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.

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
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
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.