Re: Compounded compounds.

In the last episode, (On Friday 13 Tamuz 5767 09:05:51), Benct Philip Jonsson
wrote:
> 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
Of course German is also famous for "arbitrarily-sized compounds" -
Bundesverfassungsgericht "Federal Constitutional Court", &c.

Jeff

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