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In:Argument Realisation in Complex Predicates and Complex Events: Verb-verb constructions at the syntax-semantic interface
Edited by Brian Nolan and Elke Diedrichsen
[Studies in Language Companion Series 180] 2017
► pp. 245–276

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Chapter 9
The organizational structure of lexical compound verbs in Japanese

A Construction Morphology account

 | York University, Canada
Published online: 26 January 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.180.09tor
Abstract
This study offers a Construction Morphology account of the organizational structure of the class of lexical compound verbs in Japanese, covering two newly proposed types (thematic and aspectual compound verbs) (Kageyama 2013) and two understudied types (prefixed and lexicalized type compound verbs), as an alternative to a traditional listing of types. It argues that compounds are arranged in two dimensions: one contains the inheritance hierarchy, with its root node diverging according to the position of the semantic head (for thematic, aspectual, and prefixed type compounds); the other covers compounds with extended senses (for the lexicalized type). The study also proposes constructional schemas for compound verbs (e.g. those with affixoids such as -hateru ‘completely’) to illustrate how they are organized in the inheritance hierarchy.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Preliminary remarks
    • 2.1Construction Morphology
    • 2.2Compound verbs in an inheritance hierarchy
    • 2.3Classification of compound verbs
      • 2.3.1Two groups of compound verbs
      • 2.3.2Argument structure of compound verbs
      • 2.3.3Linguistic test
    • 2.4Proposal
  • 3.Constructional schemas for left-headed compound verbs
    • 3.1Meaning of -hateru
    • 3.2Constructional schemas of -hateru
    • 3.3Representation of -hateru in two dimensions
  • 4.Constructional schemas for right-headed compound verbs
    • 4.1The prefixed type
    • 4.2Thematic compound verbs
      • 4.2.1Causing/leading activity-specifying type
      • 4.2.2Resultative state-elaborating type
      • 4.2.3Resultative state-augmentation type
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
  • Appendix
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