Key compound word is

Lecture 6 WORD-BUILDING. PART 2

KEY-WORDS Coordination Subordination Back-formation Fusion Contraction, elision Reduplication acronym

WORD-COMPOSITION Compounding, or word-composition, is one of the productive methods of word-formation in Modern English. It involves bringing together at least two stems already existing in the language as free forms (motor+car= motor-car). Graphically most compounds have two types of spelling they are spelt either solidly or with a hyphen. Both types of spelling when accompanied by structural and phonetic peculiarities serve as a sufficient indication of inseparability of compound words in contradistinction to phrases.

COMPOUNDING The result is not mere a sum of components, but a new lexical unit posessing: — semantic -phonemic — graphic — morphological — syntactic integrity.

COMPOUNDING Unlike a phrase, a compound word is characterized by impenetrability – no word or morpheme can stand between its elements. Compounding is one of the most ancient ways of word-building. Suffixation and prefixation are believed to have developed from it. Compounding has always been productive in forming adjectives and nouns.

COMPOUNDING But many of those compound words have lost their original morphological character due to various factors (for example, woman was a compound noun in Old English – wifman).

COMPOUNDING Two features of English compounds make them different from those in other Indo-European and Germanic languages: 1) unlike Russian, they are made up of free forms coinciding with words (in Russian they are bound forms); 2) unlike German, English compunds are usually binary (they are made up of two compounds only, with rare exceptions).

COMPOUNDING There at least three aspects of composition that present special interest. The first is the structural aspect. Compounds are not homogeneous in structure. Traditionally three types are distinguished: neutral, morphological and syntactic. In neutral compounds the process of compounding is realised without any linking elements, by a mere juxtaposition of two stems, as in blackbird, sunflower, bedroom, etc.

COMPOUNDING There are three subtypes of neutral compounds depending on the structure of the constituent stems. Compounds which have affixes in their structure are called derived or derivational compounds. E. g. absent-mindedness, blueeyed, golden-haired, broad-shouldered, ladykiller, film-goer, music-lover.

COMPOUNDING Words of this type shouldn’t be confused with a compound word having a derived stem as its second element (schoolteacher) or a word derived from a compound (schoolmasterish). Derivational compound may also be formed by conversion from a verbal phrase with a postposition adverb: to hold up, a holdup, week-end – to week-end.

COMPOUNDING The productivity of this type is confirmed by a considerable number of comparatively recent formations, such as teenager, babysitter, fourseater («car or boat with four seats»), doubledecker. Numerous nonce-words are coined on this pattern which is another proof of its high productivity: e. g. luncher-out («a person who habitually takes his lunch in restaurants and not at home»), goose-flesher («murder story»).

COMPOUNDING Attention getter : «Dad, » I began. . . «I’m going to lose my job. » That should be an attention getter, I figured. (From A Five-Colour Buick by P. Anderson Wood)

COMPOUNDING Contracted compounds. These words have a shortened (contracted) stem in their structure: TV-set (-program, -show, -canal, etc. ), V-day (Victory day), G-man (Government man «FBI agent»), H-bag (handbag), T-shirt, etc.

COMPOUNDING Morphological compounds are few in number. This type is non-productive. It is represented by words in which two compounding stems are combined by a linking vowel or consonant, e. g. Anglo-Saxon, Franko. Prussian, handiwork, handicraft, craftsmanship, spokesman, statesman.

COMPOUNDING In a number of compound words originating from phrases, the linking elements are former prepositions or conjunctions: Mother-in-law Man-of-war Bread-and-butter

COMPOUNDING There are two types of relations between the components in an English compound word – coordination and subordination. Coordinative compounds consist of components equal in their importance, so that neither of them dominates the other. The meaning of such compounds is the meaning of the sum of their components: Actor-manager, secretary-stenographer

COMPOUNDING A subordinative compound is based on the domination of one component, usually the second which is the structural and semantical centre of the word (taxi-driver, text-book). The order and arrangement of components are rigidly fixed in English and can’t be changed at will. The choice of stems and the rules of their arrangements are known as distributional formulas or structural patterns of compound words.

COMPOUNDING There are two types of English compounds according to their structural arrangement – syntactic and asyntactic. In syntactic compounds the order of their components is parallel to the order of words in a phrase (tell-tale is the same in tell tales). In an asyntactic compound the order of components is different than in a phrase (oilrich and rich in oil).

