A Grammar of Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT)

Subordinate compounds consist of an item that is the head of the compound and an item that is the modifier of the head. An example of a native endocentric subordinate compound is money^building ‘bank’ (Figure a.), in which the head building is specified by money.

An example of a native exocentric subordinate compound is book^stamp ‘passport’ (Figure b.), in which the head book is specified by stamp. It is native because the lexemes of which the compound consists are different from the lexemes in the Dutch compound, and exocentric because the meaning of book and stamp together do not predict the meaning ‘passport’.

These last two examples show that NGT allows for head-initial and head-final compounds, although it has been shown that head-final structures are more frequent. There is a small group of compounds with three items, and in these, the head always occurs in final position, which is further evidence for the general tendency for the head to follow the modifier(s). An example is the native endocentric subordinate compound doctor^assistant^person ‘physician’s assistant’ (Figure c.), in which the final noun person is the head.