Decompositional composition: The semantics of scope ambiguities and ?bracketing paradoxes?

1991 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Beard
Keyword(s):  
Scope Ambiguities ◽  
Bracketing Paradoxes

Bracketing Paradoxes in Morphology

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Newell
Keyword(s):  
Bracketing Paradoxes ◽  
Lexical Phonology ◽  
Affix Ordering

Bracketing paradoxes—constructions whose morphosyntactic and morpho-phonological structures appear to be irreconcilably at odds (e.g., unhappier)—are unanimously taken to point to truths about the derivational system that we have not yet grasped. Consider that the prefix un- must be structurally separate in some way from happier both for its own reasons (its [n] surprisingly does not assimilate in Place to a following consonant (e.g., u[n]popular)), and for reasons external to the prefix (the suffix -er must be insensitive to the presence of un-, as the comparative cannot attach to bases of three syllables or longer (e.g., *intelligenter)). But, un- must simultaneously be present in the derivation before -er is merged, so that unhappier can have the proper semantic reading (‘more unhappy’, and not ‘not happier’). Bracketing paradoxes emerged as a problem for generative accounts of both morphosyntax and morphophonology only in the 1970s. With the rise of restrictions on and technology used to describe and represent the behavior of affixes (e.g., the Affix-Ordering Generalization, Lexical Phonology and Morphology, the Prosodic Hierarchy), morphosyntacticians and phonologists were confronted with this type of inconsistent derivation in many unrelated languages.

Bracketing paradoxes without brackets

Lingua ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yehuda N. Falk
Keyword(s):  
Bracketing Paradoxes

Bracketing Paradoxes and the English Lexicon

Language ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 663 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Bracketing Paradoxes

scholarly journals Scope ambiguities, monads and strengths

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justyna Grudzinska ◽  
Marek Zawadowski
Keyword(s):  
Scope Ambiguities

Bracketing paradoxes: A dependency grammar analysis in terms of morph catenae

2021 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-428
Author(s):  
Timothy Osborne ◽  
Thomas Groß
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Unit ◽  
Dependency Grammar ◽  
Word Structure ◽  
Verb Constructions ◽  
Bracketing Paradoxes ◽  
Grammar Analysis ◽  
Particle Verb

Abstract This manuscript examines various types of bracketing paradoxes: classical “personal noun” constructions, parasynthetic compounds, agentive deverbal nouns, compound denominal adjectives, plural nouns with lexicalized modifiers, multiple auxiliary constructions, and German particle verb constructions. We argue that given a dependency-based view of both sentence and word structure, these bracketing puzzles become non-paradoxical. The morph catena is taken to be the fundamental unit of morphosyntax. A morph catena is A MORPH OR A COMBINATION OF MORPHS THAT ARE CONTINUOUS WITH RESPECT TO DOMINANCE. This notion is derived from its syntactic equivalent, the catena, which is defined as a word or a combination of words that are continuous with respect to dominance. Given an understanding of morphosyntax that acknowledges morph catenae, bracketing paradoxes are resolved by the ability of morph catenae to reach across words to include parts of words.

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