Phrasal compounds

Our final example of a phenomenon that is neither clearly syntactic nor clearly morphological is called a phrasal compound. A phrasal compound is a word that is made up of a phrase as its first element, and a noun as its second element. Phrasal compounds can be found in many of the Germanic languages, including English, Dutch, and German:

On the one hand, phrasal compounds pass one of the acid tests for compounding: it is impossible to insert a modifying word in-between the phrase and the head of the compound:

On the other hand, the first elements are clearly phrases, or even whole sentences, as the example in (21) shows:

And phrases and sentences are the subject matter of syntax. Again, it is no easy question to decide whether phrasal compounds are the subject of morphology or of syntax. Indeed, it would be reasonable to conclude that they should be of interest to both morphologists and syntacticians.