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A Very Complex Criterion of Fixedness: Non-Compositionality: Maria Helena Svensson
A Very Complex Criterion of Fixedness: Non-Compositionality: Maria Helena Svensson
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. Introduction
than one. In some cases, it is clear which aspect(s) are taken into account, but often
this is not stated explicitly. This makes it hard to define non-compositionality. Reveal-
ing the different aspects involved and specifying which aspect of non-compositionality
is intended in a given problem, definition or discussion, may lead to ways of avoiding
confusion.
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the same word in indexes or glossaries is also of importance here. Hudson (1998: 176)
says, for instance, in her index: “compositionality [...] see also analysability”. In Moon’s
(1998: 334) index, we read: “compositionality [...] see also motivation, transparency”.
The glossary of Gross (1996: 154) relates the terms compositionality and opacity:
“Compositionnalité [...] (voir Opacité)”.
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expression, the origin has been forgotten. This might be the case in expressions such as
purple prose or the French nuit blanche (‘white night’ – a night when one doesn’t sleep).
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lished and conventionalised in the language in question. One possible explanation for
the conventionalisation of some of the examples given above is that of alliteration (see
Svensson (2004: 95) on phonological structure and Boers & Lindstromberg (2005),
who mention alliteration as a cognitively salient feature within another criterion of
fixedness, that of memorability).
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The example lay down the law is equally interesting. Since Gibbs (1994: 278) states
that each word contributes independently to the figurative interpretation of the ex-
pression as a whole, each of the words lay, down, the and law should contribute to the
meaning of the idiom. At a closer look, it can be difficult to see how each part con-
tributes independently to the meaning of the whole. The last part of this expression is
less problematic. The law refers to laws, rules or principles that must be applied in a
given situation. But how does lay contribute to the meaning? And down? Lay can mean
‘put’ or ‘place’, but how the word down contributes independently to the meaning is
not clear. Lay and down together can also mean ‘place’ or ‘put’, so this part of the ex-
pression can be said to mean ‘impose’ or something similar. But there is no obvious
relation between the down part of the expression and the figurative interpretation. An-
other possible meaning of lay down is ‘put aside’, which would imply the opposite of
‘impose’. A comparison with the Swedish expression lägga ner (literally ‘lay down’) is
interesting here. These two words can be parts of expressions like lägga ner fabriken
(literally ‘lay down the factory’ – close the factory) and lägga ner sin röst (literally ‘lay
down one’s voice’ – refrain from voting). In other words, it is not obvious that the
words in the expression lay down the law each contribute individually to the meaning
of the expression.
More obvious examples of unanalysable expressions are bite the dust and saw logs.
They are both unanalysable, since it is the expression as a whole that makes up the
sense of the expression. The words contribute to the meaning, but not individually,
since it is not possible to say which part means what.
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[...] in any language, there are many sequences that a foreigner cannot interpret
literally, even if he or she knows the common meaning of all the words that make
them up. This is the case in the following sentence: La moutarde lui monte au
nez [‘The mustard goes up his nose’]. The ‘ordinary’ meaning of the words in this
sentence does not allow one to conclude that the whole sentence means that a per-
son is getting angry. We will say that this sentence does not have a compositional
meaning. [my translation] (Gross 1996: 11)2
. “Dans les langues, il existe un grand nombre de suites qu’un étranger ne peut pas interpréter
littéralement, même s’il connaît le sens habituel de tous les mots qui les composent. Il en est
ainsi de la phrase suivante: La moutarde lui monte au nez. Le sens ‘ordinaire’ des mots de cette
phrase ne permet pas de conclure que la phrase dans son ensemble signifie que l’on parle d’une
personne qui se fâche. Nous dirons que cette phrase n’a pas de lecture compositionnelle.”
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and transparency/opacity are therefore more subjective and difficult to use as definite
criteria. They may be of use in other contexts, but it is not certain that definitions of
fixed expressions benefit from the use of the terms opaque or non-motivatable. I have
stated elsewhere (see Svensson 2004) that none of the features non-motivatable, opac-
ity, unanalysability and figurative meaning are both necessary and sufficient conditions
for defining fixed expressions.
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than their compositional value”. His example with the (made up) expression “patri-
otic pole-climber” (Langacker 1987: 454) is rather specific. There are actual, existing
expressions which are less spectacular. Consider for instance the compound green-
house. It is fairly transparent, easily motivated, partially literal (the house in itself is
not necessarily green, but its appearance might be because of its content) and both
green and house contribute to the meaning. But it is, of course, not just a ‘green
house’. An even more obvious example is perhaps the White House, which can re-
fer to something that is exactly that: a house that is white. In most contexts, there
is also an important meaning which includes the American government or politics.
This meaning, however, is not possible to derive just from the meaning of ‘white’ and
the meaning of ‘house’. Our encyclopaedic knowledge tells us about the additional
meaning of this compound. Barkema (1996: 139) refers to this kind of expression as
“pseudo-compositional”, while Mel’čuk (1998: 30) calls them “quasi-phrasemes” or
“quasi-idioms”. Martin (1997: 297) gives some examples in French, for instance at-
tendre un bébé which means ‘expect a baby’ (literally ‘wait for a baby’), but also much
more. Attendre un bébé is not just about expecting the arrival of (any) baby, but also
implies (in the case of a mother-to-be) carrying a foetus in the body while it is develop-
ing. What one awaits is for the mother to give birth to the baby. In this context, Warren
(2001: 110) talks about “unexpressed constraints” and “conventional meaning”. For
instance, the conventional meaning of from coast to coast, includes an unexpressed
constraint, implying that such a journey should take place over land, and not over
water, even though the latter could also describe travelling from coast to coast.
