# Compound words (whole wheat bread, bunk bed)



## Abu Talha

Hello,

English has a very powerful, although sometimes ambiguous, construction where multiple words are strung together to form a compound word and the reader or listener understands the meaning based on the meaning of the individual words. So we have words like "whole wheat bread" which in Arabic would have to be constructed more carefully. 

If it were simply "wheat bread," one could say خبزٌ قمحيٌّ or خبزُ قمحٍ. But for multiple words, I would like to discuss some of the options to express this concisely. Some words like wristwatch and keyboard can become an إضافة, But for others I'm thinking of either إضافة غير حقيقية or constructions with ذو/ذات. So whole wheat bread could be خبزٌ كاملُ القمحةِ or خبزٌ ذو قمحةٍ كاملةٍ . (By the way, whole wheat bread might have another standard expression in Arabic. I really want to talk about compound words in general.)

Here are a few sentences that I've tried to translate:

"Which bread should we get this time?"
"Let's get the whole wheat [bread] this time."

أيَّ خبز نشتري اليوم؟
لنشترِ [الخبزَ] ذا القمحةِ الكاملةِ.
لنشترِ الكاملَ القمحةِ.

This sturdy bunk-bed is better than that flimsy one.
هذا السريرُ ذو الــطبقتين المستحكمُ خيرٌ من ذاك الواهي.

A good bunk-bed is more space efficient.
إن سريرًا ذا طبقتين حســنًا هو أكثرُ فعّالاً.

What do you think of the above sentences? Do you think the placement of the adjectives مستحكم and حسن , and the definiteness of طبقتين are correct, such that the whole compound word is contained in a single مبتدأ?

Can we keep adding words just like we do in English? For example, would you be able to say the following sentence in Arabic without resorting to multiple clauses?

"I bought a white 2010 model Whirlpool top-loading auto-drying washing machine."


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## إسكندراني

إنّ سريراً جيّداً ذا طبقتين أوفر للمساحة
This seems more natural to me.
I am unsure what you question is, though.


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## Abu Talha

إسكندراني said:


> إنّ سريراً جيّداً ذا طبقتين أوفر للمساحة
> This seems more natural to me.


Thanks for the correction إسكندراني. 

I guess I wanted to ask how compound words are formed in Arabic. In English the formula is "_d_1 _d_2 ... _dN_ _n_" where _d_ is a descriptor, either for one of the other descriptors, or for the object and _n_ is the name of the object.

So for "whole wheat bread" we have 

_d_1 = "whole", adjective
_d_2 = "wheat", noun
_n_ = "bread"

So as you can see, in English, we can just string together all the descriptors whether they are nouns, adjectives, or participles to obtain a compound verb.

In Arabic if we were to mimic English we would get خُبْزٌ قَمْحٌ كامِلٌ which probably doesn't make sense. Each word in it has to be properly declined and modified to make sense grammatically and semantically. One option would be to use إضافة thus: خُبْزُ قَمْحٍ كامِلٍ but this makes it difficult if you want to now use this compound word in different ways.

For example if you wanted to say, "my whole wheat bread" you cannot ascribe the خبز to yourself  (خُبْزي) because that would break the إضافة with the other words. So you have to say خُبْزُ قَمْحي الكاملُ which seems somewhat difficult to come up with on the fly.

That's why I was thinking of using ذو to separate the name of the object from all the descriptors. This way you can place the object name "خبز" however you want, and ذو can come after it in apposition. For example,
أَكَلَ خُبْزي ذا القمحِ الكاملِ.
"He ate my whole wheat bread."

So my question was whether using ذو was a recognized way to form compound words in Arabic and whether my example sentences in post #1 were grammatically correct when when the compound noun is definite and indefinite.



> I am unsure what you question is, though.


I'm not sure whether this made it clearer!


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## إسكندراني

خبز كامل الحبّة is the order I would put it.


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## Abu Talha

إسكندراني said:


> خبز كامل الحبّة is the order I would put it.


Thank you إسكندراني. If you wanted to add an adjective to the compound noun, would you put it between خبز and كاملة الحب ? just like you did in:


إسكندراني said:


> إنّ سريراً جيّداً ذا طبقتين أوفر للمساحة
> This seems more natural to me.


I would have thought you would preserve the integrity of سريرا ذا طبقتين and put جيدا after it.


