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Definition 2024


dvandva

dvandva

English

Noun

dvandva (plural dvandvas)

  1. (linguistics) A copulative or coordinative type of compound in which members, if not compounded, would be in the same case and connected by the conjunction and. Common in languages such as Sanskrit, Chinese and Japanese, but less so in English.
    • 2003, Dhanesh Jain, George Cardona, The Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge, p. 153:
      Tatpuruṣa and dvandva compounds regularly have a single gender, that of the final constituent, although a subgroup of dvandvas has the gender of the first constituent.

See also