1. I Say Eye, You Say Face Rock: Cross-Linguistic Compounds and the Variability of Human
Perception
Various claims have been made that indigenous peoples are unable to conceptualize new
ideas or inventions because their languages do not have a word for the concept. However, there
are many different linguistic tools that speakers can use to accommodate new ideas, such as
affixes that nuance meaning, direct phonological adaptation (ex. herikoputā for ‘helicopter’ in
Japanese), and compounds. Compounds appear in many languages around the world, but I will
be focusing on various language families in North America. While some compounds are clean
and predictable, they may take many different forms, combining nouns, verbs, and other lexical
items to generate new semantic meaning. Their influence on linguistic productivity is immense,
and compounding is important for speakers of many languages to be able to combine existing
ideas into new ones - and thus perceive and describe their world. Languages are not static; they
are able to evolve to meet the needs of their speakers, and one way in which this is possible is
through compounding.
North American language families vary in whether or not they use compounding, as well
as in the degree to which they use it. For example, Eskimo-Aleut languages have no compounds
at all, whereas Koasati, a Muskogean language, has extremely complex and varied compounding.
The Siouan family has relatively simple, clean compounds that are similar to ones found in
English. For example, Biloxi, a Siouan language spoken near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico
(what would modernly be the city of Biloxi, Mississippi), has very intuitive, predictable
compounds. There are two basic categories of Biloxi compounds: noun-noun compounds and
noun-verb compounds, which seem to be the most common categories throughout different
languages.
Biloxi Noun-Noun Compounds (Einaudi 1976: 103-104)
1. cindaho ‘hip bone’ < cindi ‘hip’ + aho ‘bone’
2. tatahi ‘panther skin’ < tato ‘panther’ + ahi ‘skin’
3. petiti ‘fireplace’ < peti ‘fire’ + ti ‘house’
4. kaxkonixka ‘hornet’s nest’ < kaxi ‘bee’ + konixka ‘bottle’
5. psaduti ‘supper’ < psi ‘night’ + aduti ‘food’
These examples start simple – hip + bone for ‘hipbone’ (just like English) – but evolve into
concepts that are more complex (i.e., bee + bottle for ‘hornet’s nest). English speakers would be
able to derive the same concept of hipbone from that first compound, but the second one would
require a conversation with a Biloxi speaker or a deeper investigation to figure out what a ‘bee
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2. bottle’ could possibly be. Then there are noun-verb compounds, which are still relatively
intuitive to an English speaker.
Biloxi Noun-Verb Compounds (Einaudi 1976: 104)
1. sopxoni ‘wheat’ < sopxi ‘flour’ + oni ‘make’
2. itoho ‘sunset’ < ina ‘sun’ + toho ‘fall’
3. ayadiade ‘language’ < ayadi ‘people’ + ade ‘talk’
Unfortunately for the average person, this level of paradigmatic simplicity is rare. Fortunately for
linguists, however, there are even richer forms of compounding to explore. Within the same
family, there is the language of Crow, which is primarily spoken on and near the Crow
Reservation in southeastern Montana (Graczyk 2007: 1). On the ladder of compounding
sophistication, it is a step up from Biloxi. They still only have two basic types of compounds,
noun-noun and noun-verb, but within each category there are some intricacies. Here is a
sampling of noun-noun compounds:
Crow Noun-Noun Compounds (Graczyk 2007: 50)1
(1) áach-uhpa ‘nipple’ < áachi ‘breast’ + uhpá ‘tip’
(2) íi-wili ‘saliva’ < íi ‘mouth’ + bilí ‘water’
(3) áal-isshi ‘sleeve’ < áali ‘arm’ + ísshi ‘container’
(4) aw-ischí ‘lichen’ < awá ‘land’ + ishchí ‘rust’
Additionally, these noun-noun compounds may be recursive. In other words, they consist of a
pre-existing compound that combines with another word to form a larger compound. There are a
few arguably recursive noun-noun compounds in English, such as ‘ice-cream cone’ and ‘toilet-
paper holder.’ In Crow, ‘orange juice’ is compounded as follows:
(1) buluhpa-shíin-bilaxxaa ‘orange juice’ < buluhpa-shíili ‘orange’ (< buluhpá ‘wild plum’ +
shíili ‘yellow’) + bilaxxáa ‘juice’ (Graczyk 2007: 50)
Graczyk notes that in the compound for ‘orange,’ shíili ‘yellow’ is be considered a stative verb,
which brings me to the next category of noun-verb compounds. Within this division, there are
two subclasses: 1) noun and stative verb, and 2) noun and existential verb. According to the
Oxford English Dictionary, a stative verb is one that “expresses a state or condition rather than
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1A phonological rule within these Crow data sets should be noted: [b] → [w] / v__

3. an action.” What is considered to be a stative verb in Crow appears to be an English adjective,
but syntactically it behaves as a verb.