COMPOUNDING Syntactical relations and grammatical patterns current in present-day English can be clearly traced in the structures of such compound nouns as: pick-me-up, know-all, know-nothing, go-between, get-together, whodunit. The last word (meaning «a detective story») was obviously coined from the ungrammatical variant of the word-group who (has) done it.

COMPOUNDING In this group of compounds, once more, we find a great number of neologisms, and whodunit is one of them. Consider, also, the two following fragments which make rich use of modern city traffic terms. Randy managed to weave through a maze of onewaystreets, no-left-turns, and no-stopping-zones. . . (From A Five-Colour Buick by P. Anderson Wood) «. . . you go down to the Department of Motor Vehicles tomorrow and take your behind-the-wheel test. »

COMPOUNDING The structure of most compounds is transparent, as it were, and clearly betrays the origin of these words from word-combinations. The fragments below illustrate admirably the very process of coining nonce-words after the productive patterns of composition. «Is all this really true? » he asked. «Or are you pulling my leg? «. . . Charlie looked slowly around at each of the four old faces. . . They were quite serious. There was no sign of joking or leg-pulling on any of them. (From Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by R. Dahl)

COMPOUNDING This example presents the nonce-word legpulling coined on the pattern of neutral derivational compounds.

COMPOUNDING Another focus of interest is the semantic aspect of compound words, that is, the question of correlations of the separate meanings of the constituent parts and the actual meaning of the compound. Or, to put it in easier terms: can the meaning of a compound word be regarded as the sum of its constituent meanings?

COMPOUNDING To try and answer this question, let us consider the following groups of examples. (1) Classroom, bedroom, working-man, eveninggown, dining-room, sleeping-car, reading-room, dancing-hall. This group seems to represent compounds whose meanings can really be described as the sum of their constituent meanings. Yet, in the last four words we can distinctly detect a slight shift of meaning.

COMPOUNDING The first component in these words, if taken as a free form, denotes an action or state of whatever or whoever is characterised by the word. Yet, a sleeping-car is not a car that sleeps (cf. a sleeping child), nor is a dancinghall actually dancing (cf. dancing pairs).

COMPOUNDING The shift of meaning becomes much more pronounced in the second group of examples. (2) Blackboard, blackbird, football, lady-killer, pick pocket, good-for-nothing, lazybones, chatterbox. In these compounds one of the components (or both) has changed its meaning: a blackboard is neither a board nor necessarily black, football is not a ball but a game, a chatterbox not a box but a person, and a lady-killer kills no one but is merely a man who fascinates women.

COMPOUNDING It is clear that in all these compounds the meaning of the whole word cannot be defined as the sum of the constituent meanings. The process of change of meaning in some such words has gone so far that the meaning of one or both constituents is no longer in the least associated with the current meaning of the corresponding free form.

COMPOUNDING In the third group of compounds the process of deducing the meaning of the whole from those of the constituents is impossible. The key to meaning seems to have been irretrievably lost: ladybird is not a bird, but an insect, tallboy not a boy but a piece of furniture (высокий комод), bluestocking, on the contrary, is a person.

COMPOUNDING Another important classification of Modern English compounds is according to their motivation (the way the morphological structure of a compound is related to its meaning). The compounds are accordingly divided into: 1) motivated or non-idiomatic 2) idiomatic or non-motivated

COMPOUNDING With motivated compounds, the meaning can be easily deduced from the meaning of their components: Land-owner is undoubted fully one who owns land. In idiomatic compounds there is no direct connection between the structure and the meaning, metaphorically speaking they are “not transparent”.

JOKE ABOUT IDIOMATIC COMPOUNDS The following joke rather vividly shows what happens if an idiomatic compound is misunderstood as nonidiomatic. Patient: They tell me, doctor, you are a perfect lady-killer. Doctor: Oh, no! I assure you, my dear madam, I make no distinction between the sexes. In this joke, while the woman patient means to compliment the doctor on his being a handsome and irresistible man, he takes or pretends to take the word lady-killer literally, as a sum of the direct meanings of its constituents.

CRITERIA OF COMPOUNDING Eugene Nida suggested a combination of phonological, morphological and syntactic criteria in order to distinguish the compound words and free words. The numerous borderline cases between compounds and word-groups have given rise to one of the most controversial problem in English word-composition, known as “stone wall problem”.

