A comprehensive investigation of the optical properties of InAs/InP(001) quantum wires (QWrs) and their parent quantum well system formed by the deposition of 4 ML (monolayers) of InAs on InP is carried out by means of temperature dependent photoluminescence (PL) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Unusual two-branch switching of the excitonic PL band maxima is revealed in the temperature dependence for both wires and wells. This is interpreted in terms of the thermal activation of excitonic ground states of the confined nanostructures. Strong modification of the absorbance line shape leading to the appearance of flat spectral regions in the room temperature spectrum of a QWr sample is interpreted in terms of thermally induced change of the dimensionality: from 1D to anisotropic 2D. This change of dimensionality is detected also in the polarized absorbance measurements through the disappearance or significant reduction of the polarization anisotropy in the regions of the hh1-e1 (hh: heavy hole; e: electron) and lh1-e1 (lh: light hole) transitions in QWrs.