Luo: from Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics

2008-04-29T10:15:02Z

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In morphosyntax, '''co-analysis''' is a concept proposed by Williams (1979) and Di Sciullo & Williams (1987) to account for a situation where one grammatical function (e.g. [[possessive]]) is expressed syntactically as well as morphologically, i.e. by adding a grammatical element both to a phrase as a whole and to the [[head]] of that phrase.

===Examples===
The English possessive marker '''s'' sometimes appears to be attached to a possessor phrase as a whole (cf. (i)), and in other cases it seems to be attached to a [[noun]] (cf. (ii)):

''(i) [the man on the corner]'s hat''

''(ii) his hat (= [he]'s hat)''

Phrases such as the one in (iii) are ambiguous, since the possessive is either attached to the [[NP]] ''the man'' or to the [[N]] ''man''. To account for this [[ambiguity]], Williams & Di Sciullo assign a co-analyzed structure to the [[NP]] ''the man's'', cf. (iv):

(''iii) the man's hat (= [the man]'s hat or the [man]'s hat)''

(iv)
NP
/ \
NP \
/ \ \
the man's hat
\ | /
\ N /
\ \ /
\ N
\ /
NP

===Comment===
Co-analysis means that a syntactic and a morphological representation are assigned to one phrase.

===Link===
[http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Co-analysis&lemmacode=880 Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics]

===References===
*Di Sciullo, A. M. & Williams, E. 1987. ''On the Definition of Word.'' Cambridge, Mass: MIT-press.
*Williams, E. 1979. Discourse and Logical Form. ''Linguistic Inquiry 8-1,'' 101-139.

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[[Category:Morphology]]
[[Category:Syntax]]

Co-analysis - Revision history

Luo: from Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics