Word formation word composition

Word-composition
(compounding)
is the formation of words by morphologically joining two or more
stems.

A
compound
word
is a word consisting of at least two stems which usually occur in the
language as free forms, e.g. university
teaching award committee member.

The
compound inherits
most of its semantic and syntactic information from its head,
i.e. the most important member of a compound word modified by the
other component.

The
structural
pattern
of English compounds

[
X Y]
y

X
= {root, word, phrase},
Y
= {root, word},
y
= grammatical properties inherited from Y

According
to the
type
of the linking element:

compounds
without
a linking element, e.g. toothache,
bedroom, sweet-heart;

compounds
with a
vowel linking element,
e.g. handicraft,
speedometer;

compounds
with a
consonant linking element,
e.g. statesperson,
craftsman;

compounds
with a
preposition linking stem,
e.g. son-in-law,
lady-in-waiting;

compounds
with a
conjunction linking stem,
e.g. bread-and-butter.

According
to the
type
of relationship
between the components

-in
coordinative
(copulative)
compounds neither of the components dominates the other, e.g.
fifty-fifty,
whisky-and-soda, driver-conductor;

-in
subordinative
(determinative)
compounds the components are neither structurally nor semantically
equal in importance but are based on the domination of one component
over the other, e.g. coffeepot,
Oxford-educated, to headhunt,
blue-eyed,
red-haired
etc.

According
to the
type
of relationship
between the components, subordinative compounds are classified into:

-syntactic
compounds
if their components are placed in the order that resembles the order
of words in free phrases made up according to the rules of Modern
English syntax, e.g. a
know-nothing
— to know nothing, a
blackbird
– a black bird;

-asyntactic
compounds
if they do not conform to the grammatical patterns current in
present-day English, e.g. baby-sitting
– to sit with a baby, oil-rich
– to be rich in oil.

According
to the
way of composition:

—compound
proper
is a compound formed after a composition pattern, i.e. by joining
together the stems of words already available in the language, with
or without the help of special linking elements, e.g. seasick,
looking-glass, helicopter-rescued, handicraft;

-derivational
compound is
a compound which is formed by two simultaneous processes of
composition and derivation; in a derivational compound the structural
integrity of two free stems is ensured by a suffix referring to the
combination as a whole, e.g. long-legged,
many-sided, old-timer, left-hander.

According
to the
semantic relations
between the constituents:

non-idiomatic
compounds,
whose meanings can be described as the sum of their constituent
meanings, e.g. a
sleeping-car, an evening-gown, a snowfall;

compounds
one of the components of which has undergone semantic derivation,
i.e. changed its meaning, e.g. a
blackboard,
a
bluebell;

idiomatic
compounds,
the meaning of which cannot be deduced from the meanings of the
constituents, e.g. a
ladybird,
a
tallboy,
horse-marine.
The
bahuvrihi compounds
(Sanskrit ‘much riced’) are idomatic formations in which a
person, animal or thing is metonymically named after some striking
feature (mainly in their appearance) they possess; their
word-building pattern is an
adjectival stem + a noun stem,
e.g.
bigwig,
fathead, highbrow, lowbrow, lazy-bones.

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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 3
CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDS OF WORD-COMPOSITION AS A WAY OF
WORD-FORMATION IN ENGLISH 6
1.1 The means of word-formation in English language 6
1.2 The concept and the essence word-composition 14
CHAPTER 2. STRUCTURAL-SEMANTIC AND FUNCTIONAL FEATURES OF COMPOUND WORDS 19
2.1 The analysis of semantic features of compound words 19
2.2 The analysis of functional features of compound words 24
CHAPTER 3. ANALYTICAL BASES OF USE OF WORD-COMPOSITION 36
3.1 Practical examples of compound words in modern English 36
3.2 New tendencies of use of word-composition as a way of word-formation in
English 38
CONCLUSION 41
LITERATURE 44
APPENDIXES 46
Appendix 1 46
Appendix 2 49
Appendix 3 52
Appendix 4 54

INTRODUCTION

  In linguistics, word formation is the creation of a new word. Word formation is sometimes contrasted with semantic
change, which is a change in a
single word’s meaning. The line between word formation and semantic
change is sometimes a bit
blurry; what one person views as a new use of an old word, another person might
view as a new word derived from an old one and identical to it in form.  Word
formation can also be contrasted with the formation of idiomatic expressions, though sometimes words can form from
multi-word phrases.

The
subject-matter of the Course Paper is to investigate the
word – composition in the English system of word – formation.

The
topicality of the problem  results from the necessity to devote 
to description of theoretical bases of allocation of word-composition as way of
word-formation in modern English language.

The
novelty of the problem arises from the necessity to define the
role of word-composition way which is, along with abbreviations, stays one of
the most productive for last decades..

The
main aim of the Course Paper is to summarize and systemize
different  methods of word — composition in English.

The
aim
of the course Paper presupposes the solutions of the following tasks:

·                  
To
expand and update the definition of the term “word — composition”

·                  
to
define the role of word-composition

According the tasks of the Course
Paper its structure is arranged in the following way:

Introduction,
the Main Part, Conclusion, Resume, Literature, test of Reference Material, List
of Electronic References.

In
the Introduction we provide the explanation of the theme choice, state the
topicality of it, establish the main aim, and the practical tasks of the Paper.

In
the main part we analyze
the character features of the modern classification of word – composition in
the English system of word – formation.

In conclusion we
generalize the results achieved.

CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDS OF WORD-COMPOSITION AS A
WAY OF WORD-FORMATION IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
1.1 The means of word-composition in English language              The chapter is devoted to
description of theoretical bases of allocation of word-composition as way of
word-formation in modern English language. We try to define the role of
word-composition way which is, along with abbreviations, stays one of the most
productive for last decades. The main way of enrichment of lexicon of any
language is word-formation. All innovations in branches of human knowledge are
fixed in new words and expressions. 

               The
word-formation system of language is in constant development, as it reflects
evolution of the language. At different stages of language development ways of
word-formation become more or less productive. However there are also ways of
the word-formation which stay productive for a very long time. One of such
methods is word-composition.
             Word-composition is a very ancient way of word-formation, and it
serves as powerful tool of the replenishment of language and its grammatical
system perfection for hundred years.
              Many researches are devoted composition studying. So, the
considerable contribution to studying of this problem was brought by V.Guz’s,
G.Marchand’s, S.Ulman’s researches, and also the studies of I.V.Arnold,
N.V.Kosarev, E.S.Kubrjakov, O.D.Meshkova, V.J.Ryazanov, A.I.Smirnitsky,
M.D.Stepanova, M.V.Tsareva. That is the problem is widely studied both in domestic,
and in foreign practice.
However it should be noticed that the majority of word-composition studies
concern 70-80 years of the last century, and during last 20 years no serious
researches appeared.
Besides,
the analysis of researches reveals considerable confrontation in opinions of
different authors both in questions of defying the concept of word-formation,
and in approaches of classification of its kinds. There
are different
opinions in concerning quantity of ways of word-formation. 
        These divergences speak that various ways change the activity and
become more or less productive in a definite period. Anyhow, it is conventional
that modern English has different ways of word-formation: Affixation, suffixation, shortening,  prefixation, conversion and
composition or compound.                     Compounding or word-composition is
one of the productive types of word-formation in Modern English. Composition
like all other ways of deriving words has its own peculiarities as to the means used, the nature of
bases and their distribution, as to the range of application, the scope of
seman­tic classes and the factors conducive to pro­ductivity. Compounding or
word composition  is one of the productive types of
word-formation in Modern English. Composition like all other ways of deriving
words has its own peculiarities as to the means used , the nature of  bases
and  their  distribution , as to  the  range of application  , the scope of 
semantic classes and  the factors  conducive to productivity. Compounds are
made up of  two ICs which are both derivational bases. 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. The ICs of compound words represent
bases of all three structural types.

