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Derivational Morphology
Mihaela Tnase-Dogaru, Fall semester 2014
Course design: Ileana Baciu (2004). English Morphology. Word formation (EUB)
Lecture 4
- GTG assumes that these nouns are not listed in the lexicon as such, but are actively generated by a
syntactic transformation of NOM(inalization) applied to a sentential structure that contains the basic verb.
- the complex noun phrase their destruction of the city is derived from the D(eep)S(tructure) sentence
The ACT they destroy the city by the transformation of nominalization. The presence of the abstract head
noun the ACT captures, at the syntactic level, the information that the noun destruction is to be
interpreted as the ACT of destroying.
(2)
3
b) verb-object: house-keeping - generated from a structure like The ACT somebody is keeping a house.
- sightseeing, essay-writing, fault-finding, town-planning, dress-making, fortune-telling, almsgiving,
mind-reading, bloodshed, birthcontrol, crime-detection, man-slaughter, suicide-attempt, haircut, witchhunt, etc.
c)verb-adverbial: ocean-fishing - generated from a base sentence like The ACT somebody fishes in the
ocean.
- waterskiing, sunbathing, rope-dancing, churchgoing, flyfishing, sleepwalking, daydreaming, etc
b. Verbless compounds
a) Object-Subject compounds
- do not contain any surface verb
- also generated from base sentences
- BUT analysed as containing in their underlying structure a generalized verb
(3)
= ambiguous between interpretations containing the verbs impel, propel, energize, activate,
power, drive etc.
- all these verbs are represented in the underlying sentence by a generalized verb.
(4)
b) Adverbial Subject
(5)
- the underlying sentence for these compounds contain a generalized verb that has the semantic features of
live, work, inhabit, infest etc.
(6)
bedbug = bug (such that) the bug GENERALIZED VERB the bed.
the generalized verb = infest, live etc.
To sum up, with GTG the generation of compounds, like that of derived nominals, belongs to the domain
of syntax and is, therefore, the result of syntactic processes.