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.
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 had a difficult time making themselves understood and their soldiers had a difficult time winning battles. However, it is still found in SOV compounds of this type.
This type of 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). 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.
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.
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 |
py | hand | lara | genitals; crotch | 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[1] |
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[2] |
su | sun | šap | snow | in | to make disappear | sušpen | to melt |
ta | adult | be | baby | pleb | to seize; abduct | tabeppeb | to kidnap |
po | soldiers | babop | 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.[3] 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-. This is because at the time of the shift, a cluster such as -bwv- was illegal. Thus men can say
- Bwabbvo!
- I'm masturbating!
But women say
- Pypepwavo wialeb!
- I'm masturbating too!
However, note that both sexes generally use the shorter word
- Pwabvo.
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.