This book provides a brand new treatment of Ancient Greek (AG) verb-first (V1) compounds. In AG, the very existence of this type is surprising: its left-oriented structure goes against the right-oriented structure of the compound system, in which there also exists a large class of verb-final (V2) compounds (many of which express the same agentive semantics). While past studies have privileged either the historical dimension or the assessment of semantic and stylistic issues over a systematic analysis of V1 compounds, this book provides a comprehensive corpus of appellative and onomastic forms, which are studied vis-Ć -vis V2 ones. The diachronic dimension (how these compounds developed from late PIE to AG and then within AG) is combined with the synchronic one (how they are used in specific contexts) in order to show that, far from being anomalous, V1 compounds fill lexical gaps that could not, for specified morphological and semantic reasons, be filled by more 'regular' V2 ones. Introductory chapters on compounding in morphological theory and in AG place the multi-faceted approach of this book in a modern perspective, highlighting the importance of AG for linguists debating the properties of the V1 type cross-linguistically.
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This chapter provides an overview of the main issues concerning compounding from a typological point of view and has two aims. The first is to introduce Classicists to concepts which are useful for the analysis of Greek compound categories and to the topics which are most vigorously debated in current morphological research. This is a particularly urgent requirement in Classical studies, since available accounts of Greek compounding usually adopt a traditional framework, which largely disregards the methodologies developed by modern linguists. In particular, this chapter clears the ground regarding the definition of compound-hood, the spelling of compounds, the analysis of accentual patterns, the study of headedness and the distinction between exocentricity and endocentricity, thereby setting the stage for the classification of AG compound categories provided in Chapter 2.
Since a study of AG compounding within a modern framework remains a desideratum, the second aim of this chapter is to make the defining characteristics of AG compounding better known to linguists who work on modern languages.5 It may come as a surprise that in the recent Oxford Handbook of Compounding edited by Lieber and Å tekauer (2009a) there are no chapters focusing on individual ancient IE languages and even the diachronic overview by Kastovsky (2009) has some notable omissions.6 With this in view, the present chapter dwells on those elements which characterize compounding in Greek vs. compounding in English (the use of stems, the presence of a linking vowel at the end of the FC), as well as on general areas of interest (writing and accentuation patterns, the orientation of compounds).
2 Compounds and compounding
By its most basic definition, a compound is a word formed by two or more lexemes (e.g. girlfriend) or lexical stems (e.g. Francophile). The morphological process through which a compound is created is called compounding (ānominal compositionā, nominale Kompositionor, simply, Kompositionare more common terms in Classical linguistics).7 The kind of compounding studied in this book and introduced in this chapter does not involve forms combining a prefix and a verbal basis (English type overlook, AG
ĻĪ¹Ī³ĻĪ¬ĻĻ āwrite over, inciseā), nominals derived from them (e.g. overlooking, AG
ĻĪ¹Ī³ĻĪ±Ļįæ āinscriptionā) or the combination of two verbs (English type sleep-walk, MG type ĻĻĻĪ³ĪæĻƬĪ½Ļ [eat drink] āeat and drinkā), which is unattested in AG8
Compounding is a widely exploited type of word formation cross-linguistically, which has been studied from a wide range of methodological perspectives. In recent decades the study of compounds and their classification has seen the English language attain a particular prominence. This is the consequence of two facts: the high productivity of compounds in English, which has prompted in-depth studies of their characteristics; and the development of new linguistic approaches in English-speaking countries. As a result, the bulk of bibliography on compounding has, as a sine qua non, always engaged with English and its compound categories. Although this has favoured the use of a largely shared terminology on the part of linguists belonging to different schools, it has also caused some disadvantages. This chapter focuses on some elements of tension between current approaches to compounding and the approaches and traditional terminology used in the study of ancient IE languages, and AG in particular.
3 The definition of compounds
The previous section began with a basic definition of what a compound is, which non-experts may consider satisfactory. Yet we need only browse a number of introductions to compounding to realize that the status of compound (ācompoundhoodā in linguistic jargon) is a hotly debated topic, perhaps the very heart of the disputes between linguists of different credos.
Let us start from a simple definition:
A compound is a word which consists of two or more words. Fabb (1998: 66).
This description of compounds, which is provided in a general introduction to compounding in a general handbook of morphology, echoes the following classic definition of English compounding:
When two or more words are combined into a morphological unit, we speak of a compound. Marchand (1969: 11).
Both definitions can be criticized from two angles. First, they assume that the concept of āwordā does not require any further definition. Secondly, they ignore the problem that a large number of compounds result from the joining of elements which do not occur as independent words in the lexicon of a given language. Although this is a problem of minor importance in English (the language to which these definitions apply), we can appreciate its relevance by considering an English word such as Gallophile: neither member of this compound is an independent word in English.
An alternative definition may thus prove to be more accurate and unambiguous:
Compounding is the process through which a compound lexeme is derived from two or more simpler lexemes.
Matthews (1991: 83).
In this case, the problematic term word is replaced by the technical term lexeme. This substitution brings some advantages.9 For instance, it allows for the presence of constituents which are not entire words, but simple or complex stems, i.e. āuninflected parts of independent words that do not themselves constitute independent wordsā.10 A large number of languages use stems in compounding: Greek, both Ancient and Modern, is prominent among them. In our example, Gallophile ālover of French cultureā, both constituents can be analysed as Neoclassical simple stems. In its derivation Gallophilia ālove of French cultureā, the lexeme -philiais a complex stem: it is formed by the simple stem phil- āloveā, followed by the morphological suffix -ia, which is specialized for the derivation of feminine nouns.
Not all linguists will agree with this view. Radical morphologists may contest that, from the point of view of English, Gallo- is a prefix and -phile is a suffix: Gallophile therefore is not a compound, but a derivation. Such analyses look at the status of constituents from a synchronic point of view, aside from their histor- ical origin. Yet it has equally been noted that the exclusion of Neoclassical forms such as Gallophile from compounding is unsatisfactory precisely on synchronic grounds, since these forms share many characteristics with native compound patterns and are usually granted compound-status by native speakers.11 Consider for instance the now pervasive term gastropub, a form which combines a Neoclassical stem (gastro-) with a common English word (pub) to identify a pub serving restaurant-like food. Again, grammars treat gastro- as a prefix, but most speakers who know the Neoclassical word gastronomy would conclude that gastropubis nothing else than a compound.
These examples show not only that theoretical definitions of compounds can differ considerably, but also that the interpretation of individual forms is a matter of debate. As a consequence, much work has been devoted to the study of other interpretative approaches, with the aim of reaching a more problem-free definition.
In order to circumvent some of the problems inherent in classifications of compounds which are based solely on the morphological description of the constituents, other approaches focus on criteria as diverse as...
