Category talk:English vyadhikarana compounds

Category:English vyadhikarana compounds
What on Earth is this supposed to be? (There are other similar weird categories by the same person) SemperBlotto (talk) 09:16, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * See for a very poorly written and hard-to-understand explanation of these terms. That article says "All these normal Tatpuruṣa compounds are called vyadhikarana Tatpuruṣa, because the case ending should depend upon the second member because semantically the second member has primacy, but actually the case ending depends upon the first member." However, since English doesn't have case endings I don't see how it can have vyadhikarana compounds. Delete. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:21, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There are areas where traditional English grammatical vocabulary is deficient. Eg, does traditional English vocabulary have a term for those compound nouns that form plurals by pluralizing the first term of the compound, eg, attorney-general? CGEL (2001) uses dvandva in its discussion of nouns.
 * We have entries for some of these (tatpurusa, bahuvrihi), but not vyadhikarana.
 * Though I'd prefer a category name that was more readily understood, I'd like to see some effort to categorize English compounds along these lines. It might even help with some of our RfD discussion for open-spelled compounds. DCDuring TALK 12:58, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If I've understood the WP page correctly (which may not be the case considering how confusingly it's written) vyadhikaranas are a kind of tatpurusha, so we could still categorize these words as Category:English tatpurusa compounds without making more detailed distinctions that may well be Sanskrit-specific. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:11, 28 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't see how any of the three entries in the category fit. They all pluralize based on the second element, don't they?—like regular nouns, and unlike Angr's description of vyadhikarana. Pinging User:DerekWinters to explain. - -sche (discuss) 19:44, 28 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Likewise, the one entry in Category:French dvandva compounds is not a compound of two elements connected by an "and", it distinctly lacks an "and"/"et"... - -sche (discuss) 19:46, 28 January 2015 (UTC)


 * A dvandva is compound that could be connected by an and and thus its lack defines the compound. Aigre-doux is literally means 'both bitter and sweet' and could be written as aigre et doux. Its lack however here makes it a dvandva compound by becoming 'aigre-doux'. Vyadhikaranas are compounds that are not coordinative like dvandvas but indicate a different relationship between the two. Thus, a vyadhikarana like god-given indicates the phrase 'given by the gods', an instrumental relationship. Battlefield is a 'field for battle' or a 'field of battle', dative or genitive relationships respectively. DerekWinters (talk) 19:54, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, in vyadhikaranas, the second member has primacy, unlike avyayibhavas, and thus should be pluralized on such a basis. DerekWinters (talk) 19:56, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The question remains whether the Sanskrit concepts are well-suited for application to English. "Dvandva" seems to be at least minimally accepted. Bahuvrihi) is sometimes deemed synonymous with exocentric. Insofar as the Sanskrit compound-noun terms depend on inflectional grammar rather than semantics, they are difficult to apply to English.
 * A more basic approach to English compounds of each PoS would analyze them by the word-class from which the components derive and which was the head, eg, (ADJ- NOUN ),  ( VERB -ADV). Some further categorization would be possible, including, for example, the nature of the case/prepositional semantic relationship between the components of endocentric noun-noun compounds. Eg,  (rest for the back),  ( seat in the back),  ( one who stabs (in) the back [accusative]),  ( bone of the back).
 * This leads me to conclude that English does not fit into the scheme that this category represents. I welcome any demonstration of its applicability and intelligibility to normal folks or acceptance by English grammarians. Delete DCDuring TALK 21:15, 28 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Just because it may not be so applicable to English does not mean it wouldn't be applicable to many other languages. English is simply one of many. Also, Merriam Webster does have definitions of dvandva, bahuvrihi, tatpurusa, and karmadharaya. For example, their definition of karmadharaya is


 * I'm also seeing quite a few non-Indic linguistics books employing terms like tatpurusa and bahuvrihi, for example: https://books.google.com/books?id=CerT4n6N26AC&dq=tatpurusa+oed&source=gbs_navlinks_s. Thus I'm inclined to believe that the terms have already been somewhat accepted into linguistics (my basis for adding them) and have true applicability in the linguistics of a variety of languages. DerekWinters (talk) 23:18, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This particular RfD is only for Category:English vyadhikarana compounds. I have no opinion on the applicability of vyadhikarana to other languages, nor necessarily of the applicability of other Sanskrit-derived compound-describing terms to English. But we should definitely start with attested definitions of the terms before we use them in category names. DCDuring TALK 23:36, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Right; I'm not saying we should get rid of all Sanskrit-named compound types. Tatpurusha, dvandva, and bahuvrihi are all pretty well established terms in linguistics and are certainly applicable to many other languages than Sanskrit. But I'm not convinced that vyadhikarana is applicable to English, or that it's useful to use even if someone does manage to dig up an instance of it being used to describe English. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 00:12, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, well if that's the case then I'm not sure what we should do. DerekWinters (talk) 16:04, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * For now, if I understand the situation correctly, you could recategorize the English nouns into Category:English tatpurusa compounds. You could also see whether vyadhikarana is attestable and, if it is, create the entry. If it is not, we could try to see if there is a term that is suitable for a name for the category. DCDuring TALK 21:41, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I didn't see any use of vyadhikarana applied to English at Google Books. DCDuring TALK 22:01, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Just one at Google Scholar. DCDuring TALK 22:40, 29 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Can we have this deleted per consensus? For deletion: SemperBlotto, AnGr, DCDuring; For keeping: maybe DerekWinters. Unclear: -sche; current category content: battlefield, battleground, battleship. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:38, 3 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Deleted; see also the commenters in the RFD of, who also favor deletion. - -sche (discuss) 03:38, 7 May 2016 (UTC)