Is flower a compound word

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Q: Is red flower a compound word?

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Flowers in pots — ‘Flowerpot’ is a compound word formed from ‘flower’ and ‘pot’.

Vocabulary 08 — Compound Words formed from ‘Head’

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a new word from some existing word by changing the category of a part of speech.
The morphemic shape of the original word remains unchanged: love — to love; paper — to paper; brief — to brief, work — to work; etc.
The new word acquires a meaning, which differs from that of the original one though it can be easily associated with it.
The converted word acquires a new paradigm and a new syntactic function (or functions), which are peculiar to its new category as a part of speech, e.g. plant – to plant.

1. CONVERSION. VARIETIES OF CONVERSION

(the formation of nouns), e.g. a private (from private adj.);
adjectivation (the formation of adjectives), e.g. down (adj) (from down (adv));
adverbalization (the formation of adverbs), e.g. home (adv) (from home (n)).

Among the main varieties of conversion are:

and phonetic identity of the stem of each of the two words. Synchronically we deal with pairs of words related through conversion that coexist in contemporary English, e.g.
to break — a break — phonetically identical, but do they have the same or identical stems?

2. Synchronic Approach

stem dresser — carries not only the lexical meaning of the root-morpheme dress-, but also the meaning of substantivity, the stem dressy- the meaning of quality, etc.
the lexical meaning of the root-morpheme and the part-of-speech meaning of the stem — form part of the meaning of the whole word.
It is the stem that requires a definite paradigm; e.g. the word dresser is a noun primarily because it has a noun-stem and not only because of the noun paradigm;

Within the word-cluster:

the stem requiring the noun paradigm;
E.g. sell is a verb because of the verbal character of its stem requiring the verb paradigm, etc.

What is true of words whose root and stem do not coincide is also true of words with roots and stems that coincide:

together with the system of its meanings, such as:
the end of the arm beyond the wrist;
pointer on a watch or clock;
worker in a factory;
source of information, etc.;
The stem hand- of the verb hand has a different part-of-speech meaning, namely that of the verb, and a different system of meanings:
give or help with the hand,
pass, etc.
The stems of word-pairs related through conversion have different part-of-speech and denotational meanings.

The stems of two words making up a conversion pair cannot be regarded as being the same or identical

to the part-of-speech meaning of its stem: they are both of a substantival character
The lexical meaning of the root-morpheme of the verb hand, however, does not correspond to the part-of-speech meaning of the stem: the root-morpheme denotes an object, whereas the part-of-speech meaning of the stem is that of a process.

The lexical meaning of the root-morpheme and the part-of-speech meaning of the stem within a conversion pair do not correspond:

of substantivity, whereas the root-morpheme black- denotes a quality.
The part-of-speech meaning of the stem eatable- (that of qualitativeness) does not correspond to the lexical meaning of the root-morpheme denoting a process.
In simple words the lexical meaning of the root corresponds to the part-of-speech meaning of the stem, cf. the two types of meaning of simple words like black (a), eat (v), chair (n), etc.

The same kind of non-correspondence is typical of the derived word in general.

two words making up a conversion pair as being of a derivational character as well.
The essential difference between affixation and conversion is that affixation is characterised by both semantic and structural derivation, e.g. friend — friendless, dark — darkness, etc.), whereas conversion displays only semantic derivation, i.e. hand — to hand, fall — to fall, taxi — to taxi, etc.;
The difference between the two classes of words in affixation is marked both by a special derivational affix and a paradigm, whereas in conversion it is marked only by paradigmatic forms.

noun refers to some object of reality (both animate and inanimate) the converted verb may denote:
action characteristic of the object: ape (n) — ape (v) — ‘imitate in a foolish way’;
instrumental use of the object: screw (n) − screw (v) − ‘fasten with a screw’;
acquisition or addition of the object: fish (n) — fish (v) − ‘catch or try to catch fish’;
deprivation of the object: dust (n) − dust (v) − ‘remove dust from something, etc.
location: garage (n) – garage (v) ‘to put a car in a garage’

3. TYPICAL SEMANTIC RELATIONS

generally referring to an action, the converted noun may denote:
instance of the action, e.g. jump (v) — jump (n) — ’sudden spring from the ground’;
agent of the action, e.g. help (v) − help (n) − ‘a person who helps’; it is of interest to mention that the deverbal personal nouns denoting the doer are mostly derogatory, e.g. bore (v) − bore (n) − ‘a person that bores’;
place of the action, e.g. drive(v) − drive (n) − ‘a path or road along which one drives’;
object or result of the action, e.g. peel (v) − peel (n) − ‘the outer skin of fruit or potatoes taken off; etc.

and the part-of-speech meaning of the stem in one of the two words is a conversion pair: pen n — pen v, father n — father v, etc. the noun is the name for a being or a concrete thing. The lexical meaning of the root-morpheme corresponds to the part-of-speech meaning of the stem.
There are a great many conversion pairs in which it is extremely difficult to exactly determine the semantic character of the root-morpheme, e.g. answer v — answer n; match v — match n, etc.

