Greek Compounds of the Type ισóεoς 'Equal to a God', αξιóλoγoς 'Worthy of Note', απειρoμαχας 'Ignorant of War', etc.

Abstract

In the majority of Greek compounds the head occurs on the right. Within this system, a number of left-oriented categories are tolerated, chiefly preposition- and verb-first compounds, but also a handful of minor groups. This article aims to provide a more thorough appraisal of a specific subtype of left-oriented compounds: those showing an adjectival head (type ισóεoς, αξιoλoγoς, etc.). It first provides an overview of the various types of left-oriented compounds in Greek (section 2). It then assesses the claim that adjectival left-oriented compounds derive from left-oriented syntactic phrases by supplying a full corpus of such forms, and comparing them to existing syntagms of the type adjective plus noun (section 3). The subsequent sections investigate the autonomous morphological reasons behind the left-headedness of such compounds, which the syntactic model does not adequately explain. Section 4.1 addresses the question of why such compounds could not have been right-oriented. Section 4.2 identifies the morphological features which—as in the case of prepositional compounds—characterise adjectives in left-oriented compounds, and are largely responsible for their placement on the left.

La composición nominal en español: propuesta de clasificación

“…Y, en español, ejemplos como burriciego tienen el núcleo a la derecha. Pero es que, en este caso, como hemos dicho, se trata de compuestos procedentes de sintagmas fijados (ciego como un burro), lo cual sucede también, por ejemplo, en griego antiguo, donde un compuesto como ἀξιόλογος(Tribulato 2007) tiene -sorprendentemente-el núcleo a la izquierda por proceder también de un sintagma fijado.…”