<!doctype html public «-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en»> http-equiv=content-type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859–1"> This work discusses the relationship between word formation, syntax, and lexicon based on an examination of adjective-noun compounds and phrases in German and in German-Dutch comparison. It describes the semantic and morphosyntactic features of such compounds from a construction grammar perspective. The analysis specifically focuses on the ways that these compounds are related to each other and how they are represented in the mental lexicon.