This paper addresses the issue of stranded modifiers and null heads through two otherwise unrelated constructions in Georgian. In each construction, a word in the oblique form modifies part of the complex word following it. It is shown that null modifiers in Georgian have a form different from that of the modifiers in the constructions at issue, and the latter cannot have null heads. However, Baker’s [Baker, M. C. (1988). Incorporation: A theory of grammatical function changing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.] alternative approach is not easily compatible with the derivational morphology of these examples. I propose an analysis of external modifiers in terms of Beard [Beard, R. (1991). Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 9, 195–229.], which addresses other bracketing paradoxes by permitting “the semantic features of an attribute [to] subjoin with one and only one semantic feature of its head” (1991: 208). In this way I suggest a unified analysis of noun incorporation and derived structures, drawing on a mechanism that must be included in the grammar for non-derived words as well.