The Study of Compounding Process and Its Classification in terms of Meaning and Relationship between Constituents in Mazandarani

As a branch of morphology and a mechanism of word-formation and due to its high frequency and productivity, compounding has received considerable attention by many linguists. However, it has not yet been studied in Mazandarani. In the present study, Mazandarani compounds taken from Tabari dictionary have been analyzed semantically and in terms of the relationship between their constituents. Based on Bisetto and Scalise’s categorization as the theoretical framework of the study, compounds are classified into three major groups, namely, coordination, attributive and subordinative. Regarding the relationship between the constituents, compounds are divided into verbal and non-verbal ones. Verbal compounds and their classifications are the main focus of the present study. A verbal compound is a type of subordinative one in whose construction, the non-verbal constituent is the complement of the verbal constituent. Semantically verbal compounds are classified into four groups including argument, non-argument, reduplicative, and phrasal ones. The evidence shows that there is almost a complete correspondence between Mazandarani and the classification suggested by Bisetto and Scalise.