Morpho-Syntactic Studies of Compound Adjectives in English: Toward Universalities of Compounding

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The aim of this research is to explicate morphological and syntactic properties of compound adjectives in English, paying attention to universalities as well as language-specific properties. Specifically, the following questions have been raised and attempts have been made to answer them: (1) to what extent are compound adjectives recursive?; (2) what are similarities and differences between two main types of compound adjectives (i.e. [X-A]_A and [X-Ved]_A) and what complements compound adjectives take?; (3) what properties do Japanese compound adjectives have and what can be candidates for universalities of compounding?As for (1), it has been made clear that recursion in compound adjectives are limited to cases such as motor car accident prone seeming, although there are many examples showing recursion in a compound noun element of the lefthand side such as ginger ale bottle green. As for (2), the two main types are similar in that they can be paraphrased with adjective phrases consisting of A (Ved) P NP (e.g. tax-free = free of/from tax, propane-loaded =loaded with propane), but they are different in that only the former allows coordinated internal structure (i.e. deaf-mute). The third issue has been investigated from a viewpoint of the position of a head of compounds, and general processes of changing head-initial structures into head-final structures have been found. General properties of compound adjectives have been clarified through my research for these past two years.