De'vID:
I also think, as a result of this conflation, that you're misreading the sentence ("legitimate" in the sense that it would be found in a dictionary). The unwritten implication here is "... found in a dictionary (as one word written without spaces)". You wrote that he contradicts himself by including "compound nouns with spaces", but it's not a contradiction because compound nouns are written without spaces in his convention. The dictionary contains both compound nouns (without spaces) *and* noun-noun constructions (with spaces), but by the classification described in TKD, they are different classes of noun constructs.

How I read it is that there are "combinations of nouns". If a combination is a "legitimate compound noun", it works as discussed in TKD section 2. Then if a combination is not a legitimate compound noun, it works like a noun-noun construct discussed in section 3.4. This would mean that noun-noun constructs are not "legitimate". But I agree that it can be read in the way you suggest.

But sections 2 and 3.4 describe very similar constructs (they are both quite vague and section 3.4 doesn't really explain the genitive behavior of the noun-noun construct). What is the difference between a "compound noun" and a "noun-noun construction"? The only difference I see is that one has spaces and the other has not.

SuStel:
maj! I'm glad we can agree that the convention to distinguish between compound nouns and noun-noun constructions with punctuation is a reasonable one.

It is reasonable as long as there is a reason to make a distinction between "compound nouns" and "noun-noun constructions". It is not yet clear to me what their difference is.

We agree that Okrand is inconsistent when deciding whether a word is a compound noun or a noun-noun construction.

Iikka "fergusq" Hauhio

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Thursday, January 27th, 2022 at 02.43, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote:
On 1/26/2022 7:16 PM, Iikka Hauhio wrote:
ghunchu'wI':

No. Leaving out spaces is not what makes a compound noun “legitimate”. Being a common combination is what grants it its own dictionary entry. Things like {ropyaH qach} for “hospital” and {'Iw HIq} for “bloodwine” are lexicalized terms because they have a specific meaning when the words are used together, regardless of whether or not they remain separated by a space when used.

You must have misunderstood me. 'Iw HIq and ropyaH qach are lexicalized, I haven't denied that. Both compounds are included in a dictionary, so they both are legitimate (this is Okrand's definition of "legitimate").

As De'vID has just pointed out, the term "compound" has a specific meaning in TKD: it refers to complex nouns formed by putting together two or more other nouns. jolpa' is a compound; 'Iw HIq is not.


My argument was that they should be written without space: in TKD Okrand says that legitimate copounds don't have a space.

Which means that a noun-noun like 'Iw HIq is not a compound noun, not that it can't appear as a "legitimate" entry in a dictionary.



SuStel:

You're saying that the current usage is not consistent. I completely agree. There are examples of compound nouns I wouldn't expect to be compounded, and examples of noun-nouns that I could easily imagine being compounded.

You're saying there are possible ways to write consistently. Again, I agree. We could make up our own rules to cover all situations. And we do have our own rules: we have developed a convention whereby we do not invent our own compounds, and any genitive nouns get a space before their head nouns; only Okrand can invent compounds. It's not always consistent with what Okrand has done, but as you AND Okrand both admit, Okrand himself hasn't been consistent.

Great that we agree. There doesn't seem to be any dispute between us anymore.

maj! I'm glad we can agree that the convention to distinguish between compound nouns and noun-noun constructions with punctuation is a reasonable one.

--
SuStel
http://trimboli.name