Dépendances et hiérarchies en morphologie lexicale

Zwanenburg Wiecher. Dépendances et hiérarchies en morphologie lexicale. In: L'Information Grammaticale, N. 50, 1991. pp. 38-42

Choosing between A+N compounds and lexicalized A+N phrases. The position of French in comparison to Germanic languages

It has been demonstrated in the literature on Germanic languages that lexicalized A+N phrases may have the same naming function as A+N compounds (Jackendoff 1997, 2002; Booij 2002; Hüning 2004, forthcoming a; Schlücker 2008). However, these languages may show particular preferences for either the former or the latter naming strategy, even when both strategies are available. In German A+N compounding is, comparatively speaking, very productive, whereas it is said to be no longer productive in English, which generally uses A+N phrases for the same function (e.g. Festplatte – hard disk). Dutch seems to take an intermediary position: here, both word formation processes are productive; but compared to German, Dutch shows a stronger preference for lexicalized A+N phrases (cf. De Caluwe 1990; Booij 2002; Hüning forthcoming a). The central aim of this paper is to situate French on this lexicon-grammar continuum. This, however, requires first of all the formulation of a univocal definition of compounding, since the notion generally receives a less restrictive interpretation in Romance languages than it does in Germanic languages. It will be shown that French has a strong preference for lexicalized A+N phrases: even when both German and Dutch use A+N compounds, French – like English – generally still opts for the syntactic naming strategy (e.g. Schnellzug – sneltrein – fast train – train rapide)