Solving the bracketing paradox - German Grammar Group FU Berlin

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ST. MÜLLER (b) Setzt der Fährmann Karl über? takes the ferryman Karl across ‘Does the ferryman take Karl across?’ While verb and particle are adjacent in (1a), the verb is in initial position in (1b) and separated from the particle. Similarly, whereas verb and particle are adjacent in (2a), they are separated by the ge-prefix of the ge- -e-nominalization in (2b). (2) (a) Er rennt herum. he runs around (b) das Herumgerenne the around.running ‘the running around’ Ge- -e-nominalizations of particle verbs can be input to further morphological processes, as is shown by examples like (3), which supports the view that these nominalizations are formed in the morphology component. (3) das Pseudo-Herumgerede the pseudo.babble (Stiebels 1996: 40) The interesting fact about nominalizations like the one in (2b) is that the semantic contribution of the ge- -e scopes over the semantic contribution of the complete particle verb, thus yielding a morphosemantic paradox. In this paper I want to discuss several bracketing paradoxes of a similar kind and show how the problem of these apparent paradoxes can be solved. The analysis of the inflectional and derivational morphology of particle verb combinations is based on the analysis of the syntax of particle verb combinations developed in Müller (2000). The paper is structured as follows: in the next section, I discuss apparent bracketing paradoxes in inflectional and derivational morphology. In section 3, I give a very brief introduction to the analysis of verbal complexes in German in the framework of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar developed by Pollard & Sag (1994). In section 4, I repeat the analysis of particle verb combinations in syntax that was suggested in Müller (2000) and, in section 5, I show how the morphological facts can be explained within these assumptions. In section 6, I discuss alternative proposals. 2. T HE PHENOMENON The morphological facts that will be discussed in the following subsections suggest that inflectional and derivational material always attaches to the verbal stem in verb particle combinations. On the other hand, this material always scopes over the meaning contribution of the entire particle verb or 276
BRACKETING PARADOX AND GERMAN PARTICLE VERBS a. V b. V P V V en auf V en P V hör auf Figure 1 Alternative structures for aufhören ‘end’ hör requires a certain argument structure that is not present in the base verb, but only in the particle verb. In the following subsection, I discuss the first apparent paradox, which arises in inflectional morphology. 2.1 Inflection Particle verbs always have the same inflection class as their base verb. This means that the inflectional suffix has to have access to the morphological features of the stem. This is easily accounted for in an analysis where inflectional material is combined with the stem before the particle is added, i.e., with a structure like the one in figure 1a. Bierwisch (1987: 163) argues that the meaning of the verb aufhören ‘end’ is not transparent with regard to the combination of auf and hör-, but that combinations of the form auf-hör-t-est and auf-ge-hör-t are transparent with regard to the combination of the meaning ‘end’ and the conceptual content of the inflectional affixes. He claims that one needs structures like the one in figure 1b because of this, and hence he reaches a structural paradox. Bierwisch (1987: 165), Stiebels & Wunderlich (1994: 934) and Stiebels (1996: 46) suggest rebracketing mechanisms to derive the structure in figure 1a from that in 1b. However, this paradox is not a real one, since the situation with idioms is similar as far as compositionality is concerned. 2 One cannot assume that a head that is part of an idiomatic expression is combined with all parts of the idiom before it is inflected. So one can continue to adopt the structure in figure 1a, assuming that the semantics of non-transparent particle verbs is constructed parallel to the semantics of (a certain class of ) idioms. [2] Bierwisch (1987: 166) gives examples from compounding that suggest that rebracketing may be needed and, of course, there are famous examples of a similar kind from English; but for the cases at hand a rebracketing mechanism is not necessary, as will be shown in section 5. Stump (1991) discusses a wide variety of morphosemantic mismatches in English, Breton, Georgian and Sanskrit and suggests paradigm functions that allow inflectional or derivational material to attach to a head that is contained inside other material, i.e., he assumes a structure like the one in figure 1b. I will discuss his approach in section 6.2. For an analysis of the ‘transformational grammarian’ paradox see Spencer (1988). 277
Page 1: J. Linguistics 39 (2003), 275-325.
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Solving the bracketing paradox - German Grammar Group FU Berlin

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