4. CRITERIA OF SEMANTIC DERIVATION IN CONVERSION

use of the synonymic sets, of which the words in question are members, e.g. chat v — chat n; show v — show n, etc. with analogous synonymic word-pairs like converse — conversation; exhibit — exhibition; occupy — occupation, etc.
It becomes obvious that the nouns chat, show, etc. are the derived members.
The semantic relations in the case of chat v — chat n; show v — show n are similar to those between converse — conversation; exhibit — exhibition.
The synonymy criterion is considerably restricted in its application, it may be applied only to deverbal substantives (v > n).

2. The synonymity criterion

converted words in question are members.
If the centre of the cluster is a verb, all derived words of the first degree of derivation have suffixes generally added to a verb-base. The centre of a cluster being a noun, all the first-degree derivatives have suffixes generally added to a noun-base.
In the word-cluster hand n — hand v — handful — handy — handed the derived words have suffixes added to the noun-base which makes it possible to conclude that the structural and semantic centre of the whole cluster is the noun hand.
Consequently, the verb hand is semantically derived from the noun hand.

3. THE CRITERION OF DERIVATIONAL RELATIONS

relations typical of denominal verbs within a conversion pair proves that the verb is the derived member, the existence of relations typical of deverbal substantive marks the noun as the derived member.
E.g., the semantic relations between crowd (n) – crowd (v) are perceived as those of ‘an object and an action characteristic of the object’. This fact makes it possible to conclude that the verb crowd is the derived member.

4. The criterion of semantic derivation

the derived character of the word in question.
According to M. West’s A General Service List of English Words, the frequency value of following verb-noun conversion pairs in correlative meanings taken at random is estimated as follows:
to answer (V = 63%) — answer (N =35%), to help (V = 61%) — help (N = 1%), to joke (V=8%) — joke (N=82%).
By the frequency criterion of semantic derivation in the first two pairs the nouns (answer and help) are derived words (deverbal substantives), in the other pair the verb (to joke) is converted from nouns (denominal verbs).

5. THE CRITERION OF THE FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE

of semantic derivation in conversion pairs.
By analogy with the transformation of predicative syntagmas like The committee elected John into the nominal syntagma John’s election by the committee or the committee’s election of John in which the derivational relationship of elect and election is that of a derived word (election) to its base (elect).
The possibility of transformations like Roy loves nature -> Roy’s love of nature proves the derived character of the noun love.
Nouns cannot be regarded as derived from the corresponding verb base, e.g.
She bosses the establishment -> her boss of the establishment.
I skinned the rabbit -> my skin of the rabbit.

6. THE TRANSFORMATIONAL CRITERION

that not all of them have been created on the semantic patterns just referred to. Some of them arose as a result of the disappearance of inflections in the course of the historical development of the English language due to which two words of different parts of speech, e.g. a verb and a noun, coincided in pronunciation, e.g.
love n (OE. lufu) — love v (OE. lufian);
work n (OE. wēōrc) — work v (OE. wyrcan);
answer n (OE. andswaru) — answer v (OE. Andswarian).

5. Diachronic Approach

telephone’;
to wire — ’send a telegram’;
to microfilm — ‘produce a microfilm of;
to tear-gas — ‘to use tear-gas’;
to fire-bomb — ‘drop fire-bombs’;
to spearhead — ‘act as a spearhead for’;
to blueprint — ‘work out, outline’

The 20th century new words include a great many verbs formed by conversion:

may acquire a new meaning or several meanings under the influence of the meanings of the converted word.
The difference between conversion and reconversion: being a way of forming words conversion leads to a numerical enlargement of the English vocabulary, whereas reconversion only brings about a new meaning correlated with one of the meanings of the converted word.

Reconversion

or several meanings under the influence of the meanings of the converted word. Reconversion only operates with denominal verbs and deverbal nouns

The verb smoke formed in 1000 from the noun smoke in the corresponding meaning had acquired by 1663 another meaning by a metaphorical transfer which, in turn, gave rise to a correlative meaning of the noun smoke in 1715 through reconversion.

Reconversion

words are produced by combining two or more Immediate Constituents (ICs), which are both derivational bases.
Word-composition is one of the productive types of word-formation in Modern English. Compound words are inseparable vocabulary units. They are formally and semantically dependent on the constituent bases and the semantic relations between them, which mirror the relations between the motivating units.

II. WORD-COMPOSITION

with word-forms, e.g. wind-driven, paper-bound;

bases that coincide with word-groups, e.g. blue-eyed, long-fingered.

The ICs compound words represent bases of three structural types:

etc. However, this complexity of structure of bases is not typical of the bulk of Modern English compounds.

The bases built on stems may be of different degrees of complexity:

compound stem for its base such as, e.g.,
school-mastership ([n+n]+suf),
ex-housewife (prf+[n+n]),
to weekend, to spotlight ([n+n]+conversion).

Not to confuse compound words with polymorphic words of secondary derivation

components: structural and lexical.

4.1. THE STRUCTURAL MEANING

The structural meaning of compounds is formed on the base of:
1) the meaning of their distributional pattern;
2) the meaning of their derivational pattern.

