Morphologic Types

14.1. Of the three types of morphologic constructions which can be distinguished according to the nature of the constituents — namely, composition, secondary derivation, and primary derivation — the constructions of compound words are most similar to the constructions of syntax.

Compound words have two (or more) free forms among their immediate constituents (door-knob). Under the prin­ciple of immediate constituents, languages usually distinguish compound words from phrase-derivatives (as, old-maid­ish, a secondary derivative with the underlying phrase old maid), and from decompounds (as, gentlemanly, a secondary derivative with the underlying compound word gentleman). Within the sphere of compound words, the same principle usually involves a definite structural order; thus, the com­pound wild-animal-house does not consist, say, of three members wild, animal, and house, and not of the members wild and animal-house, but of the members wild animal (a phrase) and house; and, similarly, the compound door-knob-wiper consists, unmistakably, of the members door-knob and wiper, and not, for instance of door and knob-wiper. The grammatical features which lead us to recognize compound words differ in different languages, and some languages, doubtless, have no such class of forms. The gradations between a word and a phrase may be many; often enough no rigid distinction can be made. The forms which we class as compound words exhibit some feature which, in their language, characterizes single words in contradistinction to phrases.

In meaning, compound words are usually more specialized than phrases; for instance, blackbird, denoting a bird of a particular species, is more specialized than the phrase black bird, which denotes any bird of this color. It is a very common mistake to try to use this difference as a criterion. We cannot gauge meanings accurately enough; moreover, many a phrase is as specialized in meaning as any compound: in the phrases a queer bird and meat and drink, the words bird, meat are fully as specialized as they are in the compounds jailbird and sweetmeats.

14.2. In languages which use a single high stress on each word, this feature distinguishes compound words from phrases. In English the high stress is usually on the first mem­ber; on the other member there is a lesser stress, as in door-knob ['dɔ ə -, nɒ b], upkeep ['ʌ р-_, kı jp]. Certain compounds have the irregularity of leaving the second member unstressed, as in gentleman ['dзentlmə n], Frenchman ['frentʆ mə n]; contrast milkman ['mı lk-, mε n]. Certain types of compounds, chiefly some whose members are adverbs and prepositions, stress the second member: without, upon. Accordingly, wherever we hear lesser or least stress upon a word which would always show high stress in a phrase, we describe it as a compound-member: ice-cream ['ajs-, krı jm] is a compound; but icecream ['ajs 'krı jm] is a phrase, although there is no denotative difference of meaning. However, a phrase as prior member in a compound keeps all its high stresses: in wild-animal-house [wajld-'ε nı ml-_, haws] the stress assures us only that house is a compound-member; the rest of the structure is shown by other criteria. [...]

The order of the members in a compound word may befixed, while that of the phrase is free, as in bread-and-butter ['bred-n-, bʌ tə ] ‘slices of bread spread with butter’, contrasting with the phrase, as in she bought bread and butter, she bought butter and bread. This criterion is likely to breakdown, however, because the order in a phrase, too, may befixed: we have also a specialized phrase [bred n ' bʌ tə ] with the same order and the same meaning as the compound. Contrasting order is a surer mark: French blапс-bec [blа-bε к] ‘callow young person’ (literally ‘white-beak’) is characterized as a compound, because adjectives like blanc in the phrase always follow their noun: bec blanc ‘white beak’. English examples are to housekeep, to backslide, to undergo, since in a phrase a noun goal like house and adverbs of the type back, under would follow the verb (keep house, slideback).

14.3. [...] Sometimes the compound-member resembles an inflectional form, but one which would be impossible in the phrase. The [-z, -s] of the prior members of bondsman, kinsman, landsman, marksman resembles the possessive-adjective suffix, but possessive adjectives like bond’s, land’s and so on, would not be used in the phrase. [...]

A compound-member may be characterized by some feature of word-formation which differs from what would appear in an independent word. [...] Compounds with special features of word-formation are known as synthetic compounds. Synthetic compounds occurred especially in the older stages of the Indo-European languages, but the habit is by no means extinct. In English, the verb to black underlies the independent agent-noun blacker (as in a blacker of boots), but forms also, with a zero-element, the agent-noun - black which appears in the compound boot-black; similarly, to sweep forms sweeper and the second member of chimney-sweep. Even forms like long-tailed or red-bearded are not aptly described as containing the words tailed, bearded (as in tailed monkeys, bearded lady); the natural starting-point is rather a phrase like long tail or red beard, from which they differ by the presence of the suffix -ed. This is the same thing as saying that we use compounds of the type long-tailed, red-bearded regardless of the existence of words like tailed, bearded: witness forms like blue-eyed, four-footed, snub-nosed. Another modern English synthetic type is that of three-master, thousand-legger.

