LF Bracketing Paradoxes: A New Account

Syntax ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoë Belk
Keyword(s):  
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

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.

Lexical Integrity in Morphology

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio Bosque
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Test Bench ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Large Set ◽  
Constituent Structure ◽  
Standard Picture ◽  
Lexical Integrity ◽  
Bracketing Paradoxes

The Lexical Integrity Hypothesis (LIH) holds that words are syntactic atoms, implying that syntactic processes and principles do not have access to word segments. Interestingly, when this widespread “negative characterization” is turned into its positive version, a standard picture of the Morphology-Syntax borderline is obtained. The LIH is both a fundamental principle of Morphology and a test bench for morphological theories. As a matter of fact, the LIH is problematic for both lexicalist and anti-lexicalist frameworks, which radically differ in accepting or rejecting Morphology as a component of grammar different from Syntax. Lexicalist theories predict no exceptions to LIH, contrary to fact. From anti-lexicalist theories one might expect a large set of counterexamples to this hypothesis, but the truth is that attested potential exceptions are restricted, as well as confined to very specific grammatical areas. Most of the phenomena taken to be crucial for evaluating the LIH are briefly addressed in this article: argument structure, scope, prefixes, compounds, pronouns, elliptical segments, bracketing paradoxes, and coordinated structures. It is argued that both lexicalist and anti-lexicalist positions crucially depend on the specific interpretations that their proponents are willing to attribute to the very notion of Syntax: a broad one, which basically encompasses constituent structure, binary branching, scope, and compositionality, and a narrow one, which also coverts movement, recursion, deletion, coordination, and other aspects of phrase structure. The objective differences between these conceptions of Syntax are shown to be determinant in the evaluation of LIH’s predictions.

Solving the bracketing paradox: an analysis of the morphology of German particle verbs

2003 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEFAN MÜLLER
Keyword(s):  
Morphological Properties ◽  
Particle Verbs ◽  
Bracketing Paradoxes ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Particle Verb ◽  
Bracketing Paradox ◽  
Inflectional Affixes

Inflectional affixes are sensitive to morphological properties of the stems of the verbs they attach to. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that the inflectional material is combined with both the verbal stem of simplex verbs and the verbal stem of particle verbs. It has been argued that this leads to a bracketing paradox in the case of particle verbs since the semantic contribution of the inflectional information scopes over the complete particle verb. I will discuss nominalizations and adjective derivation, which are also problematic because of various bracketing paradoxes. I will suggest a solution to these paradoxes that assumes that inflectional and derivational prefixes and suffixes always attach to a form of a stem that already contains the information about a possible particle, but without containing a phonological realization of the particle. As is motivated by syntactic properties of particle verbs, the particle is treated as a dependent of the verb. The particle is combined with its head after inflection and derivation. With such an approach no special mechanisms for the analysis of particle verbs are necessary.

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