Re: noun compounds

On 3/4/06, Tim May <butsuri@...> wrote:
> Mark J. Reed wrote at 2006-03-04 21:05:06 (-0500)
>  > On 3/4/06, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
>  > >  A watermelon is not a melon containing water. We cannot expand the compound in the way
>  > > that we can expand the non-compound 'apple pie'; we cannot, for example,
>  > > say a *'a water- and whiskey-melon' (Now there's a thought  ;)
>  >
>  > Right.  So "watermelon" is an "exocentric" compound, a.k.a. a "bahuvrihi", yes?
>  >
>
> No, it's endocentric, because it's a kind of melon.
Duh!  Right.  Momentary lapse.  I actually had the concept of
bahuvrihi right but was thinking that "watermelon" wasn't a type of
melon!  Which, I suppose, makes me look even stupider than had I just
misunderstood the new term, but oh well. :)  It's not like I'm not a
native English speaker; I'm even native to the watermelon-heavy
Southeast US.   I can only claim cerebral flatulence.

Staying in the melon category, then, "honeydew" (when used alone as a
noun) would be a bahuvrihi, since it's neither a variety of honey nor
of dew.











--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>