Abstract
This paper addresses noun plus verb combinations in Mano, a South Mande language, and suggests novel syntactic and semantic criteria for distinguishing compounds from the free combinations of noun phrases and verbs. Nominal and verbal components of all N+V combinations in Mano are systematically detachable, and certain N+V combinations contradict the Lexical Integrity Hypothesis and the No Phrase Constraint, all of which are against the definitions of compounding as a formation of “single words”. Nonetheless, the contradiction and circularity of valency assignment in the nominal component and the combination itself make such combinations more syntactically bound than corresponding free combinations of a NP and a V. These criteria can be considered an argument in favor of defining certain N+V combinations in Mano as compounds, and all these criteria applied together present a complex picture where N+V combinations should be considered, more or less, compound-like with no clear division between free combinations and compounds.
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