1.    
The
bases built on stems may be of different degree

2.      Of complexity as,
e.g., week-end,
office-management, postage-stamp, aircraft-carrier, fancy-dress-maker, etc. However, this complexity of
structure of bases is not typical of the bulk of Modern English compounds. In this connection
care should be taken not to confuse compound words with polymorphic words of
secondary derivation, i.e. derivatives built according to an affixal
pattern but on a 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).

CHAPTER 2. STRUCTURAL-SEMANTIC AND FUNCTIONAL
FEATURES OF COMPOUND WORDS

2.1 Structural
features

              Compound words like all
other inseparable vocabulary units take shape in a definite system of
grammatical forms, syntactic and semantic features. Compounds, on the one hand,
are generally clearly distinguished from and often opposed to free word-groups,
on the other hand they lie astride the border-line between words and
word-groups and display close ties and correlation with the system of free
word-groups. The structural inseparability of compound words

finds expression in the unity of their specific
distributional pattern and specific

stress
and spelling pattern.

Structurally compound
words are characterized by the specif­ic order and arrangement in which bases
follow one another. 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. The head-member is of basic importance
as it preconditions both the lexico-grammatical and semantic features of the
first component. It is of inter­est to note that the difference between stems
(that serve as bases in com­pound words) and word-forms they coincide with is most
obvious in some compounds, especially in compound adjectives. Adjectives
like long, wide,
rich are
characterized by grammatical forms of degrees of comparison longer, wider, richer. The
corresponding stems functioning as bases in compound words lack grammatical
independence and forms proper to the words and retain only the part-of-speech
meaning; thus com­pound adjectives with adjectival stems for their second
components, e. g. age-long, oil-rich, inch-wide, do not form degrees of comparison as the compound
adjective oil-rich does not form
them the way the word rich does, but conforms to the general rule of
polysyllabic adjectives and has analytical forms of degrees of comparison. The
same difference be­tween words and stems is not so noticeable in compound nouns
with the noun-stem for the second component.

Phonetically compounds
are also marked by a specific structure of their own. 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 ‘hothouse — ‘a heated
building for growing delicate plants’, the latter is given a different stress
pattern — a unity stress on the first component in our case. Compound words
have three stress patterns: a high or unity stress on the first component as
in ‘honeymoon,
‘doorway, etc. 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, ‘washing-ֻmachine,
etc. It is not infrequent, however, for both ICs to have level stress as in,
for instance, ‘arm-‘chair,
‘icy-‘cold, ‘grass-‘green, etc.

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. It is true that hyphenated spelling by
itself may be sometimes misleading, as it may be used in word-groups to
emphasize their phraseological character as in e. g. daughter-in-law, man-of-war,
brother-in-arms or in longer combinations of words to indicate
the se­mantic unity of a string of words used attributively as, e.g., I-know-what-you’re-going-to-say
expression, we-are-in-the-know jargon, the young-must-be-right attitude. The two types of
spelling typical of com­pounds, however, are not rigidly observed and there are
numerous fluc­tuations between solid or hyphenated spelling on the one hand and
spell­ing with a break between the components on the other, especially in
nominal compounds of then+n type. The spelling of these compounds varies
from author to author and from dictionary to dictionary. For example, the
words war-path,
war-time, money-lender are spelt both with a hy­phen and solidly; blood-poisoning, money-order,
wave-length, war-ship— with a hyphen and with a break; underfoot, insofar, underhand—solidly
and with a break²⁵.
It is noteworthy that new compounds of this type tend to solid or hyphenated
spelling. This inconsistency of spelling in com­pounds, often accompanied by a
level stress pattern (equally typical of word-groups) makes the problem of
distinguishing between compound words (of the n + n type in particular) and word-groups
especially dif­ficult.

           
In
this connection it should be stressed that Modern English nouns (in the Common
Case, Sg.) as has been universally recognized possess an attributive function
in which they are regularly used to form numer­ous nominal phrases as, e.
g. peace years,
stone steps, government office, etc. Such variable nominal phrases are semantically
fully derivable from the meanings of the two nouns and are based on the
homogeneous attributive semantic relations unlike compound words. This system
of nominal phrases exists side by side with the specific and numerous classes
of nominal compounds which as a rule carry an additional semantic com­ponent
not found in phrases.

            
It
is also important to stress that these two classes of vocabulary units —
compound words and free phrases — are not only opposed but also stand in close
correlative relations to each other.

2.2
Semantic features

             
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 semantic
peculiarity of the derivational bases and the semantic difference between the
base and the stem on which the latter is built is most obvious in compound
words. Compound words with a common second or first component can serve as
illustra­tions. 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, cardboard are built on the
base meaning ‘thick, stiff paper’; the base board– meaning ‘an author­ized body of men’, forms
compounds school-board,
board-room. The
same can be observed in words built on the polysemantic stem of the word foot. For example,
the base foot– in foot-print, foot-pump,
foothold, foot-bath, foot-wear has the meaning of ‘the terminal
part of the leg’, in foot-note, foot-lights, foot-stone the base foot– has the
meaning of ‘the lower part’, and in foot-high, foot-wide, footrule — ‘measure of
length’. It is obvious from the above-given examples that the meanings of the
bases of compound words are interdependent and that the choice of each is
delimited as in variable word-groups by the nature of the other IC of the word.
It thus may well be said that the combination of bases serves as a kind of
minimal inner context distinguishing the particular individual lexical meaning
of each component. In this connection we should also remember the significance
of the differential meaning found in both components which becomes especially
obvious in a set of compounds containing iden­tical bases.

CLASSIFICATION
OF WORD — COMPOSITION

Compound
words can be described from different points of view and consequently may be
classified according to different principles. They may be viewed from the point
of view:

·       
of
general relationship and degree of semantic independence of components;

·       
of
the parts of speech compound words represent;

·       
of
the means of composition used to link the two ICs to­gether;

·       
of
the type of ICs that are brought together to form a compound;

·       
of
the correlative relations with the system of free word-groups.

          
From the point of view of degree of se­mantic independence there are two types
of relationship between the ICs of com­pound words that are generally
recognized in linguistic literature: the relations of coordination and
subordination, and accordingly compound words fall into two classes: coordinative compounds (often
termed copulative or additive) and subordinative (often termed determinative).

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 той often to the same
semantic group. Coordinative compounds make up a comparati­vely small group of
words. Coordinative compounds fall into three groups:

1.    
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.

