Talk:Bahuvrihi

Exocentric equals Bahuvrihi?

I'm afraid that I don't know enough about lingustics to fix this article, but I'll note two inconsistencies which someone knowledgeable should look at:

1. The last paragraph here says "the whole compound is an adjective and agrees in gender and number with the head." If that's true, these sound like a sub-type of exocentric compound. In which case this article should be renamed, with bahuvrihi redirecting to exocentric compound.

2. Also, the compound (linguistics) article says that "Exocentric compounds do not have a head." If this is a type of OR a synonym for exocentric compound, then one of these two pages is wrong about the head. --Our Bold Hero 15:10, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Exocentric compounds do have a head, but the compound and the head cannot be used to refer to the same thing. A blackbird (endocentric) is surely a kind of bird, whereas a foxglove (exocentric) is neither a kind of fox nor a kind of glove. Nevertheless, glove is the head of this compound. I agree that the examples in the article are misleading. Jasy jatere 11:50, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

All bahuvrihi are necessarily exocentric, but the reverse is not true. The foxglove cited above would be exocentric, but imho it is not a bahuvrihi Jasy jatere 11:50, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

It is not a bahuvrihi; it is a type of tatpurusha. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.249.242.85 (talk) 20:14, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The definition of exocentric given in its Wikipedia article says that the compound is not the same part of speech as any of its constituent parts. "Fox", "glove", and "foxglove" are all the same part of speech (nouns), so by this definition "foxglove" is clearly not exocentric. However, bahuvrihi is defined by the fact that it "refers to something that is not specified by any of its parts". Now a foxglove is a plant, and neither "fox" nor "glove" specifies a plant, so by this definition "foxglove" clearly is a bahuvrihi. This is the reverse of what Jasy jatere said. In any case, it does not appear that the two are synonymous, but there is a degree of similarity between the two concepts, so I am editing the article to reflect this. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:26, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Unreferenced tag removed

I have removed the tag which said that this page was unreferenced. The Wikipedia verifiability policy states "... any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source ...". In this case nobody has challenged the content, even after the tag has been in place for over a year. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:30, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Stub?

This article has been tagged as a stub. Wikipedia:Stub defines a stub as an article "too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject". Is this so in this case? Certainly the article is short, but it seems to me to give clear and adequate coverage. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:34, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Stress

According to Wiktionary, it's "bahúvrīhi" (stress on antepenultimate syllable), not "bahuvrīhí" (stress on ultimate). Which is correct? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 18:23, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Sanskrit paid/pays not much attention to stress (even though Panini dealt with it, it came to be ignored in later centuries except for Vedic chanting), so the answer is that it doesn't matter. Looking it up, though, it's possible both are wrong — I have a book says that stress falls on the penultimate syllable if it is guru, which indicates the stress would be on "vrī", and another that says no such simple set of rules can be given. I cannot give an answer from experience unfortunately (I think Indian ears are rather less attuned to stress than to syllable length); the more I say it aloud the more confused I get (though I suspect it's "bahúvrīhi"). :-) Shreevatsa (talk) 02:36, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Hunchback?

It seems to me "hunchback" is a literal description this deformity of the human body. Why is this word held up as an example of anything but a simple noun?Nickrz (talk) 15:20, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

The word hunchback can also be used so that it refers to a person with the deformity, and in that usage it is a bahuvrīhi. But when it it referring to the deformity itself, i believe it is a karmadhārya.Amilah (talk) 20:15, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Usually, in speaking, the deformity is a "hunch", and the person with the deformity is the hunchback: i.e., "one whose back is hunched/one whose back bears a hunch".RandomCritic (talk) 03:09, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Sabretooth

Is "sabretooth" really the best bahuvriti we can think of? wiktionary seems to put it as short form for "Sabretooth cat/tiger", in which case it's not really a bahuvriti anymore, but rather an adjective denouncing "<animal> with sabre-like teeth. Abzol 16:43, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Excellent point. Certainly true of the animal. It does occur as a proper name all by itself, although this tends to be cartoon characters rather than people. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:A4A7:78ED:4D2B:AA40 (talk) 09:01, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

as Idiom?

is this at all comparable/related to the idea of Idioms? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Flagrant hysterical curious (talk • contribs) 19:46, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Idioms involve multiple words, while Bahuvrihis are single words. They're similar in that their meaning is not obvious from their component parts (they do not follow the Principle of compositionality in any simple way). AnonMoos (talk) 04:56, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

The point of commonality is that idiomatic combinations are also somewhat surprising given the constituents (this can be quite hard for native speakers to discern since to them idiomatic uses are part and parcel of 'what that word means'). 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:A4A7:78ED:4D2B:AA40 (talk) 08:58, 12 October 2021 (UTC)