Phrasenkomposita zwischen Wortsyntax und Lexikon

Abstract

Phrasal compounds like I told you so attitude or pipe and slipper husband are complex words with phrases in modifier position. While Lieber (1988, 1992) argues that phrasal compounds provide evidence for a syntactic approach to word formation, Wiese (1996) holds that this is not true because the modifier is quotational. A related approach is put forward by Gallmann (1990), who views phrasal compounds as nominal compounds, the phrase being converted into a noun. With a focus on the description of German phrasal compounds and the notion of citation, several problems with these approaches are pointed out. Starting from the observations that the quotational approach cannot handle typical cases of non-sentential modifiers and that most phrasal modifiers are fixed expressions drawn from the lexicon, a mixed approach to the formation of phrasal compounds is sketched which avoids the pitfalls of the syntactic and the linear approach. The paper concludes with some observations on the productivity of phrasal compounds and on the quotational function of sentential modifiers.