Arabic-L:LING:Compounding response

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Wed 08 Dec 1999
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1) Subject: Compounding response

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1)
Date: 08 Dec 1999
From: Michael Fishbein <FISHBEIN at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: Compounding response

Regarding compounding, Arabic, like the other Semitic languages, usually is
not
considered to have a process common to many of the Indoeuropean languages, and
especially common in the Sanskrit, Greek, and Germanic families of that group,
whereby the uninflected stems of nouns/adjectives can be concatenated, the
resulting
compound being treated as a single noun, with a variety of logical
relationships
possible between the elements of the compound and capable of receiving
grammatic
inflexion and suffixes that affect the compound as a whole, not just its
final term.
In classical Arabic, the only syntactical relationship that can cement two
nouns
into a whole is the genitival relationship of the construct phrase (idafa).

This said, several interesting exceptions should be noted. First, Semitic
seems to
have had some means of forming compounds analogous to Indoeuropean. The
Semitic
numbers 11-19 seem to be what Indoeuropeanists call dvandva compounds:
Arabic 'aHada
'ashara means one-and-ten. Also layla-nahAra means day-and-night. The nouns
in these
examples end in an invariable -a, which may not be an accusative ending at
all, but
something related to the Akkadian absolutive. These are true compounds and
were
called murakkabAt in Classical Arabic grammar. The process of forming such
compounds
does not seem to be productive in later Arabic.

The formation of nisba adjectives sometimes involves processes like
compounding. For
instance, from the normally formed construct phrase ra'su mAlin, capital,
one can
form the nisba adjective ra's(a)-mAliyy- (Wehr gives no vowel between the
'/s/m).
This adjective does not mean "head of a financial [thing, person]," as the
normal
rules of Arabic grammar would demand, but "pertaining to ra'su mAlin,"
capitalist(ic). In other words, the nisba suffix is attached to the two
words as if
they were a compound. This is discussed in Wright I, 161C, and attributed
mostly to
later stages of the language.

By extension, one might allow the formation of nisba adjectives from
prepositional
phrases, such as taHta-al-shu'Uri (the subconscious), yielding
"taHt(a)-shu'Uriyy-
(subconscious). I wonder whether the official guardians of Arabic grammar
recognize
such compounds as legitimate.

Another interesting example of what might be called compounding involves
the use of
noun adjective phrases as headwords of idafa. Take for example the concept of
secretary general. One says al-'amIn al-'Amm (noun adjective phrase), but
one can
treat the two words (without the definite article) as a single compound
substantive
that can itself govern a genitive: amin(u?)-'Amm(u?) al-umam(i)
al-muttaHida(ti),
rather than the grammatically expected aminu al-umami al-muttaHidati al-'Ammu.
Again, one wonders whether the official guardians of Arabic grammar seen
this as
legitimate or reject it as a corruption of Arabic syntax under the
influence of
Persian, Turkish, and Western languages.

I hope I have indicated a few areas in which a process like compounding may
be said
to exist in Arabic. Can anyone out there spot other examples?

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End of Arabic-L: 08 Dec 1999