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## barkoosh

بالإذن من الأخ اسكندراني

If we want to add an adjective (like طازج) to خبز in خبزُ القمحةِ الكاملةِ, where خبز is مضاف, the adjective comes after the مضاف إليه (and  after the adjective of the مضاف إليه, as in this case "القمحة الكاملة"). So we say: خبزُ القمحةِ الكاملةِ الطازجُ

Some people say nothing should separate the نعت from the منعوت, while acknowledging the occurrence of some rare exceptions. However, at least in modern Arabic, we commonly separate the نعت from the منعوت only by the مضاف إليه of the منعوت, as in the above example. But what about the following cases, where the noun خبز is not مضاف? Where should the adjective طازج of خبز be put?
خبزٌ ذو قمحةٍ كاملة
خبزٌ بقمحةٍ كاملة
خبزٌ كاملُ القمحة

The نعت is to be put straight after the منعوت. So we say:
خبزٌ طازجٌ ذو قمحة كاملة
خبزُ طازجُ بقمحة كاملة
خبزٌ طازجٌ كاملُ القمحة

You may find, in some old references, phrases similar to the construction خبزٌ كاملُ القمحةِ طازجٌ, but this is rare, and most importantly, not adopted in modern Arabic. It even looks awkward in modern writing.

Accordingly, we say إنّ سريراً جيّداً ذا طبقتين أوفر للمساحة as اسكندراني put it.

Now, what if I have to add ياء المتكلم to خبزُ القمحةِ الكاملةِ (الطازجُ)‏? You can then say:
خبزي (الطازجُ) ذو القمحة الكاملة
خبزي (الطازجُ) بالقمحة الكاملة
خبزي (الطازجُ) الكامل القمحة
Please note that the most important thing is to use a construction that doesn't look awkward.


Now, regarding your question:


> Can we keep adding words just like we do in English? For example, would you be able to say the following sentence in Arabic without resorting to multiple clauses?
> 
> "I bought a white 2010 model Whirlpool top-loading auto-drying washing machine."


Well, you know that in Arabic the noun precedes the adjective(s). So you may put a long list of adjectives in whatever form you like as long as your sentence doesn't look awkward. So while your sentence can be rendered:
اشتريت غسالة ويربول بيضاء طراز 2010 علوية التعبئة ذاتية التنشيف
if for any reason I see it too technical, I can "loosen it up" by saying:
اشتريت غسالة ويربول من طراز 2010 تعبّأ من الأعلى وتنشّف الغسيل بنفسها


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## Abu Talha

This was a very clear and elucidating post, Barkoosh. I wish to thank you and Brother Iskenderani above for helping me with my queries.





> Please note that the most important thing is to use a construction that doesn't look awkward.


The awkwardness of a construction is often the hardest for me to judge. Hopefully I will get better at it إن شاء الله !


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## إسكندراني

Barkoosh's answer seems very reasonable to me too. To add a small point, غسالة ويربول بيضاء طراز 2010 علوية التعبئة ذاتية التنشيف is awkward in everyday speech but is a lot like what you would see advertised in a paper.


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## Abu Talha

barkoosh said:


> Now, what if I have to add ياء المتكلم to خبزُ القمحةِ الكاملةِ (الطازجُ)‏? You can then say:
> خبزي (الطازجُ) ذو القمحة الكاملة
> خبزي (الطازجُ) بالقمحة الكاملة
> خبزي (الطازجُ) الكامل القمحة
> Please note that the most important thing is to use a construction that doesn't look awkward.


In addition to using ذو, what do you think about 

أَكَلَ خبزَ القمحةِ الكاملةِ الطازجَ لي.

for: "He ate my fresh whole wheat bread."

It maintains خبزَ القمحةِ الكاملةِ الطازجَ so that you don't have to insert anything inside the compound structure.
I was thinking that this is similar to the standard notation for books and authors. For short titles one uses إضافة, e.g., صحيحُ البخاريِّ and you can say قَرَأَ صحيحَ البخاريِّ. (This is similar to "He ate my bread" أَكَلَ خُبزِي)

And for longer titles that already contain an إضافة , you can say, e.g., قَرَأَ تأريخَ الإسلامِ لِلذهبيِّ. (This is similar to "He ate my whole wheat bread" أَكَلَ خُبزَ القمحةِ الكاملةِ لِي)

So does this construction sound ok?

(Also I seem to remember something similar to this discussed earlier but I can't find it.)


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## barkoosh

I would say then أَكَلَ خبزَ القمحةِ الكاملةِ الطازجَ الذي لي. I don't know why we can say قرأ تأريخ الإسلام للذهبيّ but we can't say أَكَلَ خبزَ القمحةِ الكاملةِ الطازجَ لي


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## Abu Talha

Thanks Barkoosh. I'm interested in this because possession of lexicalized compound words seems pretty tricky in Standard Arabic. I wonder if this was even an issue in Classical Arabic or whether compound words only needed to be possessed post-classically and the colloquial possessives (بتاع , et al.) were developed to deal with them.

I found this paper which says that in Semitic languages the construct state (إضافة) is not the only way to mark possession. He says many of these languages also allow a PP post-possessum like the English _the mother of the boy_ or French _la mère de l' enfant_; He calls this the analytic possessive.

