Classifying modifiers in common names
Year: 2009
Type: article
Abstract: Complex common names such as Indian elephant or green tea denote a certain type of entity, viz. kinds. Moreover, those kinds are always subkinds of the kind denoted by their head noun. Establishing such subkinds is essentially the task of classifying modifiers that are a defining trait of endocentrically structured complex common names. Examining complex common names of different lexico-syntactic types (NN compounds, N+N syntagmas, NP/PP syntagmas, A+N syntagmas) and from different languages (particularly English, German and French) it can be shown that complex common names are subject to language-independent formal and semantic constraints. In particular, complex common names qualify as name-like expressions in that they tend to be deficient in terms of formal complexity and semantic compositionality.
Source: WORD Structure
Authors: Lutz Gunkel, Gisela Zifonun
Institution: Leibniz Institute for the German Language
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1991187586