Solving the bracketing paradox - German Grammar Group FU Berlin

ST. MÜLLER
inflectional and derivational morphology of particle verbs where the inflectional
and derivational material attaches directly to the verbal stem, i.e., the
structure in figure 3a. Since an analysis that treats inflection and derivation
in a uniform way rather than stipulating different structures for various morphological
phenomena on a case-by-case basis is to be preferred, I also assume
the structure in figure 3a. While this may seem to be problematic for the
reasons mentioned above, it is not problematic in constraint-based theories.
I assume that the stem in figure 3a contains a slot for the particle that will be
added in a later step. The valence and the semantics of the whole combination
is represented on the stem of the particle verb so that -bar may access it.
2.3 Non-existing bases
It has been noted by many researchers that there are particle verbs that have
a base verb that cannot be used without the particle (for instance, anstrengen
‘to strain’ and *strengen). Similarly there are particle verb formations
(13a) and derivations (13b, c) where the derived base never appears without
a particle.
(13) (a) Dose ‘tin’, eindosen ‘to tin’, but *dosen
(b) rauben ‘to steal’, ausrauben ‘to rob’, Ausraubung ‘robbing’, but
*Raubung (Fleischer & Barz 1995: 173)
(c) ausbreiten ‘to spread out’, but *breiten, Ausbreitung
‘out-spreading’, but *Breitung (Paul 1920: 15)
This does not pose a problem if one assumes that the derivation applies to
the linguistic object that represents the particle verb. Thus, if the -ungnominalization
applies to a lexical representation for raub- that contains the
information that there will be a particle, the constraints that block the derivation
of *Raubung from the simplex base raub- do not apply to this lexical
entry and the derivation succeeds. For the same reason, it is not necessary to
list *strengen in the lexicon as a verb that could appear without a particle.
The lexicon contains a lexical entry for the verb stem streng- that selects the
particle an. The stem is inflected and, after inflection, it is combined with the
particle.
2.4 Conclusions
Inflectional affixes like ge- -t in auf-ge-hör-t and derivational affixes like ge--e
in Herum-ge-renn-e attach to the stem of the verb, although they scope over
the meaning of the complete particle verb combination. A uniform treatment
of both inflection and derivation, i.e., an approach where the affixes always
attach to the verbal stem before the combination of particle and verb, is to be
preferred over an approach that assigns structures on a case-by-case basis.
An analysis that assumes that inflection and derivation applies to stems that
contain the information about particles to be added later makes the right
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