Restrictions in the semantic interpretation of English and Spanish compounds

Abstract

In this paper we claim that the differences between the semantic interpretation of English and Spanish compounds with identical categories (e.g., noun + noun) are determined by their syntactic structure. Assuming the already wellknown division between structural semantics (the meaning provided by the syntactic structure) and conceptual semantics (the idiosyncratic meaning with which the construction is stored in the lexicon), we will try to demonstrate that the most productive patterns of compounding in both languages display a systematic contrast: The English constructions (e.g., paperboard, red-haired or dishwasher) have less structural complexity than the Spanish ones (e.g., papel cartón, pelirrojo or lavaplatos). As a result, the number of conceptual meanings that each member of the three compound patterns can receive in the English language is considerably greater than in the Spanish language. This correlation between structures and conceptual meaning will be tested with noun-noun compounds, adjective-noun compounds and, Fnally, with noun-verb compounds. The differences found in all of them are triggered by the kind of relational structure that links the lexical units inside the compounds.