Re: Compounded compounds.

On 29.6.2007 Eldin Raigmore wrote:
 > Are there many languages with many compound words one of
 > whose constituents is already, itself, a compound word?
 >
 > It seems to me the answer would be "yes".

Classical Sanskrit is notorious for accommodating
arbitrarily complex compounds. It should be noted that this
arose in written style at a time when Skt. was not any
longer a normal spoken language, since it is not found in
Vedic. It was also a trick for not having to bother about
case endings and verbal inflexions, as one could write the
equivalent or "Devadatta fire-water-boil-PRES.PARTICIPLE-
NOM" instead of the "Devadatta-NOM boil-3.SG.PRES water-ACC
fire-INSTR" for 'Devadatta boils water with fire'. You will
typically find subordinate and relative clauses all strung
together into a long nominal compound, but it happens fairly
often with main clauses too.

/BP

Reply