Compound-internal anaphora: evidence from acceptability judgements on Italian argumental compounds

Abstract

The particular properties of argumental compounds in Italian pose interesting theoretical challenges, and investigations of possible syntactic operations within this type of complex words have resulted in conflicting conclusions. Regarding compound-internal anaphora, some researchers exclude the possibility that pronouns can refer to the non-head, while others do not. However, these findings have been based on researchers' intuitions and on occurrences in language corpora, and while intuitions have been shown to give contrasting results, the absence of a grammatical structure in a corpus should not be taken as evidence that the structure is not possible. The present study aims to experimentally determine the possibility of compound-internal pronominal reference based on structural properties of compounds and referential expressions. Judgements were obtained from 140 Italian native speakers who rated the acceptability of sentences containing a pronoun (null or overt) referring to the argument element of an argumental compound. The results indicate that compound-internal anaphoric reference is acceptable in the case of left-headed compounds and, to a somewhat lesser extent, of verb-noun compounds. The argument element of right-headed compounds, however, does not appear to be available to anaphoric reference. Referential expressions also play a role in the degree of acceptability, with left-headed compounds allowing null form anaphora to a greater extent. These results provide new evidence on compound-internal pronominal reference and give important insights into the processing of argumental compounds.

Full text

Morphology (2022) 32:359–388
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11525-022-09398-w
Compound-internal anaphora: evidence from acceptability
judgements on Italian argumental compounds
Irene Lami1·Joost van de Weijer2
Received: 20 May 2021 / Accepted: 28 July 2022 / Published online: 18 August 2022
© The Author(s) 2022
Abstract
The particular properties of argumental compounds in Italian pose interesting theo-
retical challenges, and investigations of possible syntactic operations within this type
of complex words have resulted in conflicting conclusions. Regarding compound-
internal anaphora, some researchers exclude the possibility that pronouns can refer
to the non-head, while others do not. However, these findings have been based on
researchers’ intuitions and on occurrences in language corpora, and while intuitions
have been shown to give contrasting results, the absence of a grammatical structure
in a corpus should not be taken as evidence that the structure is not possible. The
present study aims to experimentally determine the possibility of compound-internal
pronominal reference based on structural properties of compounds and referential
expressions. Judgements were obtained from 140 Italian native speakers who rated
the acceptability of sentences containing a pronoun (null or overt) referring to the
argument element of an argumental compound. The results indicate that compound-
internal anaphoric reference is acceptable in the case of left-headed compounds and,
to a somewhat lesser extent, of verb-noun compounds. The argument element of
right-headed compounds, however, does not appear to be available to anaphoric ref-
erence. Referential expressions also play a role in the degree of acceptability, with
left-headed compounds allowing null form anaphora to a greater extent. These results
provide new evidence on compound-internal pronominal reference and give impor-
tant insights into the processing of argumental compounds.
Keywords Compounds ·Italian compounds ·Pronominal anaphora ·Acceptability
judgement ·Argumental compounds ·Outbound anaphora
I. Lami
irene.lami@rom.lu.se
J. van de Weijer
joost.van_de_weijer@humlab.lu.se
1Department of Italian Studies, Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, Lund,
Sweden
2Lund University Humanities Lab, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
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360 I. Lami, J. van de Weijer
1Introduction
Argumental compounds in Italian show features that make them more accessible to
syntax than other types of compounds. However, while most of their syntactic pecu-
liarities are highly documented, the acceptability of pronominal reference internal to
the compound has remained a disputed issue.
Generally, results suggesting the non-acceptability of compound-internal ana-
phoric reference in Italian are based on researchers’ intuitions or on the limited
presence of this phenomenon in corpora. However, the acceptability of compound-
internal anaphoric reference should not be dismissed only based on individual judg-
ments or on the absence of certain patterns in corpus research. Both these approaches
have intrinsic limits: while intuitions might change from linguist to linguist, the lim-
ited presence of compound-internal anaphora in corpora does not necessarily indicate
its non-acceptability. Moreover, corpus-based analysis does not allow for more fine-
grained considerations on (non-)acceptability constraints.
Drawing on the results of an acceptability judgement task, we provide evidence
that Italian argumental compounds do allow pronominal reference to the argument
element depending on their structure and on the quality of the referential expression
(i.e., null vs overt pronoun). It is shown that the position of the head plays a decisive
role, and while compound-internal anaphora is accepted with left-headed compounds
and, to a minor extent, with exocentric compounds, the same is not true for right-
headed compounds. Moreover, it has been found that left-headed compounds allow
null-subject anaphora to a greater extent, possibly due to pragmatic factors.
Hence, the test made it possible to single out detailed variables that could not
otherwise have been observed in corpus-based research. Our results show the bene-
fit of an integration of an experimental method with theoretical considerations and
corpus-based research.
The paper is organized as follows: Sect. 2provides a background introduction
to argumental compounds in Italian (Sect. 2.1), an overview of in-word anaphora
with some conflicting positions regarding its acceptability in Italian argumental com-
pounds (Sect. 2.2) and current issues in research (Sect. 2.3). In Sect. 3, we present
our study and in Sect. 4we discuss the results, which show that compound-internal
anaphora seems to be accepted by native speakers with important differences accord-
ing to the position of the head and the nature of referential expression. Section 5
presents our conclusions.
2Background
2.1 Argumental compounds
Argumental compounds are a subtype of subordinate compounds1consisting of one
constituent that represents the internal argument of the other, i.e., the direct object.
They have been defined according to different criteria, and are referred to using var-
ious labels in the literature, including “deverbal” or “verbal compounds” (Roeper &
1Subordinate compounds are compounds showing a syntactic dependency between the elements, i.e. a
head-complement relation.
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Compound-internal anaphora: evidence from acceptability judgements . .. 361
Siegel, 1978; Selkirk, 1982; Lieber, 2010), “synthetic compounds” (Lieber, 1994;
Ackema & Neeleman, 2004; Gaeta, 2010), “verbal-nexus compounds” (Marchand,
1969; Allen, 1978; Bauer 2001,2010; Scalise & Bisetto, 2011; Radimský, 2015);
“secondary compounds” (Scalise et al., 2005) and “argumental compounds” (Baroni
et al., 2009a; Bauer, 2013). Particularly, the label “verbal-nexus” has been widely
used to underline the head’s deverbal nature in this type of compound.
In this study, we avoid a label focused on the morphological nature of the head and
use “argumental compound”, following Baroni et al. (2009a). In fact, as Scalise and
Guevara (2006) also point out, an argumental interpretation may occur even in the
absence of a deverbal element, and deverbal constituents do not necessarily project
argumental structure.2
We limit our investigation to the argumental relation,3as syntactic considerations
are at the basis of our research question and may be crucial in specific syntactic phe-
nomena such as pronominal anaphora.4A basic division between argumental and
non-argumental compounds was also proposed by Bauer et al. (2013) for English.
The division is based on the assumption that argument structure allows a more direct
interpretation, being semantically more predictable and constrained, while the inter-
pretation of a predicate-adjunct relation is highly variable and largely determined by
the context (see also Mackenzie, 1990; Haspelmath, 2002; Bauer, 2009; Guerrero
Medina, 2018, among many others).
2.1.1 Structure of Italian argumental compounds
Italian argumental compounds can be endocentric, i.e., possessing the head in-
side the compound, or exocentric, i.e. lacking a head constituent. In argumen-
tal endocentric compounds, the head selects the non-head (e.g., donatoreHEAD
sangueARGUMENT ‘blood donor’, lit. ‘donor blood’), while in argumental exocen-
tric compounds the verbal element selects the nominal element based on argumental
restrictions (e.g., lavaVERBpiattiARGUMENT ‘dishwasher’, lit. ‘washdishes’) (Scalise
& Guevara, 2006).5
In endocentric argumental compounds, a noun is selected as the internal argument
by another (usually deverbal) noun or nominalization representing the head (Scalise
et al., 2005):
(1) trasporto
transportation.M.SG
latte
milk.M.SG
‘milk transportation’
2Non-deverbal argumental compounds are rare in Italian, and non-derived event nouns do not appear
to form compounds with their arguments. Therefore, an argumental structure constituted by a transitive
verb and its direct object appears to be prototypical in Italian verbal-nexus compounds (Radimský, 2015).
