A comparative study on compound words in Sinhala and Japanese

Abstract

A compound word is a combination of two or more words that function as a single unit of meaning. There are three types of compounds in English language: Those written as single words, with no hyphenation, are called closed compounds--the word "flowerpot," for example. Hyphenated compounds, such as "merry-go-round" and "well-being," are the second type. Those in the third group, called open compounds, are written as separate words, the nouns "school bus" and "decision making," for example. In Japanese language the structure of compound words vary according to the way they are used and there are different patterns of creating compound words. According to Kanazaki (2013) compound verbs are structured by combining a verb and a verb, prefix and a verb, verb and a suffix. Furthermore transitive verbs and intransitive verbs are also important when considering about the formation of compound verbs. According to Noda (2011) when considering the meanings of compound nouns, 7 sentence structures can be acknowledged. This study focus on the formation of compound words in both Sinhala and Japanese languages. The formation of compound words in Sinhala and Japanese languages are different and it is worth to study the way they are formed in each language. The purpose of this study is to identify the basic formation/patterns of compound words of Japanese language and show the uniqueness of each language by comparing the result with Sinhala language and to investigate the similarities and dissimilarities of the structure of compound words of both languages.