Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2008
In Early New High German the word for ‘greyhound’ was wind, but in Modern German it is Windhund. This kind of change from an original simplex to a compound is called “pleonastic compounding,” a term used as little as the topic itself is discussed in the study of word formation. In Modern German some ninety (or more) native and borrowed words from the realms of animals, plants, minerals and others have developed in this way. This essay provides the first detailed account of the pleonastic compounds in Modern German. These words are first collected and presented in conceptual groups. Further goals are to describe and categorize them morphologically; to illustrate the semantic relationship between their respective constituents by application of the concept of hyponomy, which is expanded by means of zoological taxonomy in order to deal with selected animal names; and to describe the possible causes of their formation.