Re: SURVEY: Idiomatic Expressions In Your ConLang Or ConCulture

* R A Brown said on 2005-11-18 08:38:35 +0100
> * Jim Henry wrote:
> > * On 11/17/05, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
> > > Trask defines 'idiom' thus:
> > > "An expression consisting of two or more words whose meaning
> > > cannot be simply predicted from the meanings of its constituent
> > > parts."
> >
> > What about a compound word whose meaning cannot be deduced from the
> > meaning of its component morphemes?
>
> You are, of course, correct. I guess we should amend Trask thus:
> "An expression consisting of two or more morphemes whose meaning
> cannot be simply predicted from the meanings of its constituent
> parts."
I don't think this is wise. In English it might be so that a compound
ceases to be a compound as soon as it needs its own entry in a
dictionary, but this is not necessarily the case in other languages.

Take for instance the word/compound "redcap" (a mythological creature
IIRC). It is "something that has a red cap", and words/compounds of this
type got their own term thousands of years ago, "bahuvrihi". (Which
itself is a bahuvrihi in Sanskrit as it literally means "much rice" but
actually means "somebody who has much rice", that is: "somebody who is
rich".)

idiom != bahuvrihi


t.

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