Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Verb-based restrictions on noun incorporation across languages

Olthof, Marieke ; van Lier, Eva ; Claessen, Tjeu ; Danielsen, Swintha ; Haude, Katharina ; Lehmann, Nico ; Mous, Maarten ; Verhoeven, Elisabeth ; Visser, Eline LU orcid and Vuillermet, Marine , et al. (2021) In Linguistic Typology 25(2). p.211-256
Abstract
Although some characteristics of incorporating verbs and non-incorporating verbs have been proposed in previous studies, little systematic cross-linguistic research has been done on restrictions on the types of verbs that incorporate nouns. Knowledge about possible verb-based restrictions on noun incorporation may, however, provide important insights for theoretical approaches to noun incorporation, in particular regarding the question to what extent incorporation is a lexical or a syntactic process, and whether and how languages may vary in this respect. This paper therefore investigates to what extent languages restrict noun incorporation to particular verbs and what types of restrictions appear to be relevant cross-linguistically. The... (More)
Although some characteristics of incorporating verbs and non-incorporating verbs have been proposed in previous studies, little systematic cross-linguistic research has been done on restrictions on the types of verbs that incorporate nouns. Knowledge about possible verb-based restrictions on noun incorporation may, however, provide important insights for theoretical approaches to noun incorporation, in particular regarding the question to what extent incorporation is a lexical or a syntactic process, and whether and how languages may vary in this respect. This paper therefore investigates to what extent languages restrict noun incorporation to particular verbs and what types of restrictions appear to be relevant cross-linguistically. The study consists of two parts: an explorative typological survey based on descriptive sources of 50 incorporating languages, and a more detailed investigation of incorporating verbs in corpus data from a sample of eight languages, guided by a questionnaire. The results demonstrate that noun incorporation is indeed restricted in terms of which verbs allow this construction within and across languages. The likelihood that a verb can incorporate is partly determined by its degree of morphosyntactic transitivity, but the attested variation across verbs and across languages shows that purely lexical restrictions play an important role as well. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; and , et al. (More)
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; and (Less)
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Linguistic Typology
volume
25
issue
2
pages
46 pages
publisher
De Gruyter
external identifiers
  • scopus:85093522754
ISSN
1613-415X
DOI
10.1515/lingty-2020-2054
project
A grammar of Kalamang
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
013550f4-c9be-45ed-80d7-a07536546642
date added to LUP
2020-10-04 12:24:44
date last changed
2023-11-20 13:00:38
@article{013550f4-c9be-45ed-80d7-a07536546642,
  abstract     = {{Although some characteristics of incorporating verbs and non-incorporating verbs have been proposed in previous studies, little systematic cross-linguistic research has been done on restrictions on the types of verbs that incorporate nouns. Knowledge about possible verb-based restrictions on noun incorporation may, however, provide important insights for theoretical approaches to noun incorporation, in particular regarding the question to what extent incorporation is a lexical or a syntactic process, and whether and how languages may vary in this respect. This paper therefore investigates to what extent languages restrict noun incorporation to particular verbs and what types of restrictions appear to be relevant cross-linguistically. The study consists of two parts: an explorative typological survey based on descriptive sources of 50 incorporating languages, and a more detailed investigation of incorporating verbs in corpus data from a sample of eight languages, guided by a questionnaire. The results demonstrate that noun incorporation is indeed restricted in terms of which verbs allow this construction within and across languages. The likelihood that a verb can incorporate is partly determined by its degree of morphosyntactic transitivity, but the attested variation across verbs and across languages shows that purely lexical restrictions play an important role as well.}},
  author       = {{Olthof, Marieke and van Lier, Eva and Claessen, Tjeu and Danielsen, Swintha and Haude, Katharina and Lehmann, Nico and Mous, Maarten and Verhoeven, Elisabeth and Visser, Eline and Vuillermet, Marine and Wolvengrey, Arok}},
  issn         = {{1613-415X}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{06}},
  number       = {{2}},
  pages        = {{211--256}},
  publisher    = {{De Gruyter}},
  series       = {{Linguistic Typology}},
  title        = {{Verb-based restrictions on noun incorporation across languages}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2020-2054}},
  doi          = {{10.1515/lingty-2020-2054}},
  volume       = {{25}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}