2.    
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, zigzag, sing-song, or
rhyme by varying the initial consonants as in clap-trap, a walky-talky, helter-skelter. This subgroup
stands very much apart. It is very of­ten referred to pseudo-compounds and
considered by some linguists irrelevant to productive word-formation owing to
the doubtful morphem­ic status of their components. The constituent members of
compound words of this subgroup are in most cases unique, carry very vague or
no lexical meaning of their own, are not found as stems of independently
functioning words. They are motivated mainly through the rhythmic doubling of
fanciful sound-clusters.

3.    
Coordinative compounds of both subgroups
(a, b) are mostly restrict­ed to the colloquial layer, are marked by a heavy
emotive charge and possess a very small degree of productivity.

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. A secretary-stenographer is thus a person who is
both a stenograph­er and a secretary, a bed-sitting-room (a bed-sitter) is both a bed-room and a sitting-room at
the same time. Among additive compounds there is a specific subgroup of
compound adjectives one of ICs of which is a bound root-morpheme. This group is
limited to the names of nationalities such as Sino-Japanese, Anglo-Saxon, Afro-Asian, etc.

Additive compounds of this group are
mostly fully motivated but have a very limited degree of productivity.

However it must be stressed that though
the distinction between coor­dinative and subordinative compounds is generally
made, it is open to doubt and there is no hard and fast border-line between
them. On the contrary, the border-line is rather vague. It often happens that
one and the same compound may with equal right be interpreted either way — as a
coordinative or a subordinative compound, e. g. a woman-doctor may be
understood as ‘a woman who is at the same time a doctor’ or there can be traced
a difference of importance between the components and it may be primarily felt
to be ‘a doctor who happens to be a woman’ (also a mother-goose, a clock-tower).  In
subordinative compounds the components are neither structurally nor
semantically equal in importance but are based on the domination of the
head-member 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 adjectives, a wrist-watch, road-building, a baby-sitter which
are nouns.

Functionally compounds are viewed as words
of different parts of speech. It is the head-member of the compound, i.e. its
second IC that is indicative of the grammatical and lexical category the
compound word belongs to.

Compound words are found in all parts of
speech, but the bulk of com­pounds are nouns and adjectives. Each part of
speech is characterized by its set of derivational patterns and their semantic
variants. Compound adverbs, pronouns and connectives are represented by an
insignificant number of words, e. g. somewhere, somebody, inside, upright, otherwise moreover,
elsewhere, by means of, etc. No new compounds are coined on this pattern.
Compound pronouns and adverbs built on the repeating first and second IC
like body, ever,
thing make
closed sets of words

SOME	+	BODY
ANY	THING
EVERY	ONE
NO	WHERE

On the whole composition is not productive
either for adverbs, pro­nouns or for connectives. Verbs are of special
interest. There is a small group of compound verbs made up of the combination
of verbal and adverbial stems that language retains from earlier stages, e.
g. to bypass, to
inlay, to offset. This type according to some authors, is no longer
productive and is rarely found in new compounds. There are many polymorphic
verbs that are represented by morphem­ic sequences of two root-morphemes,
like to weekend,
to gooseflesh, to spring-clean, but derivationally they are all words of secondary
deriva­tion in which the existing compound nouns only serve as bases for
derivation. They are often termed pseudo-compound verbs. Such polymorph­ic
verbs are presented by two groups: 1)verbs formed by means of conversion from
the stems of compound nouns as in to spotlight from a spotlight, to sidetrack from a side-track, to
handcuff from handcuffs, to blacklist from a blacklist, to
pinpoint from a pin-point;

2) verbs formed by back-derivation from
the stems of compound nouns, e. g. to baby-sit from a baby-sitter, to playact from play-acting, to
housekeep from house-keeping, to spring-clean from spring-cleaning.

From the point of view of the means by
which the components are joined together, compound words may be classified
into:

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 (as opposed to dog-house, pie-pot). This means of linking
the components is typical of the majority of Modern English compounds in all
parts of speech.

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

Ø asyntactic compounds 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. For example, in vari­able
phrases adjectives cannot be modified by preceding adjectives and noun
modifiers are not placed before participles or adjectives, yet this kind of
asyntactic arrangement is typical of compounds, e. g. red-hot, bluish-black,
pale-blue, rain-driven, oil-rich. The asyntactic order is
typical of the majority of Modern English compound words;

Ø 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 Modern English. The order of the components
in compounds like blue-bell, mad-doctor, blacklist ( a + n ) reminds one of the order and
arrangement of the corresponding words in phrases a blue bell, a mad doc­tor, a
black list (
A + N ), the order of compounds of the typedoor-handle, day-time,
spring-lock (
n + n ) resembles the order of words in nominal phrases with
attributive function of the first noun ( N + N ),e. g. spring time, stone steps, peace movement.

Ø 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,
for example, speedometer,
tragicomic, statesman. Compounds of this type can be both nouns and
adjectives, subordinative and additive but are rather few in number since they
are considerably restricted by the nature of their components. The additive
compound adjectives linked with the help of the vowel [ou] are limited to the
names of nationalities and represent a specific group with a bound root for the
first component, e. g. Sino-Japanese, Afro-Asian, Anglo-Saxon.

In subordinative adjectives and nouns the
productive linking element is also [ou] and compound words of the type are most
productive for scientific terms. The main peculiarity of compounds of the type
is that their constituents are non-assimilated bound roots borrowed mainly from
clas­sical languages, e. g. electro-dynamic, filmography, technophobia, video­phone,
sociolinguistics, videodisc.

A small group of compound nouns may also
be joined with the help of linking consonant [s/z], as in sportsman, landsman,
saleswoman, brides­maid.This small group of words is restricted by the second
component which is, as a rule, one of the three bases man–, woman–, people–.
The commonest of them is man–.

Compounds may be also classified according
to the nature of the bases and the interconnection with other ways of
word-formation into the so-called compounds proper and derivational compounds.

Compounds
proper are formed by joining together bases
built on the stems or on the word-forms 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. Compounds
proper constitute the bulk of English compounds in all parts of speech, they
include both subordinative and coordinative classes, productive and
non-productive patterns.

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 long
legs whose
member words lose their grammatical independence, and are reduced to a single
component of the word, a derivational base. 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. The derivational
adjectival suffix –ed converts this newly formed base into a word. It can be
graphically represented as long legs à [ (long–leg) + –ed] à long–legged.
The suffix –ed becomes the grammatically
and semantically dominant component of the word, its head-member. It imparts
its part-of-speech meaning and its lexical meaning thus making an adjective
that may be semantically interpreted as ‘with (or having) what is denoted by
the motivating word-group’. Comparison of the pattern of compounds proper
like baby-sitter,
pen-holder
[ n +
( v + –er ) ] with the pattern of derivational compounds
like long-legged [ (a + n) + –ed ] reveals the
difference: derivational compounds are formed by a derivational means, a suffix
in case if words of the long-legged type, which is applied to a base that each time is
formed anew on a free word-group and is not recurrent in any other type if
words. It follows that strictly speaking words of this type should be treated
as pseudo-compounds or as a special group of derivatives. They are habitually
referred to derivational compounds because of the peculiarity of their
derivational bases which are felt as built by composition, i.e. by bringing
together the stems of the member-words of a phrase which lose their
independence in the process. The word itself, e. g. long-legged, is built by the
application of the suffix, i.e. by derivation and thus may be described as a
suffixal derivative.

