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Between adjective and noun: category / function mismatch, constructional overrides and coe rcion

Between adjective and noun: category / function mismatch, constructional overrides and coe rcion. Peter Lauwers Ghent University & University of Leuven Peter.lauwers@ugent.be Workshop on the Syntax and Semantics of Nounhood and Adjectivehood Barcelona, March, 24-25, 2011.

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Between adjective and noun: category / function mismatch, constructional overrides and coe rcion

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  1. Between adjective and noun: category / function mismatch, constructional overrides and coercion Peter Lauwers Ghent University & University of Leuven Peter.lauwers@ugent.be Workshop on the Syntax and Semantics of Nounhood and Adjectivehood Barcelona, March, 24-25, 2011

  2. 1. Introduction

  3. Topic of this talk Nominalized adjectives (NAs): Adj  N (1) simpleADJ, beauADJ (1a) le simple et le beau 'the simple and the beautiful' (1b) Faire du beau avec du simple, ça c'est de l'art. ‘To make beautiful things (stuff) with simple things (stuff), that is what art is about’ Adjectivized nouns (ANs): N  Adj (2) théâtreN des costumes très ‘théâtre’ 'very theater-like costumes'

  4. Structure of the talk • Introduction • Data: nominalized adjectives (= NAs) • Problematic accounts • A syntactic analysis in terms of categorial mismatch • Adjectivized nouns (= ANs) • Conclusions

  5. 2. The data: nominalized adjectives (NAs)

  6. 2.1.NAs: introduction Meaning effects (I) le beau, le simple: ‘the beautiful’, ‘the simple', '(all) the beautiful (things)' = GENERIC [~ le fer 'iron'] (II) Faire du beau avec du simple, ça c'est de l'art. ‘To make beautiful things (stuff) with simple things (stuff), that is what art is about’ = a (not very precise) portion of le beau, instantiated in a particular situation = SPECIFIC, indefinite [~ du fer 'some iron'] (III) Le beau [de + NP]: e.g. le beau de l'histoire ('the beaut. thing of the story') ‘what is beautiful [in NP], the beautiful thing [of NP] = SPECIFIC, definite [~ le fer de la pioche 'iron of the pick']

  7. le beau (1) du beau (2) le beau de NP (3)

  8. Remarks • Type 2: in French, not in English, not in Spanish • Type 3: one reading vs. 2 readings in Spanish(Lapesa 1984; Bosque & Moreno 1990; Villalba-Bartra-Kaufmann 2009: 821) • a 'partitive' / 'individuating' reading (3) Lo (más / *muy) pequeño de la casa (es el dormitorio) <the (most / very) small of the house (is the bedroom)> 'The smallest part of the house' • a degree / qualitative reading (4) Lo (*más / muy) caro de la casa me impresionó. (la casa = cara) <the (most / very) expensive of the house impressed me> 'The high degree of expensiveness' (5) lo tacaño de Ernesto; lo cariñoso de la niña (Google) *l’avare d’Ernesto; *le mignon de la fille (6) Me sorprendió lo cara que era la casa. *Je fus surpris par le che(è)r(e) qu’était la maison.

  9. I will not be dealing with .. • [+ human] NAs: (7) les pauvres ('the poor') • elliptic NPs • anaphoric NPs (8a) • Tu voulais de la colle? Oui, j’en ai acheté de la bonne [colle]. • You wanted gluei? Yes, I of it have bought good [ti]. • NPs obtained by truncation (based on shared knowledge): (8b) la (ville) capitale 'the capital'

  10. Productivity • Adj. + HUMAN N (9) le bavard ‘the talkative [person]’, l’aveugle ‘the blind [person]’, l’absent ‘the absent [person]’ [+HUMAN] → *du bavard, *de l’aveugle, *de l’absent (*partitive article) • Adj. + INANIMATE N (10) le faux ‘the false’, le vrai ‘the truth’ [–ANIMATE] → *les faux, *les vrais (*plural) • Some combine with both: (11) l’inconnu ‘the unknown’

  11. 2.2. The categorial status of NAs Are NAs full-fledged nouns? Criteria: • Determiners (+ number) • Range of possible modifiers

  12. (I) Determination • invariably masculine ( hence: 'neuter') singular Lack of plural: cf. many property nouns (*trois/quelques tristesses 'three/some sadnesses' ) (Riegel et al. 1994: 169) • Determiners (12) – definite: le beau / *ce beau (demonstrative) / *son beau (possessive) vs la, cette, sa beauté – indefinite, mass: du beau / [+ negation] de beau / *beaucoup de/*peu de/*tant de ('a lot of'; 'few'; 'so many') (cf. Leeman 1998: 226) vs beaucoup de/... beauté – indefinite, count: *un vs une beauté – *Quel beau( !) ('what a...') vs Quelle beauté!

