1

Attribution in English and the distinction between phrases and compounds

Heinz J Giegerich
University of Edinburgh
1

Introduction

English is one of many languages able to concatenate lexemes so as to form not only phrases (black bird)
but also complex lexemes (blackbird) (Fabb 1998). What is fairly unusual, though, is the fact that the two
construction types are not distinct, in terms of inflection (as they are for example in German: schwarze
Drossel Schwarzdrossel) or otherwise. The distinction between phrase and compound therefore implies
a structural ambiguity in the language such that identical concatenations can be either word or phrase. This
fact about English has loomed large in research on English word formation. Leading Anglists of many
generations have attempted (and ultimately failed) to draw a sharp divide between compound and phrase:
Koziol (1937), Jespersen (1942), Marchand (1969), Fai (1981), Bauer (1987, 1998), Liberman and
Sproat (1992), Olsen (2000, 2001) to name just a few.
The difference in stress is held to be of limited use in drawing this distinction. If (as for example
Marchand (1969: 20 ff.) largely does) fore-stress is held to be a diagnostic of compound status, then an
apparently spurious category distinction arises for pairs of semantically very similar constructions such as
Madison venue and Mdison Street, Christmas pdding and Chrstmas cake (Lees 1963, Schmerling
1976); and ice cream, with its variable stress pattern, is a phrase for some and a compound for other
speakers although there is no denotative difference of meaning (Bloomfield 1933: 228). In
recognition of this problem I shall conduct the discussion without much reference to stress until I
specifically return to the topic in 3.3.
Lack of semantic transparency, proposed by Jespersen (1942: 137) and others, seems similarly to fail as a
criterion for compound status. While it is the case that many complex lexemes, including many
compounds, are semantically opaque to a greater or lesser extent (opportunity, comparable; greenhouse,
silver-fish etc.), there is no true generalization in English whereby all complex lexemes are semantically
opaque: kindness, sincerity, unpleasant and many other complex lexemes are perfectly transparent (Di
Sciullo and Williams 1987; Bauer 1998). There is then no principled reasons why compounds should be
opaque; indeed, for example the highly productive secondary compound construction (songwriter, birdwatcher, coach driver) is semantically transparent.
There does not appear to be a single feature shared by all compounds that is not also present in at least
some phrases. The widespread failure in the research literature to procure a comprehensive and unique
definition of the category compound in English is due in part to this fuzziness inherent in the criteria
(Bauer 1998). But I believe there is a second reason for this comparative lack of progress. We have simply
been focused too closely on the wrong side of the compound-phrase distinction. I propose therefore,
before I return to compounds, first to establish the defining characteristics of their phrasal counterparts. I
do not promise then to provide that elusive definition of compound; but I do intend to show why exactly
such a definition is neither necessary nor possible.
2

On the semantics and syntax of attribution

2.1

The meaning of adjectival attributes: ascriptive vs. associative

It is a probably uncontroversial assumption about formal grammar that all constructions originating in the
syntax are semantically transparent and the outcomes of fully productive processes; non-transparent or
non-productive constructions (red herring, court martial) are by definition lexical. The semantic

2
interpretation of a phrase is the product of the lexical semantics of the words involved and of the
semantics associated with the particular construction of that phrase. Thus in linguistic forms such as the
noun phrases in (1) below, the lexical semantics of the adjectives and nouns involved is amalgamated in
such a way that the noun is the head and the adjective its dependent functioning as an attribute (the term
applied to premodifiers of nouns).
(1)

