| 4.4.2. Compound Nouns |
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awa:l |
‘mother’ |
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ba:ba:l |
‘father’ |
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awa:lba:ba:l |
‘parents’ |
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talli: |
‘mother’ |
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tappe: |
‘father’ |
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talli:tappe: |
‘parents’ |
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pilla: |
‘girls’ |
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pe:ko:r |
‘boys’ |
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pilla:pe:ko:r |
‘children’ |
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leya: |
‘young children’ |
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leyo:r |
‘youth’ |
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leya:leyo:r |
‘young people’ |
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The above compounds may be treated as a type of noun derivation in which two nouns are combined to act as a single morphological nucleus replaceable by a single noun base. Phonetic pause does not occur between the constituents of a compound. I cannot be expanded by the insertion of another word between its constiuents. In this respect a compound behaves like a single word.
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In the examples given below the first constituent is a noun denoting a male or female while the second is a generic name.
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goga:lnay |
‘he-dog’ |
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mutte:nay |
‘bitch’ |
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kuwa:piya: |
‘he-calf’ |
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pa a:piya: |
‘she-calf’ |
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The noun ney generally means ‘oil’ but in the examples given below they are used differently.
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hurwe:ney |
‘honey’ (hurwe: ‘honey bee’; literally ‘oil of the honey bee’ |
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pa:lney |
‘ghee’ (pa:l ‘milk’; literally‘oil of the milk’)
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The noun e:r meaning ‘water’ with the noun kank meaning ‘eyes’ gives the meaning of ‘tears’ (lierally ‘the water of the eyes’).
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