In the descriptions given above, the definitions are simplified. As Langacker (1987: 449)
points out, the compositionality of an expression is often a question of partial com-
positionality rather than a clear-cut compositional/non-compositional dichotomy:
“[l]inguistic phenomena lend themselves more easily to a claim of partial rather than
full compositionality” (see also Barkema 1996: 140). The same is true for some of the
components examined in the dichotomies. At least two of the dichotomies are more
likely to be scalar than either/or. The motivation as well as the literal meaning of an ex-
pression can be partial. It might be more problematic to define a ‘partial transparency’.
Either you understand the expression or you do not. The same goes for analysability.
Either you can tell which part contributes which meaning or you cannot.
The scalarity of motivation and literal meaning can be illustrated with the French
expression marcher sur des œufs (‘walk on eggs’), which can have several meanings,
depending on context. It is, of course, possible to walk on eggs in the most literal
and concrete sense of the words, although this probably does not occur very often.
If this meaning is intended, the expression is literal and motivated. Another possible
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meaning of this expression is ‘to walk on the ground with caution’. This meaning is
probably intended more often than the literal one. There are usually no eggs present
in this context, but the reference to eggs can be said to be motivated (motivatable).
Eggs are fragile and can therefore be associated with caution. The verb still has its
literal meaning. Consequently, the expression is partially literal (or partly figurative),
but still motivatable. The expression has one more possible meaning: ‘to act with cau-
tion’. Here, the meaning of the verb is less salient. The action is not specified and walk
must now be taken as a figurative meaning for ‘act’ in some way. The motivation for
the verb is no longer obvious. The word eggs is still motivatable, since the meaning
‘with caution’ is still present. The third possible meaning of the expression is therefore
figurative, and partly motivatable.
As we have seen, the expressions saw logs and bite the dust are unanalysable, which
means that the words do not contribute individually to the meaning of the expres-
sions in question, although the expressions taken as whole units might be motivatable
and/or transparent. Two other terms that are sometimes evoked in this context are
holistic and atomistic. Gosselin (1996: 161) uses the term “atomistic compositional
approach” to describe cases where the global meaning (‘signification globale’) is a di-
rect result of the analyses of the individual meanings of the elements that make up an
utterance. The terms atomistic and analysable seem to be related as do the terms holis-
tic and unanalysable. An unanalysable expression such as saw logs (where neither saw
nor logs make up the meaning ‘snore’) is nevertheless motivatable if looked upon in a
holistic perspective. Taken as a whole, the expression has a logical interpretation via an
association of the sound that a snoring person makes.
In order to describe yet another aspect of compositionality, let us look at two ways
of deciding on the motivatability of an expression. Here, the French expression les
carottes sont cuites (literally ‘the carrots are cooked’, meaning ‘it’s over’, ‘it’s no use’, ‘it’s
too late’) is a useful example. When looking at the meaning (that is, the semantic or
lexical content) of each of the words in the expression, it is easy to draw the conclusion
that it is non-motivatable. Nothing in the semantics of carrots or cooking carrots yields
‘it’s over’ as a logical conclusion. However, the grammatical form of this expression is
actually motivatable. The verb form in the expression implies that the action in the
expression has already taken place and is indeed concluded. It would be less logical to
use a progressive form or another choice of tense (such as the future or the present)
to express the rather fatalistic state that is evoked by the expression. Likewise, using an
adjective instead of the verb would not be a natural way to express the irreversibility of
the event. This aspect should therefore be taken into account when the motivatability
or transparency of an expression is being decided.
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. Conclusion
This chapter shows that there are many notions that appear in descriptions of the
notion of (non)-compositionality, some of which are lexical content and grammat-
ical form, partial compositionality, atomistic and holistic compositionality, proto-
typicality, salience and common meaning. Some of these notions, such as atomistic
compositionality and analysability, are equivalents or near equivalents.
The properties most commonly associated with (non-)compositionality are prob-
ably the dichotomies motivation/non-motivation, transparency/opacity, analysabil-
ity/unanalysability and literal/figurative meaning. In the definitions examined here,
there is clearly an association between each of the four notions of non-motivation,
opacity, unanalysability and figurative meaning and the notion of non-compositionality.
Even so, these concepts are not equivalents. More than one of them can appear in the
same definition. The proof that they are not synonyms is that the same expression
can be classified on different sides of the dichotomies. It can thus be shown that the
dichotomies are relevant notions on their own and that they exist independently.
There is no doubt that the notion of (non-)compositionality is very complex.
While it is interesting and in many respects relevant in discussions about fixed ex-
pressions, the complexity makes it difficult to apply an all-embracing notion of non-
compositionality as a criterion for fixed expressions and prefabs. Unless it is possible
to be very specific about which aspect is intended, other criteria are probably better
suited for defining fixed expressions (see Svensson 2004: 109 for further discussion of
alternatives).
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