2. Problems of Distinguishing Nominal Compounding from Syntactic and Noun Categorization Devices in Tupi-Guarani Languages

Abstract

This chapter concerns with the problem of defining word formation from syntax, especially in Tupi-Guarani languages. Generally, word formation differs from syntax by the exclusion of all actual syntactical relations. This means that the peculiarity of derivation and compounding is that their results do not include any relation to verbal categories or adverbial phrase. The chapter discusses the possibilities of distinguishing noun classification from compounding. Compounding is a productive process of word formation in Tupi-Guarani and Tupi languages, though some of the resulting compounds have a more or less lexicalized meaning. There are some criteria, syntactic, morphophonemic, and semantic, to distinguish compounds from nominal phrases and predicates. In other cases it may not be clear and it remains a matter of personal preference as to which is the decisive feature for us. The only true classifying device in Tupi-Guarani languages is -mba’e-, which is a classifier for generic nonhuman objects. Keywords:morphophonemic; nominal compounding; noun categorization; semantic; syntactic; Tupi-Guarani Languages; word formation