  13. II. Modification ~ source category [ADJ] (i)Adverbs (of all kinds, except temporal/locative): (13) mettre sans cesse le facilement accessible en avant ‘to put incessantly forward what is easily accessible’ (ii) Subcategorized complements of the adjective (which are thus maintained !) (14) Construire un trajet de pensées porteuses de l’abolition d’un ordre établi, pour que l’humanité puisse être en mesure de s’émanciper, n’est-ce pas non plus fabriquer de l’utile à la société ? ‘To construct a collection of thoughts that support the abolition of the established order, in order to allow humanity to emancipate itself, isn’t it like producing things that are useful to society?’ Adverb (i) + subcategorized PP (ii): (15) Il ne faut viser que le vraiment utile à la santé publique. (constructed example) ‘One should only aim at that which is really useful for public health.’

  14. Modification ~ target category [N] (i) PP introduced by de: (16) Et le long plan de fin ... souligne le dérisoire de cette histoire en ramenant les personnages à leur taille minuscule. ‘And the long zoom at the end ... underlines the derisory character of this story by reducing the characters to their miniscule dimensions.’ (ii) ungrounded restrictive relative clauses: (17) On n’est plus dans le superficiel qui prétend changer votre vie en 24 heures mais bien dans quelque chose de durable et d'accessible à tous. ‘This has nothing to do anymore with those superficial things that pretend to change your life within 24 hours but rather with something lasting and accessible to anyone.’

  15. (iii) *Adjectives (18) la superficialité inouïe de ce blog /vs/ *le superficiel inouï de ce blog ‘the incredible superficiality of this blog’ (19) une vulgarité assez insolente /vs/ *le vulgaire assez insolent ‘a rather unashamed vulgarity’ BUT: incipient lexicalization (20) des dialogues souvent drôles sans tomber dans le vulgaire facile ‘dialogues that are often funny without lapsing into easy vulgarity’

  16. *Adjectives: semantic explanation? + adjective establishes distinguishable instances of the concept expressed by the NA on the basis of a particular property NAs presuppose an instant process of massification or homogenization of the dissimilar (Leeman 1998). e.g. things that share the property of being strange (21) le bizarre can be applied both to attitudes (abstract) and clothes (concrete): • le bizarre dans son comportement ‘the strangeness of his behavior’ b. le bizarre que l’on peut porter ‘the strange [things] one can wear’

  17. Confirmation 1 Villalba (2009: 9) : NA + PP no quantization, no comparison: (22a) *Lo honesto de los políticos aumenta día a día (22b) *Lo honesto de los políticos es mayor que lo honesto del gobierno. < a more general restriction on NAs: do not accept individualization of the property on the basis of an internal ( qualitative / quantitative) differentiation.  unable to compare different kinds of ‘honesto’, different degrees of ‘honesto’ (as instantiated in the same of in other referents).

  18. Confirmation 2 NA + PP: additional restriction on degree modification (23a) (je n’ai pas raconté) le {plus / ??très / ??assez} beau de l’histoire vs. (23b) le très beau, l’assez beau, le plus beau, ... ; c’est du très beau Thus: internal comparison (the most ADJ aspect of...) , no external comparison with other degrees of the same property (as instantiated in other referents) Cf. only partitive reading (~ más), no “degree reading” (~ muy) (Lapesa 1984; Bosque & Moreno 1990; Villalba 2009);

  19. Confirmation 3: anaphoric uptake NAs ≠ antecedent of definite anaphoric pronouns (24) (24a) Il n’a pas compris le vulgairei de l’histoire. *Celui-cii… ‘He hasn’t understood the vulgari [aspect] of the story. Thisi ...’ /vs/ (24b) la vulgaritéi... Celle-cii... ‘the vulgarityi … Thisi …’ Since: anaphoric pronouns isolate an individual (Leeman 1998 : 228, following Kleiber 1992), which runs counter to the massification obtained by transfer. Cf. (25) *Il y a du Matisse [= 'paintings of Matisse’] dans toutes les salles du musée et ce Matisse....

