Prepositions used as bound morphemes in Dutch and French: interaction between word structure and grammaticalization
(2007) Morfologiedagen — Location: Université d’Amsterdam (20.December.2007)
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- This poster presents a study of the interaction between the word structure of words beginning with a preposition and the grammaticalization of these prepositions into a prefixes. This interaction will be applied to Dutch and French data. In line with the studies of Amiot (2004, 2005 among others) on the subject, I claim that the boundary between preposition and prefix is not strict, but that prepositions can undergo a grammaticalization process and end up as true prefixes. Since prepositions, on the one hand, typically act as the Head of a prepositional phrase (Melis 2003) and prefixes, on the other hand, act as Modifiers of the stem to which they are bound, the "prefixization" process has to turn a prepositional Head into a prefixal Modifier. This grammaticalization process is in direct conflict with the typical word structure of French compounds. Indeed, French compounds are structured by the Head-Modifier principle: in compounds as timbre-poste (litt. 'seal-post' 'stamp'), the Head timbre precedes the Modifier poste. We hypothesize that French compounds beginning with a preposition will often comply with the Head-Modifier principle and will generally give rise to "exocentric compounds", that is compounds in which the non-prepositional component does not act as the semantic or morphological Head (e.g. entrecolonne 'distance between two columns'). These exocentric compounds are still very close to prepositional phrases and show a "syntactical" word structure. Dutch compounds, by contrast, typically comply with the inverse word order Modifier-Head (e.g. postzegel (litt. 'post-seal' → 'stamp')). If we apply this word structure on words beginning with a preposition, it will rather stimulate than counteract the prefixization process and will lead to more morphologized construction types, such as "(semi-)endocentric compounds" in which the non-prepositional component is the Head of the word and the prepositional component acts as a Modifier (e.g. tussengeneratie 'intermediate generation') and "derivations", which also comply with the Modifier-Head structure but have a non-compositional meaning since the prepositional component has undergone a re-semanticization process (e.g. overbevolking 'overpopulation'). In sum, we hypothesize that Dutch prepositions used as bound morphemes will be more grammaticalized than their French counterparts because of their different word structure. Our claim will be supported by quantitative data on the bound use of entre/ tussen 'between' and sur/ over 'on, over'. References AMIOT, D. 2004. "Préfixes ou prépositions? Le cas de sur-, sans-, contre- et les autres". Lexique 16. La formation des mots: horizons actuels. 67-83. AMIOT, D. 2005. "Between compounding and derivation: Elements of word formation corresponding to prepositions". In: W.U. Dressler, D. Kastovsky, O.E. Pfeiffer et F. Rainer (eds), Morphology and its Demarcations. Selected Papers from the 11th Morphology Meeting, Vienna, February 2004. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 183-195. MELIS, L. 2003. La préposition en français (L'essentiel français). Gap Cedex/ Paris: Ophrys.
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Van Goethem, K. (2007). Prepositions used as bound morphemes in Dutch and French: interaction between word structure and grammaticalization. Morfologiedagen, Université d’Amsterdam. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/163240