What’s in the bucket? Aspectual (non)compositionality in phrasal idioms

Autor: Doug Merchant
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Natural Language & Linguistic Theory. 40:1117-1158
ISSN: 1573-0859
0167-806X
DOI: 10.1007/s11049-021-09528-9
Popis: I consider here the question of whether the aspectual properties of idioms are compositionally determined with respect to the normal literal meanings of their components. This issue is unresolved in the literature, with some (Marantz 1997; McGinnis 2002, 2005) arguing for systematic literal compositionality, some noting mismatches in the aspectual properties of some idioms’ literal and figurative readings and therefore arguing for compositionality with respect to idioms’ meanings only (Glasbey 2003, 2007), and others attempting to reconcile the two views, maintaining systematic literal compositionality while accounting for mismatches by adding aspectual information post-syntactically (Leivada 2017) or by nonlinguistic conceptual processes (Mateu and Espinal 2007). Working within a monotonic model of aspectual composition in which telicity, durativity, and dynamicity are privative features inherent to verbs (Olsen 1997), I present further evidence for Glasbey’s position, arguing that that the aspectual properties of idioms are predictable on the basis of their figurative meanings, and that the literal readings of their components are irrelevant to aspectual composition, at least in the domain of language production. I further argue that some phrasal idioms are more highly specified than their commonly paraphrased meanings, and that idiomaticity represents a motivated exception to Olsen’s model in that idioms may be negatively specified for telicity, durativity, and dynamicity. I conclude that this exception falls out directly from the assumption that idioms may lexicalize a larger structure than verbs, speculating that this may include an inner aspect head in the syntax.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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