English Noun Phrases from a Functional-Cognitive Perspective

It is generally accepted that coordinated compounds known as dvandvas are attested in some languages but not in others. For instance, they are very common in Japanese (e.g. dan-zyo ‘lit. male-female = male and female’) but unattested in English (e.g. * male-female ), which instead requires phrasal coordination. The present paper uses Competition Theory to explore where this cross-linguistic variation comes from, focusing on the unattestedness of dvandvas in English. This theory assumes that cros