beautiful picture
white board
black bird
small elephant

Prototypical adjectives such as those in (1) bring to the attributive position their ascriptive nature (Siegel
1980; Ferris 1993; Payne and Huddleston 2002), such that the adjective denotes a property which is
valid for the entity instantiated by the noun (Ferris 1993: 24): beautiful expresses a property of the
picture. The fact that ascriptive adjectives usually have a second, predicative usage (the picture is
beautiful) follows from the semantics of ascription, characterized by the relationship is between the head
and its dependent.
Given that adjectives prototypically denote qualities (see again Ferris 1993), and also that adjectives
clearly constitute the default category in the attributive position (Payne and Huddleston 2002: 444 ff.), it
stands to reason that the ascriptive adjective should be the default attribute, whose behaviour strongly
informs the quality of attributiveness in general. This implies, however, that this position may also be
occupied by adjectives that are non-ascriptive, or by members of a lexical category other than adjective. I
deal with these two further possibilities in turn.
Non-ascriptive adjectives in English are associative (Payne and Huddleston 2002: 556 ff.), exemplified in
(2a) below. Such adjectives, represented for the moment by dental in dental decay, express a property
which does not apply directly to the denotation of the head nominal, but rather to some entity
associated with it (Pullum and Huddleston 2002: 556; see also Ferris 1993: 24; Giegerich 2005). Thus,
dental does not describe the nature of the decay (as e.g. ascriptive slow or unexpected would) but in this
case identifies what is decaying. In that respect, the semantics of associative adjectives is noun-like to the
extent that such adjectives constitute a category mismatch of adjectival morphosyntactic behaviour paired
with nominal semantics: adjectives of this kind always stand in a recurrent semantic relationship, though
not necessarily in a transparent morphological relationship, to a noun, such that the meaning of the
adjective is pertaining to , associated with . Dental, for example, partners the noun tooth in that the
adjective means pertaining to teeth. Similarly, avian means pertaining to birds. Unsurprisingly then,
the phrases in (2a) have the synonyms listed in (2b).
(2)

a.

dental decay
avian influenza
rural policeman
vernal equinox
tropical fish

b.

tooth decay
bird flu
country policeman
spring equinox
tropics fish (?)

The distribution of associative adjectives is restricted in several ways. For example, they cannot occur in
the predicative position (*this decay is dental) a fact that follows from the semantics of pertaining to.
Moreover, such adjectives are often restricted to specific heads (*vernal cabbage). These deficiencies
and there are more: Giegerich (2005) clearly suggest that associative adjectives constitute within the
category Adjective a non-default (or atypical) subclass, whose associativeness is specified in the
individual adjectives lexical semantics. If that is so then it is not surprising that some members of this
subclass should also have default, ascriptive senses. This is notably the case for items such as feline,

3
equine, bovine etc. (her face is rather feline), where metaphorical ascriptive usages are possible. Note also
the second, ascriptive sense of dental in dental fricative, as well as the unusual associative sense of
friendly in the notorious collocation friendly fire ( gunfire associated with ones own side).
I return to the behaviour of associative adjectives below. For now I conclude that in its prototypical,
adjectival manifestation, the semantics of attribution is ascriptive by default, and associative in a set of
specific cases.
2.2

The meaning of nominal attributes

When nouns function as attributes, both ascriptive and associative modification patterns materialize, again
expressing the semantic relationships is and is associated with as in (3a.b) below respectively. And
again, there does not appear to be a third option.
(3)

a.

boy actor
gentleman farmer
rogue trader
metal bridge
silk shirt
chocolate santa

b.

school dinner
university exam
village shop
mountain railway
summer fruit
morning coffee

Notice that the ascriptive/associative distinction is not encoded in the lexical semantics of nouns, as we
saw it to be in the lexical semantics of adjectives. Metal, for example, is ascriptive in metal bridge and
associative in metal fatigue. This ambiguity is not surprising given that the primary function of nouns is
not one of modification. But the fact that associative attributive adjectives have noun counterparts while
ascriptive attributive adjectives dont would seem to suggest that associativeness is perhaps the default
function for attributive nouns. Again this stands to reason, given that is associated with is a more general
relationship than that of is. Indeed one might argue that specifically with nouns, the former is a subset of
the latter, that the examples in (3a) therefore belong under (3b).
I do not pursue the idea here of simplifying the two relationships: I propose to keep them distinct (as in
any case they have to be for adjectival attributes). But I also do not propose to draw further distinctions
among attributive functions, as Fanselow (1981: 156 ff.) does for German and Olsen (2000) for English.
Fanselow distinguishes as many as five basic relations (Grundrelationen) within compounds: and,
made of, resembles, is part of and is localized. He regards these basic relations as expressing the
logical relationships of modification and conjunction, which are distinct from (rather than superordinate
to) compound-internal (i.e. specific) relationships arising from the lexical semantics of the elements of
specific compounds. The latter category may for the moment be exemplified by mucus cell cell lined by
mucus (according to Olsen 2000: 62), a meaning based on lexical semantics and encyclopedic
knowledge. While drawing a similar distinction between basic relations arising configurationally and
specific relations arising through individual lexical semantic features (the latter to be discussed below
under the heading of primary compounds), the analysis offered here differs from that of Fanselow and
Olsen in several respects.
The first difference is that I regard the made of relationship as part of the is relationship (corresponding
to Fanselows and): (3a) above. The made of interpretation is not distinct from the is relationship, it is
merely more specific; and it is automatically inferred when the attribute denotes material. Similarly, time
and place reference are part of associated with such that in (3b) village shop means shop associated with
village. In the village is then automatically inferred from the fact that village denotes a place. The same
goes for Fanselows part of: toilet seat, door handle etc. are amenable to the associated with
interpretation (but see Olsen 2000: 63).

