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Hebrew authors, and in particular a number of prominent poets, have played an important role in the development of today’s Hebrew. Compounding operations by the Polish-Israeli poet Avot Yeshurun continue this tradition by reuse of earlier language components for the application of a linguistic strategy. Most of the time it is done in accordance with normative requirements for word formation in Hebrew.
The poet’s reuse of biblical Hebrew language components (as linguistic and conceptual common denominators) involves three levels of usage: the primary biblical usage, choice of a marker function, and a secondary (innovative) usage of language components in compounding. The secondary usage (reuse) is a product of the interaction among a literary device (metonymy, supported by linkage to the primary source), language components (N+N compound), and a conceptual common denominator marked by the transposed usage of a known biblical language component in a new environment (a poem). I suggest that Yeshurun accomplishes systematic correspondence in compounding. Could such neologisms, or innovative compounding, be described as part of a terminologisation process? Will the application of terminography and terminological methods of description to Yeshurun’s compounds supply us with an accurate tool of research for the study of word- and term-formation strategies in Hebrew literature?