Comments on: Some careful thought and it would have been clearer http://noncompositional.com/2006/08/some-careful-thought-and-it-would-have-been-clearer/ Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:04:39 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Russell http://noncompositional.com/2006/08/some-careful-thought-and-it-would-have-been-clearer/comment-page-1/#comment-1693 Russell Sat, 19 Aug 2006 22:51:02 +0000 http://noncompositional.com/2006/08/some-careful-thought-and-it-would-have-been-clearer/#comment-1693 <p>Ah, yes, of course I agree that these sorts of constructions are not the sort that are properly analyzed without context. But sometimes there is a limit that a construction imposes on the range of situations in which it can be used, and I was wondering if any existed for this one.</p> <p>To pull a random example that I have no expertise on at all, noun compounds in English have very vague interpretations. "Photography store" could be a place that sells photographs, equipment for making them, or storing/enjoying/selling them, or probably that just has a lot of photographs all over the place. But in a context of talking about stores that hate certain things (like a restaurant that absolutely will not have laminated menus or hang photographs of famous people who've visited them), I'm not entirely sure that "(that) photography store (on Main St.)" could mean 'that store that abhors anything to do with photography.'</p> <p>But don't make me do a corpus search. I might end up proving myself wrong. =)</p> Ah, yes, of course I agree that these sorts of constructions are not the sort that are properly analyzed without context. But sometimes there is a limit that a construction imposes on the range of situations in which it can be used, and I was wondering if any existed for this one.

To pull a random example that I have no expertise on at all, noun compounds in English have very vague interpretations. “Photography store” could be a place that sells photographs, equipment for making them, or storing/enjoying/selling them, or probably that just has a lot of photographs all over the place. But in a context of talking about stores that hate certain things (like a restaurant that absolutely will not have laminated menus or hang photographs of famous people who’ve visited them), I’m not entirely sure that “(that) photography store (on Main St.)” could mean ‘that store that abhors anything to do with photography.’

But don’t make me do a corpus search. I might end up proving myself wrong. =)

]]> By: The Ridger http://noncompositional.com/2006/08/some-careful-thought-and-it-would-have-been-clearer/comment-page-1/#comment-1688 The Ridger Sat, 19 Aug 2006 18:41:07 +0000 http://noncompositional.com/2006/08/some-careful-thought-and-it-would-have-been-clearer/#comment-1688 <p>I think in your latter examples they can be interpreted many ways depending upon the context (as I tell my students, context is prince consort [grammar is queen]). If we're talking about someone trying to be hired as an editor, the "successful book" would have been one he edited; the "glowing biography" could be about her in one context, and by her in another.</p> <p>One problem with trying to analyze sentences like these is that they aren't produced in a vacuum - they're part of discourse, and pragmatics will play a huge role in their interpretation.</p> I think in your latter examples they can be interpreted many ways depending upon the context (as I tell my students, context is prince consort [grammar is queen]). If we’re talking about someone trying to be hired as an editor, the “successful book” would have been one he edited; the “glowing biography” could be about her in one context, and by her in another.

One problem with trying to analyze sentences like these is that they aren’t produced in a vacuum – they’re part of discourse, and pragmatics will play a huge role in their interpretation.

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