The second difference is that unlike Olsen (2000), in her application of Fanselows analysis to English, I
regard the attribute-head pattern involving both adjectival and nominal attributes as essentially phrasal
although, as I shall show in 4 below, not exclusively so. I justify this position in the following section.
2.3

The essentially phrasal nature of attribution

If as is uncontroversial the construction exemplified in (1) are regarded as phrasal then we have reason
to believe the items in (2) and notably (3) to be of the same status. Indeed, the phonological and syntactic
behaviour of these constructions is entirely consistent with phrasal status.
On the phonological side, the relevant criterion is stress. Given that in English, the unmarked,
pragmatically neutral pattern for all phrases NP, VP, AdjP, S etc. is one of end-stress, the fact that all
the examples in (1) (3) have end-stress is consistent with phrasal status. I will in fact argue below (as in
Giegerich 2004) that end-stress is strictly confined to attribute-head constructions: while attribute-head
constructions may have fore-stress or end-stress, no construction of a non-attributive kind can have endstress.
To deal with the syntactic side of the argument, I invoke some of the criteria that have been adduced in
connection with the Lexicalist Hypothesis (Chomsky 1970). Under this hypothesis, the individual
elements of constructions originating in the lexicon (for the moment synonymous with the morphology;
in this context: compounds) cannot undergo operations pertaining to the syntax. Syntactic processes can
manipulate words but not their parts. One such test concerns the individual modifiability of words in a
phrase but not of the elements of a compound: a brilliantly white board, a white wall-mounted board vs.
*a brilliantly white-board, *a white- wall-mounted board. For the complexities involved in this,
apparently obvious, test see Bauer (1998) and Giegerich (2004, 2005). Side-stepping such complexities I
shall here exemplify the lexicalist argumentation with the pro-one construction instead (Stirling and
Huddleston 2002: 1511 ff.), whereby in a repeat occurrence in a coordinate construction, a (countable)
nominal head is replaced by the pro-form one (a blue book and a red one).
The pro-one construction is undoubtedly the outcome of an operation pertaining to the syntax: it is not for
example a morphological or phonological operation. Therefore, any construction amenable to
transformation into a pro-one construction must have syntactic rather than lexical status. And indeed, as
we shall see below, hypothetical cases involving bona fide compounds of various types are invariably illformed. The following involve secondary compounds (lorry driver, boot-maker, train-spotter):
(4)

* a coach driver and a lorry one

* a shoe-maker and a boot one
* a plane-spotter and a train one

On the other hand, attributive constructions such as those discussed in the previous section undergo the
pro-one operation without problems:
(5)

an ugly picture and a beautiful one

an urban policeman and a rural one
a native fish and a tropical one
a genuine trader and a rogue one
an elderly actor and a boy one
a high-school exam and a university one

5
It might, finally, be objected here that as a matter of principle, nouns can modify other nouns only within
compounds and not in syntactic phrases a position implied by some syntax textbooks (e.g. BurtonRoberts 1997: 163) but not by others (e.g. Huddleston 1984: 256 ff.; Radford 1988: 196 ff.). Not only is
such a position hardly tenable n the light of (5); the facts of the derivational morphology of English also
argue strongly against it. English cannot form denominal adjectives denoting for example place or time.
More general associated with is expressed through al (autumnal, presidential), which however is
available to Latinate bases only (Marchand 1969: 238), or through suppletion of the kind cat feline
(Koshiishi 2002). And there is no productive suffix that might express made of: while woollen, wooden
are possible, *metalen isnt and silken is available metaphorically for example to voices but no longer
materially to shirts (Marchand 1969: 270). From these observations it follows that an arbitrary ban on
nominal modification in the syntax would result in large-scale syntactic productivity gaps caused by the
morphologys failure to procure suitable adjectives. This position would be inconsistent with the central
assumptions regarding the full productivity of syntactic processes.
3

