Aguafiestas, metepatas y otros compuestos nominales peculiares

Abstract

This article discusses the internal structure of compounds of the limpiabotas-typte. The way that some researchers have dealt with them has focused on determining, on the one hand, which one is the nature of the first element of the compound and, on the other, how to solve the problem of having to consider them exocentric. In order to do this, it has been suggested, within the framework of an analysis of the argument structure of the above complex word, the existence of a deverbal noun as the head of the compound, in which the item agent is lexicalised without any formal representation. The ungrammaticality of phrases such as *el limpiabotas de Juan, in which the same thematic role would be represented twice, explains the suitability of the proposal, but, on the other hand, that situation does not seem to occur in sequences such as el aguafiestas o el metepatas de Juan.