Compositionality of NN Compounds: A Case Study on [N1+Artifactual-Type Event Nouns]

Copyright 2012 by Shan Wang, Chu-Ren Huang, and Hongzhi Xu 26th Pacific Asia Conference on Language,Information and Computation pages 70–79 Compositionality of NN Compounds: A Case Study on [N1+Artifactual-Type Event Nouns] Shan Wang1, 2 Chu-Ren Huang1 Hongzhi Xu1 1Dept. of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong 2 Department of Computer Science, Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis University {wangshanstar, churenhuang, hongz.xu} @gmail.com Abstract Generative Lexicon theory (GL) establishes three mechanisms at work when a predicate selects an argument, i.e. pure selection, accommodation and type coercion. They are widely used in verbal selection of nouns in the entity domain. However, little attention has been devoted to the compositionality of [N1+event noun] type NN compounds. This paper extends the usage of these mechanisms in two ways: 1) the eventive nominal head selection of a nominal modifier, and 2) their use in the eventive domain, through the case study on [N1+��b�sài ‘competition’]. Moreover, it reveals a new compositional mechanism sub- composition. It also discovers the domain contribution in type coercion. This work enriches the study on compositionality and GL. 1 Introduction Event nouns in Mandarin Chinese have generated extensive interest (Han 2007, 2011; Liu 2004; Ma 1995; Wang & Huang 2011a, 2011b, 2012a, 2012c, 2012d). However, little research has concerned about the compositional mechanisms at work in [N1+event noun] type [N1N2]N compounds. Generative Lexicon theory (GL) provides a rich compositional representation through generative devices (Pustejovsky 1993, 2001, 2006, 2011; Pustejovsky & Jezek 2008). Under a tripartite system of the domain of individuals, including natural types, artifactual types and complex types (Pustejovsky 2001, 2006; Pustejovsky & Jezek 2008), GL establishes three mechanisms at work when a predicate selects an argument. 1) Pure Selection (Type Matching): the type a function requires is directly satis�ed by the argument; 2) Accommodation: the type a function requires is inherited by the argument; 3) Type Coercion: the type a function requires is imposed on the argument type. This is accomplished by either: (i) Exploitation: taking a part of the argument’s type to satisfy the function; (ii) Introduction: wrapping the argument with the type required by the function. Following Pustejovsky (2001, 2006) and Pustejovsky & Jezek (2008), Wang & Huang (2012e) establish a type system for event nouns, including natural types, artifactual types, natural complex types and artifactual complex types. The current paper only focuses on artifactual-type event nouns and explores the compositional mechanisms of nominal modification to these nouns in NN compounds. Furthermore, the domain information contribution to the reading of a NN compound is surveyed. � 2 Data Collection The data of this study are mostly extracted from Chinese Gigaword (second edition) 1 and Sinica Corpus 2 accessed through Chinese Word Sketch Engine 3 , with a few examples collected online through the search engines Google and Baidu. ������������������������������������������������������������ 1http://www.ldc.upenn.edu/Catalog/catalogEntry.jsp?catalogId =LDC2009T14 2 http://db1x.sinica.edu.tw/kiwi/mkiwi/ 3 http://158.132.124.36/, http://wordsketch.ling.sinica.edu.tw/ 70 3 Compositional Mechanisms of [N1 + Artifactual-Type Event Nouns] The internal structure of NN compounds has been widely investigated (Jackendoff 1975; Laurie Bauer …

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