He gives an example الأمين العام لجامعة الدول العربية as an example for MSA which is not dissimilar to my example with the book title above. Do you think this use of ل is only valid with nouns, not attached pronouns? Is that why we can't say أَكَلَ خبزَ القمحةِ الكاملةِ الطازجَ لي.

Would it be okay if I had said أَكَلَ خبزَ القمحةِ الكاملةِ لزَيْدٍ for "He ate Zayd's whole wheat bread"?

Do you know if the Arabic academies, or other scholars, have looked into this issue: whether Standard Arabic needs a way to possess lexicalized compound words? I tried to search on the Internet for إضافة المركب but didn't get very far. What is the term for "linguistic possession" in Arabic?


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## barkoosh

> Do you think this use of ل is only valid with nouns, not attached pronouns? Is that why we can't say أَكَلَ خبزَ القمحةِ الكاملةِ الطازجَ لي.


I don't think so. To make it easier, let's shorten the example to أكل الخبز. If we are going to use ل, we don't say أكل الخبز لي nor أكل الخبز لزيد, but rather أكل الخبز الذي لي and أكل الخبز الذي لزيد.

Obviously this ل is not the same as the ل of الأمين العام لجامعة الدول العربية or the ل of قرأ تاريخ الإسلام للذهبيّ. Unfortunately, I have no idea about the different types of ل. 

PS: I found no term for "linguistic possession" in Arabic.


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## suma

Abu Talha said:


> Hello,
> 
> English has a very powerful, although sometimes ambiguous, construction where multiple words are strung together to form a compound word and *the reader or listener understands the meaning based on the meaning of the individual words.* So we have words like "whole wheat bread" which in Arabic would have to be constructed more carefully.
> 
> ...



Not sure at all about that, for one thing why is the machine for cleaning clothes a *washing machine?* 
But a machine to clean dishes is a *dishwasher*? How we form compound words is very arbitrary and lacking logical systems.
and certainly some compound words are understood only becasue we already know what they represent, i.e. *headphones *_vs_* ear piece*


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## Abu Talha

Thanks for your valuable views in this discussion. I hope you don't mind if I have follow-up questions.


barkoosh said:


> I don't think so. To make it easier, let's shorten the example to أكل الخبز. If we are going to use ل, we don't say أكل الخبز لي nor أكل الخبز لزيد, but rather أكل الخبز الذي لي and أكل الخبز الذي لزيد.


I think shortening it would also change the grammar because I'm thinking that it is only with compound structures that this extra حرف is needed. 

For example, if you want to say "The people of the cities of the Arabian peninsula" you would normally say أهل مدن جزيرة العرب . If, however, you wanted to say "The people of the coastal cities of the Arabian peninsula" you could now insert a في and say أهل الــمدن الساحلية في جزيرة العرب and it still remains an incomplete sentence. 

So what I'm trying to say is that perhaps the grammar allows for a حرف with a definite noun without an اسم موصول. However, there may be rules and conditions that are not apparent. This could be why الأمين العام لجامعة الدول العربية is acceptable but خبز القمحة الكاملة لي does not sit well. 





> Obviously this ل is not the same as the ل of الأمين العام لجامعة الدول العربية or the ل of قرأ تاريخ الإسلام للذهبيّ. Unfortunately, I have no idea about the different types of ل.


What do you think about الأمين العام لي and الأمين العام لزيد? Do you think they would work for my and Zayd's general secretary (respectively)?





> PS: I found no term for "linguistic possession" in Arabic.


Thanks!



suma said:


> Not sure at all about that, for one thing why is the machine for cleaning clothes a *washing machine?*
> But a machine to clean dishes is a *dishwasher*? How we form compound words is very arbitrary and lacking logical systems.
> and certainly some compound words are understood only becasue we already know what they represent, i.e. *headphones *_vs_* ear piece*


Thanks suma. You are undoubtedly correct. I guess I really only meant to say that, as opposed to English, Arabic requires having the constituents of a compound word connected grammatically in the right form, case, etc.


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## Abu Talha

I found some more information. Clive Holes in _Modern Arabic_ writes:

...in contemporary MSA an alternative type of structure involving a prepositional complement is often employed in order, it would seem, to reduce the functional load on the morphological marking of the adjective. Thus one tends to encounter المدريةُ الإنكليزيةُ للبنات (vs مدرسة البنات الإنكليزية). This, of course, is another example of the move away from a "synthetic" type of structure whose interpretation depends on inflection to a more analytic type in which syntacticosemantic relationships are lexicalized. In media and political styles of MSA, such prepositional structures have become very common in the coining of equivalents for complex noun phrases such as "OPEC". But even in simple possessive relationships where there is no adjective and where one might have expected to find a simple construct, there seems  to be an increasing tendency to use _li_, for example كاتم للصوت , دوامة لعنف. In media MSA, _li_ seems in fact to function very much like English "of" ...

