Two Types of Noun Incorporation: A Lexical Analysis

Abstract

In recent work Noun Incorporation has been argued to result from head movement, in which the head of an object noun phrase moves into the verb, creating a complex verb. This paper argues instead that NI derives from word formation rules applying in the lexicon, presyntactically. On the basis of clusters of grammatical properties associated with NI, it is apparent that there are two separate word formation processes that languages may choose. In one, when a noun root combines with a verb root, the argument structure of the verb is altered such that the complex verb takes one less argument. In the other form of NI, when a noun root combines with a verb root, the argument structure of the complex verb is unaltered. It is shown that the predicted grammatical properties associated with the change or lack of change in argument structure follow.*