Abstract: This paper centers on argument saturation in relational-noun compounds. We argue that these compounds can be analyzed in terms of conceptual types, as introduced by Löbner 1985, to appear. He distinguishes between sortal, individual, functional, and proper relational concepts. To describe argument saturation in compounding, we use frames in the sense of Barsalou 1992 since frames give a decompositional account of concepts and in particular reflect the conceptual types in their structure. Subsequently, we investigate relational-noun compounds in German as derived from their conceptual types. That is, we analyze in how far the conceptual types of the compound constituents determine the concept type of the compound as a whole. For possessive constructions, Löbner, to appear argues that a construction with a functional head inherits the type of the modifier. We demonstrate that for constructions with a relational head the case is less straightforward: the construction inherits the relational dimension of the modifier and the non-uniqueness from the head noun. However, we show that the combinations for compounds can follow complex compositional rules.

Keywords: word formation, frames, compounds, lexical semantics

ACM Classification Keywords: A.0 General Literature - Conference proceedings Languages, Theory

Link:

A FORMAL REPRESENTATION OF CONCEPT COMPOSITION

Daniel Schulzek, Christian Horn, Tanja Osswald

http://www.foibg.com/ijitk/ijitk-vol04/ijitk04-2-p05.pdf