Word formation

Compound verbs. Yidiɲ has a type of verb that involves ‘noun incorporation’ (Sapir 1911: 257). This is formed by prefixing a nominal to a regular verbal root; the resulting compound has the same transitivity as the verbal root. The meaning of a compound verb is not, as a rule, directly inferrable from the meanings of its constituent words (although it does not usually require too great a metaphorical extension). Thus from dili ‘eye’ and budi-l ‘put down’ is derived dili + budi-l ‘look after’, as in (656) and

(961) ɲundu dambu:l gadan / galiŋalna / ŋaɲdi ɲuniɲ

you-sa two abs come-imp go-comit-purp we-sa you-o

dili + budi:lna / wugu burgi:na

look after-purp work-abs walkabout-purp

You two come, so that [I can] take you, so that we can look after you, and you can work [for us, in Cairns]

The components of dili + budi-l can, of course, occur as free forms:

(962) ŋaɲaɲ bama:l wawa:l dili: guma:nda

I-o person-erg see-past eye-inst one-inst

The person watched me with one eye

(963) ŋayu dada budi:l yawu: I put the baby down on the grass

Incorporated nouns (all examples of which are disyllabic) do not cohere phonologically with a following verb root. Thus dili and budi:lna are distinct phonological words (2.4) in (961), just as are dili and baygar in

(964) ŋadin dili baygar My eye is sore

It may thus be asked on what grounds we assert that dili + budi-l is a compound verb, whereas in (964) dili is the head noun of the S NP, quite separate from the verb baygar.