Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

The organizational structure of lexical compound verbs in Japanese

A Construction Morphology account

Abstract

This study offers a Construction Morphology account of the organizational structure of the class of lexical compound verbs in Japanese, covering two newly proposed types (thematic and aspectual compound verbs) (Kageyama 2013) and two understudied types (prefixed and lexicalized type compound verbs), as an alternative to a traditional listing of types. It argues that compounds are arranged in two dimensions: one contains the inheritance hierarchy, with its root node diverging according to the position of the semantic head (for thematic, aspectual, and prefixed type compounds); the other covers compounds with extended senses (for the lexicalized type). The study also proposes constructional schemas for compound verbs (e.g. those with affixoids such as -hateru ‘completely’) to illustrate how they are organized in the inheritance hierarchy.

Abstract

This study offers a Construction Morphology account of the organizational structure of the class of lexical compound verbs in Japanese, covering two newly proposed types (thematic and aspectual compound verbs) (Kageyama 2013) and two understudied types (prefixed and lexicalized type compound verbs), as an alternative to a traditional listing of types. It argues that compounds are arranged in two dimensions: one contains the inheritance hierarchy, with its root node diverging according to the position of the semantic head (for thematic, aspectual, and prefixed type compounds); the other covers compounds with extended senses (for the lexicalized type). The study also proposes constructional schemas for compound verbs (e.g. those with affixoids such as -hateru ‘completely’) to illustrate how they are organized in the inheritance hierarchy.

Downloaded on 14.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/slcs.180.09tor/html
Scroll to top button