nounincorporated

Nounincorporated is a term used in linguistics to refer to noun incorporation, a grammatical process in which a noun that would normally form part of a separate noun phrase becomes integrated into the verb. In languages that exhibit noun incorporation, the incorporated noun often forms part of a single predicate with the verb and can affect word order, argument structure, and agreement. The incorporated noun may appear as a bound morpheme on the verb, or as part of the verb’s stem, and the noun phrase may be reduced or omitted.

Noun incorporation is common in polysynthetic and other morphologically rich languages, and it is less common in English and many Indo-European languages, where such constructions are often limited or marginal. The phenomenon is studied in morphology, syntax, and typology; there is debate about whether incorporation is a syntactic process in the same sense as affixation, or a primarily morphological phenomenon that alters how clauses are structured. Some analyses treat noun incorporation as a form of compounding, while others view it as a historical development from a separate object to a bound verb.

The scope of what can be incorporated varies by language. Some languages allow only certain kinds of nouns (for example, animate or definite objects), while others permit broader incorporation with various semantic roles such as patient or instrument. Noun incorporation often interacts with case marking and agreement on the verb, and it can influence whether an NP is present at all, depending on the language. See also noun incorporation.