  20. Mixed patterns ~ ADJ/N (26) [Le plussublime de cette répétition] était sans doute le début. ‘The most sublime part of this rehearsal was beyond any doubt thebeginning.’ (27) Les pigeons blasés, perchés sur le marché couvert, guettent la pourriture et [letropmûr qu’on balance sur les trottoirs]. ‘the blasé pigeons, sitting on the roof of the indoor market place, on thelookout for rotten and for overripe things that are thrown on thefootpath’ (F. Lasaygues, Vache noire, hannetons, 1985).

  21. 2.3. Summary: maximal template + extensions (< lexicalization) LE (Adverb) NA (subcat. PP / de PP) (ungrounded relative clause) DU (Adverb) NA (subcat. PP) (ungrounded relative clause) + additional 'nominal' elements / features < incipient lexicalization (28) N’étant pas musicienne comment puis-je analyser cet accord, expliquer letragique que j’entends dans ce seul accord. ‘Not being a musician, how can I analyze this chord, explain the tragedythat I hear in this sole chord.’ • loss of adjectival nature : (29) *le vraiment tragique que j'entends At the upper end of the lexicalization cline (= N) : lesérieux ('seriousness'/'reliability'), le calme (‘peacefulness’/ ‘period of calm’), le vide ' vacuum, empty space’, etc. idiosyncratic semantic shifts (30a) le vide complet, le grand vide, un tel {vide / calme / sérieux}, un calme très agréable (30b) son calme, son sérieux ; un peu de calme, beaucoup de sérieux  (30c) *le très sérieux de Paul

  22. 3. Problematic accounts

  23. NAs are problematic for standard syntactic structure NAs: Det + A’’ < - > canonical rewrite rule: N’’  Det + N’ (or DP  Det + N’’) N’’ Det A’’ Adv A’ A° Sprép (31) Les plus jeunes de la classe (Marandin, in Corblin, Marandin et Sleeman 2004: 35)

  24. (I) Empty head / head deletion (syntax) Ia. Deletion of a (pro) nominal head ; a base-generated null head [DP the [NP richA[NPØ] ]]] (Baker 2003: 121) Cf. Olsen 1988 [German], Kester 1996 [Dutch], Longobardi 1994: 644 ;Chierchia 1998: 394; Borer & Roy (2010) Ib. Similar analyses -- though less formalized: Winther (1982) Bally (19442) -- Sleeman (1996: 188): “a base-generated empty noun bearing the feature [+abstract] at the lexical level, which is licensed by partitivity”

  25. Null heads: empirical problems I. Which (pro)noun? A Noun? (32) ?le [truc] vulgaire / ?la [notion (de)] vulgaire / ?le [concept (de)] vulgaire ‘the vulgar thing’ / ‘the notion (of) vulgar’ / ‘the concept (of) vulgar’ A pronoun? (Winther 1982) (33) [+Human ANs]: ce + lui/elle + (qui est) malade  ce […] malade [.... > un malade, les malades] <this him/her (who is) sick> → ‘this ... sick [person]’ ‘a sick[person]’, ‘the sick’ But: What about [inanimate] ANs? (34) ce (+ ??) + (qui est) beau  *ce + beau (= ungrammatical !) II. Why no adjectives allowed?

  26. (II) Accounts based on full lexical recategorization: overview IIa. Morphological approaches "morphological derivation involves the systematic and massive acquisition of a categorial identity" (Kerleroux 1996: 189) • traditional grammar: dérivation impropre (e.g. Nyrop 1908) • French morphologists: conversion E.g. Fradin (2003): [le] bleu, [le] rouge, [le] calme, [le] sérieux. Corbin and Corbin, 1991 : 77; Kerleroux, 1996: 88 (although: Kerleroux, 1996: 204); 2000: 93; Apothéloz, 2002: 101; Fradin, 2003: 157 IIb. Lexicological approaches:relisting of lexical items (Lieber 2004) Cf. dictionaries: Entry ADJ., then "masc. noun" IIIc. (pseudo-)syntactic approaches • standard treatment in Construction Grammar: a basically lexical mechanism (Fillmore & Kay 1995: Ch. 3): feature changing lexical constructions which modify the categorial specifications and “essentially create a new lexical item” (Fried & Östman 2004: 38) E.g. proper noun (Prague) > common noun (The Prague I remembered wascompletely different) < - > spirit of CxG (Fried & Östman 2004: 39; Michaelis 2003: 175)

  27. Conversion = morphological operation that creates new lexemes characterized by a phonological form, a semantic value and a morphosyntactic category. Characteristic of conversion is the fact that the phonological form of both root and derivational product is identical. (Corbin 1987) "conversions form part of a paradigm of morphological operations associated with a word construction rule" (Corbin 1987: 241), E.g. (35) Word construction rule for 'Property nouns' • Categories: Adj.  Nom • Semantics: ‘the fact, the quality of being Adj’ (Corbin 1987: 174, 243) • Formal processes: - suffix (-eur, -(i)té, -esse, -ise, -titude, ...): vulgaireAdj  vulgaritéN - conversion: vulgaire --> (le) vulgaire

  28. Conversion: problems (a) The intermediate categorial status of the product (b) NAs ≠ 'out of context, hence out of syntax' (as required by conversion, Kerleroux, 2000: 95): determiner = necessary (c) integration of NAs within a Word Construction Rule is problematic: (slight )semantic differences compared to property nouns !