Derivational compounds or pseudo-compounds
are all subordinative and fall into two groups according to the type of variable
phrases that serve as their bases and the derivational means used:

Ø 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. Accordingly
the derivational adjectives under discussion are built after the patterns [ (a + n ) + –ed], e.
g. long-legged,
flat-chested, broad-minded; [ ( пит + n) + –ed], e. g. two-sided, three-cornered; [ (n + n ) + –ed], e. g. doll-faced, heart-shaped.

Ø 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.

The commonest type of phrases that serves
as derivational bases for this group of derivational compounds is the V + Adv type
of word-groups as in, for instance, a breakdown, a breakthrough, a castaway, a layout.
Semantically derivational compound nouns form lexical groups typical of
conversion, such as an act or instance of the action, e. g. a holdup — ‘a delay in
traffic’’ from to
hold up — ‘delay, stop by use of force’; a result of the
action, e. g. a
breakdown —
‘a failure in machinery that causes work to stop’ from to break down — ‘become
disabled’; an active agent orrecipient of the action, e. g. cast-offs — ‘clothes that he
owner will not wear again’ from to cast off — ‘throw away as unwanted’; a show-off —
‘a person who shows off’ from to show off — ‘make a dis­play of one’s abilities
in order to impress people’. Derivational compounds of this group are spelt
generally solidly or with a hyphen and often retain a level stress.
Semantically they are motivated by transparent deriva­tive relations with the
motivating base built on the so-called phrasal verb and are typical of the
colloquial layer of vocabulary. This type of derivational compound nouns is
highly productive due to the productiv­ity of conversion.

The semantic subgroup of derivational
compound nouns denoting agents calls for special mention. There is a group of
such substantives built on an attributive and verbal-nominal type of phrases.
These nouns are semantically only partially motivated and are marked by a heavy
emotive charge or lack of motivation and often belong to terms as, for
example, a
kill-joy, a wet-blanket — ‘one who kills enjoyment’; a turnkey —
‘keeper of the keys in prison’; a sweet-tooth — ‘a person who likes sweet
food’; a
red-breast — ‘a bird called the robin’. The analysis of these
nouns eas­ily proves that they can only be understood as the result of
conversion for their second ICs cannot be understood as their structural or
semantic centres, these compounds belong to a grammatical and lexical groups
different from those their components do. These compounds are all ani­mate
nouns whereas their second ICs belong to inanimate objects. The meaning of the
active agent is not found in either of the components but is imparted as a
result of conversion applied to the word-group which is thus turned into a
derivational base.

These compound nouns are often referred to
in linguistic literature as «bahuvrihi» compounds or exocentric compounds, i.e.
words whose seman­tic head is outside the combination. It seems more correct to
refer them to the same group of derivational or pseudo-compounds as the above
cited groups.

This small group of derivational nouns is
of a restricted productivity, its heavy constraint lies in its idiomaticity and
hence its stylistic and emotive colouring.

The linguistic analysis of extensive lan­guage
data proves that there exists a re­gular correlation between the system of free
phrases and all types of subordinative (and additive) compounds²⁶. Correlation
embraces both the structure and the meaning of compound words, it underlies the
entire system of productive present-day English composition conditioning the
derivational patterns and lexical types of compounds.

 

Compounds are words produced by combining
two or more stems which occur in the language as free forms. They may be classified
proceeding from different criteria:

according to the parts of speech to which
they belong;

according to the means of composition used
to link their ICs together;

according to the structure of their ICs;

according to their semantic characteristics.

3.1 Correlation
types of compounds

The
description of compound words through the correlation with variable word-groups
makes it possible to classify them into four major classes: adjectival-nominal,
verbal-nominal, nominal and verb – adverb compounds.

I. A d j e c t i v a l — n o m i n a l
comprise four subgroups of compound

adjectives, three of them are proper
compounds and one derivational.

All four subgroups are productive and
semantically as a rule motivated.

The main constraint on the productivity in
all the four subgroups is

the lexical-semantic types of the
head-members and the lexical valency of

the head of the correlated word-groups.

Adjectival-nominal compound adjectives
have the following patterns:

1) the polysemantic n+a
pattern
that gives rise to two types:

a) compound adjectives based on semantic
relations of resemblance

with adjectival bases denoting most
frequently colours, size, shape, etc. for

the second IC. The type is correlative
with phrases of comparative type as

A +as + N,
e.g.
snow-white,
skin-deep, age-long, etc.

b) compound adjectives based on a variety
of adverbial relations. The

type is correlative with one of the most
productive adjectival phrases of

the A +
prp
+
N
type
and consequently semantically varied, cf. colourblind,

road-weary, care-free, etc.

2) the monosemantic pattern n+ven
based
mainly on the instrumental, locative and temporal relations between the ICs
which are:

conditioned by the lexical meaning and
valency of the verb, e.g. stateowned,

home-made. The type is highly
productive. Correlative relations

are established with word-groups of the Ven+
with/by
+
N
type.

3) the monosemantic пит
+
п pattern
which gives rise to a small and

peculiar group of adjectives, which are
used only attributively, e.g. (a) twoday

(beard), (a) seven-day
(week),
etc. The type correlates with attributive

phrases with a numeral for their first
member.

4) a highly productive monosemantic
pattern of derivational compound

adjectives based on semantic relations of
possession conveyed by the suffix

-ed. The basic variant is [(a+n)+ -ed],
e.g.
low-ceilinged,
long- legged.

The pattern has two more variants: [(пит
+
n)
+
-ed),
l(n+n)+ -ed], e.g.

one-sided, bell-shaped, doll-faced. The
type correlates accordingly with

phrases with (having) + A+N,
with
(having) + Num +
N,
with
+
N + N

or with +
N + of + N.

The system of productive types of compound
adjectives is summarised

in Table 1. (Appendix)

II. V e r b a l — n o m i n a l compounds
may be described through one derivational structure n+nv,
i.e.
a combination of a noun-base (in most

cases simple) with a deverbal, suffixal
noun-base. The structure includes

four patterns differing in the character
of the deverbal noun- stem and accordingly

in the semantic subgroups of compound
nouns. All the patterns

correlate in the final analysis with V+N
and
V+prp+N
type
which depends

on the lexical nature of the verb:

1) [n+(v+-er)],
e.g.
bottle-opener,
stage-manager, peace-fighter. The

pattern is monosemantic and is based on
agentive relations that can be interpreted

‘one/that/who does smth’.

2) [n+(v+
-ing)],
e.g.
stage-managing,
rocket-flying. The pattern is

monosemantic and may be interpreted as
‘the act of doing smth’. The pattern

has some constraints on its productivity
which largely depends on the

lexical and etymological character of the
verb.

