The Semantic Composition of Basque ‘Noun + "egin"’ predicates

  1. Fernando García Murga 1
  1. 1 Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
    info

    Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea

    Lejona, España

    ROR https://ror.org/000xsnr85

Revista:
Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca Julio de Urquijo: International journal of basque linguistics and philology

ISSN: 0582-6152

Año de publicación: 2018

Volumen: 52

Número: 1-2

Páginas: 271-292

Tipo: Artículo

Otras publicaciones en: Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca Julio de Urquijo: International journal of basque linguistics and philology

Resumen

Basque ‘Noun + egin’ (‘make’) expressions display striking properties for the Grammar of Basque: They have ‘defective’ morpho-syntax and semantics, involve discourse opacity, lack scope relations, and show a highly constrained combinatory. These are, however, typical features of (semantic) incorporation structures. A semantic analysis of bare nouns shows that they denote properties. Bounded and unbounded properties will be distinguished. Unbounded properties but not bounded properties project an inherent quantification phrase. This difference explains the distribution of the partitive in ‘Noun + egin’ expressions. Given the semantics of their components, the interpretation follows compositional rules. Nonetheless, some idiosyncrasies remain in these structures.