Introduction: Compounds between syntax and lexicon

This special issue presents parts of the results of a research developed within the PRIN-project COMPONET (coordinated by Sergio Scalise, 2005-2007), in particular along the lines followed by the Neapolitan research unit, whose aim was to investigate the formal properties of compounds across several European languages. The authors of the contributions presented in this volume were asked to focus their attention on this ‘transitional’ status of compounding, in particular concentrating on the following issues: explicit, cross-linguistic criteria to identify compounds; formal properties of compounds (e.g., head, linking elements) and their status with respect to similar properties displayed by other linguistic constructs (e.g., head in phrases, agreement markers); competition among different coding strategies in which morphological and syntactic patterns are involved in a parallel way (e.g., verbal prefixation vs. phrasal verbs); lexical entrenchment and the status of compounds, particularly in relation to frozen expressions; naming and the privileged status of compounds with respect to other labeling or descriptive strategies.