compound: compound
The compound relation is used to analyze compounds, that is, combinations of lexemes that morphosyntactically behave as single words. Commonly occurring cases are:
- Nominal compounds written as separate words, for example English apple juice.
- Particle verbs where the particle is realized as a separate word (which may alternate with affixed particles), for example Swedish byta ut (‘exchange’; cf. utbytt, ‘exchanged’). The subtype compound:prt is commonly used in this case.
- Serial verbs, for which the subtype compound:svc is commonly used, as in this Nupe example (Tallerman 2014):
Musa bé lá èbi \n Musa came took knife \n Musa came to take the knife
nsubj(bé, Musa)
compound:svc(bé, lá)
obj(bé, èbi)
Each language that uses compound should develop its own specific criteria based on morphosyntax (rather than lexicalization or semantic idiomaticity), though elsewhere the term “compound” may be used more broadly.
See also:
English Examples
phone book
compound(book, phone)
ice cream flavors
compound(cream, ice)
compound(flavors, cream)
Sam took out a 3 million dollar loan
compound(loan, dollar)
Sam took out a $ 3 million loan
compound(loan, $)
put up
compound:prt(put, up)
Not compound
Just because an expression is lexicalized or idiomatic does not mean compound applies.
In English, adjective-noun combinations, prepositional phrases, and light verb constructions are better described with other relations:
hot dog
amod(dog, hot)
the state of play
det(state, the)
nmod(state, play)
case(play, of)
make a decision
obj(make, decision)
det(decision, a)
compound in other languages: [bej] [cop] [cs] [de] [el] [en] [et] [eu] [fi] [fr] [ga] [gd] [gsw] [hu] [hy] [it] [ja] [kk] [ky] [no] [pcm] [pt] [qpm] [ro] [ru] [sv] [swl] [tr] [u] [urj] [xcl] [yue] [zh]