Query Details

Query Subject:	Are there any languages without compound words?
Author:	Emiliano Guevara
Submitter Email:	click here to access email

Linguistic LingField(s):	Morphology Typology

Query:	Dear Linguist List, My question is a very simple one, though I still have not been able to find a clear answer to it. Are there any languages without compound words or without any productive compounding processes? A bit of background on the problem: research in typology and linguistic universals has dedicated little if any attention to compounding. It seems that the commonplace is to assume that compounding is really pervasive in the world's languages, although a great deal of variation in preferred structural types and relative productivity. The extent of this variation is enormous, as I have been able to prove in previous exploratory research (Guevara and Scalise 2009, URL: http://books.google.com/books? id=c8E1gVrnQZkC&lpg=PR13&ots=TAYppZLQ1O&dq=SEARCHING%2 0FOR%20UNIVERSALS%20IN%20COMPOUNDING&lr&pg=PA101#v= onepage&q&f=false). One interesting quote by Greenberg might still subsume what we know today: There are a considerable number of languages without inflections, perhaps none without compounding and derivation. (J. Greenberg 1963: 92) Thank you very much in advance, E.G. University of Oslo
LL Issue:	22.2807
Date posted:	08-Jul-2011
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