The implementation of argument-structural effects on word-formation is a vital aspect in modeling the lexical system and the interface between morphology and syntax. The current article provides an overview of theoretical perspectives in the field and presents analyses of structural principles holding in the domain. A number of test cases relating to fundamental operations, e.g., in compounding and nominalization are discussed, as well as specific conditions restricting the formation of morphologically complex words.of the integrative view of word-formation have been implemented in quite different grammar models since then, among them distributed morphology (cf. Harley 2008;Lieber 2006) and also construction grammar (cf. Booij 2009a(cf. Booij , 2009b Schlücker and Plag 2011, Borer 2003 and article 12 on construction grammar). A position mediating between the syntactic and the lexicalist stance is taken by Borer (1991), who promotes a parallel architecture. Here, internal word-structure is subject to a separate morphological rule system whose output, however, is visible to syntax in the derivation of the structural environment as well as the subcategorization features of complex words.
Structural principlesIn order to capture the argument-structural characteristics of complex expressions in a principled manner, proponents of the different theories sketched above have formulated a number of rules relating to issues like the following: How is the AS of a verbal stem transferred to a derived form? What linking regularities underlie the linear and thematic organization of an output form? And what types of modifiers can a complex noun host? Certain answers to these questions might entail, for instance, that a phrasal modifier cannot occur within a synthetic compound: *apple on a stick taster, cf. Roeper (1988). Lieber (1992: 59 f.) explains this behavior on syntactic grounds when she argues that a phrase, i.e. a maximal projection like apple on a stick, is case-licensed in the complement position to the right of the head only and, therefore, cannot be moved leftward.
Principles of argument projectionA central research question in the word-formation domain under discussion concerns the process by which AS features are projected up from lexical entries to produce complex word structures and, thus, grasp the intuition that the AS of a compound verb like panfry is a function of the AS of its head. Lieber (1983) conceives of this in terms of a feature percolation mechanism, which transfers the morpho-syntactic features (including the AS features) to the first non-branching node dominating that morpheme, see (ibid.: 252) and, for critical discussion, Lieber (1992: 86 ff.). Specific AS realizations are then derived from her argument linking principle see Lieber (1983: 258). It dictates that if a verbal head appears as sister to a (potential) internal argument that is the logical object, this argument slot will be linked (i.e. satisfied), thus bringing about the configuration of synthetic compounds like beer drinker as [[be...
