Form/meaning asymmetry in word formation

The case of non- nouns in French

Bibliographic Data

ID21200087
AuthorsEdwige Dugas (Université de Lille, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume10
Issue2
Pages178-209
Publication date2018-12-31
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueConstructions and Frames (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1876-1933 • E-ISSN: 1876-1941
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1075/cf.00018.dug
OpenAlexW2914032820
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited30

The paper deals with the French morphological prefixation pattern [ non- N] ( non-qualification ‘non-qualification’, non-Italien ‘non-Italian’, and non-ville ‘non-city’). It discusses the form/meaning asymmetry displayed by this pattern and its compositionality. It is shown that the general pattern [ non- N] actually corresponds to three distinct subconstructions, i.e. distinct form/meaning pairings. Although pragmatic factors may be seen as presenting a challenge to the compositionality of these constructions, it is argued that [ non- N]s must be seen as compositional as long as compositionality is defined not only in terms of truth-conditional semantics, but also of pragmatics

Asymmetry · Epistemology · Linguistics · Pragmatics · Principle of compositionality · Computer Science · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · Linguistics and Discourse Analysis · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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