Multi-word concepts hide unresolved questions about how their parts interact.

Evidence

Another set of issues relates to what I call “hyphenated concepts.” This includes actually hyphenated terms such as competitive–authoritarian, but also concepts that have multiple parts such two or more nouns or adjectives and nouns. For example, “transitional justice” invokes the huge concept “justice” plus the term “transitional.” Sometimes the adjective modifies the root concept. For example, the next chapter discusses the concept of a “very poor” state. So how does “very” modify the meaning of “poor”? Would it be better to talk about “extreme poverty” or “destitution” rather than “very poor”? — Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts and Measurement, 379

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘hyphenated concepts’ as a named class: concepts whose meaning depends on how an adjective or second noun modifies the root.
• SEED: Angle: why ‘transitional justice’ and ‘very poor’ fail as analytic categories — the modifier does the work the root concept can’t.