Berom Exocentric Compounds: A Structural and Semantic Analysis of the N-V Compounds

Abstract

In this study, we examine exocentric compounds in Berom; a minority Niger-Congo language that is spoken in parts of central Nigeria and describe the structural and semantic properties of N-V compounds. Basically, the study is designed to achieve three aims: to contribute to the documentation of Berom, to provide the structural classification of exocentric compounds in the language and to provide the semantics of N-V compounds. Contrary to the nominalization process in defining the lexical class of compounds in languages, we show that in Berom compounding, the verbal and adjectival compounds are also attested. Based on a data set of 200 compound words that were previously drawn from Bere Naha (a newsletter publication in Berom), we propose three categories of exocentric compounds in Berom: Nominal Compounds [NC] and Verbal Compounds [VC] and Adjectival compounds and present the structure of each category by showing the class of their constituents. We show that Berom, N-V compounds have a nominal classification that are interpreted as agentive or locative nouns. We conclude that the meaning of Berom N-V compounds may not be solely determined by the sheer interpretation of the constituents of the compound.