

15 . Jackendoff , R. S .: "Morphological and Semantic Regularitics in thc Lexicon " Language,

51 . 1975 .

16 . Halle , ~!.: " Prolegomena toa Theory of l.;ord - formation ", Lir>..guistic: Inquir>y, 1973 , 4 .

17 . Siegel , D.: 1·opics in Sngli.>h 1-:or>ptiulOg:J . Ph . D. Diss .; H. I . T ., 1974 . (Advisor : N.

Chomsky) .

18 . Aronoff , ~1. : :·!1 r>:.l. For>ma tion in Genera ti ve Gr>amnar> . Cambridge , Mass . : The ~l. I. T . Press ,

1976 . (A slightly revised version of his M. I.'!' . Ph . D. diss .: :-ior>u-Sti'Uc:tur>e, 1974 .

19 . Gauger , H. M. : Dur>..:hsichtige ~.'b'riel' . Zur> Theor•ie der> ;·Jo¡•r,bHdung · Heidelberg : C . Winter ,

1971 .

20 . t·1artín Mingorance , L. : Estudio c:ontr>astiv d(.' pl'Oec::;o c.:e c:om¡>oaición en inglés y en

_:;pa;,_~ . Ph. D. diss . Granada , 1977 . (Advisor : Dr. R. Fente) .

SS