Another attempt that has elucidated the role of metonymy, specifically in the semantics of selected English and Spanish
bahuvrihi compounds is made by Barcelona (2008).
The two possibilities are Tatpurusa (dependent determinative: "artha of a person") and
Bahuvrihi (possessive or exocentric: "[an object or act] whose artha is a person"), with the added possibility that in its usage in Mimamsa it may be what the grammarians call Nityasamasa.
Libben called this componentiality, which is lacking in
bahuvrihi compounds, as pointed out by Libben (1998: 38).
(23) Here if the word padaprakrti is explained etymologically as a
bahuvrihi compound (padani prakrtih yashya sa).
Section 5 contains subsections on the forms of the names: names with one component (5.1), two components (5.2), divided into types of compounds according to the Indie classification (5.2.1, 5.2.2); then names containing a substantive plus a verbal noun (5.2.3); (2) dvandvas (5.2.4), e.g., Sad-farrox 'happy (and) fortunate'; names made by inversion (5.2.5), e.g, the "inverse
bahuvrihi" A[gamma]at-farn '(to whom) fortune has come' (see on no.
Without a doubt, we can only say that these were compound words such as
Bahuvrihi, for example, Gothic waira-leiks courageous is interpreted as 'the one that has a man's behavior'.
"Exocentric compounds", two quite different groups are taken together, the
bahuvrihi type and the Governing compounds.
In Ancient Greek and Latin compounds -mostly, exocentric ('
bahuvrihi') compoundswere often formed with an -i- : argipus [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] 'who has rapid [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] feet [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] kydianeira [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] 'glorious', lit.
Un tel compose aurait ete secondairement pris pour un double
bahuvrihi (<< dont la main tient le foudre >>).
Antonio Barcelona investigates the semantics of
bahuvrihi compounds in "The conceptual motivation of
bahuvrihi compounds in English and Spanish".
The types Bauer posits, on the basis of data from about fifty typologically diverse languages, are
bahuvrihi, exocentric synthetic, transpositional exocentric, exocentric co-compounds and metaphorical exocentric compounds.
(15) The translation of the compound should therefore be 'having horses that besprinkle/bathe themselves' (
bahuvrihi) and not 'sprinkling/bathing the horses'.