SHORTENING OR CLIPPING OF WORDS This comparatively new way of word-building has achieved a high degree of productivity nowadays, especially in American English. Shortenings (or contracted/curtailed words) are produced in two different ways. The first is to make a new word from a syllable (rarer, two) of the original word. The latter may lose its beginning (as in phone made from telephone, fence from defence), its ending (as in hols from holidays, vac from vacation, props from properties, ad from advertisement) or both the beginning and ending (as in flu from influenza, fridge from refrigerator).

SHORTENING OR CLIPPING OF WORDS The second way of shortening is to make a new word from the initial letters of a word group: U. N. O. [‘ju: neu] from the United Nations Organisation, B. B. C. from the British Broadcasting Corporation, M. P. from Member of Parliament. This type is called initial shortenings. They are found not only among formal words, such as the ones above, but also among colloquialisms and slang. So, g. f. is a shortened word made from the compound girl-friend.

SHORTENING OR CLIPPING OF WORDS Both types of shortenings are characteristic of informal speech in general and of uncultivated speech particularly. The history of the American okay seems to be rather typical. Originally this initial shortening was spelt O. K. and was supposed to stand for all correct. The purely oral manner in which sounds were recorded for letters resulted in O. K. whereas it should have been AC. or aysee.

SHORTENING OR CLIPPING OF WORDS Unlike conversion, clipping produces new words in the same part of speech – mostly nouns. There are 3 types: 1) final-clipped words (lab from laboratory) 2) initial clippings (story from history) 30 medial clippings (specs from spectacles).

SHORTENING OR CLIPPING OF WORDS Here are some more examples of informal shortenings. Movie (from moving-picture), gent (from gentleman), , circs (from circumstances, e. g. under the circs), I. O. Y. (a written acknowledgement of debt, made from I owe you), lib (from liberty, as in May I take the lib of saying something to you? ), cert (from certainty, as in This enterprise is a cert if you have a bit of capital), metrop (from metropoly, e. g. Paris is a gay metrop), exhibish (from exhibition), posish (from position).

REDUPLICATION In reduplication new words are made by doubling a stem, either without any phonetic changes as in bye-bye (coll, for good-bye) or with a variation of the root-vowel or consonant as in ping-pong, chitchat (this second type is called gradational reduplication). They often imply irony, a negative evaluation or are sound-imitations (e. x. ding-dong).

REDUPLICATION Stylistically speaking, most words made by reduplication represent informal groups: colloquialisms and slang. E. g. walkie-talkie («a portable radio»), riff-raff («the worthless or disreputable element of society»; «the dregs of society»), chi-chi (sl. for chic as in a chi-chi girl).

REDUPLICATION Reduplication compounds are a very mixed group, some of them phonetically motivated (onomatopoeic) words, others made up of pseudo-morphemes. Onomatopoeia was introduced by Jespersen (echoism).

ONOMATOPOEIA For instance, English dogs bark (cf. the R. лаять) or howl (cf. the R. выть). The English cock cries cock-a-doodle-doo (cf. the R. ку-каре-ку). In England ducks quack and frogs croak.

BACK –FORMATION (REVERSION) The earliest examples of this type of word-building are the verb to beg that was made from the French borrowing beggar, to burgle from burglar, to cobble from cobbler. In all these cases the verb was made from the noun by subtracting what was mistakenly associated with the English suffix -er. In the case of the verbs to beg, to burgle, to cobble the process was reversed: instead of a noun made from a verb by affixation (as in painter from to paint), a verb was produced from a noun by subtraction. That is why this type of word-building received the name of back-formation or reversion.

BLENDINGS Blendings, also known as fusions or “telescoping formations” are made up of parts of two or more words so that the parts they have in common serve as a connecting element. Blendings are a very productive class of words in Modern English.

BLENDINGS Two subclasses are distinguished: — additive blendings -restrictive blendings The first class runs together both parts of the sound forms of two words and their meaning (smog – smoke+fog). The restrictive type runs together an attributive phrase, where the first element serves as the modifier of the second (medicare= medical care).

ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS Abbreviated words are those formed from the initial letters of a phrasal term: GPO – General post Office GMT – Greenwich Mean Time The words thus formed are called acronyms if the written form resembles an English word (NATO).

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The final type of compound words are hyphenated compounds. These are words that — just like closed and open compounds — are frequently used together. The hyphen connects these words, so they function as one unit.

