grammatical and meaning criteria??

[Fame]

For the following noun compound and noun phrase (in bold), I don't understand how to describle the grammatical and meaning criteria you apply for distinguishing the compounds from the phrases?

1. The heavyweight won by a knockout.
2. I bet you can't lift that heavy weight.

[goldenboytim]

For the following noun compound and noun phrase (in bold), I don't understand how to describle the grammatical and meaning criteria you apply for distinguishing the compounds from the phrases?

1. The heavyweight won by a knockout.
2. I bet you can't lift that heavy weight.

Hi Fame

In 1 the heavyweight is a person, a boxer.

In 2 the weight is an object, a thing, that happens to be heavy.

A boxer could also be a lightweight, welterweight etc. These are different classes, or categories, of boxers.

A weight could be heavy, light etc.

Regards

Tim