Patterns of lexical nominals

The phrase-compound distinction under discussion here is congruent with the distinction drawn in formal
grammar between the syntax and the lexicon as sites for the concatenation of linguistic units. The syntax
produces members of phrasal categories while members of lexical categories words, that is originate in
the lexicon. Words have a naming function. While sentences are uttered and forgotten, words are coined
and often retained; and once retained in the speech community their meanings as well as their forms are
prone to change through time. The lexicon therefore has a dual function in that it is both a repository of
words, or more generally of listemes (Di Sciullo and Williams 1987), which may or may not have
internal structure, and an active component of the grammar, called the morphology, in which words are
assembled from morphological building blocks by means of in many cases fully productive operations.
Complex words may be formally and/or semantically irregular; or they may be perfectly regular and
transparent. The mechanisms involved in ensuring this duality of function continue to be poorly
understood; and the distinction between list and productive operation is itself almost certainly an
oversimplification (Langacker 1987: Ch. 1). But what is worth noting here is that the compounds known
in English cover just about the whole range of what is possible among morphologically-complex words,
ranging from clearly listed structures to the outcomes of fully productive operations, and from highly
irregular forms to structures superficially identical to those identified as phrasal in the preceding
paragraphs. Indeed, I show elsewhere that there are borderline constructions which are simultaneously
phrasal and lexical (Giegerich 2005).
3.1

Noun-plus-noun compounds

As is well known, structurally irregular compounds include postmodified constructions (court martial,
Princess Royal) as well as exocentric (Bahuvrihi) constructions such as hatchback, redneck, shithead.
Neither construction conforms with the formal criteria set out in 2 above for phrasal status; and neither
type constitutes a productive pattern in English. These constructions are lexical, then. More interestingly,
there is in English a massive range of constructions which in formal terms are perfectly regular dependentplus-head nominals but which fail to meet the criteria for phrasal status on semantic grounds. These fall in
two groups, often referred to as primary and secondary ( synthetic) compounds.
Primary compounds (which I here keep distinct from attribute-head constructions, to which I return in 4
below) are notable for their often idiosyncratic semantics. The meanings of such compounds do not derive
regularly from the meanings of their two components in the way attributiveness determines meaning.
Thus, a hair net serves to manage unruly hair, a mosquito net keeps mosquitoes out while butterflies are
captured using a butterfly net. Here is another set of examples (Lass 1987: 200f.), which reinforces the
point:

(6)

milk bottle
milkman
milk-float
milk-fever
milk-tooth
milk-weed
milk-tart

bottle for containing milk

man who delivers milk
float carrying milk
disease caused by lack of the calcium contained in milk
tooth present while young mammal is still drinking milk
weed with sap like milk
tart made with milk

While these compounds are formally regular, their meanings are with one exception listed rather than
following from the principles of attribution discussed in 2 above. Those principles would simply not get
anywhere near identifying for us the items denoted by the forms: instead, the relevant meanings rely
heavily on our knowledge whereby bottles contain things, men do things, floats carry things etc. In each
case, the key to the meaning seems to be provided by the semantics of the head. In attributive
constructions, on the other hand, it is the semantics of the dependent that determines made of, located
in etc. A further example of this is milk-tart (6a), which is parallel to metal bridge in (3a) above. Milktart is then an attributive construction rather than a primary compound, despite its fore-stress pattern: the
stress distinction is not necessarily clear-cut. I discuss such cases in detail in 4 below.
Secondary compounds are constructions whose nominal head contains a semantic predicate of which the
preceding dependent is an argument usually the object of a verb contained in the head noun. Examples
are given in (7).
(7)

