Head-first compound words

[Zhen Lin]

1. What is the frequency of head-first compound words in classical compounds? In particular, I'm thinking of cases where the head is non-derivational, e.g. philosophy as opposed to disable.

2. Are there languages which have primarily head-first compounds? I'm not sure if Semitic languages should count for this, because the ‘compounds’ exhibit internal inflection (if I understand correctly).

[Astraios]

Is #2 talking about only noun-noun compounds?

[Zhen Lin]

Any semantic category.

[Astraios]

Well, in that case, Lakota has mostly head-first compounds. Noun-noun compounds are head-final though.

[Ser]

How do you determine what the head is in the following examples from Spanish? (Analysis and examples taken from Hualde et al.'s Introducción a la lingüística hispánica (2009), Cambridge: New York et al., pp. 188-193.)

El Hombre araña (the man spider) 'Spiderman' (appositive noun-noun compound: a man that is also a spider)

(el) sacapuntas (takes.out-tips) '(pencil) sharpener' (verb-noun compound, more literally, 'a tip takeouter')

(la) nochebuena (night-good) 'Christmas Eve' (noun-adj compound)

(la) medianoche (mid-night) 'midnight' (adj-noun compound)

(el) malhechor, (la) malhechora (bad-perpetrator) 'delinquent' (adv-noun compound, more lit., 'bad do-er')

(el/la) sinvergüenza 'naughty person' (prep-noun compound, behaves like a noun: ¡Eres un sinvergüenza!)

Learned compounds formed with two roots from Greek/Latin: (la) filosofía, (la) caligrafía.

(el/la) sabelotodo 'know-it-all' (a phrase made a noun)

pelirrojo 'ginger' (noun-adj adjective)

amarillo limón 'lemon yellow' (adj-noun adjective, used in colours)

franco-italiano 'Italo-French' (adj-adj adjective)

malencarado (bad-faced) 'bad-tempered' (adv-adj adjective)

maldecir (badly-say) 'to curse sth/sb' (adv-verb verb)

Is there any particular test or judgment that could be used?

2. Are there languages which have primarily head-first compounds? I'm not sure if Semitic languages should count for this, because the ‘compounds’ exhibit internal inflection (if I understand correctly).

That's true for noun-noun compounds in Standard Arabic at least (شبه جزيرة /Sibh-u dZazi:ratin/ (noun-noun noun: half-CONS.NOM island-INDEF.OBL) 'peninsula'), but then there's also other types of compounds. Note they're obviously compounds because they can take the article al- at the beginning.

• لافقاري /la:faqa:rij:un/ (not-spinal.cord) 'invertebrate' (not-noun noun or adjective), اللافقاري /al-la:faqa:rijju/. يانصيب /ja:nas_?\i:b/ (oh-luck) 'lottery' (interjection-noun noun), اليانصيب /al-ja:nas_?\i:b/.

Particularly common in the language: adj-noun adjectives (always taking an article regardless of the definiteness of the noun they modify, the so-called إضافة غير حقيقية "unreal annexation" or "false annexation/ʔiḍāfa").

• غالي الثمن /Ga:lijj-u T-Taman-i/ (high-CONS.NOM the-price-DEF.OBL) 'high-priced'.

There's also adj-noun nouns present, though apparently restricted and usually pretty lexified, always having an article in the last modifier too. According to Badawi et al.'s Modern Written Arabic - A Comprehensive Grammar (2004), Routledge: London & New York, p. 111, it's mostly productive with certain adjectives meaning "various Xs".

• قديم الزمان /qadi:m-u z-zama:n-i/ (old.CONS.NOM DEF-time-DEF.OBL) '(the) olden times'. مختلف الألوان /muxtalif-u l-ʔalwa:n/ (various-CONS.NOM DEF-colours-DEF.OBL) 'various colours'.

Badawi et al. give an example contrasting these adj-noun noun compounds and a normal noun adj qualification:

• الأساتذة الكبار /al-?asa:tiDat-u l-kiba:r-u/ (DEF-teachers-DEF.NOM DEF-big.PL-DEF.NOM) 'the great/old/big professors'
  
  كبار الأساتذة /kiba:r-u l-?asa:tiDatu/ (big.PL-CONS.NOM DEF-teachers-DEF.OBL) 'the senior professors' (which is also a set phrase)

[CaesarVincens]

@Serafin,
From what I've learned of compounds (IIRC), there are a few tests. If the components are different word classes or else differ in gender or similar, the head is generally taken as the one that grants the main features. For noun-noun or the like, semantics is the best recourse. Compare 'dog house' versus 'house dog'. The first is a type of house, the second a type of dog.

Some will defy this. Is there any real difference between Italo-French and Franco-Italian? Perhaps, but not much.
A linguistics major I met at a conference did his senior thesis on dual headed compounds though I do not remember the details.

