Vedische exozentrische Komposita mit drei Relationen

Abstract

In this paper it is suggested that a large subset of Vedic exocentric nominal compounds can best be described by focusing on two semantosyntactic relationships that exist in addition to the first one, viz. the modificative relation an exocentric compound bears to the head noun: A second, external relation which establishes a link between one single member of the compound and the noun the compound modifies as a whole, and a third, internal relation which combines the two members of a compound to form a semantosyntactic unit. For both, internal and external relations, a distinct set of three preferred readings is established which provides a semantosyntactic framework for interpreting these compounds. It is emphasized that a correct interpretation always depends not only on these sets of possible readings, but, most importantly, on the semantics of the compound members and the modified noun as well as on the pragmatics and the context the syntagm occurs in.