Moreover, as Radimský (2015) shows, a significant number of heads of these compounds are not derived
from verbs.
3Unlike Baroni et al. (2009a), we did not include compounds where the non-head is the subject of an
unaccusative verb, e.g., caduta massi ‘rockfall’.
4For instance, the relation between verbal and nominal constituents has been shown to play a major role
in the position of the head in Chinese compounds (Ceccagno & Basciano, 2007).
5For a thorough analysis on the notion of “head” in compounds see Scalise and Fábregas (2010).
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362 I. Lami, J. van de Weijer
In this case latte ‘milk’ is selected by the predicate indicated by the deverbal head
trasporto ‘transportation’. This structure, where the head is on the left of the com-
pound (NHN henceforth), is assumed to be the archetypal one in Italian (Scalise 1990,
1994; Bisetto & Scalise, 1999, Scalise & Fábregas, 2010) and other Romance lan-
guages, as opposed to Germanic languages (Selkirk, 1982; Scalise, 1986; Lieber,
2009; Melloni, 2020). However, it is also possible for the argument to appear as the
first element.
(2) autonoleggio
car.F.INV.rental.M.SG.
‘car rental’
In example (2), auto ‘car’ is the argument of the nominalized form noleggio ‘rental’,
on the right side of the compound.
A right-headed structure (NNHhenceforth) in Italian has been assumed to repre-
sent relics of Latin composition or foreign calques (e.g., frutticoltura ‘fruit farming’,
scuola bus ‘school bus’, Scalise 1990,1994; Masini & Scalise, 2012), to be restricted
to a small set of nouns (e.g., auto- as in (2), Iacobini, 2004; Schwarze, 2005; Radim-
ský, 2006; Booij, 2010), or to be subject to phonological constraints (Altakhaineh,
2019). Scalise and Fábregas (2010) claim that the right-headedness of many produc-
tive compounds (e.g., autostrada ‘highway’) represents a learned pattern where the
first element is a semi-word (i.e., a learned word that has become a free lexeme), and
thus a neoclassical order is present even in words that never existed in the classical
languages (see also Iacobini, 2004).
Differences in processing between left- and right-headed compounds have been
confirmed experimentally (El Yagoubi et al., 2008; Marelli et al., 2009; Marelli &
Luzzatti, 2012;Arcaraetal.2013,2014). However, right-headed compounds have
been argued to represent a productive word-formation process in contemporary Ital-
ian (Guevara & Scalise, 2009; Marelli & Luzzatti, 2012; Radimský 2013a,2013b,
2015). Radimský (2013b) showed that while it is true that NNHcompounds often
contain elements derived from neoclassical terms and belong to a specialized lexi-
con, nowadays they can also be formed with ordinary nouns from the common lex-
icon, “becoming a vital word-formation paradigm in contemporary Italian” (Radim-
ský, 2013a:44).
Despite their debatable nature, we included right-headed compounds in our exper-
iment in order to examine their behavior regarding word-internal anaphora to shed
more light on their properties. Due to their increasing presence in the contemporary
Italian vocabulary, the position of the head has been argued to be an important cri-
terion to consider if we aim to reach an exhaustive analysis of Italian compounds
(Bisetto, 2004; Radimský 2013b,2015) and hence, for the reasons illustrated here,
we believe that our experiment may help answer questions on the quality of this pe-
culiar compound structure.
In Italian, exocentric argumental compounds have a verb + noun structure (VN
henceforth). Being neither the verb nor the noun responsible for the semantic or
the syntactical properties of the compound, VN compounds do not possess a head
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Compound-internal anaphora: evidence from acceptability judgements . .. 363
Fig. 1 Structure of argumental
compounds in Italian
(Scalise, 1992b; Bauer, 2010; Masini & Scalise, 2012; Ricca, 2015).6These com-
pounds are very productive in the Romance languages (Tekavˇ
ci´
c, 1972; Gather,
2001).7
The syntactic relation between the elements in Italian VN compounds is almost
exclusively that of a predicate and its internal argument (see Scalise, 1992b; Scalise
et al., 2009, according to whom it is precisely the argumental structure that causes
exocentricity in Romance VN compounds)8:
(3) apriscatole
open.TR.cans.F.PL.
‘can opener’
The argument of the verb can be either a direct object of a transitive verb as in (3) or
a subject (e.g., batticuore, ‘heart palpitations’, lit. ‘pound heart’). However, VN com-
pounds almost exclusively possess an agentive interpretation (Bisetto, 1994; Gaeta &
Ricca, 2009; Scalise et al., 2009), and a transitive reading is the most common and
productive (Bisetto, 1999).
Figure 1shows the typology of Italian argumental compounds.
2.1.2 Properties of argumental compounds
NN argumental compounds have been widely investigated9(Bisetto & Scalise, 1999;
Lieber & Scalise, 2006; Delfitto & Paradisi, 2009a; Gaeta & Ricca, 2009; Baroni
et al., 2009b; Bisetto, 2015). According to some authors they are not attested in
Romance languages other than Italian (Baroni et al., 2009b; Delfitto & Paradisi,
2009b),10 and within Italian, they are used predominantly in specific contexts (news-
6Their exocentricity has, however, been matter of debate, and they have also been interpreted as endocen-
tric based on different interpretations of the nature of the verbal element (Varela, 1990;Zuffi,1981; Bisetto
1994,1999,2006; Bisetto & Melloni, 2008; Melloni & Bisetto, 2010).
7Except for Romanian (Grossmann, 2012).
8However, Ricca (2005) also shows oblique arguments, e.g. salva incendi boschivi ‘protect (from) wild-
fires’ or proteggi-vento ‘windshield’.
9Only left-headed argumental compounds are normally taken into account. To the best of our knowledge,
there is no systematic overview of Italian right-headed argumental compounds.
10Cf. Radimský (2018), however, who attests their presence in French, even though without the regularity
present in Italian.
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364 I. Lami, J. van de Weijer
papers, advertising, bureaucratic documents, web language) and not often in spoken
language (Baroni et al., 2009b; Bisetto 2010,2015).
Their ambiguous nature, at the border between morphology and syntax, has even
challenged the possibility of categorizing these structures as ‘compounds’: they
are defined as ‘compound-like phrases’ by Bisetto and Scalise (1999) and Bisetto
(2015)11 and considered to be the remains of ‘juxtaposition genitives’ of early phases
of the language by Delfitto and Paradisi (2009a). Baroni et al. (2009b) do not incor-
porate these formations within a single class. According to these authors, this struc-
ture includes regular compounds (without internal modifiers) as well as instances of
“headlinese phrases” (with internal modifiers). Gaeta and Ricca (2009) and Radim-
ský (2015), however, insist that these structures should be included in the group of
subordinate compounds instead.
One feature that has been extensively debated is their transparency to insertion:
these constructions allow for modification of the head (4a), the non-head (4b) or both
(4c) (examples from Bisetto & Scalise, 1999):
(4) a. produzione
production.F.SG
accurata
accurate.ADJ.F.SG
scarpe
shoes.F.PL
‘accurate shoe production’
b. produzione
production.F.SG
scarpe
shoesF.PL
estive
summer.ADJ.F.PL
‘summer shoe production’
c. produzione
production.F.SG
accurata
accurate.ADJ.F.SG
scarpe
shoes F.PL
estive
summer.ADJ.F.PL
‘accurate summer shoe production’
Modification of the head is considered more problematic by Delfitto and Paradisi
(2009a), while Gaeta and Ricca (2009) attest head modification even with non-
argumental compounds. Argument modification is more common than head modi-
fication (Radimský, 2015), not only with adjectives but also with more complex NPs.
Both the head and the non-head may consist of two coordinated nouns, as in (5a) with
coordinated heads, in (5b) with two coordinated arguments without the specification
of the second, and in (5c) where the two coordinated arguments are modified by an
adjective and followed by a relative clause.