3) [n+(v+ -tion/ment)], e.g.
office-management,
price-reduction. The

pattern is a variant of the above-mentioned
pattern (No 2). It has a heavy

constraint which is embedded in the
lexical and etymological character of

the verb that does not permit
collocability with the suffix -ing or deverbal

nouns.

4) [n+(v +
conversion)],
e.g.
wage-cut,
dog-bite, hand-shake, the pattern

is based on semantic relations of result,
instance, agent, etc.

III. N o m i n a l c o m p o u n d s are
all nouns with the most

polysemantic and highly-productive
derivational pattern n+n; both bases

re generally simple stems, e.g. windmill,
horse-race, pencil-case. The

pattern conveys a variety of semantic
relations, the most frequent are the

relations of purpose, partitive, local and
temporal relations. The pattern

correlates with nominal word-groups of the
N+prp+N
type.

IV. V e r b — a d v e r b compounds are
all derivational nouns, highly

productive and built with the help of
conversion according to the pattern l(v + adv) + conversion].
The
pattern correlates with free phrases

V + Adv
and
with all phrasal verbs of different degree of stability. The pattern

is polysemantic and reflects the manifold
semantic relations typical of

conversion pairs.

The system of productive types of compound
nouns is summarized in

Table
2. (Appendix)

ANALYTICAL BASES
OF USE OF WORD-COMPOSITION 36
3.1 Practical examples of compound words.

Here are the
practical examples of compound words in “Theater” of W. Somerset Maugham.

Business – like [n+(v
+
conversion)],
is
based on semantic relations of result, – довольно по
деловому
(ch.1 p 3)

well – known
(ch
1 p
4) [a+v]
– хорошо известный

ink – stand (ch 1 p 4) [n+v] —
чернильница

heavily – painted lips  (ch 1 p 5)
[a+v+ed] ярко- накрашенные губы

dressing – table (ch 1 p [n+ ing + n] –
туалетный
столик

eyebrow — (ch 1 p [n+  n] – бровь

satinwood — (ch 1 p [n+  n] –
атласное дерево

CONCLUSION

1. Compound words are made up of two ICs,
both of which are derivational bases.

2. The structural and semantic centre of
acompound, i.e. its head-member, is its second IC, which preconditions the part
of speech the compound belongs to and its lexical class.

3. Phonetically compound words are marked
by three stress patterns

— a unity stress, a double stress and a
level stress. The first two are the

commonest stress patterns in compounds.

4. Graphically as a rule compounds are
marked by two types of spelling

— solid spelling and hyphenated spelling.
Some types of compound

words are characterised by fluctuations
between hyphenated spelling and

spelling with a space between the components.

5. Derivational patterns in compound words
may be mono- and

polysemantic, in which case they are based
on different semantic relations

between the components.

6. The meaning of compound words is
derived from the combined

lexical meanings of the components and the
meaning of the derivational

pattern.

7. Compound words may be described from
different points of view:

a) According to the degree of semantic
independence of components

compounds are classified into coordinative
and subordinative. The bulk of

present-day English compounds are
subordinative.

b) According to different parts of speech.
Composition is typical in

Modern English mostly of nouns and
adjectives.

c) According to the means by which
components are joined together

they are classified into compounds formed
with the help of a linking element

and without. As to the order of ICs it may
be asyntactic and syntactic.

d) According to the type of bases
compounds are classified into compounds

proper and derivational compounds.

e) According to the structural semantic
correlation with free phrases

compounds are subdivided into
adjectival-nominal compound adjectives,

verbal-nominal, verb-adverb and nominal
compound nouns.

8. Structural and semantic correlation is
understood as a regular interdependence

between compound words and variable
phrases. A potential

possibility of certain types of phrases
presupposes a possibility of compound

words
conditioning their structure and semantic type.

APPENDIX

TABLE 1. Productive Types of
Compound Adjectives

Free Phrases	Compound Adjectives
Compounds Proper	Derivational Compounds	Pattern	Semantic Relations
1) (a). as white as snow —	snow-white	—	n + a	relations of resemblance
(b). free from care; rich in oil; greedy for power; tired of pleasure care-free,	oil-rich, power-greedy, pleasuretired	—	— n + a	various adverbial relations
2.c o v e r e d w i t h snow; bound by duty	snow-covered duty-bound		n + ven	instrumental (or agentive relations
3. two days	(a) two-day (beard) (b) seven-year (plan)	— ‘	num + n	quantitative relations
wi t h ( h a v i n g ) long legs		long-legged	[(a + n) + -ed]	possessive relations

APENDIX 2.

TABLE 2. Productive Types of Compound Nouns

Free Phrases	Compound Nouns
Compounds Proper	Derivational Compounds	Pattern
Verbal — Nominal Phrases 1. the reducer of prices to reduce 2. the reducing of prices prices 3. the reduction of prices to shake 4. the shake of hands hands	1) price-reducer 2) price-reducing 3) price-reduction 4) hand-shake	—	— [n + (v + -er)] [n + (v + -ing)] [n + (v + -tion/- ment)] [n + (v + conversion)]
Nominal Phrases 1) a tray for ashes 2) the neck of the bottle 3) a house in the country 4) a ship run by steam 5) the doctor is a woman 6) a fish resembling a sword	1) ash-tray 2) bottle- neck 3) country- house 4) steamship 5) womandoctor 6) swordfish	—	— [n’ + n1]
Verb — Adverb Phrases to break down to cast away to run away		a break-down a castaway a runaway	[(v + adv) + conversion]

