CFP: Workshop of Compound formation with more than two lexemes

[Yasuhito KIDO]

Dear JSLS-ml,

I am Yasuhito Kido from Kyushu International University. This is a CFP announcement.

Best regards,
Yasuhito Kido
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http://kaa.ff.upjs.sk/en/event/45/word-formation-theories-vii-typology-and-universals-in-word-formation-vi#toc-workshops


Workshop convenors: Makiko Mukai (University of Kochi, Japan), Masaharu Shimada (University of Tsukuba, Japan)

Compound formation has been one of the major topics in morphological studies in linguistics. Coffee cup is a compound consisting of two lexemes, that is, two nouns coffee and cup, and compounds of this type are usually taken up as a material to investigate the process of compounding, with their intrinsic properties revealed. In this workshop, we turn our attention to compounds consisting of more than two lexemes, which are found in languages across the world. For example, kitchen towel rack is an English compound made up from the three lexemes, kitchen, towel and rack, and can be referred to as a tri-constituent compound (Huber 2023). The aim of the workshop is to descriptively or theoretically explore properties of this kind of multi-constituent compounds, especially using comparative or experimental methods.

Tri-constituent compounds like kitchen towel rack can be two-way ambiguous (Mukai 2008, Wang and Holmberg (2021), among others). In one interpretation, kitchen towel rack has the left-branching constituent structure [[kitchen towel] rack], with rack functioning as a head of the whole compound. In the other interpretation, it has the right-branching structure [kitchen [towel rack]] and its head is the compound towel rack. This kind of tri-constituent compound thus contains a compound like kitchen towel or towel rack as a part and is often called a recursive compound. To give one of the previous studies on recursive compounds, Mukai’s (2024) aim is to clarify similarities and differences between right-branching and left-branching recursive compounds from semantic, syntactic, and phonological viewpoints by conducting empirical or experimental tests to 20 examples. She suggests that the target compounds tend to be interpreted as left-branching ones; for example, kitchen towel rack is preferably interpreted ‘a rack for kitchen towels’ rather than ‘a towel rack in a kitchen.’ Also, she observes that left-branching types in principle obey the Lexical Category Prominence Rule (Lieberman and Prince 1977), according to which one constituent is always more prominent with respect to its immediate sister constituent. Right-branching types, on the other hand, do not strictly obey it, even though there were variations among the participants for some of the compounds.

It should be noted that all of the tri-constituent compounds are not of recursive type. In fact, there is also a tri-constituent compound of coordinate type. For example, we find such a Japanese tri-constituent compound as sho-chiku-bai ‘maple-bamboo-cherry.’ In this case, unlike recursive compounds, the three constituents are combined to establish a coordinate relation, giving such an interpretation as “maple, bamboo and cherry.” Coordinate compounds have been cross-linguistically or typologically classified into several types (Olsen 2001, Bauer 2008, Arcodia 2010, Shimada 2013) and the identification of their morpho-syntactic structures has also been a topical issue (Mukai and Shimada 2021, Yonekura et al. 2023). However, a major target was a two-member coordinate compound, and there are few previous studies shedding light on a coordinate compound with more than two constituents.

Taking all the above into consideration, we would like to invite linguists to discuss several debatable issues of multi-constituent compounding. The list of topics includes, but is not limited to:

a. Comparison between right-branching and left-branching recursive compounds

b. Comparison between recursive compounds and coordinate compounds

c. Phonological, semantic, morphosyntactic or/and pragmatic properties of recursive compounds or/and coordinate compounds

d. Classification of recursive compounds or/and coordinate compounds

e. Issues on the lexical integrity

f. Typological or cross-linguistic issues on recursive compounds or/and coordinate compounds

g. Processing or acquisition issues on recursive or/and coordinate compounds

Abstract submission
Abstracts of no more than 300 words (plus references and figures/tables if any) should be sent to the 2 workshop organizers, mu...@cc.u-kochi.ac.jp, shimada.m...@u.tsukuba.ac.jp by March 7, 2025. Acceptance will be notified by March 22, 2025.

References

Arcodia, Giorgio F, Nichola Grandi, and Bernhard Wlchlli (2010). Coordination in compounding. Edited by S. Scalise and I. Vogel. Cross-disciplinary issues in compounding. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 177–197.

Bauer, Laurie (2008). Dvandvas. Word Structure 1: pp. 1–20.

Huber, Elizabeth (2023). Tri-constituent compounds: A usage-based account of complex nominal compounding. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.

Lieberman, Mark, and Sproat (1992). Stress and structures of modified noun-phrases in English. In Lexical Matters. Edited by Sag Ivan and Anna Szabolsi. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 131–81.

Mukai, Makiko (2008). Recursive compounds. Word Structure 1: pp. 178–198.

Mukai, Makiko (2024). A descriptive and experimental investigation of recursive compounds in English: Their semantic, syntactic, and phonological characterization. Languages 2024, 9, 175.

Mukai, Makiko and Masaharu Shimada (2021). Reduplication and Compounding with Mimetic Roots. Language Association of Great Britain. Paper presented at the Annual General Meeting, online, September 9 2021.

Olsen, Susan (2001). Copulative compounds: a closer look at the interface between syntax and morphology. Edited by G.E. Booji and J. Marle. Yearbook of morphology 2000. Dordrecht: Springer, pp.279–320.

Shimada, Masaharu (2013). Coordinated compounds: Comparison between English and Japanese. SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics 10: pp. 77–96.

Wang, Qi and Anders Holmberg (2021). Reduplication and the structure of nouns in Xining Chinese. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 39: pp. 923–958.

Yonekura, Hiroshi, Akiko Nagano, and Masaharu Shimada (2023). Eigo to nihongo ni okeru toifukugogo (Co-compounds in English and Japanese). Tokyo: Kaitakusha.