coach driver
soap dispenser
book-seller
watchmaker
train-spotter

This category also contains some listed examples (perhaps sheep-stealer, holidaymaker); but as a rule
secondary compounds are clearly the outcomes of a regular process of word formation. Whatever the form
of this process may be (see e.g Roeper and Siegel 1978; Selkirk 1982; Lieber 1983; Levin and Rappaport
1992); what is clear is that its site is the lexicon. The argument structure described above is also found in
constructions headed by gerunds (basket-weaving) and other deverbal nouns (hair-cut, slum clearance) as
well as, inverted, in some listed forms (pickpocket, killjoy). It is this argument structure that sets this
construction type apart from attribute-head constructions: the latter are not argument-predicate but
argument-argument constructions (to an implied predicate, for example be: Liberman and Sproat 1992).
In terms of the overall classification attempted here, argument-predicate constructions are a subclass,
however regular and productive, of the class of constructions whose semantic interpretation is driven by
the individual lexical semantics of their components: the transitivity of the verb embedded in the head is a
matter of its lexical semantics. While town crier resembles coach driver superficially, its structure is
attributive on a par with village shop ((3a) above). Argument-predicate constructions have thus more in
common with the examples in (6) than with the attribute construction: they simply cannot arise through
any known mechanism in the relevant part of the syntax.
It is then unsurprising that the negative behaviour of secondary compounds with regard to the pro-one
construction, shown in (4) above, can be generalized over the whole class of lexical noun-plus-noun
constructions: like the former, primary compounds do not as a rule yield to pro-one:
(8)

* a fireman and a milk one

7
* a whisky bottle and a milk one
* a gala float and a milk one
The non-phrasal nature of the noun-plus-noun constructions discussed in this section is thus confirmed on
syntactic grounds in notable contrast to the attributive construction discussed in 2 above.
3.2

Some adjective-plus-noun compounds

The different patterns identified above for noun-plus-noun constructions the possible presence of
idiosyncratic lexical semantics heavily driven by the head, as well as (or, as I claimed, including)
argument structure are also found in a wide range adjective-plus-noun constructions. This is most
impressively the case where the adjective is associative: recall the initial discussion of those in 2. above.
I deal with those here and postpone discussion of the ascriptive-adjective type until 4.
Associative-adjective constructions have been extensively discussed in the literature, notably by Levi
(1978) and Ferris (1993). I argue in Giegerich (2005) that the straight attribution pattern, and hence
phrasal status, is actually in the minority among associative-adjective constructions. Most such
constructions bear the hallmarks of lexical origin, for one or more of at several possible reasons.
The first relevant feature is that even in the straightforwardly attributive constructions, many associative
adjectives are confined to a highly restricted number of possible heads. The extreme case vernal collocates
for many speakers only with equinox. Phocine collocates with the diseases of seals (distemper etc.) but not
with meat or skin. Such arbitrary restrictions are consistent with lexical but not with phrasal status.
More systematically, Levi (1978) has shown that associative-adjective constructions often crucially
require encyclopedic knowledge for their semantic interpretations.
(9)

electrical engineer
electrical shock
electrical generator
electrical clock

musical interlude
musical criticism
musical comedy
musical clock

For example, it does not necessarily follow from the lexical semantics of either component that an
electrical generator produces electricity rather than being powered by it, whereas an electrical clock is
indeed powered by electricity in contrast to a musical clock, which plays music. These cases, then, are
semantically very much on a par with primary compounds such as those in (6). Associativeness makes this
range of semantic interpretations available without itself providing adequate semantics through the
associated with relationship.
Moreover, such constructions often display argument structures comparable to those found in secondary
compounds a feature which is itself alien to phrasal constructions, as we have seen. However, unlike in
secondary compounds, those argument structures do not seem to form an integral part of the construction
itself but, rather, derive from encyclopedic knowledge and perhaps context. It would appear that in (9a),
the default interpretation has the noun associated with the adjective (pope, president, professor) as the
object of the action, while in (9b) the same nouns are more likely to be interpreted as subjects. These
interpretations, however, are based entirely on our real-world expectations, such that popes are elected but
go visiting, and presidents are more likely to be murdered than to commit such crimes themselves.
Terrorist murder triggers the opposite interpretation. It would appear, then, that in such cases the lexicon
can generate homonymous constructions with different argument structures. For comparison, (9c)
exemplifies the same adjectives involvement in straightforward attribution.

