The meaning of endocentric compounds is predictable from the meaning of the parts. An example of a native endocentric compound is the sign phone^type ‘text phone’ shown in Figure a. below. The compound ‘text phone’ is made up of the signs phone and type. The meaning ‘text phone’ is predictable from this combination, and therefore, the compound is considered endocentric. Note that there is a relationship between the Dutch compound teksttelefoon (literally: text^phone) and the NGT sign in Figure a., but that the sign phone^type ‘text phone’ is still considered a native compound since the sign type is used instead of the sign text.
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a. phone^type ‘text phone’
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b. art^person |
Another example is the sign art^person ‘artist’ shown in Figure b. above. What is interesting about compounds with the sign person, is that they are productive, and that the sign person can be combined with stems from various word classes. Thus, while art^person is a combination of person with a noun, other examples are bake^person ‘baker’, which combines person with a verb, and young^person ‘youngster’, a combination of person with an adjective.