A Study On The Formation Of English"Object-verb Nuclear" Complex Words

Compounding is a mean of language recursion,also is a mechanism of language derivation.English can be interpreted as a NP in English learner,which can be understood as a leaner who learns English.Argument is the element which illustrates the theta role of agent,theme,etc.surrounding the verb.Some certain syntactic theory can describe the syntactic position of subject and complement.While the relation of argument structure can still be reflected in some compounds.e.g.housekeeper,bookseller,etc.English learner presents a complete argument structure in the aspect of syntactic structure.The surface grammatical relations show a representation of O+V+S and the deep syntactic relations are S+V+O,which represents a morphosyntactic isomorphism as well as the mirror principle.The thesis names after the structure as English“object-verb nuclear”complex words,and thinks that the object-verb is acted as a core part and then affixes are attached,complex means the process of syntactic derivation experiences compounding and derivation.Besides,the thesis chooses two complex words,truck-driver and truck-driving,these two words hold an identical mechanism before the entry of affixes.The thesis intends to find a common and united mechanism for the two complex words whose overt representations are different.This thesis mainly talks about the following issues:firstly,how does the“object-verb nuclear”complex words,which reflect a complete argument structure generate?What's the distinct character of the complex words?Besides,the syntactic derivation doesn't intend to produce a verb,the resultant complex is a word which expresses a entity(noun)or a modification(adjective),the process of syntactic derivation of English learner is not the process of*English learn plus an suffix-er(though the overt morphology show this kind of formation),since there isn't*English learn in English language,so what are the reasons of lacking the intermediate process?The property of“object-verb nuclear”complex words contain productive,structural,predictive,so what kind of verbs can take the whole structure as a head?Why does the fixed construction prohibit the entry of inflectional morpheme to the noun element.According to the two patterns of English“object-verb nuclear”complex words,truck-driver,truck-driving,the thesis illustrates the different syntactic derivation,of which-er belongs to the structure that reflects complete argument structure,-ing can be acted as nominalization.The analysis is corresponding to the theory of principle and parameter.The research mainly finds that the process of syntactic derivation truck-driver is the merge of driver and truck as the traditional viewpoint,which is rejected in this thesis,the syntactic derivation of English“object-verb nuclear”is the merger of roots.The syntactic derivation of English“object-verb nuclear”complex words is not the combination of words simply,and the order of each morpheme can be ensured by means of the RHP which leads the verb is located in the right position and the participation of affixes.The compounding process includes two parts,first is merger,second is compounding.The whole syntactic derivation is lack of intermeidiate process as a result that it doesn't take the verb production as a purpose,because of the absence of*English learn,for example the illegal expression,*He English-learned last night.Another example is illustrated to explain the absence.Truckcan be acted upon as a verb and can be understood as a driver of truck when attaching-er.So it's not necessary to produce a verbal structure again.Also,there is an exception,for instance,housekeepis legal in English language.But the syntactic derivation of housekeep belongs to the back formation after the produce of housekeeping,just to clip the suffix-ing.Besides,the isoconstruction between syntactic structure and morphological structure is throughout the whole research,mirror principle tends to investigate the observation of syntactic structure which is reflected by the inner structure of the word unit.Based on the assumption that roots have no syntactic features,the thesis takes the“object-verb nuclear”compounds as a research object.