Between compounding and phrasal derivation: Polish complex nouns in sam(o)-

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The aim of this paper is to explore the class of Polish complex nouns with the initial combining form samo-, such as samobójca ‘suicide’. The study seeks to determine the morphological structure of what we consider to be a case of ‘syntax-inside-morphology’ in the domain of Polish word-formation. We want to argue that what appears to be sheer concatenation of morphological building blocks, often routinely classified as a compound word with a lefthand bound root, could, in fact, be interpreted as a derived noun based on a phrasal unit. In what follows, we shall argue that the morphosemantics of Polish complex nouns in samo- can successfully be captured by left-branching structure, which ensures that their morphological and semantic representations cohere into a well-organised whole. The dispute over derivational phenomena exhibiting a degree of reciprocity between morphology and syntax has long surrounded the data-driven examination of certain word-formation types across languages. Currently, a rich body of linguistic data amassed across various languages seems to strongly undermine the aprioristic separation of the two modules of grammar. The present study draws on tenets central to theories which are neither strictly lexicalist nor syntactocentric, in particular the Firewall Theory advanced by Lieber & Scalise (2006) .