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Morphosyntactic structure
quickinfo

Depending on the kinds of morphosyntactic constituents that are combined by means of compounding, compounds can be categorised as one of four types.

1
Ground compound
spinasie+plant
[[spinasie](N)[plant](N)](N)
spinach+plant
spinach plant
2
Phrasal compound
sout-en-peper-stel
[[sout en peper](NP)[stel](N)](N)
salt-and-pepper-set
salt and pepper set
3
Verbal-nexus compound
fiets+ry·er
[[fiets](N)[[ry](V)[er](NMLZ](N)](N)
bicycle+ride·NMLZ
cyclist
4
(Neo)classical compound
sosio+linguistiek
[[sosio](root)[linguistiek](N)](N)
socio+linguistics
sociolinguistics

These morphosyntactic types are discussed in more detail below.

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[+]Ground compound

A ground compound (also called root compound or primary compound – Scalise and Bisetto 2009) is a compound consisting of two or more simplex or complex lexemes, as illustrated by (5) and (6) respectively.

5
Simplex lexemes
a. yster+saag
[[yster](N)[saag](N)](N)
iron+saw
hack saw
b. yster+saag+lem
[[[yster](N)[saag](N)](N)[lem](N)](N)
iron+saw+blade
hack saw blade
6
Complex lexemes
a. swaar·te+diep·te
[[[swaar](ADJ)[te](NMLZ)](N)[[diep](ADJ)[te](NMLZ)](N)](N)
heavy·NMLZ+deep·NMLZ
centroidal depth
b. dien·s+kost·e (< kos·e)
[[[dien](V)[s](NMLZ)](N)[[kos](V)[e](NMLZ)](N)](N)
serve·NMLZ+cost·NMLZ
service cost

Characteristics
  • Ground compounds are by far the most productive morphosyntactic type of compound in Afrikaans.
  • Ground compounds exhibit various degrees of recursivity, mostly occurring in NN compounds.
    • For example, yster+saag in (5a) can serve as base for another NN compound, yster+saag+lem as in (5b), which in turn can serve as base for another NN compound like yster+saag+lem+winkel hack saw blade shop, and so on, and so forth.
    • Although there is no structural constraint on the number of recursions, there seems to be a processing constraint. Examples with more than two recursions (i.e. with more than four constituents) are rare in usage-based data; instead, authors/editors seem to opt rather for phrases to express such complex conceptualisations.
    • Directionality > left constituent recursive; right constituent recursive
  • POS of constituents: N, V, ADJ, ADV,

[+]Phrasal compound

All except coordinate compounds can take phrasal elements as non-heads; these could range from full sentences (Afr. Sannie-gaan-weeshuis-toe-rokkie Sannie-goes-orphanage-to-dress worn-out dress), phrases (NP, VP, AP, PP), or phrase-like phrases (Lieber, 2009b: 363) as in some parasynthetic compounds. Only subordinate compounds can have deverbal constituents as heads where the verb selects the non-head semantically as argument or as complement/adjunct (resulting in synthetic compounds). Lastly, it seems thus far as if only subordinate compounds can have semiwords as constituents, resulting in (neo-)classical compounds.

[+]Verbal-nexus compound

A.k.a. synthetic compounds(Botha 1984); deverbal compounds (Di Sciullo 1992; 2005); or secondary compound(Scalise and Bisetto 2009)

[+](Neo-)classical compound

(Neo-)classical compounds are discussed here in detail.

References
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