Without semantics there is no structure: the non-decompositionality of proper nouns
Authors
- Antonio Fábregas (ES) CASTL (Universitetet i Tromsø) / RETEM (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)N-9037, Humanities Faculty, Universitet i Tromsø, Noruega
Abstract
In this article we argue in favour of a specifi c morphological analysis of proper names that derives from the general principle of form-meaning isomorphism. We argue that proper names are not segmented morphologically because their meaning is not compositionally constructed from their constituents. Our data come from toponyms and their behaviour with respect to gender agreement; we argue that these nouns have a variable gender assignment because the speaker does not recognise a desinence in them, unless other principles force the speaker to identify this unit. This makes it possible that gender is used to express a semantic contrast in the case of this class of proper names.
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Copyright (c) 2006 Pragmalingüística
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