8
(10)

a.

papal election
b.
presidential murder
professorial appointment

c.

papal emissary
presidential plane
professorial salary

papal visit
presidential lie
professorial comment

As I discuss in more detail in Giegerich (2005), lexical status is confirmed for the majority of associative
adjective constructions by their behaviour in the pro-one construction: only the straightforwardly
attributive variant of this construction regularly allows pro-one: Is this a native fish or a tropical one?
Examples such as those identified above as lexical, for independent reasons, typically fail the test:
(11)

* the autumnal equinox and the vernal one

* a literary critic and a musical one
* the presidential murder and the papal one

The foregoing survey has revealed that a variety of different types of noun-plus-noun constructions, as
well as many associative-adjective collocations, display semantic structures and syntactic behaviour
inconsistent with a phrasal interpretation. The mix of highly irregular, listed forms (court martial) and
productive patterns (train-spotter) is of course consistent with a lexical interpretation: crucially, while
high productivity and regularity are necessary conditions for phrasal status, they are not features which bar
a given pattern from lexical status.
3.3

The phonological behaviour of lexical constructions: fore-stress and end-stress

The stress patterns of the construction types discussed here do not at first glance lend themselves to
obvious generalization indeed, the formal phonological literature from Chomsky and Halle (1968) via
Halle and Keyser (1971), Schmerling (1978) to Liberman and Sproat (1992) presents a picture of
surrender. In view of examples such as fore-stressed Madison Street and end-stressed Madison Avenue,
compounds are said to have compound stress (= fore-stress) unless, exceptionally, they have phrasal
stress (= end-stress). Given the large number of such exceptions (which is moreover indeterminate as long
as the distinction between compound and phrase is not drawn a priori), this is not an impressive
generalization. I shall show below that the classification system under construction here enables us to do
rather better than that. For the moment, rather than surveying the data, let us establish what behaviour we
expect of the data given our knowledge of the behaviour of lexical constructions. Since compound is not
a separate lexical category, we may expect compound nouns to behave like other nouns not only in terms
of their semantics and their syntactic behaviour as they do but also in terms of their stress phonology.
Indeed, as Liberman and Prince (1977) were the first to show, prominence relations among the
components of compound nouns are identical to those that hold among the components of non-compound
nouns, where (for reasons not relevant here) component means word within compounds and foot
within non-compounds. The generalization goes thus:
(12)

In any pair of sister nodes [AB]L, where L is a lexical category, B is strong if it branches.
(Liberman and Prince 1977: 257)

This accounts for the stress patterns of ntrodction, sens tionlity (with branching right feet) vs. pr t st,
rbb etc. (with non-branching right feet). Notably, (12) equally handles compounds: right-branching
structures such as [ rts faculty] [ntrance test] vs. non-right-branching structure like [grenhouse] effect

9
and of course wtchmaker. Fore-stress among two-component compounds is hence in line with the stress
pattern more generally found among nouns.
There is however a small (Fudge 1984: 34 ff.) but significant subclass of nouns whose members have final
stress:
(13)

July
champagne
pontoon
bamboo

fricassee
magazine
commandant
chimpanzee

Clearly, in synchronic terms this class is best accounted for by regarding it as exceptional (Giegerich
1992: 183 ff.; Hayes 1982) not only because of its fairly diminutive size but also because of its
instability. This class has massively declined diachronically and continues to do so: French loans such as
virtue, pardon, avenue and many more had end-stress when they were first borrowed and lost it gradually
during the past half millennium; and in fricassee etc., initial stress is becoming more and more common.
Both the existence of end-stressed nouns and the exceptional nature of this class are highly si gnificant to
the present study. The behaviour of non-compound nouns predicts for compound nouns that they will have
fore-stress or exceptionally end-stress. While this is a result also known to pre-lexicalist formal
phonology, as we saw earlier, we now have a powerful generalization over the whole range of nouns, and
not just one that is arbitrarily said to pertain to compounds only.
The various types of lexical constructions discussed in 3.1 above conform with the stress predictions just
formulated. Primary compounds (milkman), secondary compounds (train-spotter) and even Bahuvrihis
such as hatchback have fore-stress. Indeed, one would not expect lexical processes of any productivity to
yield results that are truly exceptional in other aspects of behaviour associated with the lexicon.
The associative adjective constructions discussed in 3.2 are somewhat different in that they have endstress. The details of this will concern us in the following section; here I merely note that this end -stress is
unstable, similar to end-stress in non-compound nouns. Some fore-stressed examples are given in (14),
largely from Olsen (2000: 66).
(14)

polar bear
solar system
solar panel
tidal wave
postal service
financial advisor

medical profession
medical building
Medical Faculty
electrical worker
legal work
athletic department

mental institution
mental hospital
mental disease
dental care
dental treatment
dental appointment

