Compounding in Modern Lesbian in Relation to Compounding in Standard Modern Greek

In this article, we deal with the word-formation process of compounding in the Modern Greek dialect of the Aegean island of Lesbos, the so-called “Modern Lesbian”, in comparison to relevant information regarding compounding in Standard Modern Greek. In this dialect, compounding is widespread and constitutes a fertile process of the vocabulary expansion, as in the Greek language in general. Numerous compounds are built, belonging to the three major grammatical categories, that is, nouns (e.g., μυρμηγκόγλινα /mirmigóɣlina/ ‘ant’s fat’), adjectives (e.g., καγιρουμάτς /kaʝirumáts/ ‘cross-eyed’) and verbs (e.g., νιρουκάγιουμι /nirukáʝumi/ ‘be thirsty’), while adverbs are mainly secondary formations, with most of them created on the basis of compound adjectives and the adverbial suffix -a (e.g., πισώκουλα /pisókula/ ‘backwards’ < πισώκουλoυς /pisókulus/ ‘somebody with atypical buttocks’ + -α). On the basis of a morpheme-based theoretical framework, where compounds are considered to be built in morphology, we propose to examine: (a) the Modern Lesbian compound structures, consisting of stems and words, the most frequent of which display the patterns [Stem Stem] and [Stem Word], (b) the existence, type and position of a morphological head in the constructions, (c) the relations of compound internal constituents, and (d) the use of borrowed lexemes from Turkish and Italo-Romance in compound structures. As far as language contact is concerned, we provide examples which show the predominantly matter-borrowing instances and discuss two rare cases of pattern-borrowing from Turkish and Italo-Romance, respectively.