Lecture 3.
Word-building: affixation, conversion, composition, abbreviation.
THE WORD-BUILDING SYSTEM OF ENGLISH
1.
Word-derivation
2.
Affixation
3.
Conversion
4.
Word-composition
5.
Shortening
6.
Blending
7.
Acronymy
8.
Sound interchange
9.
Sound imitation
10. Distinctive stress
11. Back-formation
Word-formation is a branch of Lexicology which studies the process of building new
words, derivative structures and patterns of existing words. Two principle types of wordformation are distinguished: word-derivation and word-composition. It is evident that wordformation proper can deal only with words which can be analyzed both structurally and
semantically. Simple words are closely connected with word-formation because they serve as the
foundation of derived and compound words. Therefore, words like writer, displease, sugar free,
etc. make the subject matter of study in word-formation, but words like to write, to please, atom,
free are irrelevant to it.
WORD-FORMATION
WORD-DERIVATION
AFFIXATION
WORD-COMPOSITION
CONVERSION
1. Word-derivation.
Speaking about word-derivation we deal with the derivational structure of words which
basic elementary units are derivational bases, derivational affixes and derivational patterns.
A derivational base is the part of the word which establishes connection with the lexical
unit that motivates the derivative and determines its individual lexical meaning describing the
difference between words in one and the same derivative set. For example, the individual lexical
meaning of the words singer, writer, teacher which denote active doers of the action is signaled by
the lexical meaning of the derivational bases: sing-, write-, teach-.
Structurally derivational bases fall into 3 classes:
1. Bases that coincide with morphological stems of different degrees оf complexity, i.e.,
with words functioning independently in modern English e.g., dutiful, day-dreamer. Bases are
functionally and semantically distinct from morphological stems. Functionally the morphological
stem is a part of the word which is the starting point for its forms: heart – hearts; it is the part
which presents the entire grammatical paradigm. The stem remains unchanged throughout all
word-forms; it keeps them together preserving the identity of the word. A derivational base is the
starting point for different words (heart – heartless – hearty) and its derivational potential
outlines the type and scope of existing words and new creations. Semantically the stem stands for
the whole semantic structure of the word; it represents all its lexical meanings. A base represents,
as a rule, only one meaning of the source word.
2. Bases that coincide with word-forms, e.g., unsmiling, unknown. The base is usually
represented by verbal forms: the present and the past participles.
3. Bases that coincide with word-groups of different degrees of stability, e.g., blue-eyed,
empty-handed. Bases of this class allow a rather limited range of collocability, they are most
active with derivational affixes in the class of adjectives and nouns (long-fingered, blue-eyed).
Derivational affixes are Immediate Constituents of derived words in all parts of speech.
Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding derivational affixes to
different types of bases. Affixation is subdivided into suffixation and prefixation. In Modern
English suffixation is mostly characteristic of nouns and adjectives coining, while prefixation is
mostly typical of verb formation.
A derivational pattern is a regular meaningful arrangement, a structure that imposes
rigid rules on the order and the nature of the derivational base and affixes that may be brought
together to make up a word. Derivational patterns are studied with the help of distributional
analysis at different levels. Patterns are usually represented in a generalized way in terms of
conventional symbols: small letters v, n, a, d which stand for the bases coinciding with the stems
of the respective parts of speech: verbs, etc. Derivational patterns may represent derivative
structure at different levels of generalization:
- at the level of structural types. The patterns of this type are known as structural
formulas, all words may be classified into 4 classes: suffixal derivatives (friendship) n + -sf →
N, prefixal derivatives (rewrite), conversions (a cut, to parrot) v → N, compound words (musiclover).
- at the level of structural patterns. Structural patterns specify the base classes and
individual affixes thus indicating the lexical-grammatical and lexical classes of derivatives
within certain structural classes of words. The suffixes refer derivatives to specific parts of
speech and lexical subsets. V + -er = N (a semantic set of active agents, denoting both animate
and inanimate objects - reader, singer); n + -er = N (agents denoting residents or occupations Londoner, gardener). We distinguish a structural semantic derivationa1 pattern.
- at the level of structural-semantic patterns. Derivational patterns may specify semantic
features of bases and individual meaning of affixes: N + -y = A (nominal bases denoting living
beings are collocated with the suffix meaning "resemblance" - birdy, catty; but nominal bases
denoting material, parts of the body attract another meaning "considerable amount" - grassy,
leggy).
The basic ways of forming new words in word-derivation are affixation and conversion.
Affixation is the formation of a new word with the help of affixes (heartless, overdo).
Conversion is the formation of a new word by bringing a stem of this word into a different
paradigm (a fall from to fall).
2. Affixation
Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding derivational affixes
to different types of bases. Affixation includes suffixation and prefixation. Distinction between
suffixal and prefixal derivates is made according to the last stage of derivation, for example,
from the point of view of derivational analysis the word unreasonable – un + (reason- + -able) is
qualified as a prefixal derivate, while the word discouragement – (dis- + -courage) + -ment is
defined as a suffixal derivative.
Suffixation is the formation of words with the help of suffixes. Suffixes usually modify
the lexical meaning of the base and transfer words to a different part of speech.
Suffixes can be classified into different types in accordance with different principles.
According to the lexico-grammatical character suffixes may be: deverbal suffixes, e.d.,
those added to the verbal base (agreement); denominal (endless); deadjectival (widen,
brightness).
According to the part of speech formed suffixes fall into several groups: noun-forming
suffixes (assistance), adjective-forming suffixes (unbearable), numeral-forming suffixes
(fourteen), verb-forming suffixes (facilitate), adverb-forming suffixes (quickly, likewise).
Semantically suffixes may be monosemantic, e.g. the suffix –ess has only one meaning
“female” – goddess, heiress; polysemantic, e.g. the suffix –hood has two meanings “condition or
quality” falsehood and “collection or group” brotherhood.
According to their generalizing denotational meaning suffixes may fall into several
groups: the agent of the action (baker, assistant); collectivity (peasantry); appurtenance
(Victorian, Chinese); diminutiveness (booklet).
Prefixation is the formation of words with the help of prefixes. Two types of prefixes can
be distinguished: 1) those not correlated with any independent word (un-, post-, dis-); 2) those
correlated with functional words (prepositions or preposition-like adverbs: out-, up-, under-).
Diachronically distinction is made between prefixes of native and foreign origin.
Prefixes can be classified according to different principles.
According to the lexico-grammatical character of the base prefixes are usually added to,
they may be: deverbal prefixes, e.d., those added to the verbal base (overdo); denominal
(unbutton); deadjectival (biannual).
According to the part of speech formed prefixes fall into several groups: noun-forming
prefixes (ex-husband), adjective-forming prefixes (unfair), verb-forming prefixes (dethrone),
adverb-forming prefixes (uphill).
Semantically prefixes may be monosemantic, e.g. the prefix –ex has only one meaning
“former” – ex-boxer; polysemantic, e.g. the prefix –dis has four meanings “not” disadvantage
and “removal of” to disbrunch.
According to their generalizing denotational meaning prefixes may fall into several
groups: negative prefixes – un, non, dis, a, in (ungrateful, nonpolitical, disloyal, amoral,
incorrect); reversative prefixes - un, de, dis (untie, decentralize, disconnect); pejorative prefixes
– mis, mal, pseudo (mispronounce, maltreat, pseudo-scientific); prefix of repetition (redo),
locative prefixes – super, sub, inter, trans (superstructure, subway, intercontinental,
transatlantic).
3. Conversion
Conversion is a process which allows us to create additional lexical terms out of those
that already exist, e.g., to saw, to spy, to snoop, to flirt. This process is not limited to one syllable
words, e.g., to bottle, to butter, nor is the process limited to the creation of verbs from nouns, e.g.,
to up the prices. Converted words are extremely colloquial: "I'll microwave the chicken", "Let's
flee our dog", "We will of course quiche and perrier you".
Conversion came into being in the early Middle English period as a result of the leveling
and further loss of endings.
In Modern English conversion is a highly-productive type of word-building. Conversion
is a specifically English type of word formation which is determined by its analytical character,
by its scarcity of inflections and abundance of mono-and-de-syllabic words in different parts of
speech. Conversion is coining new words in a different part of speech and with a different
distribution but without adding any derivative elements, so that the original and the converted
words are homonyms.
Structural Characteristics of Conversion: Mostly monosyllabic words are converted,
e.g., to horn, to box, to eye. In Modern English there is a marked tendency to convert
polysyllabic words of a complex morphological structure, e.g., to e-mail, to X-ray. Most converted
words are verbs which may be formed from different parts of speech from nouns, adjectives,
adverbs, interjections.
Nouns from verbs - a try, a go, a find, a loss
From adjectives - a daily, a periodical
From adverbs - up and down
From conjunctions - but me no buts
From interjection - to encore
Semantic Associations / Relations of Conversion:
The noun is the name of a tool or implement, the verb denotes an action performed by the
tool, e.g., to nail, to pin, to comb, to brush, to pencil;
The noun is the name of an animal, the verb denotes an action or aspect of behavior
considered typical of this animal, e.g., to monkey, to rat, to dog, to fox;
When the noun is the name of a part of a human body, the verb denotes an action
performed by it, e.g., to hand, to nose, to eye;
When the noun is the name of a profession or occupation, the verb denotes the activity
typical of it, e.g., to cook, to maid, to nurse;
When the noun is the name of a place, the verb will denote the process of occupying the
place or by putting something into it, e.g., to room, to house, to cage;
When the word is the name of a container, the verb will denote the act of putting
something within the container, e.g., to can, to pocket, to bottle;
When the word is the name of a meal, the verb means the process of taking it, e.g., to
lunch, to supper, to dine, to wine;
If an adjective is converted into a verb, the verb may have a generalized meaning "to be
in a state", e.g., to yellow;
When nouns are converted from verbs, they denote an act or a process, or the result, e.g.,
a try, a go, a find, a catch.
4. Word-composition
Compound words are words consisting of at least two stems which occur in the language
as free forms.
Most compounds in English have the primary stress on the first syllable. For example,
income tax has the primary stress on the in of income, not on the tax.
Compounds have a rather simple, regular set of properties. First, they are binary in
structure. They always consist of two or more constituent lexemes. A compound which has three
or more constituents must have them in pairs, e.g., washingmachine manufacturer consists of
washingmachine and manufacturer, while washingmachine in turn consists of washing and
machine. Compound words also usually have a head constituent. By a head constituent we mean
one which determines the syntactic properties of the whole lexeme, e.g., the compound lexeme
longboat consists of an adjective, long and a noun, boat. The compound lexeme longboat is a
noun, and it is а noun because boat is a noun, that is, boat is the head constituent of longboat.
Compound words can belong to all the major syntactic categories:
• Nouns: signpost, sunlight, bluebird, redwood, swearword, outhouse;
• Verbs: window shop, stargaze, outlive, undertake;
• Adjectives: ice-cold, hell-bent, undersized;
• Prepositions: into, onto, upon.
From the morphological point of view compound words are classified according to the
structure of immediate constituents:
• Compounds consisting of simple stems - heartache, blackbird;
• Compounds where at least one of the constituents is a derived stem -chainsmoker,
maid-servant, mill-owner, shop-assistant;
• Compounds where one of the constituents is a clipped stem - V-day, A-bomb, Xmas,
H-bag;
• Compounds where one of the constituents is a compound stem - wastes paper basket,
postmaster general.
Compounds are the commonest among nouns and adjectives. Compound verbs are few in
number, as they are mostly the result of conversion, e.g., to blackmail, to honeymoon, to
nickname, to safeguard, to whitewash. The 20th century created some more converted verbs, e.g.,
to weekend, to streamline,, to spotlight. Such converted compounds are particularly common in
colloquial speech of American English. Converted verbs can be also the result of backformation.
Among the earliest coinages are to backbite, to browbeat, to illtreat, to housekeep. The 20th
century gave more examples to hitch-hike, to proof-read, to mass-produce, to vacuumclean.
One more structural characteristic of compound words is classification of compounds
according to the type of composition. According to this principle two groups can be singled out:

