Dvandva

Dvāndva [ˈdvɑːndvə] is a compound in which there is a simple conjunction of two words, without any further dependency holding between them, so each element could be head.

Examples

• Austria-Hungary
• freeze-dry
• Bosnia-Herzegovina
• mother-child
• and possibly, player-coach.

Synonyms

• copulative compound

Origin

Dvāndva arose by reduplication of the word dva ‘two’.

Link

Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics

References

• Trask, Robert Lawrence. 1992. A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics. London: Routledge.