Notes on computational linguistics.pdf - UCLA Department of ...

Stabler - Lx 185/209 2003
(7) Another suffix -able combines with many transitive verbs but not with most verbs that only select an
object:
i. a. Titus manages the project (transitive verb)
b. This project is manag-able
ii. a. Titus classified the document (transitive verb)
b. This document is classifi-able
iii. a. The sun shines (intransitive verb)
b. *The sun is shin-able
iv. a. Titus snores (intransitive verb)
b. *He is snorable
v. a. The train arrived (“unaccusative” verb)
b. * The train is arriv-able
(8) In English morphology, it is commonly observed that the right hand element of a complex determines
its properties. This is well evidenced by various kinds of compounds:
[V [N bar] [V tend]]
[N [N apple] [N pie]]
[A [N jet] [A black]]
[Npl [Nsg part] [Npl suppliers]
[Nsg [Npl parts] [Nsg supplier]
[N [N [N rocket] [N motor]] [N chamber]]
And it plausible extends to affixes as well:
[Num [N bar] [Num -s]]
[N [N sports] [N bar]]
[Num [N [N sports] [N bar]] [Num -s]]
This English-specific regularity in English compoundsisoftendescribedasfollows:
a. In English, the rightmost element of a compound is the head.
b. A compound word has the category and features of its head.
(9)
This is sometimes called the right hand head rule.
Notice that in the complex bar tend, the bar is the object of the tending, the theme. So one way to derive
this structure is with lexical items like this:
tend::=>N V bar::N
If English incorporation mainly adjoins to the left (and we have independent evidence that it does) then
the right hand head rule is predicted for these structures by our analysis of left adjoining incorporation.
Extending this analysis to noun compounding would require an addition to our grammar, since the relation
between the elements is not generally argument-selection, but is often some kind of modification.
To subsume these cases, we would need to allow left adjoining incorporation of adjuncts. Incorporation
of adjuncts has been argued for in other languages. See, e.g. Mithun (1984), Launey (1981, pp167-169),
Shibatani (1990), Spencer (1993). This kind of incorporation seems unusual, though its apparent “unusualness”
may be due at least in part to the fact that incorporation of the object of a prepositional
phrase is not possible (Baker, 1988, pp86-87).
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