Issues in Dagbanli Compounding

In studying compounds, complex words formed from already existing words, many interesting issues come up, touching virtually every aspect of the study of language—phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and sometimes, pragmatics. These issues may relate to the characterization of compounding, their classification, meaning, whether or not they are headed constructions as well as how to distinguish them from derived words on the one hand and phrases on the other. This study discusses some core issues in studying Dagbanli compounding, a Mabia language spoken in the Northern Region of Ghana. It deals with issues such as the classification of Dagbanli compounds, headedness in Dagbanli compounds: types and position and distinction between compounds and phrases in Dagbanli. Regarding the possible classes of compounds in Dagbanli, it is shown that the most common compounds consist of only two lexical bases and that the commonest combinations of syntactic categories in Dagbanli compounds are Noun-Noun, Noun-Adjective, Noun-Verb and Verb-Noun. It is also shown that while most compounds are right-headed (RH), phrases tend to have an obligatory head initial occurrence, making them left-headed (LH) constructions.