Ühendverbidest läbi prosoodia prisma
Particle verbs and prosody

Summary/Abstract: This paper investigates a class of verb-particle combinations in Estonian and their status as particle verbs vs. syntactic phrases. The paper first gives a brief overview of the main difficulties with defining and classifying particle verbs in Estonian (the difference between noun-verb combinations and adverb-verb combinations; verbal particle (afiksaaladverb) as a separate word class in Estonian, etc.). The second part of the paper presents the results of a prosodic study. The study has two primary aims: 1. To ascertain whether we can use prosody to investigate the grammatical status of verb-particle combinations, and 2. to contribute to the discussion of the lexical vs. syntactic nature of compositional verb-particle combinations in Estonian. The results of the study suggest that complex predicates and syntactics phrases are prosodically different, and, consequently, that prosodic analysis can be used as a method to study the lexical vs. phrasal status of verb-particle combinations. As to the status of compositional verb-particle combinations, the results support their treatment as complex predicates rather than phrases. The results further suggest that elements that are intermediate between lexicon and syntax may also be in some sense located on a prosodic continuum.

• Details
• Contents