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I think the difference is that in English you can create new nouns by simply lining up existing nouns (with spaces in between). Over time these words may or may
by fauigerzigerk 3y ago
I think the difference is that in English you can create new nouns by simply lining up existing nouns (with spaces in between). Over time these words may or may not grow together.
In German, you would have to create a single word from the start (possibly using a hyphen for disambiguation) and in some cases pluralise individual words so they can be joined together.
But you are right that in both cases the result is just a single noun, which contrasts with agglutinative languages such as Turkish where the entire grammar of a sentence can sometimes be packed into a single, potentially very long, word.
- vidarh 3y agoWe (my first language is Norwegian, German is my 3rd, so I'm speaking mostly from my experience with Norwegian) tend to see it as far less of an act of "creating a word" than English-speakers tend to when confronted with our languages, though. English speakers are often amazed at how we "have words for everything", which makes it seem like it's been some conscious act of establishing a new world on purpose. Of course sometimes that is the case, but that process happens in English too. But exactly because of what you say, directing that amazement at us just combining words is pretty much the same as if we expressed amazement at how English has sequences of words for everything. It just looks different to English-speakers for whom the merging of multiple words into a combination they've not seen before is not a frequent occurrence.