4. TYPES OF MEANING OF COMPOUND WORDS

constitute a compound word.
A change in the order and arrangement of the same ICs signals the compound words of different lexical meanings, cf.: pot-flower (‘a flower that grows in a pot’) and flower-pot (‘s small container used for growing flowers in’).
A change in the order arrangement of the ICs that form a compound may destroy its meaning.
Thus, the distributional pattern of a compound carries a certain meaning of its own which is largely independent of the actual lexical meaning of their ICs.

The distributional pattern of a compound

E.g. the derivational pattern n+ven underlying the compound adjectives duty-bound, wind-driven, mud-stained conveys the generalized meaning of instrumental or agentive relations which can be interpreted as ‘done by’ or ‘with the help of something’.
Derivational patterns in compounds may be monosemantic and polysemantic.
E.G. the pattern n+n→N conveys the following semantic relations:
of purpose, e.g. bookshelf;
of resemblance, e.g. needle-fish;
of instrument or agent, e.g. windmill, sunset.

The meaning of the derivational pattern of compounds

the combined lexical meanings of their constituents.
The semantic centre of the compound is the lexical meaning of the second component modified and restricted by the meaning of the first.
The lexical meanings of both components are closely fused together to create a new semantic unit with a new meaning, which dominates the individual meanings of the bases, and is characterized by some additional component not found in any of the bases.
E.g. the lexical meaning of the compound word handbag is not essentially ‘a bag designed to be carried in the hand’ but ‘a woman’s small bag to carry everyday personal items’.

THE LEXICAL MEANING

coordinative and subordinative compounds.
In coordinative compounds the two ICs are semantically equally important. The coordinative compounds fall into three groups:
reduplicative compounds which are made up by the repetition of the same base, e.g. pooh-pooh, fifty-fifty;
compounds formed by joining the phonically variated rhythmic twin forms, e.g. chit-chat, zig-zag (with the same initial consonants but different vowels); walkie-talkie, clap-trap (with different initial consonants but the same vowels);
additive compounds which are built on stems of the independently functioning words of the same part of speech, e.g. actor-manager, queen-bee.

CLASSIFICATION OF COMPOUND WORDS

in importance but are based on the domination of the head-member which is, as a rule, the second IC, e.g. stone-deaf, age-long.
The second IC preconditions the part-of-speech meaning of the whole compound.

somebody, nothing;
compound adverbs, e.g. nowhere, inside;
compound verbs, e.g. to offset, to bypass, to mass-produce.

2. According to the part of speech compounds fall into:

the help of a vowel or a consonant as linking elements, e.g. handicraft, speedometer, statesman;
compounds composed with the help of linking elements represented by preposition or conjunction stems, e.g. son-in-law, pepper-and-salt.

3. According to the means of composition compound words are classified into:

the stems or on the word-forms with or without a linking element, e.g. door-step, street-fighting;
derivational compounds that are formed by joining affixes to the bases built on the word-groups or by converting the bases built on the word-groups into other parts of speech, long-legged → (long legs) + -ed; a turnkey → (to turn key) + conversion.

4. According to the type of bases that form compounds the following classes can be singled out:

–er applied to bases built, as a rule, on attributive phrases, e.g. narrow-minded, doll-faced, lefthander;
derivational compounds formed by conversion applied to bases built, as a rule, on three types of phrases – verbal-adverbial phrases (a breakdown), verbal-nominal phrases (a kill-joy) and attributive phrases (a sweet-tooth).

Derivational compounds
fall into two groups:

of compound words.
E.g., compound nouns of the pattern n+n (story-teller, watch-maker) reflect the agentive relations proper to free phrases of the N who V+N type (one who tells stories, one who makes watches).
Correlation is a regular interaction and interdependence of compound words and certain types of free phrases, which condition the potential possibility of appearance of compound words, their structure and semantic type.

Compound words as a rule are built spontaneously according to productive distributional formulas of the given period.
Thus at one time the process of building verbs by compounding adverbial and verbal stems was productive, and numerous compound verbs like outgrow, offset, inlay (adv + v), were formed.
The structure ceased to be productive and today practically no verbs are built in this way.

SOURCES OF COMPOUNDS
 

isolation and structural fusion of free word-groups.
Such compounds as forget-me-not — ‘a small plant with blue flowers’; bull’s-eye — ‘the centre of a target; a kind of hard, globular candy’; mainland — ‘a continent’ all go back to free phrases which became semantically and structurally isolated in the course of time.

these particular formations, their integrity, the whole phrase has become isolated in form, specialised in meaning and thus turned into an inseparable unit — a word having acquired semantic and morphological unity.

bluebell, blackboard, mad-doctor, are the result of such semantic and structural isolation of free word-groups. One more example highway was once actually a high way for it was raised above the surrounding countryside for better drainage and ease of travel.
Now we use highway without any idea of the original sense of the first element.

Гинзбург Р.З. Лексикология английского языка. М.: Высшая школа, 1979. – С. 127-158.
Антрушина Г.Б., Афанасьева О.В., Морозова Н.Н. Лексикология английского языка. М.: Дрофа, 2006. – С. – 78-128.

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