Internal constituent variability and semantic transparency in N Prep N constructions in Romance languages
Constructions of the type N Prep N represent one of the most controversial issues in Romance word formation. In particular, their lexical status and their degree of productivity are still crucial points of discussion. Hence, it remains unclear whether these constructions fall within the category of morphological word formation or of syntax. Furthermore, the possibilities for internal prepositional variation remain uncertain. This article takes a constructionist approach within the framework of construction morphology in order to describe the internal constituent variability and transparency of the prepositional element in N Prep N constructions in Spanish, Portuguese, and French, as in Sp. juego de ninos, juego para ninos 'kid's game' or in Sp. cabana de arbol and cabana en arbol 'tree house' A qualitative analysis of large scale corpus data from the TenTen corpus family indicates that Romance N Prep N constructions may undergo internal prepositional variation. The analysis focuses on the semantic relations of the internal nominal constituents and the semantic transparency of the constructions in the three Romance languages under investigation. The results indicate that semantic relations and semantic transparency play a role in the internal constituent variability of the prepositional element.