Compound constructions: A reply to Bundgaard et al.
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Anders Søgaard
Abstract
In an article recently published in this journal, Bundgaard et al. present a series of arguments against non-compositional theories of (noun-noun) compound semantics. In consequence, they present a compositional alternative, where compositionality is relativized a bit to also take constructional semantics into account. I am fully convinced this is the right way to go about it, but unfortunately, the authors remain unclear about the exact nature of linguistic constructions. In particular, they analyze in my view, certain constructional e¤ects in terms of conceptual schemas. This article presents cross-linguistic data (redundant compounds, stress patterns, linking elements and ungrammaticality phenomena) that support a multiconstructional view, where constructions replace the most abstract conceptual schemas. On the one hand, it provides strong evidence in favor of a compositional theory of compound semantics, and thus supports the theoretical claims of Bundgaard et al.; but on the other hand, it calls for a new, clearer distinction between constructions and conceptual schemas.
© 2008 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin
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Articles in the same Issue
- Vicissitudes de la pulsion dans la théorie narrative. Entre mythicité et littérarité
- Imitation, intertextuality, and hyperreality in U.S. higher education
- An approach to context in human-computer interaction
- The status of poetry as an aesthetic object
- L'aspectualite et le tempo dans ‘Encore L'amour’ de Pierre Reverdy
- Application of Peircean symbol to symbol-mediated dialogic interpreting activity
- Semiotic phenomenology and the ‘dialectical approach’ to intercultural communication: Paradigm crisis and the actualities of research practice
- The polysemy of the sign: From quantum computing to the garden of forking paths
- Online brands: Branding, possible worlds, and interactive grammars
- Compound constructions: A reply to Bundgaard et al.
- Sign and the lambda-term
- Semiotics unbounded: An editorial comment
- Understanding and misunderstanding: A theoretical-philosophical approach to semiotics
- Strolling through Semiotics Unbounded
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- The ongoing critique of dialogical reason
- Is the semiosic sphere's center everywhere and its circumference nowhere?
- Semiotics Unbounded and Japan
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