# headache & compounds



## oh_kristine

Hi all

I was wondering about the word πονοκέφαλος ...
In english and german the main word in compounds comes at the end:
headache / kopfschmerzen
This is also the case in ηλιοθεραπεία, for example.
Is πονοκέφαλος an exception ? Any rules to guide me?
Can you give a few examples of compounds in greek?

Thank you!
φιλάκια


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## ireney

Do you know how you just cannot think of specific words when you are trying to and they just come up when you don't? That's what has happened to me. 

The are some rules such as the

if the word is compound by a preposition or an adverb and another (whatever) word the preposition goes first
καταλαβαίνω, προκύρηξη, αναμόρφωση, περίπτερο, απολαμβάνω
κοντοστέκομαι, πανωσήκωμα, αριστερόστροφος


but right now my mind seems to have blacked out.

In general it goes the other way than πονοκέφαλος, πονόδοντος. I am currently thinking of the formal name of headache which is κεφαλαλγία.

Give me some time and I'll figure it out (probably). I'd say it's a (more or less) exception to the rule though.

κοτόσουπα
ανδρομάχη
μπανανόφλουδα
βιβλιοφάγος
φωτογραφία


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## avalon2004

Why would you not consider πόνος as the main word?
There is an awful lot to be said about Greek compounds! They are formed in several ways, and there are sometimes orthographical changes to the original word. 

Examples:

Many Greek words are based on compounds consisting of prepositions + lexical verb. Ireney mentioned these in her post, such as* καταλαβαίνω,* which consists of the preposition *κάτα *(meaning on/towards/against etc.) and the separate verb *λαβαίνω* (λαμβάνω), which means 'to receive/get'. Literally it does not sound correct but when the two words merged together it forms a completely new meaning, in this case to "understand".

*Μοναχοπαίδι *= Only child (Literally: only + child) is an example where two words have simply joined together to form a compound, no change has taken place (other than a movement of stress).

*Μερόνυχτα* = Day and night (literally: day + night). Here, the final vowel in "μέρα" has altered when it has joined with νύχτα. I don't know why, but this happens a lot in such compounds. Another example is *γυναικόπαιδα* (meaning "women and children"), which is a combination of γυναίκα and παιδί. This time, both nouns have undergone a change in their ending when combined together.

Another thing that may happen is when two vowels clash, one of the vowels disappears. This is the case with "*δεκαπενταύγουστος*", where the final vowel in δεκαπέντ*ε *gives way to the following *α.

*Things get considerably more tricky when we look at compounds formed with verbs or Ancient Greek words. For example, the word "*φυγόπονος*" (lazy) is a combination of the verb *φεύγω* and *πόνος. *What has happened, though, is that the compound has been formed using a different stem of the verb (aorist- in this instance *φύγ*ω has formed the basis for the compound), plus there has been an alteration in stress. This is very complicated!!

With *χειροκρότημα *(handshake), the noun χέρι has undergone a vowel change internally which is due to the fact that the same word in Ancient Greek was *χείρ. -κρότημα *on its own is not in fact a word, but it stems from the verb *κροτώ* meaning "to bang/sound/rattle"*.

*A final point, a lot of compounds are based on words that were common in Ancient Greek but are now no longer used on a daily basis in the modern language. Take, for example, the verb* "οπισθοχωρώ" *(to withdraw)*. *This is based upon the words "*όπισθεν*" (behind; now largely replaced by πίσω) and χωρώ (to go in/hold etc..). Other similar words would be *οινό*πνευμα (alcohol), *πυρο*βόλο (cannon), *ριν*όκερος (rhinoceros) and αυτο*κτονί*α (suicide) which are all compounds based on Ancient Greek words.

I hope that wasn't too complicated, it's very difficult to grasp!


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## modus.irrealis

avalon2004 said:


> Why would you not consider πόνος as the main word?



I think oh_kristine means that normally the head word should be the last component of the compound, which seems to be true of Greek as well, except maybe in examples like γυναικόπαιδα which you gave where it's hard to say which noun is the main word (and in examples like αντρόγυνο, neither word even passes on its gender to the compound, where in German, if I remember right, the gender of the compound is always the gender of the last word).

I can't add anything to the general descriptions you've received, but for πονοκέφαλος, I looked it up and the dictionary suggests that the πονο- is derived not from the noun πόνος but from the verb πονώ, so it gets the order from the phrase πονεί κεφάλι (with the -ο- being the general Greek linking vowel as you can see from avalon2004's examples, but I don't know why the word is masculine). This example then would be analagous to compounds with verbs like αναβοσβήνω.


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## oh_kristine

Thank you guys!


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