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1.
Introduction
The Oxford Handbook of Compounding is a contribution to the Oxford series of handbooks dealing with specific linguistic phenomena. The volume consists of two parts: Part I, dealing with theoretical issues, and Part II, which offers a series of descriptive sketches of compounding in specific languages. I shall briefly summarize the overall structure of the book (Section 2) before surveying some of the more important issues that arise from the descriptive sketches in Part II, paying particular attention to the question of attributive modification in compounding (Section 3). I will then selectively discuss some of the theoretical claims made by the contributors to Part I (Section 4). Finally, I present my own views on these and related matters, paying particular attention to the distinction between lexicalized and 'online' compounds, and to the notion of 'modification' within compounds, especially adjective-noun compounds.
2.
Summary of the book
Part I consists of an introduction by the editors and fifteen other chapters on theoretical issues, while Part II contains a typological overview (Laurie Bauer, 'Typology of compounds') and seventeen surveys of compounding in specific languages: English, Dutch, German, Danish, French, Spanish, Modern Greek, Polish, Mandarin Chinese, (Modern) Hebrew, Japanese, Hungarian, Slave, Mohawk, Maipure-Yavitero, Mapudungun and Warlpiri. There is a list of contributors and abbreviations, a consolidated list of references and a single consolidated index. On the whole, the handbook represents a valuable contribution to debate on compounding, and nearly all the individual chapters are well-written and contain useful information.2
Bauer's chapter, which could equally have appeared in Part I, is something of a model handbook contribution, presenting all the crucial issues in simple, straightforward terms and with clear and fully referenced examples. Disappointingly, hardly any of the issues raised in Bauer's chapter are taken up by the authors of Part I. The detailed language sketches in Part II concentrate on those phenomena which are salient in the compounding system of the language under discussion. Although most of those contributions eagerly address topical theoretical questions, they tend not to address more general typological issues (Rochelle Lieber's piece 'IE Germanic: English' being a self-conscious exception). It is interesting to compare the handbook's table of contents with that of Scalise & Vogel (2010),...