To deal with those I return now to the more general class of attributive constructions first discussed in 2.
4

Attribution and the lexicon

Recall from 2 that attributive semantics is a necessary condition for the phrasal status of premodified
noun constructions in English. All such constructions are attributive if they are phrasal. Also, all such
constructions have end-stress if they are phrasal.
Consider now the possibility that such a form say, metal bridge were to said to be lexical. The
syntactic behaviour of this particular item argues against this, of course: a wooden bridge and a metal
one, metal and wooden bridges etc. are well-formed. But ignoring this for the moment we have to concede

10
that the lexicon can accommodate metal bridge. Neither end-stress nor semantic transparency are alien to
lexical constructions. But assuming that the most general case, and hence the form produced in the syntax,
constitutes the default, it would be unusual for that case to be overridden by the lexicon. In other words,
for a given form to be lexical when it might instead be of syntactic origin, it must have a reason.
One such reason might be the acquisition of semantic features over time which do not follow from the
relationship of attribution. Fore-stress might then be expected to come in the wake of that change, perhaps
through the mechanisms suggested by Ladd (1984). Perhaps this is a development underway in country
house, a form which at face value parallels village shop and would hence be classed as a phrase. However,
as Lyons (1977: 534 ff.) demonstrates, the semantics of country house includes an element which is
neither contained in nor a consequence of the lexical semantics of country and house in an attributive
relationship. To be a country house, a house has to be large, old and placed in substantial grounds. A
bungalow in the countryside is not a country house. Country house then represents a subset of the set of
houses located in the country. I believe this phenomenon of semantic narrowing through the acquisition of
additional features to be rather common among attributive constructions; and it goes largely unnoticed.
The following (mostly from Bauer 2004) have end stress, yet they display non-phrasal semantics:
(15)

a.

brown bear
brown rice
black bean
grey matter

b.

black tea
white noise
white coffee
white meat

Each of the constructions in (15a) denotes only a subset of what could be so denoted Grizzly Bears can
be brownish too. The examples in (15b) do not really answer the description provided by their colour
specification. Black tea is not really black, white coffee is brownish-grey. Clearly, all the examples in (15)
are lexical.
In many cases, such constructions also display fore-stress especially if they represent species names and
thereby, given the essential naming function of words, are close to the prototypical notion of word:
(16)

blackbird
blueberry
blackcock
blue-tit
greenfinch

blackfly
whitefly
greenfly
redworm
greyhound

But again, name status does not always give rise to fore-stress: blue whale, brown bear, both with endstress, denote species. As we already know from examples such as Madison Road vs. Madison Street, the
distribution of fore-stress and end-stress is far from regular, and clearly independent from lexicalization at
least in the sense that end-stress does not necessarily indicate phrasal status. There is no reason to believe,
for example, that in the following examples, olive oil, probably end-stressed for most speakers, is phrasal
while the fore-stressed names for oils are lexical. Interestingly, the probably most recent addition to the
range of culinary oils (avocado oil) seems to have acquired the fore-stress pattern resisted for many
speakers by much older olive oil.
(17)

olive oil
corn oil
peanut oil
avocado oil

sunflower oil
rapeseed oil
thistle oil
walnut oil

11
There is, then, good reason to believe that attributive constructions can lexicalize (see also Liberman and
Sproat 1992; Lipka 1994). In the lexicon, they may develop senses more specific than what the attributive
relationship predicts even to the extent that they become altogether non-attributive. And/or they may adopt
fore-stress (Ladd 1984). For the moment, I see no causal connection between these changes in meaning
and form: either is possible with or without the other; and for all we know, lexicalization may occur
unnoticed in that it may not be signalled through a change in either form or meaning. The process may be
triggered speaker-specifically by the recurrent usage of a given phrase. The lexicon and the syntax are
simply in competition in the generation of attribute-head constructions. It is in this particular construction
type that we are left with a fuzzy distinction perhaps exemplified by (17) between compound and
phrase, just as there is a fuzzy distinction between the lexicon and the syntax (Giegerich 2005).
5

