from Part I - The Evolution of Syntax
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 February 2025
Carstairs-McCarthy’s chapter explores Jackendoff’s suggestion that exuberant compounding of the kind that is possible in English may be a ‘coelacanth of language’, that is a relic of a pre-syntactic stage of linguistic evolution. In support of this view, he contrasts English compounding possibilities with those of other Germanic languages and French, where compounds typically involve more than mere juxtaposition. The peculiar characteristics of compounding help to explain the ambiguity of the term ‘lexical’, used to mean both ‘listed in the lexicon’ and ‘relating to words’.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.