Bahuvrihi and Coordinative Exocentric Compounds in Alashtari Dialect of Laki

Abstract

While compounding is one of the major processes of word formation in world languages, it remains one of the most controversial linguistic descriptions. There are various kinds of classifications for compound words, and one of the most common ones is the exocentric compounds. In Laki, one of the languages belonging to the north-west branches in the Iranian language, compounding is the most important word formation process. The majority of its compounds are exocentric. The present article aims to find and analyze two types of exocentric compounds in the Alashtari dialect based on Bauer (2017). The results based on data from Laki show that Bahuvrihi exocentric compounds in Laki include five different structures: (1) Adj + N; (2) N + Adj; (3) N + N; (4) quantifier + N; (5) N + P + N. Coordinative exocentric compounds include two types: class-maintaining and class-changing categories of which the former appears as (N + N) and the later as (V + V) or (NP + NP). The semantic analysis of the data reveals the effect of embodiment, metaphorical, cultural belief, and lifestyle of Laki speakers on the construction of exocentric compounds in their language.

Keywords

• compounding
• exocentric
• metaphor
• laki dialect
• alashtari