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Compounding






Compounds are made up of two intermediate constituents (ICs). They are formally and semantically dependent on the constituent bases and the semantic relations.

The structural inseparability of compound words finds expression in the unity of their specific distributional pattern and specific stress and spelling pattern. The order in which the two bases are placed within a compound is rigidly fixed in Modern English and it is the second IC that

makes the head-member of the word, i.e. its structural and semantic centre. No phonemic changes of bases occur in composition but the compound word acquires a new stress pattern, different from the stress in the motivating words, for example words key and hole or hot and house each possess their own stress but when the stems of these words are brought together to make up a new compound word, ‘keyhole — ‘a hole in a lock into which a key fits’, or ‘hot-house — ‘a heated building for growing delicate plants’, the latter is given a different stress patterns:

Compound words have three stress patterns:

a) unity stress on the first component in our case.

b) a double stress, with a primary stress on the first component and a weaker, secondary stress on the second component, e.g. ´ blood-`vessel, ´ mad-`doctor — ‘a psychiatrist’, ´ washing-ma`chine, etc.

c) level stress is not infrequent, e.g., ‘arm-'chair, ‘icy-'cold, ‘grass-'green, etc.

Semantically compound words are generally motivated units. The meaning of the compound is first of all derived from the’ combined lexical meanings of its components.

The stem of the word board is polysemantic and its multiple meanings serve as different derivational bases, each with its own selective range for the semantic features of the other component, each forming a separate set of compound words, based on ’specific derivative

relations. Thus the base board meaning ‘a flat piece of wood square or oblong’ makes a set of

compounds chess-board, notice-board, key-board, diving-board, foot-board, sign-board; compounds paste-board, carboard are built on the base meaning ‘thick, stiff paper’; bases and the structural meaning of the pattern.

The semantic centre of the compound is the lexical meaning of the second component modified and restricted by the meaning of the first. Compounds like in all derivatives varies in degree.

a) completely motivated compounds (sky-blue, foot-pump, tea-taster)

b) partially motivated (hand-bag, a flower-bed, handcuffs, a castle-builder)

c) none motivated compounds (eye-wash, eye-servant, a night-cap

Sometimes the motivated and the non-motivated meanings of the same word are so far apart that

they are felt as two homonymous words, e.g. a night-cap: 1) ‘a cap worn in bed at night’ and 2) ‘a drink taken before going to bed at night’ (colloq.);

Classification of compounds

I. According to relations between the ICs of compounds

From the point of view of degree of semantic independence there are two types of relationship between the ICs of compounds the relations of coordination and subordination, and accordingly compound words fall into two classes:

1. coordinative compounds (additive)

In coordinative compounds the two ICs are semantically equally important as in fighter bomber oak-tree, girl-friend, Anglo-American. The constituent bases belong to the same class and most often to the same semantic group. Coordinative compounds fall into three groups:

a) Reduplicative compounds which are made up by the repetition of the same base as in goody-goody, fifty-fifty, hush-hush, pooh- pooh. They are all only partially motivated.

b) Compounds formed by joining the phonically variated rhythmic twin forms which either alliterate with the same initial consonant but vary the vowels as in chit-chat, zig-zag, sing-song, or rhyme by varying the initial consonants as in clap-trap, a walkie-talkie, helter-skelter.

c) The bases of additive compounds such as a queen-bee, an actor-manager, unlike the compound words of the first two subgroups, are built on stems of the independently functioning words of the same part of speech. These bases often semantically stand in the genus-species relations. They denote a person or an object that is two things at the same time.

2. subordinative (determinative).

In subordinative compounds the components are neither structurally nor semantically equal in importance but are based on the domination of the headmember which is, as a rule, the second IC. The second IC thus is the semantically and grammatically dominant part of the word, which preconditions the part-of-speech meaning of the whole compound as in stone-deaf, age-long which are obviously ad jectives, a wrist-watch, road-building, a baby-sitter which are nouns.

 

II. According to part of speech

Compound words are found in all parts of speech, but the bulk of compounds are nouns and

adjectives. Compound adverbs, pronouns and connectives (somewhere, somebody, inside, upright, otherwise, moreover, elsewhere). Verbs (to bypass, to inlay, to offset).

 

III. According to means of composition compound words may be classified into:

1) Words formed by merely placing one constituent after another in a definite order which thus is

indicative of both the semantic value and the morphological unity of the compound, e.g. rain-driven, house-dog, pot-pie (cf. dog-house, pie-pot).

As to the order of components, subordinative compounds are often classified as:

a) asуntасtiс compound in which the order of bases runs counter to the order in which the motivating words can be brought together under the rules of syntax of the language.

b) syntactic compounds whose components are placed in the order that resembles the order of words” in free phrases arranged according to the rules of syntax of ModernEnglish.

2) Compound words whose ICs are joined together with a special linking-element — the linking

vowels [ou] and occasionally [i] and the linking consonant [s/z] — which is indicative of composition as in, e.g., speedometer, tragicomic, statesman.

IV. According to types of bases

Compounds may be also classified according to the nature of the bases and the interconnection with other ways of word-formation into

1. compounds proper

Compounds proper are formed by joining together bases built on the stems or on the wordforms of independently functioning words with or without the help of special linking element such as doorstep, age-long, baby-sitter, looking-glass, street-fighting, handiwork, sportsman.

2. derivational compounds.

Derivational compounds, e.g. long-legged, three-cornered, a break-down, a pickpocket differ from compounds proper in the nature of bases and their second IC. The two ICs of the compound long-legged — ‘having long legs' — are the suffix -ed meaning ‘having' and the base built on a free word-group.

Any other segmentation of such words, say into long- and legged- is impossible because

firstly, adjectives like *legged do not exist in Modern English and secondly, because it would contradict the lexical meaning of these words.

Derivational compounds or pseudo-compounds are all subordinative and fall into two groups ac-

cording to the type of variable phrases that serve as their bases and the derivational means used:

a) derivational compound adjectives formed with the help of the highly-productive adjectival suffix -ed applied to bases built on attributive phrases of the A+N, Num + N, N+N type, e.g. long legs, three corners, doll face.

b) derivational compound nouns formed mainly by conversion applied to bases built on three types of variable phrases — verb-adverb phrase, verbal-nominal and attributive phrases.

 






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