(5) a. (Radimský, 2015)
gestione
management.F.SG
e
and
sviluppo
development.M.SG
risorse
resources.F.PL
‘resources management and development’
b. (Bisetto, 2015)
raccolta
collection.F.SG
dati
data.M.PL
di
of
suolo
land.M.SG
e
and
di
of
acque
waters.F.PL
sotterranee
underground.ADJ.F.PL
‘land and underground water data collection’
11In these studies, the argumental relation between the elements is taken as evidence of a syntactic nature.
However, Bisetto (2004) considers these structures as a peculiar kind of compound.
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Compound-internal anaphora: evidence from acceptability judgements . .. 365
c. (Bisetto, 2015)
tutela
protectionF.SG
norme
rulesF.PL
e
and
regolamentazioni
regulationsF.PL
chiare
clear.ADJ.F.PL
cui
which
fare
make
riferimento
reference.M.SG
‘rule protection and clear regulations to which to refer’
The acceptability of head deletion under coordination is debated. According to Gaeta
and Ricca (2009), it is observed even with non-argumental compounds. Bisetto and
Scalise (1999) consider (6a) marginally acceptable12 while Lieber and Scalise (2006)
consider it ungrammatical. According to Delfitto and Paradisi (2009a), it is possible
only if the ellipsis is licensed by an indefinite determiner as in (6b), something that
is also suggested by Radimský (2015), who notes the possibility of head deletion
in absence of a determiner13 (6c) (the examples in (6) are adapted from the ones
discussed in these studies):
(6) a. ?il
the.M.SG
trasporto
transportation.M.SG
passeggeri
passengers.M.PL
e
and
il
the.M.SG
Ø merci
Ø goodsF.PL
‘passengers- and goods transportation’
b. due
two
trasporti
transportations.M.PL
passeggeri
passengers.M.PL
e
and
uno
one.M.SG
Ø merci
Ø goodsF.PL
‘two passengers- and one goods transportation’
c. il
the.M.SG
trasporto
transportationM.SG
passeggeri
passengersM.PL
e
and
Ø merci
Ø goodsF.PL
‘passengers- and goods transportation’
Regarding recursivity, complex embedded argumental compounds represent a mar-
ginal phenomenon. However, Radimský (2015) verifies the possibility of trinominal
compounds, where an argumental compound can be embedded into another argumen-
tal or other type of compound:
(7) richiesta
claim.F.SG
risarcimento
compensation.M.SG
danni
damagesM.PL
‘damage compensation claim’
Like NN compounds, VN compounds are not opaque to syntactic operations either.
The nominal component of VN compounds can in fact be expanded in several ways. It
can be modified by adjectives, complex NPs and relative clauses (Ricca 2005,2010;
Bisetto, 2015), and even by extremely complex structures (example from Gaeta &
Ricca, 2009):
12See also Masini and Scalise’s (2012)example:?Il lavoro consiste in una raccolta-fondi e dati, lit. ‘The
job consists of collection-funds and data’.
13Radimský (2015) emphasizes that the acceptability of (6c) might be due to the interpretation of the
objects as two coordinated arguments, i.e. il trasporto [passeggeri e merci] ‘[passengers- and goods] trans-
portation’, hence becoming a case of insertion and not of head deletion.
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366 I. Lami, J. van de Weijer
(8) [porta
hold.TR
[rotolo
roll.M.SG
delle
of.the
strisce
strips.F.PL
di
of
carta
paper.F.SG
che
that
si
are
usano
used
per
to
coprire
cover
la
the.F.SG
tavoletta
board.F.SG
del
of.the.M.SG
wc]]
wc.M.SG
‘roll of paper strips that are used to cover the wc board-holder’
Head deletion has been observed with single, coordinated and modified nouns (Ricca,
2005) and also with very complex NPs, example from Bisetto (2015):
(9) ristorante
restaurant.M.SG
[acchiappa
nab.TR
[turisti
tourists.M.PL
con
with
il
the.M.SG
grano],
dough.M.SG
[stranieri
foreigners.M.PL
che
who
potrebbero
might
gradire
like
anche
also
una
a.F.SG
pizza
pizza.F.SG
surgelata]
frozenADJ.F.SG
e
and
[persone
people.F.PL
di
of
dubbie
doubtful.ADJ.F.PL
conoscenze
knowledge.F.PL
culinarie
culinary.ADJ.F.PL
‘restaurant nabbing rich tourists, foreigners who might also like a frozen pizza
and people with doubtful culinary knowledge’
VN compounds allow for recursivity as well (example from Dressler, 1987; Bisetto,
2010):
(10) portastuzzicadenti
carry.TR pick.TR.teeth.M.PL
‘toothpick holder’14
2.2 In-word anaphora
In his influential paper, Postal (1969), based on introspections of his own dialec-
tal English variety, identifies several constraints on the acceptability of pronominal
anaphora, and formulates the generalization that complex words15 are “anaphoric is-
lands”, i.e., they cannot contain a subpart functioning as an antecedent for subsequent
anaphora.16 Hence, while the sentences in (11) are acceptable, those in (12) are, in
his view, ungrammatical:
14It has been emphasized (Bisetto, 2010; Ricca, 2015) that recursive VN compounds should not
be confused with structures showing a coordinative relationship between the verbal elements (e.g.,
lavatergilunotto ‘rear window wiper/washer’). The relationship that ties the elements together is in fact
structurally different: (10) is a truly recursive compound where the base represents the internal argument
of the added verb ([V[VN]]N), while in the other case the two verbal elements express a coordinative rela-
tion and share the same argument ([[VN][VN]]N), being a coordinative compound and not a subordinate
one. Ricca (2015) stresses that recursive [V[VN]]Nstructures only exist in compositional constructions,
as VV compounds are rare in Romance languages.
15In his analysis, “complex words” should not be considered from a morphological point of view only:
his investigation touches on many different issues, ranging from morphology to information structure and
semantics.
16He defines this phenomenon as “outbound anaphora”, which is what we investigate in our study. We
did not analyze inbound anaphora (i.e., where the referential expression becomes a sub-part of a word) as
these two phenomena are structurally different (Haspelmath, 2011).
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Compound-internal anaphora: evidence from acceptability judgements . .. 367
(11) a. Max hunts for wild animalsibut Pete only kills domesticated onesi.
b. People with long legsidon’t like people with short onesi.
c. Those who teach classical languagesidon’t appreciate people who deal
with modern onesi.
(12) a. *Max is a wild-animalihunter but Pete only kills domesticated onesi.
b. *Long-legiged people don’t like people with short onesi.
c. *Classical languageiteachers don’t appreciate people who deal with
modern onesi.
After Postal (1969) made the claim of word-islandhood, a debate arose: “islands”
have been argued to be “peninsulas” (Corum, 1973; Browne, 1974; Lieber, 1992),
suggesting that this phenomenon does not involve a categorical constraint.
Lakoff and Ross (1972) tried to individuate elements facilitating outbound
anaphora to account for its tendencies and proposed, among other things, that it
is more acceptable if the morphologically complex word (in this case, a derivative
word) containing the antecedent does not c-command the pronoun. Therefore, (13a)
is predicted to be less acceptable than (13b):
(13) a. ?* The guitariist thought that itiwas a beautiful instrument.
b. ? John became a guitariist because he thought that itiwas a beautiful
instrument.
Their approach, arguing for ‘tendencies’ and not ‘constraints’, is shared by Dressler
(1987). In fact, he points out that words’ subparts are syntactically inaccessible only if
we postulate the existence of a unidirectional flow of information, advocating instead
for interactional models. He stresses how problematic it is to consider a tendency as
an absolute constraint with ad-hoc hypotheses created to confirm such absolutism,
and notices that pronominal anaphora can indeed have as its antecedent the argument
element of an argumental compound17 (however, limiting this possibility only to VN
compounds), invoking the important role of semantic transparency, i.e., the clear de-
compositionality of a complex word into its parts. In fact, not only does he specify
that the less tightly the lexemes are bonded, the more open to syntax they are (i.e., a
structural property), but also the more semantically transparent the lexemes are (i.e.,
a semantic property).18
Ward et al. (1991) consider in-word anaphora as a gradient phenomenon, com-
pletely motivated by pragmatic factors. Moreover, contrary to what is claimed by
Lakoff and Ross (1972), according to Ward et al. (1991:449) neither the syntactic
role of the antecedent nor the morphological relation between antecedent and pro-
noun are decisive for its acceptability: “the degree to which outbound anaphora is
felicitous is determined by the relative accessibility of the discourse entities evoked
by word-internal elements, and not by any principles of syntax or morphology”.
