My email to Alec (test post)

To test out this system, I am pasting here the message that I sent to Alec that he alluded to in his document prior to the most recent meeting:

Hi Alec,

Cc'ing Neil here just because we were talking about some of this separately. I had a few issues that I was thinking about in response to your innocuous paper. I was sort of looking for a way to bring this up in the meeting, but the very interesting conversation went in a different direction and I wanted to see where that would go, rather than hijacking it with things that I haven't really worked out myself. I'll keep them short...

(1) Are we ok with lots of semantically “meaningless” roots? So e.g. [v √ORGAN [v √IZE v]] + [n √ATION n ] could have a Ø interpretation for v and √IZE. This kind of question comes up in my analysis of -væða verbs in chapter 6 of my nominalizations book, although I stopped short of giving a definitive general answer. (I just said that one way or another, -væða verbs cannot have semantically Ø v.)

(2) What about root-root structures? I know Dave hates these, but suppose we have [√OUS √CURI √OUS ], as complex bound root headed by √OUS (maybe the labeling isn't necessary). So adjectivizing little a can select for it ("seeing" the √OUS), but [n √ITY n ] can see both parts of [√CURI √OUS ] (so it doesn’t need to care about [ √OUS ] specifically; it can "select" for both).

(3) I often think about the distinction (or sometimes lack thereof) between compounds and derivation. This approach brings that to the forefront for me. Is there a difference between a compound with a bound root (say, "cranberry" to take a classic, which would perhaps be [n √CRAN [n √BERRY]]) and a root-derived word with an overt affix, like [n √PAUC [n √ITY ]]?

Best,

Jim