Root and semi-phrasal compounds: A syntactic approach
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v4i1.4530Keywords:
morpho-syntax, compounds, Distributed Morphology, lexical integrity, predicate inversion, small clausesAbstract
We present a syntactic account of the derivation of two types of attributivenominal compounds in Spanish, Russian and Greek. These include right-headed “root” compounds, which exhibit more “word”-like properties and single stress domains, and left-headed “semi-phrasal” compounds with more phrasal properties and independent stress domains for the two compound members. We propose that both compound structures are formed on a small clause predicate phrase, with their different properties derived from the merger of the predicate member of the small clause as a root or as a larger nominal unit with additional functional projections. The proposed structures provide an explanation of observed lexical integrity effects, as well as specific predictions of patterns of compound formation crosslinguistically.Downloads
Published
2019-03-15
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Section
Articles
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Published by the LSA with permission of the author(s) under a CC BY 4.0 license.
How to Cite
Ntelitheos, Dimitrios, and Katya Pertsova. 2019. “Root and Semi-Phrasal Compounds: A Syntactic Approach”. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 4 (1): 30:1–14. https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v4i1.4530.