Crow Noun + Stative Verb Compounds (Graczyk 2007: 50)
(1) ahp-isáa ‘donkey’ < ahpá ‘ear’ + isáa ‘big’
(2) awa-xóosa ‘salt’ < awá ‘earth’ + xóosa ‘moldy, grey’
(3) bish-dappíi ‘shawl’ < bishí ‘blanket’ + dappíi ‘fringed’
Then there are the existential verbs bishi, meaning ‘exist,’ and deeta, meaning ‘not exist.’ These
can be applied to nouns.
Crow Noun + Existential Verb Compounds (Graczyk 2007: 51)
(1) iaxpá-wishi ‘angel’ < iaxpá ‘wing’ + bishi ‘exist’
(2) baa-axua-leetá ‘spirit’ < baa ‘INDEF/DEPOSSESSIVIZER’ + axúa ‘body’ + deeta ‘not
exist’
In (2), baa- acts as a depossessivizer, since ‘body’ is usually inalienably possessed (Graczyk 51),
which is appropriate for the concept of ‘spirit.’At first, it seems that this structure is only used
for more ethereal concepts. Alas, ‘frying pan’ also uses an existential verb: an-nútchí-wishi
‘frying pan’ < ala- ‘locative nominalizer’ + dútchi ‘grab’ + bishi ‘exist.’ More broadly, it
translates to ‘having something to grab’ or ‘having a handle.’
Shifting into the Uto-Aztecan family, there is Comanche, a language that could be found
in the Oklahoma and New Mexico regions. The Comanche people split off from Shoshone in the
early 1700s. Compared to the last two Siouan languages, the compounding found in Comanche is
much more complex. The boundaries between categories are less clean, and the semantic
combinations are less familiar.
One fundamental component of Comanche morphology is instrumental verbs and
prefixes. These verbs “generally describe an activity that changes the physical state of an
object” (Jean Ormsbee Charney, 116). Many of these verbs must occur with an instrumental
prefix, such as kiH- ‘with the teeth, chin, mouth,’ kuH- ‘with heat, fire,’ or piH- ‘with the
buttocks, rear.’ These then apply to verbs to specify how the action was performed. For example,
kuhtavai includes the prefix kuH- ‘with heat, fire’ and the verb tapa ‘break’ to mean ‘broke from
the heat’ (118). Then, these forms can be applied to the creation of noun compounds.
Comanche Noun + Instrumental Prefix Compounds (Charney 1993: 122)
(1) Where mu- is the instrumental prefix meaning ‘with the nose’:
(a) múvipóóro ‘pig’ < mupi=-pooto ‘nose-digger’
(b) musipɫ ‘snot’ < mu-si=pi ‘nose-urinate’
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4. (2) Where pi-/piH- is the instrumental prefix meaning ‘with the buttocks/rear’
(a) pinakwɫ ‘behind’ < piH-nakwih ‘back-direction’
(b) pihtsohkO ‘pants’ < piH-tsoHko ‘back-covered’
It is easy to see how these prefixes are productive, since they are so varied and can be applied to
nearly anything to create a more precise compounded meaning.
A second type of compounding in Comanche is noun incorporation, which is a
phenomenon that involves the compounding of a word (typically a verb or preposition) with
another element (typically a noun, pronoun, or adverb) to form a compound that serves the
combined syntactic function of both elements (Gerdts 1998). An example of noun incorporation
in English is babysit, in which the act of caring for/watching babies or children is combined in a
single word that serves as a semantically concise verb. In Comanche, “incorporated nouns have
the effect of detransitivizing a transitive verb” (Charney 1993: 123) and typically describe
habitual activities. There are two types of incorporation: 1) noun + verb, and 2) modifier + verb.