words which are formed by a mere juxtaposition without any connecting elements,
e.g., classroom, schoolboy, heartbreak, sunshine;

composition with a vowel or a consonant placed between the two stems. e.g.,
salesman, handicraft.
Semantically compounds may be idiomatic and non-idiomatic. Compound words may be
motivated morphologically and in this case they are non-idiomatic. Sunshine - the meaning here
is a mere meaning of the elements of a compound word (the meaning of each component is
retained). When the compound word is not motivated morphologically, it is idiomatic. In
idiomatic compounds the meaning of each component is either lost or weakened. Idiomatic
compounds have a transferred meaning. Chatterbox - is not a box, it is a person who talks a great
deal without saying anything important; the combination is used only figuratively. The same
metaphorical character is observed in the compound slowcoach - a person who acts and thinks
slowly.
The components of compounds may have different semantic relations. From this point of
view we can roughly classify compounds into endocentric and exocentric. In endocentric
compounds the semantic centre is found within the compound and the first element determines
the other as in the words filmstar, bedroom, writing-table. Here the semantic centres are star,
room, table. These stems serve as a generic name of the object and the determinants film, bed,
writing give some specific, additional information about the objects. In exocentric compound
there is no semantic centre. It is placed outside the word and can be found only in the course of
lexical transformation, e.g., pickpocket - a person who picks pockets of other people, scarecrow an object made to look like a person that a farmer puts in a field to frighten birds.
The Criteria of Compounds
As English compounds consist of free forms, it's difficult to distinguish them from
phrases, because there are no reliable criteria for that. There exist three approaches to distinguish
compounds from corresponding phrases:
Formal unity implies the unity of spelling

solid spelling, e.g., headmaster;

with a hyphen, e.g., head-master;

with a break between two components, e.g., head master.
Different dictionaries and different authors give different spelling variants.
Phonic principal of stress
Many compounds in English have only one primary stress. All compound nouns are
stressed according to this pattern, e.g., ice-cream, ice cream. The rule doesn't hold with
adjectives. Compound adjectives are double-stressed, e.g., easy-going, new-born, sky-blue.
Stress cannot help to distinguish compounds from phrases because word stress may depend on
phrasal stress or upon the syntactic function of a compound.
Semantic unity
Semantic unity means that a compound word expresses one separate notion and phrases
express more than one notion. Notions in their turn can't be measured. That's why it is hard to
say whether one or more notions are expressed. The problem of distinguishing between
compound words and phrases is still open to discussion.
According to the type of bases that form compounds they can be of :
1.
compounds proper – they are formed by joining together bases built on the stems
or on the ford-forms with or without linking element, e.g., door-step;
2.
derivational compounds – by joining affixes to the bases built on the word-groups
or by converting the bases built on the word-groups into the other parts of speech, e.g., longlegged → (long legs) + -ed, a turnkey → (to turn key) + conversion. More examples: do-gooder,
week-ender, first-nighter, house-keeping, baby-sitting, blue-eyed blond-haired, four-storied. The
suffixes refer to both of the stems combined, but not to the final stem only. Such stems as nighter,
gooder, eyed do not exist.
Compound Neologisms
In the last two decades the role of composition in the word-building system of English has
increased. In the 60th and 70th composition was not so productive as affixation. In the 80th
composition exceeded affixation and comprised 29.5 % of the total number of neologisms in
English vocabulary. Among compound neologisms the two-component units prevail. The main
patterns of coining the two-component neologisms are Noun stem + Noun stem = Noun;
Adjective stem + Noun stem = Noun.
There appeared a tendency to coin compound nouns where:
 The first component is a proper noun, e.g., Kirlian photograph - biological field of
humans.
 The first component is a geographical place, e.g., Afro-rock.
 The two components are joined with the help of the linking vowel –o- e.g.,
bacteriophobia, suggestopedia.
 The number of derivational compounds increases. The main productive suffix to coin
such compound is the suffix -er - e.g., baby-boomer, all nighter.
 Many compound words are formed according to the pattern Participle 2 + Adv =
Adjective, e.g., laid-back, spaced-out, switched-off, tapped-out.
 The examples of verbs formed with the help of a post-positive -in -work-in, die-in,
sleep-in, write-in.
Many compounds formed by the word-building pattern Verb + postpositive are numerous
in colloquial speech or slang, e.g., bliss out, fall about/horse around, pig-out.
ATTENTION: Apart from the principle types there are some minor types of modern wordformation, i.d., shortening, blending, acronymy, sound interchange, sound imitation, distinctive
stress, back-formation, and reduplicaton.
5. Shortening
Shortening is the formation of a word by cutting off a part of the word. They can be
coined in two different ways. The first is to cut off the initial/ middle/ final part:
 Aphaeresis – initial part of the word is clipped, e.g., history-story, telephone-phone;
 Syncope – the middle part of the word is clipped, e.g., madam- ma 'am; specs
spectacles
 Apocope – the final part of the word is clipped, e.g., professor-prof, editored, vampirevamp;
 Both initial and final, e.g., influenza-flu, detective-tec.
Polysemantic words are usually clipped in one meaning only, e.g., doc and doctor have
the meaning "one who practices medicine", but doctor is also "the highest degree given by a
university to a scholar or scientist".
Among shortenings there are homonyms, so that one and the same sound and graphical
complex may represent different words, e.g., vac - vacation/vacuum, prep —
preparation/preparatory school, vet — veterinary surgeon/veteran.
6. Blending
Blending is a particular type of shortening which combines the features of both clipping
and composition, e.g., motel (motor + hotel), brunch (breakfast + lunch), smog (smoke + fog),
telethon (television + marathon), modem , (modulator + demodulator), Spanglish (Spanish +
English). There are several structural types of blends:

