Morpho-Syntactic Studies of Compound Adjectives in English: Toward Universalities of Compounding

本研究的目的是阐明英语复合形容词的形态和句法特征，既要注意共性，又要注意语言的特殊性。具体地说，提出了以下问题并试图回答这些问题：(1)复合形容词在多大程度上是递归的？(2)两种主要类型的复合形容词(即复合形容词)有什么异同？[X-A]_A和[X-Ved]_A)和复合形容词带什么补语？(3)日语复合形容词有什么性质，什么可以成为复合的共性候选？关于(1)，已经清楚地表明，复合形容词中的递归仅限于看起来像汽车事故这样的情况，尽管也有许多例子在左侧的复合名词成分中表现出递归，如姜汁汽水瓶绿。至于(2)，这两种主要类型的相似之处在于，它们可以用由A(Ved)P NP组成的形容词短语来释义(例如，免税=免税，负载丙烷=负载丙烷)，但它们的不同之处在于，只有前者允许协调的内部结构(即聋哑人)。第三个问题从化合物中心位置的角度进行了研究，发现了中心结构向中心结构转变的一般过程。通过近两年的研究，人们对复合形容词的一般性质有了明确的认识。

The aim of this research is to explicate morphological and syntactic properties of compound adjectives in English, paying attention to universalities as well as language-specific properties. Specifically, the following questions have been raised and attempts have been made to answer them: (1) to what extent are compound adjectives recursive?; (2) what are similarities and differences between two main types of compound adjectives (i.e. [X-A]_A and [X-Ved]_A) and what complements compound adjectives take?; (3) what properties do Japanese compound adjectives have and what can be candidates for universalities of compounding?As for (1), it has been made clear that recursion in compound adjectives are limited to cases such as motor car accident prone seeming, although there are many examples showing recursion in a compound noun element of the lefthand side such as ginger ale bottle green. As for (2), the two main types are similar in that they can be paraphrased with adjective phrases consisting of A (Ved) P NP (e.g. tax-free = free of/from tax, propane-loaded =loaded with propane), but they are different in that only the former allows coordinated internal structure (i.e. deaf-mute). The third issue has been investigated from a viewpoint of the position of a head of compounds, and general processes of changing head-initial structures into head-final structures have been found. General properties of compound adjectives have been clarified through my research for these past two years.