I know that Japanese allows this: there are words in reverse order where the placement of 2 kanji can be “flipped” within the same word while retaining a related definition, i.e. 栄光 (glory) & 光栄 (honor), more examples range from:
- 別離 (parting) & 離別 (separation)
- 関連 (connection) & 連関 (relation)
- 礼儀 (manners) & 儀礼 (ettiquette)
- 陸上 (landing) & 上陸 (ground)
- 発散 (emission) & 散発 (sporadic)
- 進行 (advance) & 行進 (parade)
- 議会 (assembly) & 会議 (meeting)
- 木材 (lumber) & 材木 (timber)
- 王国 (kingdom) & 国王 (monarch)
- 火花 (spark) & 花火 (fireworks)
- 明言 (statement) & 言明 (assertion)
- 論評 (criticism) & 評論 (critique)
You get the picture, but can you do the same thing with the English language for example? As well as other European languages in general?
Kind of, I could think of a few examples in english:
outlook : look out
Overlook : look over
Overtake : Takeover
Upkeep : Keep up
There might be others that I can’t remember right now. I don’t know if for you most of these are cheating since they become two words instead of just being one.
In Portuguese, I really can’t remember any examples
All your examples are changing gramatically between noun and verb.
Germanic languages tend to use the second word in a compound as the noun and the first as a modifier.
Blue ocean is an ocean that is colored blue where ocean blue is a shade of blue.
Conversely snowshoe is a shoe meant for use on snow. Shoesnow is nonesense rather than snow stuck to your shoe.
fwiw “takeover” is a noun; “take over” would be the verb.
“Lookout” would also be a noun, though their example of “look out” is a verb, yes.
We have a few cases like “estar bem” (being well) and “bem-estar” (wellbeing) or “antigo regime” vs “regime antigo” but they are much rarer, and usually involve moving an adjective to before the noun or verb.
Obrigatório:
Um português? Na minha app de memes, comunas e Linux?
Translation for those who aren’t Portuguese speakers:
Hi? I think you likely shouldn’t trust me. Install Linux Mint today
CARALHO!!!
Translation: Install Nyarch Linux