A Grammar of Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT)

Faithful loan compounds have the same structure as the compounds from the loan language. This means that the lexical items that make up the compound are, firstly, conceptually identical to those in the source language, and, secondly, appear in the same order as in the source language. Two examples of subordinate loan compounds are shown in Figure a., which shows the endocentric compound bath^room ‘bathroom’, whereas b. shows the exocentric compound after^year ‘autumn’.

In both examples, the two signs that make up the compoundare used in the same sense and order as the elements from spoken Dutch; therefore, they are considered faithful loan compounds. A note of caution is, however, in place: a certain combination of NGT signs may become a lexicalized compound, and coincidentally employ the same structure as the corresponding compound in Dutch, not because the compound is borrowed, but simply because it is a natural or logical combination of meaning components. Think, for example, of compounds such as apple^pie ‘apple pie’ and phone^number ‘phone number’.