Stress variation and contrast, and the category of attributiveness

Despite its fuzzy edges, the category of attributive construction that has materialized in this study is
central to our understanding of the compound-phrase distinction with all its problems, and especially to
the more specific distinction between fore-stress and end-stress. While in many varieties of Standard
English, end-stress is eroded under lexicalization recall (17) above as well as the famous cases of
Christmas cake, Madison Street, ice cream etc. , in Southern Scots (Giegerich 2004: 15f.) the end-stress
pattern tends to remain intact in attributive constructions (18a) while non-attributive compounds have
robust fore-stress (18b):
(18)

a.

horse shoe
Mars bar
post office
bread roll
sea water
motor bike
road end
salt water

b.

bread shop
paper shop
iron-monger
bookseller
greengrocer
swimming-pool
drinking-water
jumble-sale

c.

Bonnyrigg
Caddonfoot
Clovenfords
Newtongrange
Walkerburn
Loanhead
Lasswade
Rosewell

There is no reason to believe the items in (18a) to be phrasal (that is, not lexicalized) in Scots. Rather,
lexical status does not cause fore-stress as readily in Scots as it does in other varieties of English, for the
simple reason that end-stress in nouns is less marked in that variety. The names of Southern Scottish
towns and villages such as those in (18c), for example, tend to be mis-pronounced as fore-stressed by nonScottish speakers, much to the distaste of their native residents. At least in Scots, then, attributiveness is a
necessary and sufficient condition for end-stress in the relevant construction type.
Elsewhere in English, the link between end-stress and attributiveness is similarly present, as I have shown,
but it is not reversible. End-stress, whenever it occurs, signals attributiveness an observation
foreshadowed by Kingdon (1958: 153) while fore-stress signals no generalizeable semantic properties,
merely lexical status. Attributiveness is, then, the default semantic interpretation of such constructions,
and end-stress the default stress pattern.
It is for that reason that stress doublets are amenable at all to systematic semantic interpretation. If there
were simply an unspecified exceptional class of English compounds that have end-stress then the
distribution of meanings in doublets such as those in (19) below (Fai 1981: 133) would be expected to be
entirely haphazard.
(19)

End-stress

Fore-stress

woman doctor

woman-doctor

12
glass case
toy factory
steel warehouse
metal separator
plastic bag

glass-case
toy factory
steel-warehouse
metal separator
plastic bag

To these doublets may be added a large number of more obvious stress doublets such as dancing girl,
driving instructor, black bird etc. (Fai 1981: 136 f.). Just as it does in those cases, end-stress signals
attributiveness in (19), the phrasal-lexical distinction being present but irrelevant to the interpretation
simply because both modules can produce the semantic relationship of attributiveness. Hence, endstressed woman doctor and glass case are both attributive with the more specific is vs. is made of
interpretation inferred automatically from the lexical semantics of the dependent (2.2 above). In contrast,
the specific semantics in the fore-stressed examples ( treats, contains, produces etc.) arise
idiosyncratically from the semantics of the head noun. (They may of course be generalized as for
doctor for women etc. but what does for actually mean?) While there is a default attributive
interpretation available for dependents under end-stress (19a), the fore-stressed counterparts yield to no
such default interpretation.
I began this discussion by noting that to define compound status, Marchand (1969) treats fore-stress as the
decisive criterion while Jespersen (1942) invokes non-transparent semantics. These two positions appear
irreconcilable; but I hope to have shown that both Marchand and Jespersen are almost right: Marchand
because fore-stress is unique to the lexicon, and Jespersen because semantic non-transparency is alien to
the syntax. That both end-stress and semantic transparency are also found in the lexicon, that therefore
fuzziness is rife in the category distinctions among English words and phrases thats the nitty-gritty that
we should expect of a natural language with a deficient inflectional morphology. As for the definition of
compound, I hope to have shown that no such definition can be forthcoming for English: a compound is
merely not a phrase. Unless of course it is.

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(To appear in Festschrift fr K. F., 2006)