Compounding in English and the nature of attribution

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Prof Heinz Giegerich (Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Edinburgh)
• Thursday 08 February 2007, 17:00-18:30
• GR06-7, English Faculty, 9 West Road (Sidgwick Site).

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Christopher Lucas.

Dinner with speaker afterwards at Sala Thong (Thai); email apc38 if interested

In this talk I want to pursue two questions. (1) What are the characteristics of the attribute-head relationship in English? And (2), in what way(s) do these characteristics shed light on the well-known distinction between NP and ‘compound’ N? I want to argue that many of the characteristics of attribution are found on either side of the syntax-lexicon divide (such that there is ‘postlexical’ and ‘lexical’ attribution) and that the differences between the two can largely be predicted from more general characteristics of syntactic and lexical constructions. But I shall also show that the purported modular ‘divide’ is not as robust as has been claimed both in lexicalism and in traditional grammar.

This talk is part of the Cambridge University Linguistic Society (LingSoc) series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Cambridge Forum of Science and Humanities
• Cambridge Language Sciences
• Cambridge University Linguistic Society (LingSoc)
• Cambridge talks
• Chris Davis' list
• GR06-7, English Faculty, 9 West Road (Sidgwick Site)
• Guy Emerson's list
• Language Sciences for Graduate Students

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.