NO ESCAPE FROM CATEGORIZATION: AN INSIDER’S VIEW OF COMPOUNDS

Abstract There has been a surge of syntactic research on compounding, joining a large literature on the nature of roots and phase theory. In an attempt to probe into the syntactic domain for idiosyncratic interpretation and to account for categorial exocentricity, disappearance of subcategorization, and lexical integrity effects, some recent studies on compounding have argued that root compounds are made up of two free acategorial roots directly merged in syntax, without undergoing categorization. The main goal of such an approach is to extend the phase domain in order to maintain two uncategorized roots awaiting further Merge operations. When a category head is merged on the top of this structure, it will trigger its Spell-Out, and as a result, both roots will (i) receive a single category status, (ii) be identified as a single syntactic object for the purposes of extraction and binding, and (iii) be assigned a non-compositional interpretation. In this article, we argue that root categorization should not be analyzed as an optional derivational step. By exploring compounding in Brazilian Portuguese, we identify a handful of phenomena that challenge the assumption that root compounds are made up of two bare roots. We propose that categorial exocentricity, subcategorization, and lexical integrity effects can be straightforwardly accounted if we assume that the unifying characteristic of compounds is the presence of a category head merged on the top of two categorized roots. We claim that non-compositional domains are not determined by categorization. Following Harley (2014), we admit that non-compositionality is assigned at LF through a set of LF instructions associated with roots in a particular syntactic environment.