Beyond syntacticocentric and lexicalist: Event-structural force-dynamic approach to noun incorporation and promotion to direct object in Amguema Chukchi

Abstract

There are two most common approaches to analyzing noun incorporation: syntacticocentric, which derives this construction via syntactic movement, and lexicalist, which argues that this complex verbal stem is formed by compounding in the lexicon via rules operating in a verbal lexical entry. Without discussing the general theoretical possibility of such analyses, in this paper I advocate a much less widespread analysis of noun incorporation. I argue that noun incorporation rules are directly derivable from the event structure. Taking W. Croft’s approach to argument and event structure, I review previous studies and provide some new field data which point towards event-structural analysis of noun incorporation and promotion to direct object formulated in concepts of force dynamics, affectedness and subevents’ ordering. I also argue that the force-dynamic analysis I propose does not postulate idiosyncratic rules: the restrictions I formulate for noun incorporation and promotion in Amguema Chukchi are simultaneously cognitively and diachronically grounded.