Source: http://books.google.com/books?id=8E0Rr1xY4TQC&lpg=PA195&ots=X_wybeldba&dq=Clive Holes Modern Arabic phrase structure&hl=fr&pg=PA207#v=onepage&q&f=false

I still need to find a treatment of the use of this _li_ (or other equivalents) for the possession of physical objects by humans ...


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## barkoosh

What I mean is that there seems to be some kind of difference betwen الإضافة that denotes possessiveness and the other إضافات regarding the use of ل and اسم موصول. This is how I'm used to hear it. I might be wrong, or it could be acceptable in other dialects, but whether it's shortened or not, I feel that اسم موصول should be used in such cases:
خبزي طيب - خبز زيد طيب
الخبز الذي لي طيب - الخبز الذي لزيد طيب (I know it's awkward; but I've never heard الخبز لي طيب - الخبز لزيد طيب)
And consequently, خبز القمحة الكاملة الطازج الذي لي طيب - خبز القمحة الكاملة الذي لزيد طيب (and not خبز القمحة الكاملة الطازج لي طيب - خبز القمحة الكاملة لزيد طيب).

In all the other examples, ل doesn't denote actual possessiveness. In قرأ تاريخ الإسلام للذهبي, the ل here is "by", as if you're saying بقلم الذهبي. Similarly, there's no actual possessiveness in الأمين العام لجامعة الدول العربية, or كاتم للصوت, or دوامة لعنف. As for الأمين العام لي and الأمين العام لزيد, let me use another example: إنه صديقي الوحيد - إنه صديق زيد الوحيد

Here you may say إنه الصديق الوحيد لي - إنه الصديق الوحيد لزيد (although it's awkward; nobody uses it while we have إنه صديقي الوحيد - إنه صديق زيد الوحيد) and إنه صديق الطفولة الوحيد لي - إنه صديق الطفولة الوحيد لزيد.

Again, this is how I'm used to say. Others my not share my opinion, and things could change in common usage.


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## Outsider

suma said:


> [...] for one thing why is the machine for cleaning clothes a *washing machine?* But a machine to clean dishes is a *dishwasher*?


Because people use machines to wash clothes more often than they use machines to wash dishes?... Or perhaps the washing machine was invented before the dishwasher?...



suma said:


> and certainly some compound words are understood only becasue we already know what they represent, i.e. *headphones *_vs_* ear piece*


That's ultimately true of any compound in any language.



suma said:


> How we form compound words is very arbitrary and lacking logical systems.


Which is precisely why it's such a powerful construct! I agree with Abu's remark.

I don't know any Arabic so I can't reply to Abu, but I understand his question perfectly. In most languages compounding nouns is not as straightforward as in English.


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## Abu Talha

Thanks for your useful input, Outsider.

Barkoosh, thanks for your well written responses. I think I see what your saying. 

I also now remember coming across الخاص بفلان which I suppose is a substitute for الذي لفلان. So what do you think about أكل خبزَ القمحةِ الكاملةِ الخاصَّ بي ? 

To be honest it seems quite jarring to me... Do you think it is a contrived equivalent for the colloquial possessives (بتاع, حق, مال, etc.)?

Finally, would you say it is preferred in Standard Arabic to internally modify a compound word, e.g., change خبزُ القمحةِ الكاملةِ to خبزي ذو القمحةِ الكاملةِ ? As opposed to keeping the compound word as is, and using الذي لي or الخاص بي instead. I think it boils down to two things:

1. Is it easy enough to change the internal inflections and construction of a compound word in speech?
2. Does the compound word lose (or is otherwise negatively affected in conveying) its lexicalized meaning once it has been thus modified?

Thanks again.


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## barkoosh

> Do you think it is a contrived equivalent for the colloquial possessives (بتاع, حق, مال, etc.)?


Indeed, it's very similar to those ones.


> So what do you think about أكل خبزَ القمحةِ الكاملةِ الخاصَّ بي ?


Theoretically speaking, it's correct.


> would you say it is preferred in Standard Arabic to internally modify a compound word, e.g., change خبزُ القمحةِ الكاملةِ to خبزي ذو القمحةِ الكاملةِ ? As opposed to keeping the compound word as is, and using الذي لي or الخاص بي instead.


I can't set a rule here. There are different acceptable ways to do it. The important thing is how would the sentence sounds. It should not look awkward.


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## Abu Talha

Many thanks, Barkoosh!


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## fdb

I agree with you. The so-called “improper annexation” is the closest thing that Arabic has to Indo-European nominal compounds. الرجلُ الحسنُ الوجهِ means “the fair-faced man”.


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