A typological comparison between noun compounds in Persian and English

Persian and English are languages in which compounding is the most productive type of word-formation، and compound nouns are the largest sub grouping of compounds in English and most probably in Persian. To compare the Persian and English noun-compounds، I study five of most productive patterns for each language، considering four notions: internal inflection، headedness، the order of elements and the semantics of compounds. The following is a summary of our 1- In English the plural marker is not infrequently found inside a compound noun، but compound-internal inflection is extremely rare in Persian. 2- In both languages the number of headed compounds is much larger than headless ones. 3- In both languages the number of head-final compounds is much larger than head-initial ones، but in Persian، in comparison with English the number of head-initial noun compounds is larger. 4- In both languages the patterns forming exocentric compound nouns are very restricted in productivity. In both languages، in synthetic compound nouns whose right-hand member is a nouns derived from a verb، the left-hand member serves as an argument of the verb