17He also affirms that the antecedent and the anaphoric pronoun need to be in two different but adjacent
clauses, something that has been taken into consideration in the design of our target sentences.
18Semantics plays a decisive role also in the analyses by Tic Doloureux (1971), who argues that the
relation between antecedent and pronoun must be semantic in nature, often defined by a part-whole corre-
spondence.
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368 I. Lami, J. van de Weijer
Based on the results of an experimental study, they show that antecedents of out-
bound anaphora appear to be more easily accessible if already implicitly present in
the discourse. They also present an interesting example with an argumental com-
pound:
(14) Although casual cocaineiuse is down, the number of people using itirou-
tinely has increased.
To account for cases such as (14), they too invoke the notion of semantic transparency.
In this case, cocaine use is easily decomposed because of the interpretation of the
argument structure. According to their analysis, since both the predicate use and the
argument cocaine are lexically accessible, the discourse entity becomes contextually
salient and therefore accessible as the antecedent for a pronoun.
2.3 Compound-internal anaphora in Italian argumental compounds
Regarding Italian argumental compounds, some opposing views have been pro-
posed. Scalise (1992a) excludes the possibility that one element of the compound
can be the antecedent of anaphora. While it is shown that a word in isolation pos-
sesses referential capacity, the same word is assumed not to feature this syntac-
tic property when it is part of a compound (in this case a VN argumental com-
pound):
(15) a. Queste
these.F.PL
cartei
papers.F.PL
si
are
mettono
put
le
the.F.PL
une
ones.F.PL
sulle
on.the.F.PL
altrei.
others.F.PL
‘These papers are put one on another.’
b. *Questi
these.M.PL
tagliacartei
cut.TR.papers.F.PL
si
are
mettono
put
le
the.F.PL
une
ones.F.PL
sulle
on.the.F.PL
altrei.
others.F.PL
‘These paper-cutters are put one on another.’
Scalise (1992a) gives the example (15b) to demonstrate a postulated anaphoric island-
hood of compounds. However this is not particularly felicitous since it is explainable
only in terms of an abrupt change of subject. Hence, such an example would result in
an ill-formed sentence even with a normal NP:
(16) *Questi
these.M.PL
mazzi
decks.M.PL
di
of
cartei
cards.F.PL
si
are
mettono
put
le
the.F.PL
une
ones.F.PL
sulle
on.the.F.PL
altrei.
others.F.PL
‘These decks of cards are set one on another.’
In Bisetto and Scalise’s (1999) analysis of argumental compounds (‘compound-like
phrases’), anaphoric reference to the non-head is categorically excluded:
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Compound-internal anaphora: evidence from acceptability judgements . .. 369
(17) *Il
the.M.SG
trasporto
transportation.M.SG
passeggerii
passengers.M.PL
è
is
efficiente
efficient.ADJ.M.SG
ma
but
noi
we
non
not
lii
them.M.PL
conosciamo.
know
‘Passenger transportation is efficient but we do not know them.’
In our opinion, (17) does not provide solid proof for unacceptability, because a se-
mantic bias (and possibly a syntactic one) may be the reason why this sentence is ill-
formed. While ‘passenger transportation’ refers generically to passengers that can be
transported, the act of knowing them implies in fact a specific reference. An example
that presents a more natural context for the pronoun appears in fact more acceptable:
(18) ?Il
the.M.SG
trasporto
transportation.M.SG
passeggerii
passengers.MPL
è
is
efficiente
efficient.ADJ.M.SG
ma
but
non
not
lii
them.M.SG
rimborsa
refund
in
in
caso
case.M.SG
di
of
ritardi.
delays.M.PL
‘Passenger transportation is efficient but it does not refund them in case of
delay.’
Delfitto and Paradisi (2009a:55-56) also argue that the ill-formedness of (17) is due to
other factors than anaphoric opacity and observe that “anaphora is allowed in cases
[...] where the resuming pronoun matches the referential features of the non-head
constituent to be resumed”:
(19) Nonostante
in.spite
l’
the.F.SG
efficienza
efficiency.F.SG
del
of.the.M.SG
trasporto
transportation.M.SG
passeggerii,
passengers.M.PL
questi
these.M.PL
ultimii
latters.M.PL
protestano
protest
spesso
often
‘In spite of the efficiency of the passenger transportation, the latter often
protest.’
However, example (19) differs in two ways from Bisetto and Scalise‘s (1999) ex-
ample (17) which may explain its acceptability. First, the compound does not c-
command the anaphora, something that arguably hinders in-word anaphora (Lakoff &
Ross, 1972). Second, the referring element questi ultimii‘the latter’ is not a pronomi-
nal form, but a full NP, something that is argued to facilitate in-word anaphora (Mon-
termini, 2006). For these reasons, example (19) does not represent true counterevi-
dence to (17).
Lieber and Scalise (2006) reject the possibility of compound-internal pronominal
anaphora for NN compounds based on the example (17) proposed by Bisetto and
Scalise (1999). They acknowledge the long dispute regarding the Lexical Integrity
Hypothesis and coreference into complex words, stating that “further investigation is
needed on various factors which seem to influence judgments, including differences
between derivation and compounding, the type of syntactic construction involved, the
typology of the language in question, the productivity of forms, and so on” (Lieber
& Scalise, 2006:12).
Radimský (2015) points out that the comparisons between anaphora in argumen-
tal compounds in opposition to phrases by Bisetto and Scalise (1999) cannot give
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370 I. Lami, J. van de Weijer
insights into the relation between morphology and syntax. They compare (17) to
(20):
(20) Quell’
that.F.SG
azienda
firm.F.SG
si
itself
occupa
occupies
del
of.the.M.SG
trasporto
transportation.M.SG
quotidiano
daily.ADJ.M.SG
del
of.the
lattei,
milk.M.SG
ma
but
la
the
suai
its.F.SG
freschezza
freshness.F.SG
non
not
è
is
certa.
certain.ADJ.F.SG
‘That firm deals with the daily transportation of milk but its freshness is
uncertain.’
As Radimský (2015) observes, while in (20) the anaphora is governed by a full DP
del latte ‘of the milk’, in (17) it concerns a bare noun. However, he does not consider
pronominal reference to the non-head acceptable, although he admits the presence of
some evidence in corpora ‘under certain circumstances’ which he explains in terms of
discourse phenomena rather than syntactic properties, in agreement with Montermini
(2006). He shows an example from Bisetto (2004), who admits that “pronominal
reference to the non-head constituent is sometimes possible, even though in sentences
that are often peculiar” (Bisetto, 2004:35, our translation from Italian):
(21) In
in
questa
this.F.SG
città
town.F.SG
la
the.F.SG
rimozione
removal.F.SG
autoi
cars.F.PL
avviene
occurs
regolarmente
regularly
eccetto
except
che
that
per
for
quellei
those.F.PL
di
of
grandi
big.M.PL
dimensioni.
dimensions.M.PL
‘In this town, towaway is regularly applied, except for cars of big size.’
Bisetto (2004) also states that these structures show no variability in the relation be-
tween the constituents, underlining the peculiarity of argumental compounds. Exam-
ple (21) is cited by Masini and Scalise (2012) as well, to show the anaphoric capacity
of non-head elements of NHN compounds. However, they do not consider pronomi-
nal anaphora with VN compounds acceptable.
(22) *Il
the.M.SG
portarivistei
hold.TR.magazines.F.PL
nei
of.themi
può
can
contenere
contain
dieci.
ten
‘The magazine rack can contain ten of them.’
It is interesting to notice that a similar example was used by Dressler (1987)topre-
cisely show its acceptability:
(23) È
it.is
un
a.M.SG
bel
good.M.SG
portamonetei.
hold.TR.coins.F.PL
Nei
of.them
contiene
contain
tante.
many.F.PL
‘It is a good purse. It holds many of them.’