[Ser]

@Serafin,
From what I've learned of compounds (IIRC), there are a few tests. If the components are different word classes or else differ in gender or similar, the head is generally taken as the one that grants the main features. For noun-noun or the like, semantics is the best recourse. Compare 'dog house' versus 'house dog'. The first is a type of house, the second a type of dog.

Some will defy this. Is there any real difference between Italo-French and Franco-Italian? Perhaps, but not much.
A linguistics major I met at a conference did his senior thesis on dual headed compounds though I do not remember the details.

I see. Since most of those compounds that are nouns have a noun, and those that are adjectives have an adjective, I guess that the only ones where it isn't clear is verb-noun nouns (which often have masculine gender regardless of the gender of the noun, unless you consider verbs masculine?) and adj-adj adjectives then...

[Terra]

Some will defy this. Is there any real difference between Italo-French and Franco-Italian? Perhaps, but not much.

I've noticed that Britain seems to use "British Asian" and "British Indian", while the US uses "Asian American" and "Indian American".

[Salmoneus]

That could just be because "American" is (or can be) a noun, whereas "British" is an adjective. You can't say "an Indian British", because you'd be asked "an Indian British WHAT?".

[Astraios]

Same with Italo-French and Franco-Italian. "Italian" can be a noun, "French" can only be an adjective.

[Soap]

French is a noun if it's plural. e.g. "Look, the French are back again" (which around here means tourists mostly from Quebec) but in the singular it's usually "French person" or man or woman.

[Eyowa]

El Hombre araña (the man spider) 'Spiderman' (appositive noun-noun compound: a man that is also a spider)
(el) sacapuntas (takes.out-tips) '(pencil) sharpener' (verb-noun compound, more literally, 'a tip takeouter')
(la) nochebuena (night-good) 'Christmas Eve' (noun-adj compound)
(la) medianoche (mid-night) 'midnight' (adj-noun compound)
(el) malhechor, (la) malhechora (bad-perpetrator) 'delinquent' (adv-noun compound, more lit., 'bad do-er')
(el/la) sinvergüenza 'naughty person' (prep-noun compound, behaves like a noun: ¡Eres un sinvergüenza!)
Learned compounds formed with two roots from Greek/Latin: (la) filosofía, (la) caligrafía.
(el/la) sabelotodo 'know-it-all' (a phrase made a noun)
pelirrojo 'ginger' (noun-adj adjective)
amarillo limón 'lemon yellow' (adj-noun adjective, used in colours)
franco-italiano 'Italo-French' (adj-adj adjective)
malencarado (bad-faced) 'bad-tempered' (adv-adj adjective)
maldecir (badly-say) 'to curse sth/sb' (adv-verb verb)

A lot of these are headless compounds. Verb-Object compounds like sacapuntas are headless because they behave like nouns but their noun component does not describe the thing described by the compound, i.e. a sacapuntas is not a type of point. Sinvergüenza, sabelotodo, pelirrojo are all similarly headless. Most of the others look like straightforward head-modifier phrases that follow normal Spanish syntax derivational patterns; they just happen to be glommed together into one word. And then there are weird appositive things like El Hombre Araña, which might have zero or two heads.

[Davoush]

Couldn't "El Hombre araña" be analysed as having 'hombre' as an adjective. I'm sure I've read that adjectives before the noun in Spanish tend to have a slightly different nuance (such as unexpectedness - man-spiders are quite unexpected...). That's how I processed it in my brain, but I'm not a native so anyway...

[finlay]

French is a noun if it's plural. e.g. "Look, the French are back again" (which around here means tourists mostly from Quebec) but in the singular it's usually "French person" or man or woman.

mass noun. heheheh

[Eyowa]

Couldn't "El Hombre araña" be analysed as having 'hombre' as an adjective. I'm sure I've read that adjectives before the noun in Spanish tend to have a slightly different nuance (such as unexpectedness - man-spiders are quite unexpected...). That's how I processed it in my brain, but I'm not a native so anyway...

I'd be more likely to analyze "araña" as the adjective, since it's second, and Spider-Man is more a man than a spider anyway. I'm not a native speaker either, though.

The line between adjectives and nouns in Spanish seems pretty blurry anyway. You can say "los hombres" ("the men") and "los viejos" ("the old people"), so when you say "los hombres viejos" my brain takes the intersection of the classes "hombres" and "viejos" rather than applying the adjective to modify the noun (if that makes any sense). And yeah, I know this is a crappy example because "hombres" can't inflect to be feminine and therefore is in no way adjective-like.

[Ser]

1. No, araña is clearly the modifier because such noun-noun compound nouns always follow the properties of the first noun. It's
el Hombre araña, not *la Hombre araña.

2. I don't see why me being a native is relevant to being right anyway and viceversa.

[Terra]

That could just be because "American" is (or can be) a noun, whereas "British" is an adjective. You can't say "an Indian British", because you'd be asked "an Indian British WHAT?".

Does anyone ever say "Indian Brit(on)" or "Asian Brit(on)" then? Or what about "Britisher"?