  29. Semantics: differences

  30. Extension? • beauext = {the Sagrada Familia, the paintings of Van Gogh, my swimming shorts, etc.} = all possible referents (objects) that have this quality in common; that is ‘what is beautiful’ • beautéext = {the beauty of nature, the beauty of la Joconde, the beauty of the Sagrada Familia, etc.} = all possible instantiations of the quality 'beauty' as instantiated in particular objects (but not the objects as such, cf. Riegel 1985:88–90).

  31. Intension? • beautéInt: 'the quality of being beautiful' • beauInt: ??  'the things that are beautiful'

  32. Rationale?

  33. Confirmation Verb + concrete object e.g. to buy, to have, to wear, etc. (36a) il n’achète que du beau, ils n’ont que du beau, il ne porte que du beau ‘he only buys beautiful things’ / ‘they only have beautiful things’ / ‘he only wears beautiful things’ vs. (36b) *il n’achète que de la beauté; *ils n’ont que de la beauté; *il ne porte que de la beauté *‘he only buys beauty’ / *‘they only have beauty’ / *‘he only wears beauty’

  34. 4. A syntactic analysis in terms of categorial mismatch

  35. 4.1. Mixed categories and projections Track 1. A categorially underspecified head: the "indeterminate category projection theory" (Bresnan 1997) Cf. Malouf 2000 for the English gerund; cf. other references in Bresnan (1997). BUT: phrasal coherence: ordering principles (cf. Bresnan 1997) • adjectival modifiers = central (adv) • nominal modifiers = peripheral (det, PP) Track 2.Conflation of two distinct XPs around a shared head, based on an intermediate shifting operation Cf. Lefebvre & Muysken 1988: 57ff; cf. also Lapointe 1993. - A category-switching projection from a single lexical head at a certain level within the tree around a single head - The “atypical” head exhibits severe restrictions from the point of view of nominal modification => conflation of two subtrees rather than superposition

  36. le vraiment drôle de l'histoire ('the really funny thing of the story') le vraiment utile à la société ('the really useful to society') N’’ DetN’ N°PP / S (relative) A’’ Adv A’ A° PP

  37. 4.2. Towards an explanatory construction-based account: mismatch and coercion Towards an account that (i) offers a more integrated and (cognitively) plausible explanation for the peculiar configuration of NAs (ii) better captures the intuition that NAs are marked (non prototypical) usages of words, pertaining to well-established word classes, that contextually exhibit some syntactic and semantic properties of another word class, rather than phrases headed by a hybrid lexical category (marked morphologically as such).

  38. 4.2.1. Categorial mismatch and coercion NAs = cases of (categorial) MISMATCH Cf. Francis (1999) , Francis & Michaelis (2004), Spencer (2005, 2007). More specifically: category / function mismatch (I) Distorsion catégorielle(Milner 1989, Kerleroux 1991, 1996, Leeman 1998) Conflict between: Y = position(= slot), which specifies a.o. the expected categories X = terme (= filler), endowed with a category • restrictions on 'target' modification' (= categorial deficiency) vs. morphological conversion (37) l’agir ‘the acting’, le signifier du signe ‘the signifying of the sign Constructional dimension  ...

  39. (II) Construction Grammar (Michaelis 2003): overrideprinciple Y = ‘slot’ within a construction X = filler “if lexical and structural meanings conflict, the semantic specifications of the lexical element conform to those of the grammatical structure with which that lexical item is combined" (38) mass noun soup in the plural construction receives the individuated construal associated with count entities: They have good soups here (Michaelis 2003) (39) to begin [to read] a book object > event This contextual adaptation of semantic features = coercion (Pustejovsky, 1995 ; Pustejovsky and Bouillon, 1995) or accommodation (Goldberg 1995) Rem: on the syntactic level: ~ translation (°Tesnière 1959) But : full nouniness  NAs fall outside the scope of the theory (Werner, 1993: 143; 190-191 ; Koch - Krefeld, 1993)

