Compositionality estimates for morphologically complex words

According to Frege’s principle of compositionality, the meaning of a complex expression is determined as a function of its constituents and the type of construction that combines the constituents. For a given expression, the compositionality refers to the degree to which the expression fulfils this principle, in particular when determined for complex words such as BLACKBIRD or GLOBALISE. Here, we present an overview of studies providing compositionality estimates for complex words, by defining a classification system that includes (1) the type of expression (compound nouns, particle verbs, derivations), (2) the language, (3) the level of description (i.e., focusing on individual constituents vs. the entire complex word), and (4) the information source providing the estimate (human judgments vs. computational models). Typical applications for compositionality estimates are discussed.