1 Motivation, compositionality, idiomatization

Abstract

"Motivation", "compositionality" and "idiomatization" are closely connected notions that are sometimes used as synonyms (motivation and compositionality) or antonyms (motivation and compositionality vs. idiomatization). The present article provides a short overview of the recent history of research on these phenomena, discusses the central questions and problems linked to them and places them in the context of word-formation research.

1 Introduction and preliminary definitions

English preacher (cf. Ullmann 1962: 91) is generally believed to be a motivated word for essentially two reasons: First of all, because its form most obviously consists of the verbal element preach and the agent suffix -er; second, because every speaker of English (including L2 learners) who is familiar with the meaning of both preach and -er is also able to infer the semantics of preacher from the semantics of its parts when hearing it for the first time. The word preacher can thus easily be understood as 'someone who preaches' (cf. also speaker, reader, singer, thinker in Ullmann 1962: 91). From this perspective, English deverbal agent nouns in -er can also be regarded as "compositional" (cf. Barz 1982: 8). Still, in some cases, compositionality seems to be less straightforward than in the examples cited above. Barz (1982: 18, following Uluchanov 1977) observes that German Zuschauer 'spectator' (verbal stem zuschau- 'to watch' + agent suffix -er) and Bäcker 'baker' (verbal stem back- + agent suffix -er) are not compositional to the same degree: While a Zuschauer is just any person carrying out the action of zuschauen, a Bäcker typically carries out the action of backen professionally. In her view, instances such as Bäcker are still motivated, but slightly idiomatized, because their sense deviates from the "expected" compositional sense. In other cases idiomatization seems to be even stronger than in the case of G. Bäcker. Though the form of G. Bauer 'farmer', e.g., is composed of the verbal stem bau- 'to construct' and, again, the agent suffix -er, the meaning of Bauer is related more closely to G. anbauen 'to grow something' than to bauen 'to construct' (cf. Marzo 2014).

The main purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the recent history of research on the phenomena of motivation, compositionality and idiomatization as sketched above (as well as related notions such as iconicity, transparency and lexicalization) and to discuss them in the context of word-formation (cf. section 2). Special attention will be given to the role of human perception as a driving force behind all issues related to motivational phenomena (cf. section 3).

2 Motivation, compositionality, idiomatization and word-formation

2.1 Do the formal properties of words correspond to what they express?

In the various shapes it may take, this question is at the core of any linguistic semiotic reflection. At the latest since Plato's Cratylus (cf. Plato 1996), throughout centuries and across philosophical traditions (cf. the contributions in Simone 1990; Coseriu 2004), two extreme positions on this issue have been discussed: (i) the form of words corresponds "by nature" to what they express (naturalist position) and are therefore motivated; (ii) the form of words is purely conventional and does not have anything to do with what they express (conventionalist position), which is why words are arbitrary. This article focuses on the intermediate position that has, in modern times, been formulated by Saussure (1972 [1916]: 182-183) and researched by modern lexicologists and morphologists of different theoretical backgrounds (cf. sections 2.2-2.3): Linguistic signs are only "relatively motivated" (Saussure 1972 [1916]: 182; cf. section 2.2.1), as are the agent nouns in section 1. In the following subsections I will first discuss some approaches to motivation in the lexicon (2.2) as well as its relation to iconicity (2.3), and then take a closer look at how motivation relates to the notions of compositionality and idiomatization (2.4).

2.2 Cornerstones in lexical motivation research

2.2.1 Saussure and the notion of "relative motivation"

Though linguistic signs are, in Saussure's opinion (1972 [1916]: 100), fundamentally arbitrary, he argues that every language has at least some relatively motivated lexemes (1972 [1916]: 182-183). Even if onomatopoeic words and exclamations tend to play a relatively marginal role in a language's lexicon, they could - at first sight - be a valid objection to the principle of arbitrariness (1972 [1916]: 100-102). However, the simple fact that they differ across languages demonstrates that they are only an approximate imitation of the concept they designate, meaning that they are at least partly conventional and thus only relatively motivated (cf. Fr. ouaoua vs. G. wauwau 'bow-wow; sound of a dog's barking'; 1972 [1916]: 102). The same is true for linguistic signs that can be analysed syntagmatically and are paradigmatically related to other signs, such as Fr. poirier 'pear-tree', that evokes not only the morphologically simple word poire 'pear', but whose suffix -ier calls to mind paradigmatically related words such as pommier 'apple-tree', cerisier 'cherry-tree', etc. (1972 [1916]: 181). Since the morphologically simple parts of which motivated words consist are themselves still fundamentally arbitrary, the latter can only be considered as relatively motivated (for a discussion of different interpretations of Saussure's notion of arbitrariness cf. Marzo 2013: 33-34 and the literature cited therein).

2.2.2 Ullmann's "types of motivation"

Ullmann, who terms arbitrary words "opaque" and motivated words "transparent" (1962: 80-115), distinguishes three types of motivation, i.e. phonetic, morphological and semantic motivation. Phonetic motivation concerns a direct relation between the form of a word and its meaning (cf. also section 2.3) in the sense that the meaning of the sign somehow motivates its form. This type of motivation is most typically represented by onomatopoeia (for the distinction of different subtypes of onomatopoeia, cf. Ullmann 1962: 84). Morphological motivation concerns, in Ullmann's view (1962: 91), morphologically complex words as the English agent nouns in -er or compounds such as penholder or penknife. Semantic motivation, in turn, is primarily characterised by metaphors and metonymies and mainly concerns polysemous words, such as E. bonnet, which is not only a special type of headdress, but also the cover of a car's engine (cf. Ullmann 1962: 91-92; on semantic motivation, cf. also Bally 1965 [1932]: 137-139 and the critique in Scheidegger 1981; Fill 1980b; Augst 1996; Geeraerts 2003). Although Ullmann distinguishes these three types of motivation, especially his discussion of compounds suggests that words are not necessarily motivated in one way only, but that morphological and semantic motivation often come along in combination (cf. 1962: 92): E. blue-bell is not only motivated morphologically (decomposable in blue and bell), but also semantically (i.e. metaphorically), because the flower actually resembles a blue bell. He thus foreshadows what most motivational and word-formation researchers after him will agree upon: the principled interaction between morphological and semantic motivation (cf. Sauvageot 1964: 57; Marchand 1969: 2; Gauger 1971; Rufener 1971; Bartosze­wicz 1974: 71-73; Shaw 1979; Fill 1980b; Rettig 1981; Bellmann 1988; Swanepoel 1992: 52; Rainer 1993: 16; Hiraga 1994; ­Gruaz 2002: 700; Radden and Panther 2004; Panther and Radden 2011a).

2.2.3 Koch's "dimensions of motivation"

Koch (2001; cf. also Koch and Marzo 2007) eventually systematizes the interaction between morphological and semantic motivation from a cognitive perspective and shows that they are not two types of motivation that can occasionally combine, but that they are two "dimensions" of non-onomatopoetic lexical motivation. Consequently, they co-occur systematically: "a lexical item L1 [.] expressing a concept C1 is motivated with respect to a lexical item L2, if there is a cognitively relevant relation between C1 and C2, paralleled by a recognizable formal relation between the signifiants of L1 and L2" (Koch 2001: 1156). The "cognitively relevant relations" are the...