Comanche Incorporation (Charney 1993: 123-124)
Noun + Verb
(1) pukumakwleti urii ‘they’re chasing horses’ < where puku ‘horse’ combines with makwih
‘chase’ to form the syntactic unit ‘horsechase’ → [N V]V
(2) kikari inni nisáhuvamakhutui ‘I thought you’d give me some soup’ < where sahupa
‘soup’ combines with maka ‘give, feed’ to form the syntactic unit ‘soupgive’ → [N V]V
Modifier + Verb
(1) símmiríkɫkai ‘ate all (the meat)’ < where simi ‘completely’ combines with tiHkah ‘eat’ to
form the syntactic unit ‘completely-eat’ [ADV N]V
Like the previous two languages, Comanche also includes noun-verb compounds, but they are
more rare. Charney writes that the few she has encountered have specialized meanings, and she
speculates that they were originally incorporated nouns.
Comanche Noun-Verb Compounds (Charney 1993: 124)
(1) pahavi ‘to swim’ < paa ‘water’ + hapi ‘lie down’
(2) kahniviti ‘to visit’ < kahni ‘house’ + piti ‘arrive’
(3) tomoyake ‘to thunder’ < tomo ‘cloud’ + yake ‘cry’
The incorporated forms and the noun-verb compounds both present a new type of compound.
The examples outlined in both Crow and Biloxi were restricted to compounds that behave as
nouns, whereas the last two data sets in Comanche include compounds that behave as verbs. This
is further evidence that compounds throughout different languages are not predictable and do not
always follow systematic conventions of which elements can be combined. The ways in which
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5. they are combined in each language are systematic, but they are not universal and do not
consistently result in predictable lexical categories.
A fourth type of compounding in Comanche involves two verbs. This category is less
transparent for a non-native speaker, since the forms are not easily translated. The most common
combination is an auxiliary verb with an active verb. Auxiliary verbs include mia ‘to go,’ kati/
yikwi ‘to sit,’ tai ‘to emerge.’ Here are a few examples that use the ‘to go’ form:
Comanche Verb-Verb Compounds (Charney 1993: 125)
(1) nomia ‘to move, move camp’ < noo ‘carry’ + mia ‘to go’
(2) tsihariyaihumia ‘to starve to death’ < tsiha ‘hungry’ + tiyai ‘die’ + hu ‘ACCM:ASP’ +
mia ‘to go’
Occasionally, two non-auxiliary verbs may be combined. An example of this is watsinarimuikl
‘tell a secret’ < watsi ‘hide, lose’ + narimui ‘tell’ + -ki ‘BEN/CAUS’ (Charney 1993: 125). This
structure is more rare.
Finally, I will examine another language that is even more diverse in its compounds:
Koasati. Belonging to the Muskogean family, Koasati a living language spoken by about 200
members of the Coushatta Tribe in Allen Parish, Louisiana (College of William and Mary
Linguistics). George Kimball’s data is from 1991, so it may not account for more modern
innovations in the language. However, the data he provides has more modern concepts than seen
in the previously discussed languages, so it is interesting to see how these innovations come to
be through compounding. This is especially true of noun-noun compounds:
Koasati Noun-Noun Compounds (Kimball 1991: 467-468)
(1) baksapalá ‘electricity’ < baksá ‘thread’ + apalá ‘artificial light’
(2) mobi:littiɫí ‘headlights’ < mobí:la ‘automobile’ + θ-ittiɫí ‘3poss.eye’
(3) solopí innihtá ‘Halloween’ < solopí ‘ghost’ + im-nihtá ‘3poss-day’
A second type of compound is noun + modifier, which is also found in English, such as apple
pie, blackboard, and highlight. Color modifier compounds are especially common in 21st
century technological brand names, such as Blackberry and Bluetooth.
Koasati Noun-Modifier Compounds (Kimball 1991: 468)
(1) okí hátka ‘ocean’ < okí ‘water’ + hátka ‘white’
(2) aɫí hómma ‘tomato’ < aɫí ‘berry’ + hómma ‘red’
(3) okcaɫmokaffi ‘red-winged blackbird’ < okcaɫɫí ‘blackbird’ + mokáffi ‘well-dressed’
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6. It is worth noting that the order of these elements also varies by language. In English, most
compounds are in the order modifier + noun, whereas these Koasati examples follow the order of
noun + modifier.
