Re: Compounded compounds.

>Are there, in natlangs, examples of compound words of which _both_
>constituents are already, themselves, compounds?
>
>Are there any third-level compounds?  That is, compound words, one of whose
>constituents is a compound word, one of whose constituents is a compound
>word?
Here, have a pentuple example from Finnish which falls under both, *and* is
orthographically compounded too:

_täysjyväruisvoileipä_
(täys+jyvä)+ruis+(voi+leipä)
full+grain+rye+butter+bred
"whole grain rye sandwich"
I'm not sure whether the last branch is left or right, but that doesn't
matter anyway - it will fulfill both of your criterions in either case, if
you want to stick with binary branching. (I think the semantic difference
between the two cases is so nonexistant here, however, that I wouldn't mind
positing a ternary branch.)

Or:
_sadevesitynnyritehdas_
((sade+vesi)+tynnyri)+tehdas)
"rainwater barrel factory"

Or:
_lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas_
(I'm not going to breik that down specifically without request, but it's a
famous 10-part compound - that doesn't have any non-finite verbal forms,
even - that's actually been in use.)


>I hazard that, if either of the above phenomena occur at all, they are probably
>rare; rare enough, that, even in the languages in which they occur, there's no
>well-worked-out system to disambiguate them; speakers just have to
>memorize the disambiguation on a case-by-case basis.
Context should suffice most of the time, because permutating the branching
order will usually only yield nonsense:
täys+((jyvä+(ruis+voi)))+leipä)
"wholebred of grainy rye-butter"

In Finnish, some disambiguation is nevertheless provided by secondary
stress. It's on the 4th syllable if it is long, but the 3rd short;
otherwise, the 3rd. In compounds, I think it goes like this (but I could be
wrong) - both elements of the full compound get initial stress, but beyond
that, the usual rules apply:
/'täys'jyvä/
/'ruis'voi,leipä/
/'täysjyvä'ruisvoi,leipä/
*/'täys'jyvä,ruisvoi,leipä/ (how "wholebred of grainy rye-butter" would be
stressed)

After a bit of pondering, here's a near-minimal pair - not multi-compounds,
but highlighting the difference nevertheless:
/'uus'rea,lismi/ "neo-realism"
/'surrea,lismi/ "surrealism"

John Vertical