In this contribution, I offer a summary of my 2014 Ph.D. dissertation from the University of Patras on headedness in word formation and lexical semantics.

We compare Modern Greek nominal compounds to their Turkish counterparts and reveal that Modern Greek nominal compounds under investigation are morphological while Turkish ones are syntactically built. Based on this, we offer an explanation for the availability of phrasal compounds in Turkish but not in Modern Greek: phrase-level items can be involved in syntactic compounds, but not in morphological compounds involving solely morphological items. The study reveals that the locus of compound formation is not confined to a single module both cross-linguistically and within a language, but the locus of a specific type of compound in a language entails whether or not phrasal compounds with the same compound structure can also occur in that specific language.

Headedness in Word Formation and Lexical Semantics: Evidence from Italiot and Cypriot (University of Patras, 2014)

Phrasal vs. morphological compounds: Insights from Modern Greek and Turkish

This paper offers a detailed investigation of bahuvrihi compounds in Greek with a focus on their form and semantics. First, we present a classification of bahuvrihis according to the lexical category of the compound structure and the lexical category of the compound members and we provide examples of the rarest attested type, that is, verbal bahuvrihis (e.g. kalozoizo < kal(i) ‘good’ zo(i) ‘life’, ‘to have a good life’). Second, we raise the question of where the meaning ‘having/to have X’ comes from in bahuvrihis. Based on the distinction between nominal, adjectival, and verbal bahuvrihis, we propose that the former type should be accounted for by metonymy, whereas the latter two types, that is, adjectival and verbal bahuvrihis should be analyzed as “extended bahuvrihis” in that they combine compounding and derivation in this particular order. As such, adjectival and verbal bahuvrihis can be better understood if we examine the relation between compounding and derivation.

Form and Meaning of Bahuvrihi Compounds: Evidence from Modern Greek and Its Dialects

It is often argued that words have complex internal structure in terms of their morphology, phonology, and semantics. On the surface, Armenian compounds present a bracketing paradox between their morphological and phonological structure. I argue that this bracketing paradox simultaneously references endocentricity, strata, and prosody. I use Armenian as a case study to argue for the use of cyclic approaches to bracketing paradoxes over the more common counter-cyclic approaches. I analyze the bracketing paradox using cyclic Head-Operations (Hoeksema 1985) and Prosodic Phonology (Nespor and Vogel 1986), specifically the Prosodic Stem (Downing 1999a). I argue that the interaction between the bracketing paradox and the rest of compound phonology requires the use of stratal levels and cyclicity. I argue that counter-cyclic approaches like Morphological Merger (Marantz 1988) or Morphological Rebracketing (Sproat 1985) are inadequate because they make incorrect predictions about Armenian phonology.

The role of heads and cyclicity in bracketing paradoxes in Armenian compounds

This paper deals with issues of matter and pattern borrowing as applied to compound formations in four Asia Minor Greek varieties, Aivaliot, Cappadocian, Pharasiot and Pontic, which have been in contact with the typologically and genetically different Turkish. While Pharasiot has been impoverished of Greek-based compound structures due to an extensive Turkish influence, Aivaliot, Pontic, and to a lesser extent Cappadocian, show a wealth of items that are created on the basis of Greek patterns containing right-hand inflection, a compulsory compound-internal marker, and a combination of native and foreign constituents reanalyzed as stems. Assuming that Turkish compounds are phrasal, it is suggested that Greek compounding resists change, since the native compound morphology strongly constrains the adoption of a Turkish compound structure which is built in syntax. More specifically, it is proposed that in a contact situation, it is particularly difficult for a pattern to be transferred from one language to another if it presupposes changing of grammatical domain, that is, shifting from morphology (Greek compounding) to syntax (Turkish compounding). The article also discusses a number of formations in Pharasiot, where a N N phrasal compounding pattern seems to be selectively borrowed from Turkish. Refining the previous claim, it is further proposed that a transfer implying a passage from one grammatical domain to another could become possible in heavy contact situations if one basic condition is fulfilled: that the innovative pattern is allowed by the native properties of the recipient language. As a matter of fact, N N structures are not unknown in the Greek language, which has used them in specific contexts in several periods of its long history.

Headedness in Word Formation and Lexical Semantics: Evidence from Italiot and Cypriot (University of Patras, 2014)

Citations

Phrasal vs. morphological compounds: Insights from Modern Greek and Turkish

Form and Meaning of Bahuvrihi Compounds: Evidence from Modern Greek and Its Dialects

The role of heads and cyclicity in bracketing paradoxes in Armenian compounds

Matter versus pattern borrowing in compounding: Evidence from the Asia Minor Greek dialectal variety

On the Headship Status of Greek Diminutive Suffixes: A View from Lexical Semantics

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