Radimský (2015) who does not accept compound-internal anaphora with NN com-
pounds, also gives an example from Grandi (2006) to represent an exception, con-
cerning precisely VN compounds.
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Compound-internal anaphora: evidence from acceptability judgements . .. 371
(24) È
it.is
una
a.F.PL
buona
good.F.PL
lavapiattii,
wash.TRdishes.M.PL
ma
but
non
not
lava
wash
bene
well
quellii
those.M.PL
in
in
plastica.
plastic.F.SG
‘It is a good dishwasher, but it does not wash well the plastic ones.’
Grandi (2006:34) describes the structure of VN compounds as showing “a rather low
degree of syntactic atomicity, since, in violation of the Lexical Integrity Hypothesis,
it allows the relativization of the sole second constituent” (see also Gaeta & Ricca,
2009; Ricca, 2010 for similar considerations). Grandi (2006) also points out that ex-
amples such as (24) show that this phenomenon not only is acceptable with new for-
mations but also with compounds that are well established in the lexicon. Regarding
the syntactic behaviour of new formations, Ricca (2005) notices that corpora show a
permeability of VN compounds to syntax even with nonce words:
(25) collanina
little.book.collection.F.SG
“trasgressiva”
raffishADJ.F.SG
acchiappatalentii
catch.TR.talents.M.PL
tra
among
i
the.M.PL
qualii
whom.M.PL
ha
has
figurato
figured
anche
also
il
the.M.SG
primo
early.ADJ.M.PL
Ammaniti
Ammaniti
‘talent-catching raffish little book collection, among whom there was also
the young Ammaniti’
Ricca (2005) underlines that a closer look at new formations can provide insights into
formation rules since these instances are not stabilized in speakers‘ mental lexicon
and hence are not formed by idiosyncratic semantic evolutions.
Arcodia et al. (2009) consider the phenomenon unusual but do not dismiss it as
unacceptable. On the contrary, they acknowledge how the referential capacity of one
element strongly challenges views of grammar where syntactic rules apply only after
morphological rules. Baroni et al. (2009b) define the referential capacity of the non-
head as one of the peculiar properties of NN argumental compounds, underlining the
difference with English, where pronominal reference is not acceptable:
(26) trattamento
treatment.M.SG
materie
materials.F.PL
plastichei
plastic.ADJ.F.PL
e
and
smaltimento
disposal.M.SG
loroi
their.M.PL
derivati
by-products.M.PL
‘treatment of plastic materials and disposal of their by-products’
A thorough discussion of the possibility of outbound anaphora in Italian complex
words is presented by Montermini (2006). This study analyzes the phenomenon in
general, including several kinds of complex words and referential expressions. The
author underlines that demonstratives and full NPs are more acceptable than pro-
nouns, since these involve less referential ambiguity, as in (19). He also points out
that the hypothetical universal parameter by Dressler (1987), according to which
compounds are more transparent to syntax than derivatives (i.e., complex words cre-
ated by adding bound affixes to a root instead of to free lexemes) is uncertain, as in
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372 I. Lami, J. van de Weijer
Italian it appears to be valid for VN compounds much more than for NN compounds.
An explanation, according to the author, is the prominent presence of coordinative
compounds: the elements of this compound type are in fact on the same syntactical
level, and this would favour referential ambiguity and hence discourage its accep-
tance. This would thus imply an unbalanced presence of the phenomenon in corpora,
rather than a structural difference in acceptability for VN compounds as opposed to
NN compounds.
2.4 Current issues
Even though the previous studies represent important investigations of Italian com-
pounds, we believe that neither single intuitions nor corpus-based methods can an-
swer the question whether compound-internal pronominal anaphora is acceptable and
whether there are degrees of acceptability caused by the structure of the compound
and the quality of referential expression (see the review on the limits of corpus re-
search by Dash & Ramamoorthy, 2019, among others). Experimental evidence is
essential to address these topics (see Myers, 2017 on the importance of acceptability
judgments).
A methodological issue seems to lie at the basis of this uncertainty in the litera-
ture. Many researchers draw conclusions based on their intuitions which are typically
based on theoretical stands. In addition to theoretical reflections based on intuitions,
much research on Italian compounds is based on corpora. Even though corpus re-
search on Italian compounds has provided and continues to provide important in-
sights (see among many others, the impressive work of Radimský, 2015), it may not
be the best method to investigate specific research questions such as the acceptabil-
ity of compound-internal pronominal anaphora. As Micheli (2016) underlines, the
use of corpora in the investigation of Italian compounds is a challenging research
method: compounds in Italian are relatively rare lexical entities, and tend to be used
in restricted contexts (this appears to be particularly true for argumental compounds
(Baroni et al., 2009a,b; Bisetto 2010,2015)). Due to their low frequency, it is hard
to record sufficiently many occurrences to let linguists draw conclusions on specific
phenomena.
Moreover, negative evidence (or weak positive evidence) in corpus-based research,
as Baroni et al. (2009a,b) point out, does not necessarily mean that a phenomenon is
unacceptable, because it may reflect other types of bias such as stylistic preferences
or pragmatics-related factors.
An experimental investigation of anaphoric reference, however, can answer spe-
cific questions, and provide insights into structural differences regarding compounds
as well as referential expressions. This is of crucial importance, especially when re-
flecting on the conclusions drawn by previous studies. As described in the previous
section, Montermini (2006) states that NN compounds are statistically more open to
anaphoric reference than VN compounds, based on the high frequency of coordina-
tive NN compounds (which have no dependency relation between the elements, and
hence the reference would be ambiguous).
Montermini (2006) expresses doubts on acceptability judgements, stating that
these are subject to variation. This variation is what we are specifically interested
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Compound-internal anaphora: evidence from acceptability judgements . .. 373
in since it appears that we are dealing with tendencies and cannot expect clear-cut
answers. He also points out that real instances of word-internal anaphora would be
considered unacceptable in an acceptability judgement task. We agree that metalin-
guistic reflections tend to be more prescriptive in nature; however, we wonder if this
could be prevented by explicitly asking informants to think about informal contexts.
Finally, if what Montermini (2006) states is true, we can safely assume that our re-
sults underestimate the phenomenon, which would mean that the phenomenon is even
more acceptable than what our data suggest.
Acknowledging the importance of pragmatic factors (Montermini, 2006;Wardet
al., 1991), an acceptability judgment task allows us to maintain the same structure
for the target sentences, so that informants are not biased by differences in informa-
tion packaging. In every sentence, the pronoun clearly refers back to an element of
the compound, and we only ask to rate the acceptability of the utterance. Moreover,
based on Montermini’s (2006) observations on the role of the referential expression,
we only used overt direct object pronouns and null subject pronouns, but no demon-
stratives or full NPs. The fact that less ambiguous referents are more acceptable than
pronouns is, according to Montermini (2006), a corroborating element of the prag-
matic account for word-internal anaphora acceptability, and this is why we focused
on basic forms such as pronouns and zero forms. It is important to underline that
Montermini’s (2006) analysis encompasses all sorts of complex words and referen-
tial expressions, hence, compared to our much narrower research, a corpus-based
investigation is more feasible and allows to draw general conclusions. However, aim-
ing to address more fine-grained issues, it would have been impossible to obtain such
a control of the data if we based our investigation on corpora.
Montermini (2006) and Radimský (2015) agree that the acceptability of word-
internal anaphora is explained by discourse phenomena rather than syntactic prop-
erties. We do not deny the role that pragmatic factors play in the acceptability of
compound-internal pronominal anaphora. We only think that (in agreement with
Ward et al., 1991) if this phenomenon is truly unacceptable, there are no contexts
in which it is acceptable. Pragmatics cannot change the essence of all possible unnat-
ural sentences making them natural. Moreover, pragmatics may be at the basis of why
this phenomenon occurs, but this fact alone cannot provide an explanation for how
this phenomenon occurs, and since evidence has been found in corpora, it is impor-
tant to analyze the tendencies of compound-internal anaphora focusing on its form
rather than on its function.
3Thestudy
3.1 Materials19
The target argumental compounds were either VN, NHNorNN
H. We selected items
based on the frequency and usage of the compounds and the argument constituents,
19All the stimuli, the responses and the performed analyses are available on the Open Science Framework:
https://osf.io/wznm3/?view_only=d23e89ce480b4e80a69667af89aafec9.
