Poswa SOV compounds

Subject-object-verb compounds

Some nouns are actually complete sentences with just the verb endings removed. This could be classified as a type of polysynthesis. Unlike the subject-verb compounds above, SOV compounds generally show transitive action, and are commonly used as verbs. However, because all verbs have a stem which behaves grammatically as a noun, they are nonetheless grouped with the other compounds as nouns. These can thus be called tripartite nouns.

Polysynthetic compounds are generally used metaphorically, since the subject is generally present in the sentence. Many of these words are very old, and make use of short, sometimes even subsyllabic, morphemes that no longer have any independent use in Poswa as standalone words. For example, the early Poswa verb bi "to kill" has disappeared from the language as a standalone verb because it coalesced around 3000 years ago with a verb meaning "to lick". Poswob military generals soon had a difficult time winning battles, and many released their soldiers to devote time to more pleasurable pursuits. However, bi used with the meaning "to kill" is still found as the third element in some SOV compounds.

Structure of SOV compounds

The structure of SOV compounds is fixed to the SOV word order; they are not like the language as a whole where morphemes can trade places in order to emphasize one over another. Moreover, each of the three elements of the compound is a separate part of speech.

Active and passive nouns

SOV word formation is fairly complicated because each noun has separate forms for use as an active element and as a passive element. Generally these involve sound changes occuring in unstressed syllables (where the passive element usually is) but not in stressed syllables (where the active element always is, at least partly). Thus, the passive noun is generally shorter than the active noun, and is sometimes compressed into a subsyllabic element.

For example, the general purpose word for soap is mabem, and that is what it would be as an active element in a polysynthetic compound. However, as a passive element, it is vem because of a sound change that caused all mab[V] --> v[V] in unstressed syllables. Vowel shifts also occur; a common morpheme for "hand" is py when active but pi when passive. However, some words defy these rules because they were formed from rarely used words after those sound shifts had already taken place, and the speakers did not automatically apply the sound rules that "should have" taken place.

For example, one series of compounds is formed from pib "man" + yma "woman" plus a verb. This implies that the man is an active partner and the woman a passive partner in whichever activity is being referred to. The two morphemes cannot simply be switched to produce a word beginning with a stem such as *ymapib because pib means "man" only in the active position and yma means "woman" only in the passive position. Instead, the stem used to denote a woman acting upon a man is umaf-, formed from uma "woman" (active) and f(y) "man" (passive).

Accusative marking of passive elements

Note that the accusative ending -p on the object is often not present; this is because, if the passive partner is inanimate, the OV portion of the word can be parsed as an SV compound in which the inanimate subject is grammatically active but syntactically passive. However, if the passive partner in the compound is animate, it will take the -p.

Examples of tripartite SOV compounds

Active element	meaning	Passive element	meaning	Verbal element	meaning	New word	meaning
pepup	knife	po	fruit	papsa	cut	pepuppopapa	to prepare a meal
wiwi	spear; trident	šul	fish	bi	to kill	wiršebbi	to go fishing
bwap	penis	pep	vagina	bana	to create pleasure	bwappepwana	to have (penile-vaginal) sexual intercourse
py	hand	bwap	penis	bana	to create pleasure	bwabbana	a man masturbating
py	hand	pep	vagina	bana	to create pleasure	pypepwana	a woman masturbating
šul	fish	še	ice	te	to break open	šišti	to behave as a fish breaking through ice
		lara	legs	bana	to create pleasure	labana	to have sexual intercourse
py	hand	lara	legs	bana	to create pleasure	pwabana	to masturbate
py	hand	vem	soap	i	bubbles; lather	bvwemi	to bathe; to lather up with soap
uma	woman	uma	woman	bana	to create pleasure	umbvana	lesbian
uma	woman	yma	woman	bana	to create pleasure	uvvana	lesbian
mom	mother	be	baby	byba	to talk down to someone	mombebbwa	to talk as a mother does to her children
pib	man	fy	man	bana	to create pleasure	pipfwana	gay man
su	sun	šap	snow	in	to make disappear	sušpen	to melt
ta	adult	be	baby	pleb	to seize; abduct	tabeppeb	to kidnap
po	soldiers	bop	peaceful (people)	vas	to break, wreck	pobbas	war; to kill helpless people
bwap	penis	—	—	twup	pain	bwaptwup	rape
bwap	penis	ma	womb	su	penetrate	bwammas	to impregnate someone; become a father
ma	womb	be	baby	bi	kill	mabbi	to have a miscarriage; spontaneous abortion
pib	man	yma	woman	bana	to create pleasure	pimbvana	heterosexual male
uma	woman	fy	man	bana	to create pleasure	umpfwana	heterosexual female

Use of SOV compounds as verbs

Like all verbs, despite being syntactically transitive, the verbs are grammatically intransitive when used in a general sense with no explicit object. Thus one says

Wiršebbibo.

I'm fishing.

But

Šimpepo wiršebbibabo.

I'm fishing for lampreys.

Some of the verbs are more often seen habitually. For example, if one were to say, using the word uvvana "lesbian",

Uvvavo.

The Poswobs would interpret this as a verb in the present progressive tense meaning that the speaker was a woman having sex with another woman at that very instant. For one to identify as a lesbian habitually, the rarely seen habitual ending can be used, producing

Uvvavy.

Or the stem can be turned into an unambiguous noun by adding the suffix -ta, which, nevertheless, takes the ordinary present progressive first person ending -o rather than the habitual. Thus one hears

Uvvanafo.

I'm a lesbian.

Note that the many words ending in -bana syncopate this to -bv- when forming their verbs, but the words ending in -wava change it only to -wav-.

Use of SOV compounds as nouns

These words are also used to form nouns. For example, the stem sušpen "to melt", plus the word šy "season", forms sušpenyš "spring".

Nested SOV compounds

Nested compounds are rare because most SOV compounds that are short enough to be convenient to use in a larger compound were created at a time when they were much longer. Thus, they would not have been able to use the words available at that time that have become very short in modern Poswa. Nevertheless, some short morphemes are in common use in modern Poswa after all.

Nested SOV compounds nearly always place the inner compound in the object slot, thus creating an S(SOV)V compound. The inner word does not change its S component to use O morphemes even though by being infixed it becomes unstressed; the word is treated as an indivisible whole.

Modern SOV compounds

Modern compounding

Polysynthetic compounds consist largely of morphemes that have gone extinct in all other contexts because they have so many homophones. For example, the word bvwemi "to lather up" above was formed from morphemes that have become py + vem + i today. None of these words is used as a standalone form with the meanings they have in this compound. However, Poswobs know the meanings of these morphemes and do not generally need to look up the meanings of compounds like this in a dictionary unless they have become so compressed by sound changes that even the already sound-changed morphemes they are made of are no longer recognizable.

If the word above were remade with modern standalone morphemes whose meanings match those of the shorter morphemes above, it would produce a word such as pep + mabem + pwar ---> pemmabempwar. Thus, the use of otherwise obsolete morphemes continues in the modern language.

Choice of morphemes

The choice of morphemes in some of the words above may seem out of place even in a characteristically bluntly worded language like Poswa. For example, bwaptwup "rape" is made up of bwap "penis" and twup "pain" rather than being a euphemism. But this is partly explained by the fact that the morphemes used in words such as these are not used independently as standalone words of their own; the shortest word for penis in modern Poswa is noppupu.

Likewise, if it were re-created with modern standalone morphemes, the word bwammas "to impregnate, become a father" would be something like

Noppupurombapuspap.

Penis-womb-penetrates.