The words pancake, living room, and merry-go-round have something in common.

They are all examples of compound words.

The noun compound means something made up of two or more separate components. Compound can also be an adjective meaning consisting of two or more parts or components.

A compound word is one word, or one unit of meaning, that is created by joining two or more separate words together.

What Are Compound Words?

A compound word is a word made up of usually two but sometimes more words that are joined together. The two (or more) that make the compound word are independent words; they have their own distinct meanings. When those words are joined and form a compound word, that compound word has its own new meaning.

The Three Types of Compound Words

Compound words can take three possible forms: closed, open, or hyphenated. In closed form, there is no space between the joined words. In open form, there is a space between the “joined” words that still act as one unit, and in hyphenated form—you guessed it! There is a hyphen between the joined words.

These general “rules”—which are somewhat fluid and flexible—provide guidance as to what format a compound word takes.

• Closed compound words are usually nouns: They put on makeup.

• Open compound words are usually nouns or verbs: I have to make up (verb) that exam at my high school. (noun)

• Hyphenated compound words are usually adjectives or adverb-adjective combinations: I have to take a make-up (adjective) exam. I will be well-prepared. (adverb + adjective)

The key word in each of those examples is “usually.” Some compound words break the rules. We’ll see how soon.

1. Closed Compound Words

To review: closed compound words are usually made up of two separate words that are put together to form a new word. There is no space between the two words in a closed-form compound word; the compound appears as one single word.

Examples of Closed Compound Words

• Cup + cake becomes cupcake

• Basket + ball becomes basketball

• Key + board becomes keyboard

• Extra + ordinary becomes extraordinary

• Birth + day becomes birthday

You can see through these examples that the meaning of the compound word is not just a merger of the independent definitions of the individual words that join together to make that compound.

However, there is a relationship between the individual word meanings and the compounds. Compound words have been integrated into language as speakers have discovered those relationships. It makes perfect sense to call a cake that could fit into a cup a cupcake and to call a ball thrown through a basket (now a hoop) a basketball.

The rules for compound words, listed earlier in the post, include the word usually. That word means the rules are not hard and fast, and there are examples of compound words that break those rules.

For example, compound words that are verbs are usually open form, but here are rule-breaking closed-form compound verbs that remind us to hold those rules loosely:

• I need to proofread my essay.

• I think the clerk shortchanged me.

• I have to babysit my little sister.

2. Open Compound Words

In an open compound word, there is a space between the two independent words, though they are still treated as one unit with a new “compound meaning.”

Examples of Open Compound Words

• Living room: as a unit, this compound noun refers to a room in a house.

• High school: as a unit, this compound noun refers to a school that has students in grades 9-12.

• Post office: as a unit, this compound refers to a building where mail is collected, sorted, and sent.

• Give up: as a unit, this compound verb means to stop trying.

• Ask for: as a unit, this compound verb means to request something.

3. Hyphenated Compound Words

Hyphenated compound words have hyphens between each of the independent words that serve as connectors. The hyphens are a visual cue that the words form one unit.

Some compound words are always hyphenated.

• Merry-go-round

• Mother-in-law (and brother-, sister-, and father-in-law)

• Self-esteem

Did you notice that all of those examples are nouns? Remember: the rules are flexible!

Examples of Hyphenated Compound Adjectives:

When compound words are used as adjectives (officially known as compound adjectives), the hyphenation rules change depending on where the compound adjective comes in the sentences.

If the compound adjective comes before the noun it modifies (describes), you should usually add a hyphen:

• High-speed chase

• Part-time employee

• Full-time job

• Fire-resistant pajamas

• Good-looking person

• Well-respected politician

• Up-to-date records

Of course, there are exceptions. Remember, those “rules” are flexible. Some compound adjectives that precede the nouns they modify never take a hyphen. For example, ice cream and high school:

• High school students
• Ice cream sundae

There’s really no “why” to explain these exceptions; we’ve just adopted these forms and made them part of our language.

Examples of Open-Form Compound Adjectives

If the compound adjective comes after the noun it modifies, the hyphen is usually omitted.

• Make sure the files are up to date. “Up to date” modifies, but comes after, the noun “files.”

• The cat is two years old. “Two years old” modifies, but comes after, the noun “cat.”

