Copulative compounds: a closer look at the interface

between syntax and morphology

SUSAN OLSEN

1. INTRODUCTION

Handbooks on synchronic word formation usually group compounds into three

major classes that were of concern for historicall linguistics, mainly because of
their importance for the grammar of Sanskrit. 1 These are the determinative,
copulative and possessive patterns illustrated in (la-c) respectively with English
examples.

(1) a. coffee cup

b. poet-doctor
c. greybeard

Basically, the distinction between these three types can be characterized as

follows: (a) The first constituent of a determinative compound serves to restrict
the denotation of the second: a 'coffee cup' is a kind of 'cup', namely one 'for
coffee'. (b) Copulative compounds encompass a coordinative relationship
between the two constituents such that both concepts are attributed simulta-
neously to one individual: a 'poet-doctor' is someone who is both a 'poet' and a
'doctor'. (c) Possessive compounds denote an entity characterized by the
property named in the compound: a 'greybeard' is something (e.g. a 'seal') with
a 'grey beard'.
The determinative pattern is generally considered to be the most regular
and productive compound type, and quite frequently the impression is conveyed
that the other types are less regular? A closer look at Present-Day English,
however, reveals that copUlative compounds are formed regularly and pro-
ductively as well. So what is responsible for the putative primacy of the deter-
minative pattern and how do copulative compounds fit into the overall picture
of composition? The traditional discussion of copUlative compounds leaves
rather unclear whether copulatives form an independent class of compounds
vis-a-vis determinative compounds or whether they are simply a formal and/or
semantic subtype of the more basic determinative pattern?
This article will concentrate on such questions as these that concern the
correct characterization of the class of copulatives and will attempt to provide
principled answers to these questions by investigating the structure and
meaning of this compound type in more depth as well as from a comparative
perspective. It will be argued that copulative compounds are a semantic sub-
class of a more general morphological template that also accommodates the
determinative pattern. It will further be shown that this characterization of

Geert Booij and Jaap van Marie (eds), Yearbook of Morphology 2000, 279-320.
~) 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
280 Susan Olsen

compounds provides important insights into the nature of morphological

structure and its relevance for current theories of grammar: as the computa-
tional mechanisms of the theory of syntax have become increasingly abstract
over the past few decades of linguistic research, a number of linguists have
attempted to extend these principles to the field of morphology. This study
demonstrates, however, that morphology - even when considering the most
syntax-like of all morphological objects, i.e. compounds (and copulative com-
pounds in particular) - constitutes its own discipline distinct from syntax in
crucial ways.
Section 2 will first lay the groundwork for the further discussion by con-
sidering the properties of copulative 'compounds' in Sanskrit. As an early Indo-
European language with a wide variety of productive compound types, Sanskrit
has traditionally served as a starting point for the discussion of composition.
Section 3 will then turn to equivalent constructions in the modern Romance
languages where certain formal similarities to the copulatives of Sanskrit can be
detected. On the basis of the evidence considered, it appears that the so-called
'copulative compounds' in both Sanskrit and Romance differ quite radically
from the copulatives in Germanic in that they are - each in their own typolo-
gical way - impure morphological objects (in the sense of DiSciullo & Williams
(1987)) with more of a syntactic feel to them than the genuine compounds of
Germanic. Section 4 will then consider the formal and semantic properties of
the copulative pattern in English and German in greater detail in order to show
that the copulatives of Germanic are genuine morphological objects conforming
to a compound 'template' in the lexicon and displaying all the concomitant
properties expected of lexical units. Section 5 takes a closer look at the meaning
of copulatives. The implicit coordinative relation between the two concepts
conjoined in a morphological copulative is related to, and at the same time
contrasted with, the syntactic coordination of noun phrases. The coordinative
relation typical of copulatives is then viewed from the psychological perspective
of concept combination. The final section summarizes the preceding discussion
focussing on how the comparative data hint at a historical genesis of the
copulative pattern from a syntactic configuration: minimal asyndetic coordi-
nations of noun phrases apparently tend toward a reanalysis as combinations
of morphological stem forms, establishing a formal pattern in the lexicon for
creating new complex lexical items. It is likely that determinative compounds
have their source in phrasal structures as well, but in this case ones with sub-
ordinate modifier-head relations. In Germanic, the reanalysis of syntactic
configurations into morphological structures has converged in an optimal way
on a singular structural compound template encompassing two major semantic
subclasses, i.e. the determinative and copulative interpretations. The reanalysis
of phrasal configurations as morphological structures entails the adjustment of
both the formal and the semantic aspects of the original construction to the
demands of the lexicon. Morphological objects are the most optimal forms of