LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 13 : 2 February 2013
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Compounding in Bodo

Aleendra Brahma, M.A. (Double), M.Phil., Ph.D. Scholar
Anil Kumar Boro, Ph.D.

1.0 Abstract:

Compounding is one of the major processes of the word formation in the Bodo language. It combines two or more words to form a linguistic element which is called compound. A compound has several characteristics in its spelling, stress, morphology, etc.

Compounds are of four types on the basis of their semantic point of view, namely, endocentric, exocentric, copulative and appositional. Again, they can be sub-grouped into several different classes on the basis of structural point of view, namely, Noun-Noun, Adjective-Noun, Verb-Noun, Noun-Verb, Verb-Verb, Pronoun-Noun, etc.

The compounds in Bodo are also sub-grouped into the same four classes from the semantic point of view; and, at least, into eleven subtypes from the structural point of view, namely, Pronoun-Noun Compound, Verb-Verb Compound, Noun-Noun Compound, Noun- Noun-Noun Compound, Noun-Verb Compound, Noun-Adjective Compound, Verb-Adjective Compound, Verb-Noun Compound, Noun-Onomatopoeia Compound, Noun-Noun-Verb Compound and Noun-Verb-Adverbial Suffix Compound. Of them, the first three structures are very much productive whereas the last two structures are very much rare. The Bodo language is usually left-branching (the modifiers come before the head) when it comes to noun phrases. But, right-branching is also found in Bodo. Worthmentioning that, if we look at some traditionally used compounds such as hinazao g?dan ‘bride’, h?owa g?dan ‘bridegroom’, g?t?? g??l?i ‘baby’, etc. right-branching is found to see as usual. Thus, in Bodo, compound nouns are often formed by left-hand heads.

1.1 Introduction:

A linguistic compound element is a combination of, at least, two already existing roots, which can, otherwise, occur as free forms separately (i.e., as independent words) or bound roots (in some languages) 1. It is formed by a process called compounding which is one of the different processes of word formation, in which a stem is formed with two or more roots or stems, the resultant stem belonging to the class of at least one of the constituent roots. But the word formed by such process can be either endocentric or exocentric i.e., ‘a subtype of the type denoted by its head’ or ‘whose meaning does not follow from the meaning of its parts’ respectively. Compounds can be formed from other compounds because compounding rules are recursive i.e., it can apply to its own output.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Aleendra Brahma, M.A. (Double), M.Phil.
Ph. D. Scholar, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
Kamrup (M) PIN-781 039
Assam
India
aleendra.iitg@gmail.com

Dr. Anil Boro, PhD
Associate Professor, Folklore Research
Gauhati University
Kamrup (M) PIN-781 039
Assam
India
anilboro@gmail.com
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