Davide92
後輩
- 8 May 2017
- 96
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Hi guys! Could you help me understand the logic behind the order of the elements in compound words? I've been thinking about this for quite a while, especially when trying to learn and remember vocabulary...
I'll recap what I've found out so far:
- I remember reading somewhere on wikipedia that 出火 was created from the sentence 火が出る. Maybe that plays a part as well?
I'll recap what I've found out so far:
- Japanese is a head-final language. As such, the head of compounds should normally come second. This is indeed the case with 訓読み compounds (ex. in such words as食べ物, しまうま, 風当たり, 人殺し, 爪切り and お金持ち the head of the compound comes second and the first part merely modifies it.)
- This head-finality also applies to a lot of 音読み compounds (I would say, most of the ones I've found so far): 医者, 映画, 花瓶, 漢字, etc. However:
- There are quite a lot of 音読み compounds where the word order seems reversed, for example 開幕, 握手, 進学, 読書, 発車 and 出火. It seems that many of these describe a process/action, yet the part about the process/action comes first...
- I remember reading somewhere on wikipedia that 出火 was created from the sentence 火が出る. Maybe that plays a part as well?