Noun-adjective compounds in Gunwinyguan languages

Abstract

In Gunwinyguan languages (Northern Australia), nouns may incorporate not only into verbs, but also adjectives. These N-Adj compound structures have interpretations identical to those of noun phrases modified by an adjective in English. A consideration of the evidence nevertheless argues that the morphological head of the N-Adj construction is the adjective. We show that this paradox can be resolved using inside-out function application to allow the compound to be headed by the adjective at c-structure, but by the noun at f-structure. We show further that the same analysis extends to cases of nominal 'classification' where the incorporated nominal is construed as a generic classifier together with an independent specific noun in apposition.