Though post-noun modifiers don’t technically take hyphens, according to Merriam-Webster, usage trends indicate the hyphens are often included anyway, if the compounds “continue to function as unit modifiers.” So there’s that flexibility again.

What About Adverb Compounds?

It’s easy to find examples of closed, open, and hyphenated adverbs.

As for the closed-form examples, we probably don’t even register them as compound words much of the time.

• Sometimes

• Thereafter

• Somewhere

Open-form adverbs occur when the adverb is the first word in the compound and ends in —ly. You should not hyphenate after an —ly adverb.

• We made the discovery early on.

• Her opinion is highly regarded.

• They entered the dimly lit room.

What to Do If You’re Not Sure Which Form Is Right

While those flexible rules can help you, there may still be times when you feel confused about which compound form to use. Don’t stress too much.

According to Merriam Webster, the rules are more like patterns. You may see differences in different publications depending on editorial choice and style. For example, I looked on Amazon for a teapot. I saw mostly teapots, but also a few tea pots. Out of curiosity I put “tea pot” into a New York Times search bar, and found articles from the 1800s that included “tea-pot” in the title!

While interesting, those stylistic changes and choices shouldn’t be too surprising. Language is fluid and ever-evolving. Compound words themselves are proof of that evolution.

Keep Clarity the Focus

The purpose of hyphens in compound words is to ensure clarity. For example,

• I bought over-the-counter medication.

• He passed the medicine over the counter.

In the first example, I know by the hyphen that the medicine «I» bought did not require a prescription. «Over-the-counter» is one unit—one compound—describing a type of medicine.

In the second example, «over the counter» is serving another purpose and, while the words form a phrase to tell me where «he» passed the medicine, hyphens do nothing to make the purpose of the phrase clear and are therefore unnecessary.

Now look at these examples:

• He owned a little-used car.
• He owned a little used car.

In the first example, I know the man owns a car that has not been driven much. The car is described by the compound modifier «little-used.»

In the second example, it seems that the man owns a used car that is also small, or little. In this example, putting a comma after «little» would help to separate the two words, «little» and «used,» and show that they aren’t intended to work as a compound.

ProWritingAid Can Help

Though you’re a compound-word expert now, if you find yourself with lingering doubts, remember that ProWritingAid is here to help. It will let you know if you’ve added an unnecessary hyphen after an -ly adverb, or if you’ve left one out of a pre-noun compound adjective. You don’t have to write alone!

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Scientists are big into molecular compounds, and there is something kind of magical about them. You can start with a couple of atoms of hydrogen, add another atom of oxygen, and bada bing: water. Two distinct elements come together to create something entirely different.

It’s exactly the same with words. Well, maybe not exactly the same, but English is such a flexible, creative language that it’s filled with compound words—and new ones are popping up all the time to suit our ever-changing world. Some useful compound words recently added to Merriam-Webster are clickbait, photobomb, binge-watch, humblebrag, and spit-take.

So what is a compound word? How do you know whether it should be a closed compound, a hyphenated compound, or an open compound? What about compound sentences? We’ll look at all of these in this post.
 

When two (or occasionally, three) words work together to express a single idea, that’s a compound word. Compound words can be open, closed, or hyphenated, and they can function as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs. English is full of preexisting compound words—or you can make up your own to suit the situation.

No one at the Star Trek convention really appreciated my Klingon-librarian costume.

The lung-collapsing dead-flower stench of my aunt Penelope’s perfume was headache-inducingly strong.

What is an open compound word?

An open compound word is two separate words (without even a hyphen to link them) functioning as a single idea.

When we were in high school, we regularly ate French fries, hot dogs, and ice cream with peanut butter as an afterschool snack.

What is a hyphenated compound word?

A hyphenated compound word is a term composed of two (or more) words connected by a hyphen. Like other compound words, a hyphenated compound can be a noun, adjective, or adverb.

The gun-toting, card-carrying FBI agent hid her angst well.

What is a closed compound word?

A closed compound word is a single word constructed of two or more other words. Most closed compound words were once open or hyphenated, but continued use solidified them—made them a single unit. Today’s open or hyphenated compounds are tomorrow’s closed compounds.

The moonlight coming through my bedroom window is so bright it outshines my flashlight.

Every afternoon, she wrote another story in her notebook; my favorite is the one about the starfish who loved rainbows and strawberries.

How do you know whether a compound word is open, hyphenated, or closed?