  40. A “constructional override” / coercion triggered by a construction, but ... Questions : • also INTERCATEGORIAL shifts (A > N and N > A) ? • what about the syntactic effects (e.g. modification) ? < - > purely semantic concept such as 'coercion' • which target category can serve as a model for the coerced interpretation? ≠ property nouns

  41. 4.2.2. A specific construction inheriting from the determiner construction • To prevent our account from overgeneration: a particular type of override construction specifying all these properties: a MASS GROUP IDENTITY NOUN PHRASE CONSTRUCTION Cf. Group Identity Noun Phrase construction (Fried & Östman 2004: 74–75) for cases such as the privileged or the poor • related to the Determination construction, but also differences  INHERITANCE “to keep track of properties along which linguistic expressions resemble each other” (Fried & Östman 2004: 71).

  42. Formalisme de C&G [Mass group identity NP] construction (CxG; ~ Fried & Östman 2004)

  43. Concretely... • both the properties of the construction and its component parts: The head: (predicative) Adj vs The construction as a whole: NP meaning: ‘set of referents defined by the property x (↓1) and construed as a homogenous mass of indistinguishable entities’. • Inherited features: bold • Exclusive features: • the determiner slot is restricted to one or two determiners • a third, non-obligatory sister

  44. 5. Adjectivized nouns

  45. 5.1. Semantic effects (40) Resemblance: ‘X presents characteristics of Y’ (40a) Ces costumes sont très théâtre. ; des costumes très théâtre. (These costumes are very theatre.) ‘These costumes are very ‘theatre-like.’ (40b) Mon frère est très professeur. (My brother is very teacher) ‘My brother is very ‘teacher-like'  ≠ other constructions (cf. Lauwers f.c., Word 60/1): (41) Inclination, propensity: ‘X is characterized by the fact that X is keen on Y’ Je suis (très) fromage. (I am very cheese.) ‘I like cheese (very much), I eat cheese very often; I am into cheese’  (42) Content: ‘X is characterized by the fact that X ‘has’ (contains) Y’ Cet été sera (très) {livre/cinéma/sport}. (This summer will be (very) book/cinema/sport.) ‘This summer’s focus will be on {literature/film/sports}’

  46. 5.2. Categorial status: restrictions on both sides 1°A full-fledged noun? 1.1. N can only be completed by adjectives, PPs and ungrounded relative clauses that yield (i) socio-culturally well-established subtypes of the type denoted by the noun (ii) that, in combination with the noun, still satisfy the criterion of stereotypical property association. (43) « vous avez été très professeur de morale, M. le procureur de la République ». (lit. 'very teacher of ethics') (44) Un parfum à la fois chic, [...], et à la fois très femme qui s'assume. (lit. 'a very woman-that-takes-responsibility-for -herself-like perfume') 1.2. Adjectivescan never be anteposed (with the 'resemblance reading'): (45) */# Il est très piètre / bon professeur 'very bad / good teacher'

  47. 2°A full-fledged adjective? 2.1.N' can only be preceded (and must be preceded) by a limited list of degree adverb (très 'very', si 'so', assez 'quite', un peu 'somewhat', peu 'not very'), precluding other types of adverbs: (46) Ces costumes sont relativement {théâtraux / *théâtre} 'These costumes are relatively {theatrical / theatre} (47) Il est toujours {pédant / */# professeur} 'He is always {pedantic / teacher} Note that most of these adverbs can be combined with synonymous adjectival expressions. [2.2. AN do not take PP complements: *très professeur à + NP (vs très utile à + NP).]

  48. AP A N’ N° PP / Adj / ungr. relative clause Adv

  49. Syntax + Lexicalization Degree Adverb AN (A) subtype (PP)subtype (ungrounded relative clause)subtype = basic syntactic template + additional 'adjectival' properties < lexicalization Lexicalization: vache, tarte, limite, ... [+ idiosyncratic semantic shifts] - anteposition of the AN: *le très théâtre film vs. la très vache prof ('the very severe teacher'), une vache bagarre ('a very tough fight') - omission of the degree adverb: le budget est limite ('the budget is borderline') • other adverbs: une prof relativement vache 'a relatively severe teacher') • derivation of adverbs (-ly): vache-ment; bête-ment • tendency towards agreement: vos questions sont parfois très tartes. ('Your questions are sometimes very stupid') Homonymy:un joueur très sport ('fairplay') vs L'arrivee à l'aéroport est assez sport ('sport-like')

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