Portuguese compounds

Abstract

This article presents an overview of compounding in Portuguese. Conceived as a plurilexematic unit used as a holistic denomination, a compound is characterized by lexical atomicity. The compound classes’ continuum we propose is based on the morpho-lexical nature of the internal units (root, word) and on the (non) conformity of compound constructions with Portuguese syntactic templates. Since Portuguese compounds constitute a heterogeneous and bordering class, this analysis also focuses on the boundaries of compoundhood, namely those existing between compounds and phrasal nouns. This article also concentrates on the coordinative, subordinative, attributive and thematic relations between constituents and analyzes Portuguese compounds with respect to head(ness), its morphological, categorial and semantic nature. Finally, we stress the narrow relationship between internal constituency, headedness and inflectional patterns of Portuguese compounds.