Exocentric Compounds

Abstract

We begin with the patterns of exocentric compounds in the Indo‐European daughter languages and trace their development to the present. In Germanic, their strength diminished as a result of diachronic changes leading to the integration of many forms into endocentric suffixation patterns. Consequently, the term exocentric compound has undergone a modification as it has come to identify the forms that resisted the trend to endocentricity. A different type of diachronic change resulted in the demise of one of the original patterns in Latin, setting the stage for the emergence in Romance of an innovative exocentric pattern to fill the gap.