From there, it gets more intricate. There are four more ways in which elements can be
combined in Koasati:
(1) Koasati Noun + Agentive or Verbal Noun Compounds (Kimball 1991: 469)
(1) okipófka ‘whale’ < okí ‘water’ + pófka ‘blower’
(2) alahkobitlí ‘moth’ < alahkó ‘gourd’ + bítli ‘dancer’
(3) abá cokkó:li ‘God’ < abá ‘heaven’ + cokkó:li ‘dweller’
(4) oconá sholtolihnó ‘calculator < oconá ‘machine’ + s-holtolihnó ‘INSTR-counting’
(2) Koasati Compounds with Two Nominalized Verbs (Kimball 1991: 470-71)
(1) hopá:ki mastilhicá ‘telescope’ < hopá:ki ‘being far’ + mast-ilhicá ‘full-seeing’
(2) na:sincá:ka shocobacilká ‘magnifying glass’ < na:s-incá:ka ‘something-written’ + s-ho-
cobacilká ‘inst-distr-making.big’
(3) Koasati Three-Element Compounds (Kimball 1991: 471-72)
(1) atho:pimí:sa ‘hospital’ < á:ti ‘person’ + hó:pa ‘sick’ + im-í:sa ‘3poss.house’
(2) oconá akostinicilká matáɫka ‘computer’ < oconá ‘machine’ + akostinicilká ‘mind’ + mat-
áɫka ‘afar-placed.in’
(4) Koasati Verb-Verb Compounds (Kimball 1991: 473)
(1) ipacó:ban ‘to be a heavy eater’ < í:pan ‘to eat’ + có:ban ‘to be big’
(2) A few verbs in which the second part of the compound is made up of the verbal
compound ibi ‘face’
(a) hatká:bin ‘to turn pale-faced from fright’
(b) pasa:ka:bí:kan ‘to be ugly-faced’
(c) stiplia:bí:kan ‘to have an attractive face’
The last category (4) is more rare, and the ‘face’ forms are no longer productive.
Lastly, an interesting Koasati phenomenon is plant names. Obsolete words are preserved
in certain plant names, which provides a more paleontological perspective on the language, as we
can dissect its history through these obsolete words. A few surviving examples include:
Koasati Plant Name Compounds (Kimball 1991: 466)
(1) kaskimilpá ‘possum haw’ < kaskí ‘warrior’ + im-ilpa ‘3poss.food’
(2) haskhintowá ‘false garlic’ < hakhá ‘raven’ + im-towa ‘3poss.onion’
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7. After a thorough cross-examination of four different North American languages within
three different families, it is easy to understand how all languages are able to accommodate new
concepts. Compounds are a great tool for this, but of course, not every language uses
compounds. Speakers use the linguistic tools that are available to them to combine two or more
elements according to the rules of their language. These systems can be messy or clean, but they
are equally competent at combining ideas. It is especially evident with the Koasati compounds
for ‘electricity,’ ‘Halloween,’ ‘computer,’ ‘telescope,’ and ‘calculator,’ among others, that
speakers will find a way to talk about new inventions. Some languages may be able to convey
the idea more concisely, but all are able to get the message across. For that reason, the claims
that some languages are “savage,” “uncivilized,” or “primitive” are completely ungrounded and
based entirely on the social value placed upon them, rather than the inherent capabilities of
language itself. They are not only capable, but they also contribute great diversity to the
collective thought pool, and they expand the bounds of human perception by allowing us to see
concepts in a different light as they relate to someone else’s lifestyle and culture.
References
Charney, Jean Ornsbee. 1993. A Grammar of Comanche. University of Nebraska Press. Lincoln
and London.
Einaudi, Paula Ferris. 1976. A Grammar of Biloxi. Garland Publishing, Inc. New York &
London.
Gerdts, Donna M. 1998. Incorporation. The Handbook of Morphology, eds. Andrew Spencer and
Arnold M. Zwicky. Oxford: Blackwell.
Graczyk, Randolph. 2007. A Grammar of Crow. University of Nebraska Press. Lincoln and
London.
Kimball, Geoffrey. 1991. Koasati Grammar. University of Nebraska Press. Lincoln and London.
“LingSpace: Koasati Language Project.” Web. 7 December 2014. http://lingspace.wm.edu/
koasati/.
“The Comanche Language and Cultural Preservation Committee.” Web. 7 December 2014.
http://www.comanchelanguage.org/
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