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374 I. Lami, J. van de Weijer
Table 1 Target compounds
VN NHNNN
H
Overt
pronoun
lavapiatti ‘dishwasher’
portalettere ‘mail carrier’
lustrascarpe ‘shoeshiner’
tostapane ‘bread toaster’
schiaccianoci ‘nutcracker’
trasporto merci ‘freight
transportation’ smaltimento
rifiuti ‘waste disposal’ aiuto
regista ‘assistant director’
raccolta fondi ‘fundraiser’
direttore vendite ‘sales
director’
autolavaggio ‘car wash’
motoraduno ‘motorcycle rally’
autoscontro ‘bumper car’
autostop ‘hitchhiking’
radioascoltatore ‘radio
listener’
Null
pronoun
portacenere ‘ashtray’
tritacarne ‘meat grinder’
passaverdure ‘vegetable
mill’ scolapasta ‘pasta
strainer’ portabagagli
‘luggage carrier’
gestione risorse ‘resource
management’ rimborso spese
‘reimbursement of expenses’
rassegne stampa ‘press
reviews’ raccolta firme
‘collection of signatures’
cambio gomme ‘tire change’
frutticoltura ‘fruit growing’
fotomontaggio ‘photomontage’
videoregistratore ‘video
recorder’ cartamodello ‘paper
pattern’ videonoleggio ‘video
store’
and the morpho-semantic transparency of the constituents. Targets selected for the
experiment are listed in Table 1. There were ten of each type, five of which were
combined with an overt pronoun and five of which with a null pronoun, as shown in
the table.
In the selection of the target items, we aimed to find compounds that were simi-
lar in frequency, and that contained non-heads which were also similar in frequency.
Both the compounds in Table 1and the argument elements, are classified in the on-
line vocabulary Il nuovo vocabolario di base della lingua italiana (De Mauro, 2014),
as either fondamentale ‘fundamental’, di alto uso ‘high usage’, di alta disponibilità
‘high availability’, or comune ‘common’. In addition, we retrieved corpus frequencies
for the compounds and their constituents from itTenTen 2016, a 4.9 billion word cor-
pus consisting of Internet texts, available on SketchEngine (Jakubíˇ
cek et al., 2013).
Figure 2shows the result. In this figure, frequencies of the compounds in the corpus
are shown as green boxes in the lower part of the graph, and those of the first and sec-
ond constituent within each compound type as adjacent boxes above the green boxes.
Grey boxes represent the frequencies of the predicate element of the compounds, and
the red boxes those of the objects. The frequency range of the compounds is 200 to
5,873, and that of the argument constituents is 56,978 to 1,362,327.
The experimental target sentences consisted of two or more clauses. Two examples
are given in (27). The first clause contained one of the compounds while the last
clause contained an overt pronoun (as in 27a) or a null pronoun (as in 27b) referring
back to the argument element of the compound in the first clause.
(27) a. Ho
I.have
provato
tried
a
to
riparare
fix
la
theF.SG
lavapiattii
wash.TR.dishes M.PL
ma
but
continua
it.continues
a
to
non
not
pulirlii
cleaning.them.M.PL
bene
good
‘I have tried fixing the dishwasher, but it still doesn’t clean them well.’
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Compound-internal anaphora: evidence from acceptability judgements . .. 375
Fig. 2 Corpus frequencies of the
target items (Color figure online)
b. Ho
I.have
usato
used
il
theM.SG
portacenerei
carry.TR.ashF.SG
di
of
cristallo
crystalM.SG
ma
but
era
it.was
bucato
piercedM.SG
ed
and
Øi
it
è
has
caduta
fallen
a
to.the
terra
ground.F.SG
‘I have used the crystal ashtray but it had a hole in it and it fell on the
ground.’
Compounds were also matched for morpho-semantic transparency of the con-
stituents: the referring pronoun agreed in number and gender with the argument ele-
ment but not with the predicate element, as in (28a) and (28b):
(28) a. Ho
I.have
provato
tried
a
to
usare
use
entrambi
both
i
the.M.PL
tostapanei
toast.TR.M.SG
ma
but
sono
they.are
rotti
broken.ADJ.M.PL
e
and
loi
it.M.SG
hanno
have
carbonizzato
burnt.M.SG
‘I tried to use both the bread toasters but they are broken and have burnt
it.’
b. Ho
I.have
comprato
bought
un
an.M.SG
altro
other M.SG
schiaccianocii
crack.TR.nuts.M.PL
perché
because
quello
that M.SG
vecchio
old.ADJ.M.SG
le
them.F.PL
sbriciolava
crumbled
completamente
completely
‘I bought another nutcracker because the old one crumbled them com-
pletely.’
A total of 20 distractor items were added to the experimental sentences with the
purpose of masking the purpose of the experiment and to encourage the respondents
to make use of all values on the acceptability scale. The distractor items contained
compounds just like the target sentences. Ten of them were grammatical, and ten
were not. With that, the total number of sentences presented to the respondents was
50.
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376 I. Lami, J. van de Weijer
3.2 Procedure
The questionnaire was carried out online through a web-hosted survey platform. At
the onset, informants received information that they participated in a study on na-
tive speaker judgements and that their task would be to judge the acceptability of
50 sentences on a five-point scale (Dawes, 2008) from completely unnatural to to-
tally natural. According to findings from empirical linguistics, Likert scales provide
reliable results (Murphy & Vogel, 2008; Weskott & Fanselow, 2011; Juzek, 2015).
Italian NHN compounds are usually written as separate words, while NNHand
VN compounds are written as single words. This difference in orthography presents
a potential confounding factor (e.g., Marelli et al., 2015; Juhasz et al., 2005) that
we wished to avoid. To do so, the stimulus sentences in the present study were not
written but generated by a natural sounding online synthetic voice generator. Infor-
mants could listen to the sentences as many times as they wanted and did not have to
respond within a particular time limit. They were asked to base their judgments on
their intuitions, and were informed that there were no right or wrong answers. Finally,
participants were told not to judge the sentences according to a prescriptive criterion
but only in terms of how natural they sounded in informal, spoken contexts. After the
instructions, the informants provided information about their language background,
education, gender and age. The sentences were presented in a random order.
3.3 Results
The test was completed by 93 women and 47 men, all monolingual native speak-
ers of Italian. Their age ranged from 23 to 75 years (51 years on average). All but
two participants reported that they spoke at least one additional language, mostly En-
glish, but also German, Spanish and French. The majority lived in Italy at the time
of their responses, but 13 reported living in another country. The highest educational
level obtained reported by the participants was middle school (1), high-school (19),
Bachelor’s degree (17), Master’s degree (81), Ph.D. (16), or other (6).
All respondents responded to all sentences. The total number of responses, there-
fore, was 7,000, 4,200 to the target sentences and 2,800 to the distractor sentences.
Figure 3shows the response distributions to the target items separately for those con-
taining null pronouns (top row) and overt pronouns (bottom row).
The distributions in Fig. 3indicate no clear agreement across the participants for
any of the three types. However, positive responses appear to outnumber negative
responses for NHN compounds and VN compounds, suggesting that the participants
may have found the sentences a bit strange but did not dismiss them as unnatural. The
responses to the NNHcompounds on the other hand were definitely more negative.
Below, we present the results of two analyses. In the first analysis, the ratings of the
target items are compared with those of the distractors. The purpose of this analysis
is to establish whether the target sentences were rated comparably to the grammatical
or the ungrammatical distractors. This analysis was done on the full data set. The
second analysis focuses on the effect of pronoun (overt or null) on the ratings of the
target types. The purpose of this analysis is to establish whether and how the ratings
to the different target types were modified depending on whether the pronoun was
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Compound-internal anaphora: evidence from acceptability judgements . .. 377
Fig. 3 Response distributions. Bars indicate counts of responses from least to most acceptable
overt or null. Since distractor sentences did not contain overt or null pronouns, this
analysis was done on the target items only. For the two analyses, the ratings were
replaced by the values -2 to +2. Both analyses consisted of mixed-effects regression
modeling described in more detail below. The analyses were performed in R (version
4.0.2, R Core Team, 2020).
