Agglutination and Compound Words

Discussion of natural languages, or language in general.
User avatar
Jipí
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1128
Joined: Sat Apr 12, 2003 1:48 pm
Location: Litareng, Keynami
Contact:

Re: Agglutination and Compound Words

Post by Jipí »

FWIW, I find it funny that the OP chose Handschuh 'glove' as an 'extreme' example of compounding. What's so odd about hand-shoe, besides the fact that gloves are often more like socks? Should we instead call them, idk, *Glofen (or *Glaufen, whatever)?
Last edited by Jipí on Sat Dec 17, 2011 1:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
Rui
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 541
Joined: Wed Aug 16, 2006 9:14 pm
Location: Beiʒing 拆那

Re: Agglutination and Compound Words

Post by Rui »

Guitarplayer wrote:FWIW, I find it funny that the OP chose Handschuh 'glove' as an 'extreme' example of compounding. What's so odd about hand-shoe, besides the fact that gloves are often more like socks? Should we instead call them, idk, *Glofen?
Ha, yeah, you could come up with a more extreme example by making "schuh" a compound word rather than its own morpheme

Bob Johnson
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 704
Joined: Fri Dec 03, 2010 9:41 am
Location: NY, USA

Re: Agglutination and Compound Words

Post by Bob Johnson »

Guitarplayer wrote:What's so odd about hand-shoe, besides the fact that gloves are often more like socks?
It's like footfingers.

Also: seems PGmc *galofo, so... dunno.

Astraios
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 2974
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 2:38 am
Location: Israel

Re: Agglutination and Compound Words

Post by Astraios »

Bob Johnson wrote:
Guitarplayer wrote:What's so odd about hand-shoe, besides the fact that gloves are often more like socks?
It's like footfingers.
Which is exactly how you say 'toes' in Hebrew. :roll:

Mr. Z
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 430
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2011 2:51 pm

Re: Agglutination and Compound Words

Post by Mr. Z »

Astraios wrote:
Bob Johnson wrote:
Guitarplayer wrote:What's so odd about hand-shoe, besides the fact that gloves are often more like socks?
It's like footfingers.
Which is exactly how you say 'toes' in Hebrew. :roll:
But Hebrew has a word for that as well.
Přemysl wrote:
Kereb wrote:they are nerdissimus inter nerdes
Oh god, we truly are nerdy. My first instinct was "why didn't he just use sunt and have it all in Latin?".
Languages I speak fluently
English, עברית

Languages I am studying
العربية, 日本語

Conlangs
Athonian

User avatar
Jipí
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1128
Joined: Sat Apr 12, 2003 1:48 pm
Location: Litareng, Keynami
Contact:

Re: Agglutination and Compound Words

Post by Jipí »

Bob Johnson wrote:Also: seems PGmc *galofo, so... dunno.
*ga-lofo would likely turn out as Glo(f)f(e), I think. However, the root vowel would stay |o|, since MHG /ɔ, oː/ don't change, AFAICT. When I wrote <au> above I was confusing it with /uː/, which indeed becomes /aʊ/. How the whole thing is pluralized would probably depend on the declension of nouns in -o in OHG then, which I don't know. To be honest, I don't know anything about the development of the different pluralization patterns in German. If it's a monosyllabic word with an umlautable vowel it wouldn't be odd to have an umlaut plural, though.
Last edited by Jipí on Sat Dec 17, 2011 2:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Astraios
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 2974
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 2:38 am
Location: Israel

Re: Agglutination and Compound Words

Post by Astraios »

Mr. Z wrote:But Hebrew has a word for that as well.
Other than אצבע ברגל?

User avatar
Matt
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 138
Joined: Mon Mar 15, 2004 2:11 pm
Location: Kansas

Re: Agglutination and Compound Words

Post by Matt »

Terra wrote:
Matt wrote:
Whimemsz wrote:Obviously though this is a really extreme example, most words are nowhere near that long (and yes, in spite of the hyphens of the standard orthography, that's all one word, since it begins with a person-marking proclitic and ends with an inflectional suffix)
Oh man, I was all set to post a long Seneca word and now it seems short by comparison. The Seneca word for `door' is incorporated into the verb `open' and then nominalized to yield the word for `key' (`it-opens-doors', I guess). The word for `key' can then be incorporated into the verb `turn', giving this:

ʔoʔkehotɔkwaʔshǽkaha:thoʔ
ʔoʔke-ho-tɔ-kwa-ʔshǽ-kahat-ho-ʔ
pronom.-door-close-oppositive-nominalizer-turn-causative-aspect.suffix

(I'm not sure about the specific gloss of the pronominal prefixes).

Noun incorporated into verb, nominalized, then incorporated into another verb. Iroquoian is awesome.
That is awesome. Not only do they derive "key" from other words, but even "close" is just "opposite-of-open".
You know, I hadn't even noticed that. :o
Kuku-kuku kaki kakak kakekku kaku kaku.
'the toenails of my grandfather's elder brother are stiff'

Mr. Z
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 430
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2011 2:51 pm

Re: Agglutination and Compound Words

Post by Mr. Z »

Astraios wrote:
Mr. Z wrote:But Hebrew has a word for that as well.
Other than אצבע ברגל?
There's בהונות/בהונות רגליים.
Přemysl wrote:
Kereb wrote:they are nerdissimus inter nerdes
Oh god, we truly are nerdy. My first instinct was "why didn't he just use sunt and have it all in Latin?".
Languages I speak fluently
English, עברית

Languages I am studying
العربية, 日本語

Conlangs
Athonian

Astraios
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 2974
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 2:38 am
Location: Israel

Re: Agglutination and Compound Words

Post by Astraios »

Mr. Z wrote:There's בהונות/בהונות רגליים.
Is it common? I've never heard of it.

User avatar
Terra
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 571
Joined: Tue May 24, 2005 10:01 am

Re: Agglutination and Compound Words

Post by Terra »

FWIW, I find it funny that the OP chose Handschuh 'glove' as an 'extreme' example of compounding. What's so odd about hand-shoe, besides the fact that gloves are often more like socks? Should we instead call them, idk, *Glofen (or *Glaufen, whatever)?
*Mittens* are more like socks actually. Gloves usually have finger holes. And, yes.
The topic of this thread has always seemed like "Hey do any languages have compound words that English doesn't?" to me, and to have nothing to do with agglutination.
Doesn't the formation of compound words count as agglutination? But yeah, I'm more interested in compound words than affixes for case, number, etc. Sorry.

User avatar
Jipí
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1128
Joined: Sat Apr 12, 2003 1:48 pm
Location: Litareng, Keynami
Contact:

Re: Agglutination and Compound Words

Post by Jipí »

Terra wrote:*Mittens* are more like socks actually. Gloves usually have finger holes.
Shoes don't usually have toes either, though. Some socks do. OK, and I've seen at least one runner last week who wore running shoes with toes and I was like WTF.

Mr. Z
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 430
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2011 2:51 pm

Re: Agglutination and Compound Words

Post by Mr. Z »

Astraios wrote:
Mr. Z wrote:There's בהונות/בהונות רגליים.
Is it common? I've never heard of it.
It's not very common in the spoken language, but I believe it is used in writing, and by some people.
Přemysl wrote:
Kereb wrote:they are nerdissimus inter nerdes
Oh god, we truly are nerdy. My first instinct was "why didn't he just use sunt and have it all in Latin?".
Languages I speak fluently
English, עברית

Languages I am studying
العربية, 日本語

Conlangs
Athonian

Post Reply