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This study aims to identify types of compounds in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Jordanian Arabic (JA) by applying the cross‐linguistic criteria for compoundhood discussed in the relevant literature, with a special focus on English and Hebrew. These criteria – orthographic, phonological, syntactic and semantic in nature – have been proposed to make a distinction between compounds and phrases cross‐linguistically. The analysis reveals that the most reliable cross‐linguistic criteria to distinguish between compounds and phrases in MSA and JA are adjacency and referentiality. With regard to the former criterion, no intervening elements can be inserted between the head and the non‐head of compounds, whilst such insertion is allowed in phrases. With regard to the latter criterion, the non‐head of a compound is normally non‐referential, whereas the non‐head of a phrase is always referential. Other criteria have been found to be partially applicable, e.g. compositionality, possibilities for modification and coordination, and free pluralisation of the non‐head. In this study, I also suggest two reliable criteria that are exclusive to Arabic, or potentially Semitic languages in general. The first criterion is the appearance/absence of the possessive marker li‐/la ‘for/of’ when the first element is definite. The second criterion deals with the appearance/absence of the possessive marker li‐/la ‘for/of’ when the first element is preceded by a cardinal number. The study concludes with recommendations for further research.
