Marcel Schlechtweg: Memorization and the Compound-Phrase Distinction: An Investigation of Complex Constructions in German, French and English

The debate on the distinction between compounds and phrases and the relationship between morphology and syntax is a long-standing one. Marcel Schlechtweg’s book addresses this controversy by investigating the differences between compounds and phrases in English, French, and German, according to their structural, semantic-functional, and memorization characteristics. Schlechtweg proposes the Full-Form-Storage Principle for Compounds and Phrases to differentiate compounds from phrases in terms of their memorization performance. He presents two empirical studies in this regard and claims that compounds have an advantage over phrases in memorization performance. He draws a distinction between morphology and syntax and argues that morphology either belongs to the lexicon or is more closely connected to the lexicon than syntax.

Chapter 1 introduces the contents of the book and the basic assumption that the memorization of morphological and syntactic constructions by speakers differs in different languages. Specifically, Schlechtweg questions whether English and German compounds have memorization advantages compared to English and French phrases.

Chapter 2 elaborates on morphology and syntax, their relationship, as well as memorization and lexicalization. Schlechtweg opposes the view that morphology and syntax share the same grammatical component since the existence of similarities between them does not entail that they are indistinguishable. He assumes that morphology represents either a lexicon-internal grammatical domain or a grammatical domain independent of syntax, whereas syntax represents a lexicon-external grammatical domain.

Schlechtweg aims to compare the differences in the memorizing of compounds versus phrases. The object of investigation is compounds and phrases comprising either an adjective plus a noun or two nouns in German, French, and English.

Chapter 3 focuses on the structural differences between compounds and phrases. Following Donalies (2003) and Bell and Plag (2012), Schlechtweg considers inflectional agreement as the primary distinguishing factor. Agreement can occur within a phrase, which is a syntactical construction, but not within a compound, which is a morphological construction, since agreement is a syntactic process assumed to obey the Lexical Integrity Principle. Hence, inflectional agreement between the adjective and noun of a complex construction defines phrases, whereas a lack thereof defines compounds. However, this criterion works effectively in German and French, but not in English, which is not inflectionally rich. Therefore, Schlechtweg considers secondary factors. He argues that, unlike the primary factor, secondary factors cannot be used as a defining property for compounds and phrases but can be considered to distinguish between them in most cases. For example, in both English and German, compounds often show initial stress, whereas phrases show non-initial stress. Additionally, semantic compositionality refers to the possibility that the whole meaning of a complex construction is determined by its constituent meanings. Correspondingly, semantic non-compositionality implies that the whole meaning of a complex construction is not determined by its constituent meanings. Schlechtweg follows Ladd (1984) and Fudge (1984) and argues that initial stress accords with semantic non-compositionality, which characterizes compounds, whereas non-initial stress accords with semantic compositionality, which characterizes phrases.

Chapter 4 compares the semantic functions of compounds and phrases. Compounds tend to function more as names, they refer to kinds, are interpreted in a non-compositional way, and become lexicalized. The question is whether the structural and functional distinction between compounds and phrases has implications for their mental representations and processing.

Chapter 5 focuses on this question. Schlechtweg first assumes that an individual has never learned a compound or a phrase, so the frequencies of occurrence of both for the individual start at zero. He then assumes that the frequencies of the individual’s learning or repeating the compound and the phrase increase at a parallel speed. Theoretically, there exists thresholds at which the compound and the phrase have been learned or repeated enough such that they are stored in the individual’s memory. Based on these assumptions and the Morphological Race Model (Frauenfelder and Schreuder 1992: 175–181), Schlechtweg proposes the Full-Form-Storage Principle for Compounds and Phrases to differentiate compounds from phrases, which assumes that both compounds and phrases can be accessed through either their individual constituents or their full forms. More importantly, he argues that a compound’s full form enters into the lexicon earlier than that of a phrase. In other words, learning a new compound requires less repetition than learning a new phrase, and this is the memorization advantage of compounds. Chapters 6 and 7 present two empirical studies in this regard.

