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Detail of contribution

Auteur: Katharina ZIPSER

Titre:
Proto-Language, phrase structure and nominal compounds - which of them fit together?


Abstract/Résumé: Proto-Language, phrase structure and nominal compounds – which of them fit together? In recent years it has been argued that nominal compounds are living fossils descending directly from the so-called non-syntactic “Proto-Language”. Recently, we have questioned this position for the following two reasons: First, the path of grammaticalization leading to nominal compounds departs from phrases which are already syntactically structured. Second, even Pidgin languages – regarded usually as relics from “Proto-Language” – confirm the primary status of phrasal syntax compared to nominal composition. In this paper we will support our empirically gained arguments by additional theoretical reflections. We show that nominal compounds are based on a recursive process controlled by an underlying phrasal structure. Therefore nominal compounds must have arisen at a moment when phrasal structure was already developed. They represent an evolutionary tie between the syntactic and the lexical modules of language (following the complex structure of language proposed by Jackendoff ?). Finally, this confirms the synchronic status of nominal compounding as a syntactical phenomenon (cf. Anderson 1992, S. 298: „… compounds are a sort of mixed category between words and phrases“). References: Anderson, Stephen R. (1992): A-Morphous Morphology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hajnal, Ivo (2012): Wortbildung und Sprachevolution: Die Bedeutung indogermanischer Nominalkomposition für die Rekonstruktiom einer "Protolanguage", in: In Simplicitate Complexitas. Festgabe für Barbara Stefan zum 70. Geburtstag, hg. v. Peter Anreiter/Ivo Hajnal/Manfred Kienpointner, Wien: Studia Interdisciplinaria Ænipontanta, 109-126. Jackendoff, Ray (2002): Foundations of Language. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. Zipser, Katharina (2012): Komposita und Pidgin als ,living fossils‘ einer ,Protolanguage‘? in: In Simplicitate Complexitas. Festgabe für Barbara Stefan zum 70. Geburtstag, hg. v. Peter Anreiter/Ivo Hajnal/Manfred Kienpointner, Wien: Studia Interdisciplinaria Ænipontanta, 407-435.