In English, we freely form compounds like meat-eater and meat-eating, but not verb-compounds like *to meat-eat; these exist only in a few irregular cases, such as to housekeep, to bootlick. Now, to be sure, words like eater and eating exist alongside the compounds; the synthetic feature consists merely in the restriction that a phrase like eat meat is paralleled by compounds only when -er or -ing is at the same time added. We may designate the types meat-eating and meat-eater as semi-synthetic compounds.

14.4. Among the word-like features of the forms which we class as compound words, indivisibility is fairly frequent: we can say black — I should say, bluish-black — birds, but we do not use the compound word blackbird with a similar interruption. [...]

Generally, a compound-member cannot, like a word in a phrase, serve as a constituent in a syntactic construction. The word black in the phrase black birds can be modified by very (very black birds), but not so the compound-member black in blackbirds.

14.5. The description and classification of the forms which the structure of a language leads us to describe as compound words, will depend upon the characteristic features of this language. Linguists often make the mistake of taking for granted the universal existence of whatever types of com­pound words are current in their own language. It is true that the main types of compound words in various lan­guages are somewhat similar, but this similarity is worthy of notice; moreover, the details, and especially the restrictions, vary in different languages. The differences are great enough to prevent our setting up any scheme of classification that would fit all languages, but^: two lines of classification are often useful.

One of these two lines of classification concerns the relation of the members. On the one hand, we have syntactic compounds, whose members stand to each other in the same grammatical relation as words in a phrase; thus, in English, the members of the compounds blackbird and whitecap (the difference between these two examples will concern us later) show the same construction of adjective plus noun as do the words in the phrases black bird and white cap. On the other hand, we have asyntactic compounds like door-knob, whose members stand to each other in a construction that is not paralleled in the syntax of their language — for English has no such phrasal type as *door-knob.

The syntactic compound differs from a phrase only in the essential features which (in its language) distinguish compound words from phrases — in English, then, chiefly by the use of only one high stress. It may differ lexically from the corresponding phrase, as does dreadnaught; the corresponding phrase, dread naught, has an archaic connotation, and the normal phrase would be fear nothing. We can set up sub-classes of syntactic compounds according to the syntactic constructions which are paralleled by the mem­bers, as, in English, adjective with noun (blackbird, whitecap, bull's-eye), verb with goal noun (lickspittle, dreadnaught), verb with adverb (gadabout), past participle with adverb (castaway), and so on.

Many compounds are intermediate between the syntactic and asyntactic extremes: the relation of the members parallels some syntactic construction, but the compound shows more than the minimum deviation from the phrase. For instance, the compound verb to housekeep differs from the phrase keep house by the simple feature of word order. In such cases we may speak of various kinds of semi-syntactic compounds. The difference of order appears also in upkeep versus keep up, in turnkey versus turn the key or turn keys, thedifference lies in the use of the article or of the number-cate­gory. Even types like blue-eyed, three-master, meat-eater, viewed as synthetic compounds, can be said to correspond to blue eyes, three masts, eat meat and to differ from these phrases by simple formal characteristics, including the addition of the bound forms -ed, -e r to the second member. [...]

Where semi-syntactic compounds are definable, they can be further classified in the same manner as syntactic compounds: thus, in the semi-syntactic blue-eyed the members have the same construction as in the syntactic blackbird, in three-master the same as in three-day, in housekeep, turnkey the same as in lickspittle, in upkeep the same as in gadabout.

Asyntactic compounds have members which do not combine in syntactic constructions of their language. Thus, in door-knob, horsefly, bedroom, salt-cellar, tomcat we see two nouns in a construction that does not occur in English syntax. Other asyntactic types of English compounds are illustrated by fly-blown, frost-bitten — crestfallen, footsore, fireproof, foolhardy — by-law, by-path, ever-glade — dining-room, swimming-pool — bindweed, cry-baby, drive-way, playground, blow-pipe — broadcast, dry-clean, foretell — somewhere, everywhere, nowhere. Compounds with obscure members, such as smokestack, mushroom, or with unique members, such as cranberry, huckleberry, zigzag, choo-choo, are, of course, to be classed as asyntactic.

