Incorporation, understood as the inclusion of morphemes

with independent lexical meaning into the composition of another

word, and complex word formation based on combining existing

stems to create a new lexeme, occupy an important place in the

system of mechanisms for forming a language's vocabulary. Despite

the obvious differences between these word-formation processes,

linguistics often encounters situations where distinguishing them

presents difficulties. This is because incorporation generally acts as

a phenomenon at the boundary between morphology and syntax, as

it unites elements that are expressed by syntactic constructions in

other language systems. In turn, complex word formation is

predominantly morphological in nature and aims to expand the

nominative fund of the language.

Nevertheless, in some cases, the formal structure of a word

can resemble a compound, although functionally it is closer to

incorporative models. Such transitional phenomena make it difficult

to develop universal classification criteria. Therefore, the relevance

of this research lies in the need to systematize existing approaches,

identify the most controversial aspects, and outline ways to address

the problem of distinguishing between incorporation and complex

word formation. The presented analysis aims to clarify terminology,

identify typological features, and form a more accurate theoretical

model of these processes.