(SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics, 2019) Lusekelo, Amani
The endocentric-exocentric dichotomy is the core of the discussion in this article. The discussion concerns the semantic classification of compounds in Kiswahili. The data substantiates the presence of the firm dichotomy of the endocentric and exocentric compounds. I establish that endocentric compounds split into left-headed, double-head and right-headed structures due to semantic contribution of the words which form the compounds. I suggest that exocentric compounds require special attention in that the head of the compound is projected from the semantic-pragmatic context in the speaker community. In the article, I show that Kiswahili compounds reveal grammaticalisation of the proto-item *-yánà ‘child’ to reflex mwana that means ‘Specialist of X’. Also, Kiswahili data reveals the lexicalization of the proto-item *-ényé from the ‘Possessive Pronoun’ to left-most element of a compound mwenye ‘Having X’. I argue that this is a kind of bahuvrihi compounding.