The syntactic structure of 'pelirrojo' compounds

This paper deals with Spanish adjective-headed compounds ('pelirrojo'), whose main properties are systematically compared with those of their English counterparts ('red-haired'). I provide a distinction based on the grammatical category of the non-head projections 'peli' and 'red' and on their relative complexity to capture the relevant differences. Additionally, I focus on the most noticed feature of Spanish 'pelirrojo' compounds, which is the fact that they only codify inalienable possession relationships. I argue that the existence of an inalienable-only compound pattern shows that Spanish 'pelirrojo' compounds contain a relational head which establishes an inalienable possession relationship between a possessee located inside the compound ('pelo' ‘hair’), and a possessor located outside it (e.g., 'Juan' in 'Juan es pelirrojo'. ‘John is red-haired.’). The same kind of relational structure is not identifiable inside English parallel structures or other Spanish compound patterns