A Grammar of Turkish Sign Language (TİD)

In endocentric compounds, the meaning of the compound can be deduced from the meanings of the parts. This category of compounding is productive and the compounds in this group are not always lexicalized, that is, new forms can be created by signers during conversation, such as ice^ground (‘frozen ground’).

Endocentric compounds usually specify a subset within a category. The sign that indicates this category (the head) seldom has a free, unspecified position within the compound, which means that the components of compounds are usually fixed in their position. The most frequent pattern is the head-final one, but there are also head-initial endocentric compounds.

The compounds sleep^clothıng ‘pajamas’ and gold^store (‘jewelry store’) are head-final compounds. Pajamas are a type of clothing that are worn for sleeping (i.e. a subset within the category of clothing), and a jewelry store is a type of store where jewelry is sold.   

sleep^clothıng

‘pajamas’

In contrast, the next two are head-initial: a mosquito is a type of fly that is an offspring, and minced meat is meat that comes out of mincer.

housefly^bıte 

‘mosquito’

 

meat^operate_mincer^come_out_of_mıncer 

‘minced meat’

In another type of endocentric compound, ‘descriptive compounds’ which are akin to epithets, the meaning of one of the words in the compound is also the meaning that the whole compound denotes. For example, in purple^eggplant/cabbage (‘eggplant’), eggplant, which is one of the words within the compound is also what the whole compound means. food/kitchen^family/kitchen(‘kitchen’) is a similar example.

The compound elements that can refer to the whole compound tend to be polysemous when compared to elements in other compounds. The first word in the compound, food/kitchen^family/kitchen (‘kitchen’), refers to both ‘food’ and ‘kitchen’. The second word refers to both ‘family’ and ‘kitchen’. The combination of the two elements gives rise to an unambiguous lexical item, ‘kitchen’. In purple^eggplant/cabbage (‘eggplant’), the word following purple means eggplant or cabbage in isolation, but the compound means ‘eggplant’.