C-rule

Compounding or composition is the word-formation process of creating compounds by combining or putting together lexemes.

Expressing compounds in the UNL^arium

In the UNL^arium framework, compounds are treated as ordinary simple words except in case of discontinuous multi-word expressions or with infixation (such as "give in" or "take into account"). In these cases, the lemma is different from the base form, and the compound-formation process is expected to be defined through S-rules such as the following:

<SYNTACTIC ROLE>(<ADDED>);

Where:
<SYNTACTIC ROLE> is the syntactic role (VA, VC, VS, VH, etc) of the term to be added to the base form; and
<ADDED> is the term to be added to the base form to form the compound. It can be a string between "quotes" or a lemma between [brackets]

Examples

Lemma	Base Form	Compound	Description
give in	give	VH([in])	the lemma "in" is to be added to the base form as part of the head of the verb (VH)
take into account	take	VA("into account")	the string "into account" is to be added to the base form as an adjunct to the verb (VA)
throw <person> to the lions	throw	VA("to the lions")VC(NP)	the string "to the lions" is to be added to the base form as an adjunct to the verb (VA) and a noun phrase (NP) is to be added as a complement to the verb (VC)

Observations

Phrasal verbs

Particles of phrasal verbs must be represented as part of the head, if non separable, or as adjuncts, if separable:

• give in = VH([in]); ("give in something" but "give something in")
• give back = VA([back]); ("give back something" or "give something back")

Strings and lemmas

In the compound-formation process, the UNL^arium distinguishes between strings (to be represented between "") and lemmas (to be represented between [ ]). The difference between strings and lemmas has to do with the dictionary status. Lemmas, but not strings, are expected to be defined as dictionary entries:

• VA("into account"); (add the string "into account" as a verbal adjunct, take > take into account)
• VC([love]); (add the lemma "love" as a verbal complement, such as in make > make love)

In the above, it's unlikely to have "into account" as a single entry, whereas "love" is probably already there.

Segmentation

Compounds must include as many terms as different syntactic roles:

• give up the gost = VH(A0,[up])VC(A1,"the ghost"); (VH("up the ghost") or VC("up the ghost"))

In complex compounds, order is to be represented by the features ">", ">>", "<" or "<<", if not default;

• VC([love]); (order must not be informed, because complements come at the right side, by default, in English)
• NS([the]); (order must not be informed, because specifiers come at the left side, by default, in English)
• NA(>>,"in arms"); (order must be informed, because nominal adjuncts come at the left side, by default)

In complex compounds, adjacency is to be represented by the adjacency features (A0, A1, ...), if inflexible

• give up the ghost = VH(A0,[up])VC(A1,"the ghost"); (adjacency must be informed because give the ghost up)
• take something into account = VA("into account")VC(NP); (adjacency must not be informed because both "take sth into account" and "take into account sth" are possible)

Syntax

Compounds may be explicitly expressed by S-rules, a formalism for describing the syntactic structure of phrases.