Chapter 6 examines German adjective-noun (henceforth, AN) compounds vs. French AN and NA phrases, and English AN constructions with or without initial stress. Examined/memorized items comprise critical items, including experimental items (e. g., German Jungtourist/French jeune touriste/English young tourist) and control items (e. g., architect), and corresponding filler/non-memorized items (e. g., young motor and magazine). Schlechtweg tested native speakers of German, French, and English on three non-consecutive days. On each day, participants were required to memorize items that they heard, then press a “Yes” or “No” button in the recall phase, depending on whether they heard a memorized or non-memorized item.

The results show that the full form of German AN compounds enters the mental lexicon earlier than that of French AN phrases but shows no memorization advantage of English compounds over English phrases. This may be explained by the differences between the primary and secondary factors in their capacity to distinguish compounds from phrases. Additionally, almost all English constructions tested are semantically compositional, which Schlechtweg confirms through a compositionality questionnaire of tested constructions for another group of English native speakers. Chapter 3 and 4 mention previous studies which have found that when characterizing compounds, initial stress accords with semantic non-compositionality. Taking these factors into consideration, Schlechtweg finds that the initial stress and semantic compositionality of the tested English constructions are incompatible, which may have caused a processing burden for participants.

Therefore, in Chapter 7, he presents another experimental study of English AN compounds and phrases. The compounds are semantically non-compositional and carry the initial stress (e. g., hárd shirt). In contrast, the phrases are semantically compositional and carry the non-initial stress (e. g., short brúsh). He investigates them together with semantically compositional constructions carrying initial stress (e. g., shórt brush) and semantically non-compositional constructions carrying non-initial stress (e. g., hard shírt). A group of native English speakers was asked to both hear and see constructions in the first memorization phase. In the second memorization phase and the recall phase, they only heard them and had to decide whether a construction was memorized or not. The results of three days in general show quicker and more accurate responses to English phrases than English compounds. However, Schlechtweg argues that as the focus shifts to the memorization performances of compounds and phrases on each individual day, the responses to compounds clearly improve more than those to phrases from day one to day two.

Chapter 8 summarizes these studies. Two experiments differentiate compounds from phrases on structural, semantic-functional, and memorization grounds. Compounds are inherently semantically non-compositional, which means that they can only enter the lexicon in full form. Two experiments support Schlechtweg’s Full-Form-Storage Principle for Compounds and Phrases, which distinguishes morphology from syntax in terms of their memorization performances. He argues that morphology either belongs to the lexicon or forms an autonomous grammatical component, which is more closely connected to the lexicon than syntax.

Schlechtweg concludes the book with a sketch of Language Complexity Theory. He argues that overt/formal complexity, hidden/semantic complexity, and processing complexity relate to structural characteristics, semantic-functional characteristics, and memorization performance, respectively. Accordingly, German has the highest degree of overt complexity, French has more hidden complexity than English, and English has the lowest degree of overt complexity and a lower degree of hidden complexity than French. Schlechtweg states that a lower degree of hidden complexity of the German compounds leads to a lower degree of their processing complexity.

Overall, the book’s contribution to morphology and compounds is noteworthy. Its cross-linguistic empirical comparisons provide strong evidence for the memorization advantage of compounds. The topic of compound/phrase-distinction is addressed in a thorough and theoretically sophisticated way. To name just one example, the author argues that English AN constructions form a cline without a clear boundary between phrases and compounds, given the lack of the primary factor in this language.

However, the book has certain limitations. For instance, the concept of semantic compositionality is unclear when it is first mentioned in Chapter 3, where Schlechtweg focuses on distinguishing compositionality from transparency. It is only clarified in the discussion of the semantics of compounds in Chapter 4. In addition, Language Complexity Theory is not mentioned until the last section of the last chapter; its treatment thus seems superficial and detached. Schlechtweg connects the memorization performances of compounds and phrases with processing complexity, but the rules and constrains of processing complexity are not discussed in more depth and remain unascertained.

Despite its limitations, the book is professional as well as readable, and will be a useful reference for students and scholars interested in morphology and compounds.