著者

佐藤 知己

出版者

北海道大学大学院文学研究科北方研究教育センター

雑誌

北方人文研究 (ISSN:1882773X)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.1, pp.55-68, 2008-03-31

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It is known that Ainu has two types of compound noun constructions: the “modifying construction” and the “pseudo-modifying construction”. However, the term “modifying construction” from the outset contradicts the so-called “syntactic atomicity”of words, one of the most basic principles of word formation in general linguistic terms. Here, I suggest that among the compound nouns with the modifying construction, some are compound nouns exceptional in their construction, formed, as it were, directly from phrases (i.e. “phrase-word” by Bloomfield), while others are words containing a kind of verbal noun converted from the corresponding intransitive verb, formed, in turn, through “object-incorporation”. This assumption is supported by the fact that the number of compound nouns with the modifying construction is not so large in the lexicon as a whole (so, exceptional and marginal)and also supported by the fact that examples of the compound nouns with the modifying constituent “subject+transitive verb” are extremely few: the pattern “subject+transitive verb”is usually not possible as an intransitive verb with noun incorporation in Ainu, and therefore cannot be used as a verbal noun of the first member of a compound noun.