A Categorial Analysis of Bracketing Paradoxes in English

Abstract

In this paper I present a formal account of "bracketing paradoxes" in morphology under a categorial framework. In this kind of system, Category Raising (CR) plays an important role in removing the "mismatches" between phonology and semantics. However, no previous approach was successful in properly restricting the application of CR. So, I propose two constraints for this purpose: a formal restriction and a lexical restriction. The former says that CR applies only when the arrangement of the morphemes in a word fits with a specified format. The latter, which is imposed by the lexicon, is an auxiliary constraint to the first restriction. We will see that this system can also provide a good account of bracketing paradoxes in compounds.