Zulu Compound Nouns—Towards A Preliminary Analysis

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to explain the compounding of various types of ‘words’ to form compounds of specific name-reference. Ideas are given about the difference between morphological and phonological vowel deletion and what these signify, and about how the semantic import of the compounds can be derived from the two lexical items used in the compound. The structural differences between personal names and other compound nouns are discussed. Some suggestions are put forward on the categorization of compound nouns. There is some discussion on the relationships between underlying structures and their surface realizations.