Although the relation between the members of asyntactic compounds is necessarily vague, yet we can sometimes extend the main divisions of syntactic and semi-syntactic compounds to cover also the asyntactic class. In English, for instance, the co-ordinative or copulative relation which we see in a semi-syntactic compound like bittersweet (com­pare the phrase bitter and sweet), can be discerned also in asyntactic compounds like zigzag, fuzzy-wuzzy, choo-choo. Most asyntactic compounds seem to have a kind of attribute-and-head construction: door-knob, bulldog, cranberry. To the extent that one can carry out this comparison, one can therefore distinguish between copulative compounds (Sanskrit dvandva)and determinative (attributive or subordinative)compounds (Sanscrit tatpurusha); these divisions will cross those of syntactic, semi-syntactic, and asyntactic compounds. One may even be able to mark off smaller divisions. The Hindu grammarians distinguished among copulative compounds a special sub-group of repetitive (amredita) compounds, with identical members, as in choo-choo, bye-bye, goody-goody. In English, we can mark off also a class in which the members show only some elementary phonetic difference, as zigzag, flimflam, pell-mell, fuzzy-wuzzy. The Hindus found it convenient to set off, among the determinatives, a special class of syntactic attribute-and-head compounds (karmadharaya), such as blackbird.

14.6. The other frequently usable line of classification concerns the relation of the compound as a whole to its members. One can often apply to compounds the distinction between endocentric and exocentric constructions which we met in syntax. Since a blackbird isa kind of a bird, and a door-knob a kind of a knob, we may say that these compounds have the same function as their head members; they are endocentric. On the other hand, in gadabout and turnkey the head member is an infinitive verb, but the compound is a noun; these compounds are exocentric (Sanskrit bahuvrihi).To take a copulative type as an example, the adjective bittersweet (‘bitter and sweet at the same time’) is endocentric, since the compound, like its co-ordinated members, bitter and sweet, has the function of an adjective, but the plant-name bittersweet is exocentric, since, as a noun, it differs in grammatical function from the two adjective members. Another type of English exocentric compounds consists of adjectives with noun head: two-pound, five-cent, half-mile, (in) apple-pie (order).

The difference of form-class may be less radical, but still recognizable in the system of the language. In Eng­lish, the nouns longlegs, bright-eyes, butterfingers are exo­centric, because they occur both as singulars, and, with a zero-affix, as plurals (that longlegs, those longlegs). [ ... ]In the English type sure-footed, blue-eyed, straight-backed the synthetic suffix [ -ed, -d, -t ]goes hand in hand with the exocentric value (adjective with noun head); however, one might perhaps hesitate as to the classification, since -footed, -eyed, -backed might be viewed as adjectives (compare horned, bearded). Types like clambake, upkeep arebetter described as endocentric, in English grammar, because the head members -bake and -keep can be viewed as nouns of action derived, with a zero-feature, from the verbs; if English did not use many zero-features in derivation and did not form many types of action nouns, we should have to class these compounds as exocentric. Similarly, our description will probably work out best if we class bootblack, chimney-sweep as endocentric, with - black and -sweep as agent-nouns.

On the other hand, the large class of English compounds that is exemplified by whitecap, longnose, swallow-tail, blue-coat, blue-stocking, red-head, short-horn has noun function and a noun as head member, and yet is to be classed as exocentric, because the construction implies precisely that the object does not belong to the same species as the head member: these compounds mean ‘object possessing such-and-such an object (second member) of such-and-such quality (first member)’. This appears in the fact that the number-categories (longlegs) and the personal-impersonal categories (nose... it; longnose... he, she) do not always agree. In three-master, thousand-legger the synthetic suffix goes hand in hand with this exocentric relation. Nevertheless, there are borderline cases which may prevent a clear-cut distinction. The compound blue-bottle is endocentric if we view the insect as ‘like a bottle’, but exocentric if we insist that the ‘'bottle’ is only part of the insect.

14.7. In secondary derivative words we find one free form, phrase (as in old-maidish)or a word (as in mannish), as an immediate constituent; in the latter case, the underlying word may be a compound word (as in gentlemanly)or, in its own turn, a derived word (as in actresses, where the underlying word actress is itself a secondary derivative from the underlying word actor). [...]

In the same way, phrase-derivatives, such as old-maidish, derived from the phrase old maid, offer no special difficulty so long as they contain a derivational affix, such as -ish, but when the phrase is accompanied only by a zero-feature, as in jack-in-the-pulpit or devil-may-care, we have the difficult type of phrase-words. These differ from phrases in their uninterrupted and syntactically inexpansible character, and often in their exocentric value.