3.3.1 Analysis 1
The effects of the item categories (fixed effects) were evaluated using the ungram-
matical distractors as a reference category to which the other categories were com-
pared (so-called treatment contrast coding). The analysis also included random in-
tercepts for the participants and for the items. The overall effect of item category
was significant (likelihood ratio test: chi-square =53.174, df =4, p=.000).
The difference between ungrammatical distractors and target sentences was signif-
icant for targets with VN compounds (EST =0.937, SE =0.237, df =49.95,
t=3.961, p=0.000) and for target sentences with NHN compounds (EST =1.072,
SE =0.237, df =49.95, t=4.532, p=0.000), but not for targets with NNHcom-
pounds (EST =0.250, SE =0.237, df =49.95, t=1.057, p=0.300). Not surpris-
ingly, the difference between ungrammatical and grammatical distractors was sig-
nificant (EST =2.081, SE =0.237, df =49.95, t=8.798, p=0.000). Figure 4
shows, from left to right, the model-based estimated ratings and 95% confidence in-
tervals for the ungrammatical distractors, the three types of target sentences, and the
grammatical distractors. All target sentences were rated higher than the ungrammat-
ical distractors (notably those with VN and NHN compounds), and lower than the
grammatical distractors (notably those with NNHcompounds).
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378 I. Lami, J. van de Weijer
Fig. 4 Estimated acceptability ratings (dots) with 95% confidence intervals (extending lines) for distractor
and target sentences
3.3.2 Analysis 2
The second analysis focuses on the target sentences only and the role of the pro-
nouns in the acceptability judgements. The fixed effects in this analysis were com-
pound type (VN, NHNorNN
H), pronoun type (Null or Overt), and the interaction of
these two predictors. The random effects, as in the first analysis, were random inter-
cepts for items and for participants. As already suggested by the previous analysis,
the sentences containing NNHcompounds were rated lower than those containing
VN and NHN compounds. The overall effect of compound was significant (likeli-
hood ratio test: chi-square =15.131, df =2, p=.001). More specifically, the rat-
ings of sentences containing NNHcompounds were significantly lower than those
of sentences containing VN compounds (EST =−0.687, SE =0.199, z=−3.458,
p=0.00220) and those containing NHN compounds (EST =0.822, SE =0.199,
z=4.137, p=0.000). The difference between sentences containing VN com-
pounds and those containing NHN compounds, on the other hand, was not significant
(EST =0.135, SE =0.199, z=0.679, p=0.776).
Pronoun as an additional fixed effect did not significantly improve the model
(likelihood ratio test: chi square =1.756, df =1, p=0.185), and the interaction
of pronoun and compound, was only marginally significant (likelihood ratio test:
χ2=5.267, df =2, p=0.071). In sum, sentences with VN and NHN compounds
20p-values corrected for multiple comparisons using the single-step method.
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Compound-internal anaphora: evidence from acceptability judgements . .. 379
Fig. 5 Estimated acceptability ratings (dots) with 95% confidence intervals (extending lines) for null and
overt pronouns within target sentences
were rated significantly higher than ungrammatical distractor sentences, but not sen-
tences with NNHcompounds. The predicted values (with 95% confidence intervals)
for the model containing the interaction are shown in Fig. 5.
4 Discussion
The aim of this experiment was to determine whether Italian native speakers consider
compound-internal pronominal reference acceptable, and the degree to which differ-
ences in compound structure and referential expressions affect their acceptability.
The results of Analysis 1 (Sect. 3.3.1) suggest that compound-internal anaphora
is largely acceptable for NHN and VN compounds, but not acceptable for NNHcom-
pounds. This difference was expected, and is in line with psycholinguistic evidence.
Marelli et al. (2009), for instance, investigated priming effects with NHN, NNHand
VN compounds, and found that while the mental representation of left-headed and
exocentric compounds is tied to both constituents, the one for NNHcompounds is
strongly tied to the head. This corroborates the theoretical considerations by Di Sci-
ullo and Williams (1987) according to whom left-headed and VN compounds show a
lexicalization of syntactic structures (a ‘flat representation’), while right-headed com-
pounds represent true morphological objects (a hierarchical representation). Marelli
et al. (2009) argue that the internal syntactic structure of VN compounds makes them
similar to VPs, where the verb is the most important element, both syntactically and
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

380 I. Lami, J. van de Weijer
semantically. El Yagoubi et al. (2008) and Arcara et al. (2013) also found neurolin-
guistic evidence of a higher processing load for NNHcompounds compared to NHN
compounds. El Yagoubi et al. (2008) propose that this is due to the internal order of
left-headed compounds reflecting the canonical Italian order of syntactic elements,
thus drawing similar conclusions as Marelli et al. (2009). Interestingly, Arcara et al.
(2013) show that canonical order does not fully explain compound processing, since
VN and NNHcompounds appear similarly affected by decompositional effect. They
argue that this might be explained in terms of different grammatical properties lead-
ing to a different integration of constituents, but also in terms of their productivity in
Italian, which led to expectations on their orthography (see also Arcara et al., 2014).
As the authors underline (in line with Marelli & Luzzatti, 2012), compound process-
ing often implies the interaction of parallel morphological and semantic information,
and since NHN and VN compounds differ morphologically and semantically, this
arguably plays a role in their processing. For these reasons, we think that limiting
the analysis to argumental compounds is important to compare similar syntactic and
semantic relations.
Regarding further differences between left- and right-headed compounds, Radim-
ský (2013a,b) notices a strong correlation between orthography and the position of
the head. In his investigation on “mirror compounds” (i.e., compounds that can be
both left- and right-headed, e.g., radio.giornaleHvs. giornaleHradio ‘radio news’),
he observes that right-headed compounds are consistently spelled as one word (i.e.,
‘tight compounds’) while left-headed compounds are spelled as two (i.e., ‘loose com-
pounds’). While orthography is not a reliable criterion in establishing the degree of
‘wordhood’ of a linguistic element, it may indicate linguistic intuitions by native
speakers and hence, an orthographical fusion of the members might be an indicator
of unity (Tollemache, 1945; Iacobini, 2010; Gaeta, 2011), reflecting “different mental
word-formation models in the mind of language users” (Radimský, 2013a:48).
Therefore, we can interpret our results as reflecting the minor accessibility of the
argument element of NNHcompounds, and hence less tied to mental representation,
which makes it less available for pronominal anaphora.
These results pose some interesting questions on how complex words are built. If
we assume that lexemes are at the basis of compounding then it becomes problem-
atic to account for our results. Lexemes are abstract units of lexical organization and
lack grammatical properties (e.g., definiteness): hence they cannot have a referential
status. Montermini (2010) argues that in some cases (e.g., argumental compounds),
concrete word forms appear to be at the basis of compound formation. However,
he also mentions neoclassical compounds as a particular type on the basis of their
elements, which are not independent syntactic elements, e.g., cardiologo ‘cardiol-
ogist’: building elements such as cardio- would represent a suppletive form of the
autonomous cuore ‘heart’ (in agreement with Guevara & Scalise, 2009), possessing
a [+bound] feature in the lexical representation (Corbin, 1992). Montermini (2010)
states that neoclassical compounds are sometimes based on different rules than those
of ‘native’ compounds, and from our results, it appears that the structure, rather than
the mere semantic transparency of the elements (we used only semantically transpar-
ent elements in our target) plays a greater role.
These considerations are highly interrelated with those on the flat and hierarchi-
cal representations for NHN and NNHcompounds respectively, and possibly with
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Compound-internal anaphora: evidence from acceptability judgements . .. 381
mirror compounds. We argue that examples such as lavaggioHauto ‘car wash’ or
noleggioHvideo ‘video rental’ indicate a type of activity or event (expressed by
the deverbal noun) specialized by its argument (i.e., ‘a kind of wash/rental spe-
cific for cars/video’), while the NNHcounterpart (in this cases auto.lavaggioH,
video.noleggioH) preferably indicates an entity (i.e., ‘the place one goes to have the
car washed or the videos rented’). This semantic specialization may be the cause
of an increased lexicalization, which would further increase the opacity of the argu-
ment element: the metonymic shift would hence be systematic thanks to the struc-
tural feature of the position of the head. However, as already noted by Ricca (2015)
regarding VN compounds, it is difficult to determine whether this semantic shift has
to be considered as the result of word-formation rules or if it reflects a more general
cross-linguistic polysemy involving action nouns and the place where the activity
is performed.21 Additional investigations are needed in order to establish whether
this phenomenon represents a clear measurable tendency in the language, or rather
whether these examples are merely isolated instances and not markers of a greater
tendency.
