Exocentric Compounding in a Typological Framework

In this paper we have tried to show in detail how exocentricity in compounding is a notion that eludes a clear defi nition, description and theoretical treatment. Moreover, we have shown that the notion exocentricity in compounding cannot be defi ned once and for all as either formal exocentricity or semantic exocentricity: since the notion «exocentricity» rests upon the basic notion «head», in order to capture the observed variety in the sampled languages, we have provided with a defi nition of «head of a compound» which reconciles both aspects, the formal one and the semantic one. Our analysis has demonstrated that it is indeed possible to determine the degree of exocentricity in a language, but the notion «exocentricity» must be usefully decomposed into a set of different aspects, formal and semantic. Our comparison indicates that exocentric compounding in Dutch is extremely regular and predictable, while exocentric compounding in Chinese and in Italian is clearly richer regarding structural and semantic variation (the latter applying mainly to Chinese). Some fi nal remarks concern the future developments of this line of research. First of all, we are aware of the fact that no database can be considered to be defi nitive. However, further refi nements of the analysis of compounds in the Morbo/Comp database are probably necessary in order to grasp more and more interesting insights. For example, the [V+N]N construction that is present in Chinese and Italian, but not in Dutch, can be further classifi ed: in Chinese it forms both agentive and abstract nouns, while in Italian it forms agentive, instrumental and locative nouns. Future developments in the Morbo/Comp database, we guess, will certainly have consequences on the characterization of exocentric compounding in Chinese, but not on Italian or Dutch; most probably the comparative structural «richness» of Chinese will increase. Finally, our results demand being incorporated in a general typological framework for compounding phenomena, a promising area of inquiry which is still in its initial stages.