Morphosyntactic defectiveness in complex predicate formation
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M. Teresa Espinal
Abstract
This article focuses on verb valency change in complex predicate formation by noun incorporation. I reassess the claim that incorporated nouns and clitics in both Uto-Aztecan and Romance languages are morphosyntactically defective, and I show that crucially morphosyntactic defectiveness, but not semantic prototypicality is a necessary condition in many natural languages in order to identify formally those nominal expressions that are to be interpreted as property-denoting expressions and event predicate modifiers, rather than as canonical syntactic and semantic arguments.
Abstract
This article focuses on verb valency change in complex predicate formation by noun incorporation. I reassess the claim that incorporated nouns and clitics in both Uto-Aztecan and Romance languages are morphosyntactically defective, and I show that crucially morphosyntactic defectiveness, but not semantic prototypicality is a necessary condition in many natural languages in order to identify formally those nominal expressions that are to be interpreted as property-denoting expressions and event predicate modifiers, rather than as canonical syntactic and semantic arguments.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of abbreviations vii
- Preface ix
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Part I. Theoretical perspectives on verb valency change
- Markedness effects in applicative formation 3
- Morphosyntactic defectiveness in complex predicate formation 31
- Two types of locative alternation 51
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Part II. Verb valency changes across languages
- Transitivity and valency-changing operations in Huasteca Nahuatl 81
- The semantics of Nahuatl tla- constructions 107
- Valency-changing operations in Yaqui resultatives 133
- Tlachichilco Tepehua 165
- A panorama of valency changing operations in Seri 193
- The antipassive marking in Mocoví 227
- Arabic ‘labile verbs’ in form III 257
- Valency-decreasing operations in a valency-increasing language? 285
- Language index 305
- Subject index 307
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of abbreviations vii
- Preface ix
-
Part I. Theoretical perspectives on verb valency change
- Markedness effects in applicative formation 3
- Morphosyntactic defectiveness in complex predicate formation 31
- Two types of locative alternation 51
-
Part II. Verb valency changes across languages
- Transitivity and valency-changing operations in Huasteca Nahuatl 81
- The semantics of Nahuatl tla- constructions 107
- Valency-changing operations in Yaqui resultatives 133
- Tlachichilco Tepehua 165
- A panorama of valency changing operations in Seri 193
- The antipassive marking in Mocoví 227
- Arabic ‘labile verbs’ in form III 257
- Valency-decreasing operations in a valency-increasing language? 285
- Language index 305
- Subject index 307
