Direct compositionality and word structure

Based on morphological phenomena found in Japanese, a highly agglutinative language, this paper investigates how we might approach intra-word compositionality. First, we elucidate the concept of compositionality to properly frame the central issue. Second, we observe some word-formation phenomena that seem to apparently contradict lexical (or morphological) integrity as well as word-internal compositionality. These involve mismatches—bracketing paradoxes—between morphological constituency vis-à-vis syntactic or semantic constituency. Then, the center piece phenomena of this paper displaying even more drastic bracketing paradoxes are introduced as case studies, namely, the ones involving the negative morpheme and the sized inalienable possession construction. These serve as a testing ground for the concept of word-internal compositionality. The viability and, arguably, advantage of a (direct) compositional approach to word-formation is demonstrated in light of their behavior and the current accounts furnished for them. Finally, after a summary of the paper, further conceptual issues regarding compositionality and word-formation are taken up. (Kansai Gaidai University)