14.8. Primary words contain no free forms among their immediate constituents. They may be complex, consisting of two or more bound forms, as per-ceive, per-tain, de-ceive, de-tain, or they may be simple, as boy, run, red, and, in, ouch.

The bound forms which make up complex primary words, are determined, of course, by features of partial resemblance, as in the examples just cited. In many languages the pri­mary words show a structural resemblance to secondary words. Thus, in English, the primary words hammer, rudder, spider resemble secondary words like dance-r, lead-er, ride-r. The part of the primary word which resembles the derivational affix of the secondary word (in our examples, -er) can be described as a primary affix. Thus, the primary words hammer, rudder, spider are said to contain a primary suffix -er. The remaining part of the primary word — in our examples, the syllable [hε m-] in hammer, [rʌ d-] in rudder, [spajd-] in spider — is called the root. The root plays the same part in primary words as the underlying form (e. g. dance, lead, ride)in secondary words (dancer, leader, rider).

This distinction between primary affixes and roots is justified by the fact that the primary affixes are relatively few and vague in meaning, while the roots are very nu­merous and therefore relatively clear-cut as to denotation.

In accordance with this terminology, primary words that do not contain any affix-like constituents (e. g. boy, run, red) are classed as primary root-words. The roots which occur in primary root-words are free roots, in contrast with bound roots which occur only with a primary affix, such as the root [spajd-] in spider.

Primary affixes may be extremely vague in meaning and act merely as an obligatory accompaniment (a deter­minative)of the root. In English, the commonest primary suffixes do not even tell the part of speech; thus, we have, with -er, spider, bitter, linger, ever, under; with -le, bottle, little, hustle; with -ow, furrow, yellow, borrow. In other cases the meaning is more palpable; thus, -ock, in hammock, mattock, hassock, and so on, forms nouns denoting a lumpy object of moderate size, and this is confirmed by its use as a secondary suffix (class-cleavage) in words like hillock, bullock. Our foreign-learned prefixes get a vague but recognizable meaning from contrasts like con-tain, de-tain, per-tain, re-tain. In some languages, however, primary affixes bear relatively concrete meanings. [...]

A foot may appear in only one primary word, as is the case with most ordinary English roots, such as man, boy, cut, red, nast- (in nasty), ham- (in hammer), or it may ap­pear in a whole series of primary words, as is the case with many of our foreign-learned roots, like [-sı jv] in de­ceive, conceive, perceive, receive. In either case, the primary word may underlie a whole series of secondary derivatives; thus, man underlies men, man’s, men’s, mannish, manly, (to) man (mans, manned, manning); deceive underlies deceiver, deceit, deception, deceptive; conceive underlies conceivable, conceit, concept, conception, conceptual; perceive un­derlies perceiver, percept, perceptive, perception, perceptible, perceptual; and receive underlies receiver, receipt, reception, receptive, receptable. Moreover, secondary derivatives like these may exist where the primary word is lacking; thus, we have no such primary word as *preceive, but we have the words precept, preceptor, which are best described as secon­dary derivatives of a theoretical underlying form *pre-ceive.

The roots of a language make up its most numerous class of morphological forms and accordingly bear its most varied and specific meanings. This is clearest in languages which have roots as free forms, as, in English, boy, man, cut, run, red, blue, green, brown, white, black. The clear-cut meaning will be found also in bound roots, such as yell- in yellow, purp- in purple, nast- in nasty, and so on. In most languages, however, there are also roots of very vague meanings such as, in English, the foreign-learned roots of the type -ceive, -tain, -fer (conceive, contain, confer, and so on). This is particularly the case in languages whose primary affixes are relatively varied and specific in meaning.

Once we have set up a root, we face the possibility of its modification. This possibility is obvious when the root occurs as an ultimate constituent in a secondary derivative: thus, in the secondary derivative duchess the modification of the underlying word duke is at the same time a modi­fication of the root duke, and in the secondary derivatives sang, sung, song, the modifications of the underlying sing, are necessarily modifications of the root sing. The alternant shapes of roots are in some languages so varied that the describer may well hesitate as to the choice of a basic form. [...]

The roots of a language are usually quite uniform in structure. In English they are one-syllable elements, such as man, cut, red; many of them are free forms, occurring as root-words, but many, such as [spajd-] in spider, [hε m-] in hammer, and, especially, foreign-learned roots like [-sı jv] in conceive, perceive, are bound forms. Some of these bound roots end in clusters that do not occur in word-final, as [lʌ mb-] in lumber or [lı ŋ g-] in linger.