The very low degree of acceptance of pronominal anaphora in NNHcompounds
may be explained in terms of speakers’ world knowledge. As Montermini (2006)
states, a predictable relationship between the referent and a derivative would represent
a facilitating condition for in-word anaphora, and he observes that this would explain
why geographical nouns and adjectives are often available for in-word anaphora even
when not morphologically transparent:
(29) a. due
two
reporter
reportersM.PL
di
of
nazionalità
nationalityF.SG
francesei,
French.ADJ.F.INV
un
a
paesei
countryM.SG
da
since
sempre
always
fuori
out
dal
of.theM.SG
conflitto
warM.SG
‘Two reporters with French nationality, a country which always stayed
out of the war.’
b. tra
among
tutti
allM.PL
spicca
stands.out
il
theM.SG
caso
caseM.SG
tedescoi,
GermanADJ.M.SG
paesei
country.M.SG
nel
in.the.M.SG
quale
which.M.SG
si
have
sono
been.M.PL
raccolti
collected
piú
more
di
than
150
150
milioni
millions.M.PL
di
of
euro
euros.MPL
‘Among all, the German case stands out, a country where more than
150 million euros were spontaneously collected.’
The ethnic nouns in (29) in Italian are not equally transparent (francese ‘French’ -
Francia ‘France’ vs. tedesco ‘German’ - Germania ‘Germany‘), yet both of them ac-
cept in-word anaphora, something that is explained by Montermini (2006) precisely
in terms of the degree of predictability between the referent and the derived word, i.e.,
21These considerations can be related to observations made by Arcodia et al. (2010) on coordinative
compounds. According to these authors, an attributive relation, rather than true coordination, would arise
between the right and the left element. These observations are shared by Scalise and Fábregas (2010)and
Radimský (2015).
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382 I. Lami, J. van de Weijer
speakers’ world knowledge (see Bresnan, 1971, who argues that subwords are inter-
preted as antecedents because they are inferred rather than grammatically assigned).
However, and this is why carefully designed experiments are crucial, it is not clear
what kinds of inferences and inferred antecedents are acceptable or not, and further
research is needed to investigate the role of other possible aspects (e.g., word length,
familiarity with referents, etc.).
Something that was pointed out by an anonymous reviewer is the question of
whether it is possible at all to disentangle pragmatic factors from purely grammatical
ones. In this respect, our test cannot solve all complex issues regarding the influence
of pragmatics. However, all the items in the test were out-of-context sentences and
consisted of a very similar structure. Yet, a preference for syntactic strategies over
others is clear from the results. This would support our assumption that right-headed
compounds are not open to compound-internal anaphora, possibly due to a difference
in their qualitative nature.
Our results also show that sentences with overt pronouns as referential expres-
sions are on average more acceptable than those with null pronouns. One notable
exception is the one represented by NHN compounds. In this case, sentences with
null pronouns are more accepted than those with overt pronouns. The interplay be-
tween information structure and syntactic role is not clear. Italian is a null-subject
language, and null forms refer to subjects, while overt pronouns refer to direct ob-
jects. An explanation for our results may be related to the influence of information
structure. Syntactic functions are tightly related to informative functions and a cor-
relation between subjects and topics is well known (Lambrecht, 1994).22 However,
future studies may establish why this is the case only for NHN compounds and not
for VN compounds. This finding might be linked to the one by Arcara et al. (2013)on
the similar processing of VN and NNHcompounds: NHN compounds might possess
a more syntactic reading, while the higher lexical cohesion of VN compounds may
reflect differences in the autonomy, and hence referential capacity, of the argument
element, and this might influence information structure as well. To be able to shed
light on these issues, further work is needed on Italian subject overt pronouns or on
languages that allow deletion of both subject and object pronouns.
An anonymous reviewer also suggested further analyses on semantic transparency,
since it may play a role in compound-internal anaphora (see Günther et al., 2020). As
we discussed, argument structure has been defined to allow for a direct interpreta-
tion because of its semantic predictability (Bauer et al., 2013); however we agree
that a fine-grained analysis on semantic transparency investigating the constraints on
compound-internal anaphora would surely give interesting results, and thus recom-
mend it for future research.
Furthermore, it would be interesting to investigate whether sociolinguistic factors
may influence compound-internal pronominal reference. Diatopic and diastratic con-
siderations were not the main focus of our study, but it may be fruitful to investigate
this issue further.
Our results allowed us to shed light on a phenomenon that is still debated in lin-
guistic theory. Even if we could establish the non-acceptability of compound-internal
22This appears in line with Fábregas (2012), who notices that in-word anaphora in Spanish is facilitated
with subject pronouns and less acceptable with object pronouns.
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Compound-internal anaphora: evidence from acceptability judgements . .. 383
pronominal reference because this is not rated as high as grammatical distractors, we
still have to account for the different degrees of acceptability according to compound
structure. Moreover, if we were tempted to conclude that these sentences are judged
acceptable only due to ‘pragmatic inference’, we would also need to explain why
pragmatic inference does not succeed in all cases to the same extent.
Our results show that a closer look at experimental data is crucial, not only for
well-established phenomena but especially for phenomena that appear to be on the
edge of acceptability but that nevertheless show tendencies and preferences that need
to be taken into account. Theory must necessarily draw on experimental evidence,
and in turn, experiments need to be carefully designed in order to provide nuanced
data that allow theoretical considerations to account for them. To answer our research
questions, an acceptability judgment task not only proved to be appropriate to ver-
ify the acceptability of the phenomenon but also to grasp subtle variations on this
phenomenon concerning the structure of compounds and the quality of referential
expressions.
5Conclusion
Our findings suggest that compound-internal anaphora is largely accepted with NHN
and VN compounds in Italian. The argument element of NNHcompounds appears
to be impenetrable to pronominal anaphora. Moreover, a difference in referential ex-
pression was suggested, with NHN allowing null subject anaphora more than all the
other complex words. Although previous findings indicated that NNHcompounds
are processed differently from NHN compounds, less clear results have been shown
in the literature regarding NN compounds compared to VN compounds. The results
support theoretical models suggesting a qualitative difference of compounding struc-
tures based on the position of the head, and show that the quality of the referential
expression can facilitate or inhibit compound-internal anaphora. Future research may
focus on the impact of a previously given context in the acceptability of these in-
stances. Regardless, our results point to the need for tighter integration of experimen-
tal methods to theoretical considerations and corpus-based research to investigate the
syntactic properties of compounds.
Acknowledgements The authors are very much indebted to Roberta Colonna Dahlman, Verner Egerland,
Maria Silvia Micheli and Jan Radimský for inspiration, patient guidance and useful critiques of this work.
We thank Jeroen van de Weijer for many revisions, and the anonymous reviewers for careful reading and
insightful comments and suggestions. We also thank all our experimental subjects.
A preliminary version of this study was presented on September 2020 at “Grammatikseminariet” at
Lund University Centre for Languages and Literature. We received many precious insights from the par-
ticipants. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge Lund University Humanities Lab.
Author Contribution I. Lami conceived the study, planned the experiment and collected the data. J. van de
Weijer reviewed the experiment and performed data analysis. Both authors contributed to the final version
of the manuscript.
Funding Note Open access funding provided by Lund University.
Data Availability Responses are available on the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/wznm3/?view_
only=d23e89ce480b4e80a69667af89aafec9.
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384 I. Lami, J. van de Weijer
Code availability Not applicable.
Declarations
Conflict of Interest The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of
this article.
Consent to participate Prior to data collection participants agreed to the terms and conditions.
Consent to publication Prior to data collection participants agree to the publication of results.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License,
which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as
you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Com-
mons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article
are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the
material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not
permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly
from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/.
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