Compounding in Distributed Morphology

This chapter takes a purely syntactic approach to compounding, within the framework of Distributed Morphology (DM), treating compounding as a species of syntactic incorporation. First, it briefly reviews the structure of the DM framework, with attention to the status of inflectional, derivational, and Root morphemes within it. The chapter then considers the implications of the theory for various familiar forms of English compounding, including synthetic argument compounds, synthetic modifier compounds, primary ('root') compounds, and phrasal compounds.