There’s really no trick to this! You look it up in a dictionary (like Merriam-Webster). Compound words evolve over time, so what was once black-bird is now blackbird, and what was once a web site is now almost always a website.

Don’t worry if you find dictionaries contradicting each other! Not every dictionary agrees on which compounds are open, hyphenated, or closed. Some offer health care and voice mail, for example, as two words, but others hyphenate or close those same compounds. In such cases, you’re free to use the spelling you prefer, except if you’re supposed to be following a particular style guide.

For example, the Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS) says that when a compound modifier comes before a noun, it’s never wrong to hyphenate it, since it can aid readability.

The seventy-year-old professor despaired for the dull-witted students in her late-afternoon class.

But (Chicago goes on to say) when compound modifiers follow the noun, leave them unhyphenated (even if they’re hyphenated in the dictionary).

The professor, who was almost seventy years old, couldn’t understand why her students were so dull witted by late afternoon.

What is a compound noun?

Compound words can be nouns, adjectives, adverbs—and even verbs (like pole-vault or double-click). In each case, they can be open, hyphenated, or closed. Compound nouns are perhaps the most common type of compound word. Here are some examples of compound nouns (some closed, some open, some hyphenated).

Susan’s grandmother, my mother-in-law, had a skylight above the bookcase in her living room that let in rainwater.

Watch out for the sometimes-unusual plurals of hyphenated compound nouns.

The workmen fixing the two merry-go-rounds in the local park typically catcalled all passersby, but they stopped once our attorneys-at-law sent them a warning.

What is a compound name?

A compound name is essentially a compound proper noun—a multiword term (often an open compound, though not always) that names a single entity.

Like Popeye, Black Panther gets at least some of his powers from eating his greens—in his case, the heart-shaped herb. But I bet Superman liked Cheez-Its better.

What’s important here is that these proper nouns are always preexisting compounds, so if you’re turning an open compound name into part of a compound modifier (see more about compound adjectives and adverbs below), you’ll need to use an en dash rather than a hyphen.

My new World War I–era cloche didn’t really go with anything in my New York–style wardrobe, so naturally I had to go shopping.

 

 

What is a compound adjective?

A compound adjective is a single adjective made up of more than one word—and it’s often a compound noun (or even compound name) being used to modify another noun. According to CMoS, it’s never wrong to hyphenate multiword adjectives when they precede a noun, even if they’re familiar open compounds like high school.

High-school students often have more brain-draining homework than college students.

My silly-voiced sister found her calling in advertising.

When a compound name functions as an adjective, there’s no need for a hyphen.

Penny was thrilled to win Dolly Parton tickets.

The Los Angeles weather is typically hot and sunny.

As touched on above, when a compound adjective follows a noun, the hyphen is usually not necessary.

Georgia is a well-read academic.

Georgia is well read.

I found a useful list of low-calorie cocktails.

I found a useful list of cocktails, all of them low calorie.

Remember that compound adjectives made from an adverb ending in –ly plus an adjective are never hyphenated. The -ly is enough of a signal that what follows is meant to be read together with the preceding word.

Sarah’s short-tempered grandfather griped about her recital, calling it a really dull concert.

Sarah’s grandfather, always short tempered, griped about her recital, describing it as really dull.

What is a compound adverb?

A compound adverb looks like a single word but (closely examined) is actually made up of two or more words working together to function as a single adverb. They’re often rather old fashioned, and they can sound stuffy and pompous so are best used sparingly: notwithstanding, nevertheless, heretofore, albeit, and so on.

Phrasal adverbs are very similar to compound adverbs, and they’re rather more useful.

I scattered rose petals here and there.

The newly married couple walked arm in arm.

Joseph goes running every day.

What is a compound sentence?

And here’s the bonus section (because the last thing we want to do is compound anyone’s confusion about compounds)!

Compound sentences are grammatically unrelated to compound words, but that still doesn’t answer the key question: What is a compound sentence? A compound sentence is when two or more independent clauses, each with its own subject and verb plus attendant objects and phrases, are joined with a coordinating conjunction (one of the FANBOYS: for, and, nor but, or, yet, so). Here, the key thing to remember is to always include a comma after the first independent clause and before the conjunction.

I read this blog post about compound words, but they didn’t explain about compound sentences, so I had to keep on searching.

My son’s story about the strawberry-loving starfish was really cute, so I sent it to my sister, and she loved it too.