# Construct of 'pastureland' and similar examples?



## Catagrapha

Can the construct of _pastureland _be called tautological? _Pasture _and _land _are hyponym and hypernym of each other. Another example I have is _marketplace._
How common is this construct in Germanic? 
Are there similar examples in Slavic and Romance?


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## symposium

Why tautological? Not all land is for pasture and not all places are for markets.


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## Catagrapha

Which inflective language consistently puts hypernym behind hyponym to form compound words [like putting _place _behind a myriad of places, e.g., square(place), stadium(place), library(place), hospital(place)]?

English puts _land _behind its hyponyms a lot, e.g., marchland, meadowland.


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## Hulalessar

"Pasture" is not just a hyponym of land. Whilst it can mean land suitable for grazing, it also means the vegetation the animals eat or the actual grazing. "Pastureland" emphasises that what is being talked about is grazing land.

Similarly "market" refers not only to a place, but also to a gathering of people to buy and sell goods. Ignoring its figurative meanings, "marketplace" refers to a square or other open area (but not usually an ordinary street) where such a gathering customarily takes place which is only used for that purpose at specific times but is otherwise just an ordinary part of town. "I'll meet you in the marketplace" does not imply that you will meet at a gathering where people buy and sell goods. On the other hand, a permanent market used only for buying and selling goods will simply be called a market.


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## Catagrapha

Hulalessar said:


> "Pastureland"


There is a pattern of attaching _land _to its hyponyms, e.g., marchland, meadowland, Holland (from holtland=woodland land).

Are there other patterns of attaching hypernyms (e.g., _place_, _space_) to their hyponyms?


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## Hulalessar

I cannot comment on the precise meaning of "marchland" as it is not a word I have ever come across before. There is though a difference between "meadow" and "meadow land". A meadow is a specific area of land which is nothing but meadow, while meadow land is an area consisting of more than one meadow or an area in which meadows abound. The same can be said of  of "wood" and "woodland" (holtland = woodland rather than woodland land).


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## Catagrapha

Hulalessar said:


> meadow land is an area consisting of more than one meadow or an area in which meadows abound.


There are several places called Meadowlands. What's the term for hyponym-hypernym compounding in contrast to the construct that doesn't specify the hypernym (which can be land, area, place, et al.) like Las Vegas, Los Prados?


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## symposium

Regarding "marketplace", as Ulalessar has pointed out already, the "place" in there isn't a generic spacial point but a precise open space in a town, precisely that where markets take place: in that sense "marketplace" is the equivalent of common cognate expressions like French "place du marché" or Italian "piazza del mercato".


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## Catagrapha

symposium said:


> French "place du marché" or Italian "piazza del mercato".


Are they calques of _marketplace_? 
Are you aware of other examples? Thanks.
I think hyponym-hypernym construct is both disambiguation and pleonasm.


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## Hulalessar

Catagrapha said:


> Are they calques of _marketplace_?



I doubt it. It is just the way that each language does things.



Catagrapha said:


> I think hyponym-hypernym construct is both disambiguation and pleonasm.



I do not think that something which serves to disambiguate can be a pleonasm. "Wood" and "woodland" are not synonyms even if one can come up with a sentence where the two words are interchangeable.

I think that the concept of hyponymy/hypernymy has its limitations. The limitation is reached when the word proposed as a hypernym is too general to be considered a suitable label for a class. "Drink" is fine as a hypernym, but I have a bit of a problem thinking of it as a hyponym of "liquid". Except perhaps for a physicist classifying the forms of matter, "liquid" covers too many things that are not generally considered to be in the same class, e.g. beer, shampoo, seawater and sulphuric acid. I feel the same about "place" and "land" gets close.


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## symposium

No, of course they are not calques! Perhaps you're not familiar with the layout of European towns and European street- and place names. In most villages, towns and cities there are streets with houses on both sides and large open spaces where the most important buildings are (the Town Hall, a church, etc.). Larger towns and cities have many such open spaces. These spaces are called "place" in French, "piazza" in Italian, "plaza" in Spanish etc. from Latin "platea"; they are usually called "square" in English, but "place" (a cognate of the above) is also used, especially in names. Every street and "place" in a town has a name: places/plazas/piazze etc. are usually named after an important building that faces it ("Plaza de Santa Ana", "Piazza del Duomo"...), a historical event or character ("Place de la Libération", "Plaza de Colòn"...) or often, since these open spaces are naturally the places where markets take place and of which they are the most conspicuos features, they're simply named "place du marché", "piazza del mercato", "plaza del mercado" etc. I'm not sure about other countries, but in Italy that's probably the commonest name for a piazza.


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## Catagrapha

symposium said:


> "place du marché", "piazza del mercato", "plaza del mercado" etc.


What are the Romance equivalents of _pastureland, meadowland, marchland_?
I'd like to see whether they have the _land _element translated verbatim.


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## berndf

I doubt there are true equivalents in Romance languages. The problem starts with the fact there is no strict equivalent of the Germanic _land_. In French you have _pays, terre _and _campangne_, all expressing aspects of what _land _expresses.


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## Penyafort

Most Romance languages use derivative suffixation much more than compound nouns as Germanic languages often do. So words like pastureland, grassland or meadowland are typically called _pradera _in Spanish (prado + -era) or _pastizal _(pasto + -iz- + -al). A marshland can be a _pantanal _(pantano + -al) or _cenagal _(ciénaga + -al) or _lodazal _(lodo + -az- + -al), a bushland is a _matorral _(mata + -orr- + -al), etc.


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## berndf

I am not sure it is the same thing. In French, e.g., you have _pâture_ and _pâturage_. Both can mean _meadow/pasture_ while _pâture_ can also mean _animal feed_. But I don't see _pâturage _having quite the same connotations as _pastureland_. If I tried to translate _pastureland_ I would say _terrain de pâturage_.


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## fdb

It is actually very common for English and German to use qualifier+qualified compounds (marketplace, Marktplatz) where French and Italian use qualified+preposition+qualifier (place du marché, piazza del mercato). Already in Latin, compounds are much less frequent than in most other Indo-European languages, ancient (Greek, Sanskrit etc.) or modern (English, German etc.). In Romance they are even rarer.


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## Penyafort

berndf said:


> I am not sure it is the same thing. In French, e.g., you have _pâture_ and _pâturage_. Both can mean _meadow/pasture_ while _pâture_ can also mean _animal feed_. But I don't see _pâturage _having quite the same connotations as _pastureland_. If I tried to translate _pastureland_ I would say _terrain de pâturage_.



Could it be, though, for lack of a clear suffix in French for 'place full with X'? I mean, -ure and -age are very general suffixes, used for many other things too, so clarifying this with a N+de+N structure makes sense indeed.


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