ABSTRACT
The most frequent type of noun compound in which the second element (the base word) is semantically determined by the first element: coffeehouse, dance hall. The grammatical relations between the individual elements within the compound are largely dissolved, the order of the elements alone determines the inter-pretation: piano player is a player, but a player piano is a piano. In the interpretation of (potentially ambiguous) semantic relations between first and second elements, perceptual categories like appearance, size, function, make-up, among others have a determinative function, cf. Gold Coast (place), gold sand (element), gold chain (composition), gold scale (function), gold finch (comparison). In more recent studies on composition these semantic relations are described on the basis of stereotypes2.
