Pabappa 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.
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 Pabappa verb pi "to kill" has disappeared from the language as a standalone verb because it coalesced with a verb meaning "to lick". However, it is still found in SOV compounds of this type. [1]
Examples of tripartite SOV compounds
Active element |
meaning | Passive element |
meaning | Verbal element |
meaning | New word | meaning |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
pop | sharp object | wul | fish | pi | to kill | poppi | to go fishing |
wul | fish | si | ice | ti | to break open | isti | to behave as a fish breaking through ice |
po | hand | lara | legs | pana | to create pleasure | blana | to masturbate |
— | — | lara | legs | pana | to create pleasure | lana | to have sex |
pul | baby | — | — | isi | to guess | pulisi | children guessing naively; to guess |
ta | toddler | — | musa | to play with each other | tansa | children playing with each other; as on a playground | |
po | hand | tim | soap | i | bubbles; lather | pommi | to lather someone up with soap; to bathe |
pip | man | so | man | pana | to create pleasure | pitsuna | gay man |
su | sun | sap | snow | im | to make disappear | sussem | to melt |
uma | woman | oma | woman | pana | to create pleasure | utana | lesbian |
pup | penis | — | — | wupu | bloodshed; pain | puppupu | to rape |
pup | penis | ma | womb | su | penetrate | punsa | to impregnate someone; become a father |
ma | womb | pul | baby | pi | kill | mappi | to have a miscarriage; spontaneous abortion |
pampor | weapon | as | human | api | to repeat | pamporapi | war; when weapons hurt humans[2] |
uma | woman | so | man | pana | to create pleasure | unsuna | heterosexual female |
pip | man | oma | woman | pana | to create pleasure | piptana | heterosexual male |
tipa | flea | lara | legs | pua | to jump, leap | tiblaba | flea |
pus | ring | sop[3] | both hands | poba | to trap; restrain | pusoppoba | handcuffs |
po | palm of the hand | pap | cheek | pe | to strike, hit | popepe | to slap someone in the face |
po | palm of the hand | p(t)ap | buttocks (dual) | pe | to strike, hit | poptape | to spank; to humiliate |
pep | hand | piri | skin, body | pe | to strike, hit | pepripe | to punch someone |
pup | penis | pip | vagina | pana | to create pleasure | pupipuna | to have (penile-vaginal) sexual intercourse |
po | hand | pup | penis | pana | to create pleasure | popupana | a man masturbating |
po | hand | pip | vagina | pana | to create pleasure | popipuna | a woman masturbating |
Choice of morphemes in SOV compounds
While some of the words in the table above may seem uncharacteristically graphic for a language such as Pabappa, their use is perpetuated by the fact that many of them have died out as standalone morphemes in the modern language. For example, although the compound puppupu "to rape" is made up of pup "penis" and wupu "bloodshed, pain", the shortest modern word for penis is pumapi and the word for pain is just one of many such words.
Likewise, if punsa "to impregnate" were re-created using modern morphemes, it would look something like
- Pumapi rompa pussap.
- Penis penetrates womb.
(Spaces have been inserted to make the word boundaries clearer.)
Likewise, mappi "abortion, miscarriage" would have to be expressed as
- Rompa pampap uradi.
- Womb kills baby.
Even poppi "to go fishing" would appear as something such as
- Papiba ibip uradi.
- Sharp object kills fish.
Lastly, some SOV morphemes have become generalized as metaphors such that their S component has effectively lost its meaning. Although pulisi means "to guess", it previously carried the more specific sense "to guess in a childlike way", where pul was a word for baby that came to mean a word for children in general before dying out. If a new compound in this style were created today it could be either
- Pampa pulisi.
- Baby's guess.
Or
- Blumpur pulisi.
- Child's guess.
Deliberate polysemy
Elements in SOV compounds could be said to be immune from being pushed out of the language due to sound changes and their resulting collisions. That is, many SOV elements are homophonous with many others, and this is not seen as a problem by the speakers because, when combined with the other elements of the compound, the meaning is usually clear. Nevertheless, sometimes elements remain ambiguous even when they are compounded, and the Pabaps use this to create new words with deliberately broad ranges of meaning.
For example, in the table above, pup shows up as a morpheme meaning "penis", but it also occurs as the reflex of an unrelated word meaning "buttocks; to sit", another one meaning "backside, antipode, polar opposite", one meaning "seat", and yet another one meaning "belly, fat, blubber". The four meanings combined have given pup the general meaning "genitals, midsection, private parts" and therefore expanded the range of meanings of words that use it.
Another example of a highly polysemic root is pip. Aside from being the copula "to be" and serving as a conjunction meaning "if", pip can also mean:
- pip "adult male", from Babakiam pibu
- pip "unit of measure", from Babakiam bibu
- pip "baby, cute baby" (a term of endearment), from Babakiam bibu
- pip "evergreen tree", from Babakiam kiamabu
- pip "here, in this place", from Babakiam pipu
- pip "dot, spot, small stain; animal droppings", from Babakiam pitu
- pip "beak, bill, peninsula", from Babakiam pipu
- pip "straight, direct; not bent or curved", from Babakiam pižažep
None of these meanings, not even "here, in this place", are used in modern Pabappa outside of compounds whose other elements would make clear the intended meaning of pip in that word.
Notes
- ↑ From Poswa: Note that the accusative ending -p on the object is often not present; this is because the OV portion of the word can be parsed as another SV compound in which the inanimate subject is grammatically active but syntactically passive. However, if the object of the sentence is animate, it will take the -p.
- ↑ spelled pampobapi in pink notebook
- ↑ could regularlize this to "pup"