[dunomapuka]

El Hombre araña (the man spider) 'Spiderman' (appositive noun-noun compound: a man that is also a spider)
(el) sacapuntas (takes.out-tips) '(pencil) sharpener' (verb-noun compound, more literally, 'a tip takeouter')
(la) nochebuena (night-good) 'Christmas Eve' (noun-adj compound)
(la) medianoche (mid-night) 'midnight' (adj-noun compound)
(el) malhechor, (la) malhechora (bad-perpetrator) 'delinquent' (adv-noun compound, more lit., 'bad do-er')
(el/la) sinvergüenza 'naughty person' (prep-noun compound, behaves like a noun: ¡Eres un sinvergüenza!)
Learned compounds formed with two roots from Greek/Latin: (la) filosofía, (la) caligrafía.
(el/la) sabelotodo 'know-it-all' (a phrase made a noun)
pelirrojo 'ginger' (noun-adj adjective)
amarillo limón 'lemon yellow' (adj-noun adjective, used in colours)
franco-italiano 'Italo-French' (adj-adj adjective)
malencarado (bad-faced) 'bad-tempered' (adv-adj adjective)
maldecir (badly-say) 'to curse sth/sb' (adv-verb verb)

Is sabelotodo just a calque of the English form? Calquing is a common source of nonstandard compound forms.

[Gulliver]

Does anyone ever say "Indian Brit(on)" or "Asian Brit(on)" then? Or what about "Britisher"?

In my experience, few British people use the word Brit, fewer use Briton (outside of history books) and no-one uses Britisher except Amercans. I think "Brits" is used, but rarely in singular.

I read a thing [citation needed] that said that non-white British people are more likely to identify as British than white British people, who are either Irish, English, Welsh or Scottish. I answer "English" if my nationality is required (UK if abroad, or British/English maybe. Occasionally "Great Britain" is an option in Internet drop-down boxes, but I wouldn't think to look for it unless I couldn't find anything else).

EDIT: I realised I did not actually answer your question. The answer is basically "no".

[Ser]

Is sabelotodo just a calque of the English form?

No idea.

Calquing is a common source of nonstandard compound forms.

Spanish has other examples like this not shared with English: hazmerreír, correveidile, tentempié, nomeolvides, enhorabuena, metomentodo, porsiacaso..

[finlay]

Does anyone ever say "Indian Brit(on)" or "Asian Brit(on)" then? Or what about "Britisher"?

In my experience, few British people use the word Brit, fewer use Briton (outside of history books) and no-one uses Britisher except Amercans. I think "Brits" is used, but rarely in singular.

I read a thing [citation needed] that said that non-white British people are more likely to identify as British than white British people, who are either Irish, English, Welsh or Scottish. I answer "English" if my nationality is required (UK if abroad, or British/English maybe. Occasionally "Great Britain" is an option in Internet drop-down boxes, but I wouldn't think to look for it unless I couldn't find anything else).

EDIT: I realised I did not actually answer your question. The answer is basically "no".

I agree, but I'll add that people with multiple nationalities out of the four home nations will generally answer British. It's also a very contentious issue in Northern Ireland, and to a much lesser extent in Scotland and Wales it can be used to show your alignment on one side of the independence issue or another. Which is why I hate the whole damned affair. I just answer however I feel that day. Today I wrote "British" on a form; next week I might write "Scottish". If a form is in any way legal-seeming I will always write "British" because that is my legal nationality as stated on my passport, and frankly that's all that I care about.

And yeah, we don't tend to use "Brits" or "Britons" much. To me "Britons" either denotes history book or BNP/Sun/Daily Mail/Tory/right wing bastard, and "Brits" just sounds silly.

[Lyhoko Leaci]

I've never heard "Britisher" It sounds like some weird comparative, or something that's half German. "Brit" (well "Brits", at least) and "Briton" I have heard but not much, especially with "Briton."

[Salmoneus]

I think "Britisher" occurs in "Mad Dogs and Englishmen", the Noel Coward song? Other than that, never heard it. "Brit" is used by foreigners, and occasionally as an abbreviation in newspapers. "Briton" is sometimes seen in newspapers when they're talking about something patriotic, or occasionally when they're being very careful about reporting some statistics. ["one in five britons believe mushrooms are eggs laid by a nocturnal goose", etc]. It's certainly neither formal nor colloquial language.

[dunomapuka]

Is sabelotodo just a calque of the English form?

No idea.

Calquing is a common source of nonstandard compound forms.

Spanish has other examples like this not shared with English: hazmerreír, correveidile, tentempié, nomeolvides, enhorabuena, metomentodo, porsiacaso..

Those are cool. But we call them "forget-me-nots" too!

[MisterBernie]

Spanish has other examples like this not shared with English: hazmerreír, correveidile, tentempié, nomeolvides, enhorabuena, metomentodo, porsiacaso..

Actually, forget-me-nots seem to have that name in a lot of languages.