Initial part of the word + final part of the word, e.g., electrocute (electricity +
execute);

initial part of the word + initial part of the word, e.g., lib-lab (liberal+labour);

Initial part of the word + full word, e.g., paratroops (parachute+troops);

Full word + final part of the word, e.g., slimnastics (slim+gymnastics).
7. Acronymy
Acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of parts of a word or phrase,
commonly the names of institutions and organizations. No full stops are placed between the
letters. All acronyms are divided into two groups. The first group is composed of the acronyms
which are often pronounced as series of letters: EEC (European Economic Community), ID
(identity or identification card), UN (United Nations), VCR (videocassette recorder), FBI
(Federal Bureau of Investigation), LA (Los Angeles), TV (television), PC (personal computer),
GP (General Practitioner), ТВ (tuberculosis). The second group of acronyms is composed by the
words which are pronounced according to the rules of reading in English: UNESCO (United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome), ASH (Action on Smoking and Health). Some of these pronounceable words are
written without capital letters and therefore are no longer recognized as acronyms: laser (light
amplification by stimulated emissions of radiation), radar (radio detection and ranging).
Some abbreviations have become so common and normal as words that people do not think
of them as abbreviations any longer. They are not written in capital letters, e.g., radar (radio
detection and ranging), laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) yuppie,
gruppie, sinbads, dinkies.
Some abbreviations are only written forms but they are pronounced as full words, e.g.,
Mr, Mrs, Dr. Some abbreviations are from Latin. They are used as part of the language etc. - et
cetera, e.g., (for example) — exampli gratia, that is - id est.
Acromymy is widely used in the press, for the names of institutions, organizations,
movements, countries. It is common to colloquial speech, too. Some acronyms turned into
regular words, e.g., jeep -came from the expression general purpose car.
There are a lot of homonyms among acronyms:
MP - Member of Parliament/Military Police/Municipal Police
PC - Personal Computer/Politically correct
8. Sound-interchange
Sound-interchange is the formation of a new word due to an alteration in the phonemic
composition of its root. Sound-interchange falls into two groups: 1) vowel-interchange, e.g., food
– feed; in some cases vowel-interchange is combined with suffixation, e.g., strong – strength; 2)
consonant-interchange e.g., advice – to advise. Consonant-interchange and vowel-interchange
may be combined together, e.g., life – to live.
This type of word-formation is greatly facilitated in Modern English by the vast number
of monosyllabic words. Most words made by reduplication represent informal groups:
colloquialisms and slang, hurdy-gurdy, walkie-talkie, riff-raff, chi-chi girl. In reduplication new
words are coined by doubling a stem, either without any phonetic changes as in bye-bye or with a
variation of the root-vowel or consonant as in ping-pong, chit-chat.
9. Sound imitation or (onomatopoeia)
It is the naming of an action or a thing by more or less exact reproduction of the sound
associated with it, cf.: cock-a-do-doodle-do – ку-ка-ре-ку.
Semantically, according to the source sound, many onomatopoeic words fall into the
following definitive groups: 1) words denoting sounds produced by human beings in the process of
communication or expressing their feelings, e.g., chatter; 2) words denoting sounds produced by
animals, birds, insects, e.g., moo, buzz; 3) words imitating the sounds of water, the noise of metallic
things, movements, e.g., splash, whip, swing.
10. Distinctive stress
Distinctive stress is the formation of a word by means of the shift of the stress in the
source word, e.g., increase – increase.
11. Back-formation
Backformation is coining new words by subtracting a real or supposed suffix, as a result
of misinterpretation of the structure of the existing word. This type of word-formation is not
highly productive in Modern English and it is built on the analogy, e.g., beggar-to beg, cobbler to cobble, blood transfusion — to blood transfuse, babysitter - to baby-sit.

WORD-FORMATION COMPOSITION AND MINOR TYPES OF WORD FORMATION

TYPES OF WORD FORMATION MAIN TYPES MINOR TYPES 1. Derivation 2. Composition 3. Conversion 1. Shortening 2. Sound interchange 3. Stress interchange 4. Sound imitation 5. Abbreviation 6. Blending 7. Back-formation

TYPES OF WORD FORMATION MAIN TYPES MINOR TYPES 1. Derivation 2. Composition 3. Conversion 1. Shortening 2. Sound interchange 3. Stress interchange 4. Sound imitation 5. Abbreviation 6. Blending 7. Back-formation

MAIN TYPES DERIVATION COMPOSITION CONVERTIAN is a kind of wordformation when a new word is formed by adding a derivational morpheme (usually suffix or prefix) to the root. This type of wordbuilding, in which new words are produced by combining two or more stems is the process of coining a new word in a different part of speech without adding any derivative element, so that the basic form both of the original and derived words are homonymous Careful, lovely, helpless, overtime Disrespect, blackbird, shopwindow, sunflower, bedroom, tallboy A work-to work Pale(adj)- to pale A catch – to catch

SHORTENING dub-double, fridge, frig – refrigerator, vacvacuum cleaner, mike – microscope, trank – tranquilizer. Shortening may take any part of tranquilizer. a word usually a single syllable and throw away the rest: pram, lab, phone – telephone, plane – airplane, flu – influence. 1.

Clipping (shortening) The shortening of words consists of the reduction of a word to one of its parts, as a result of which the new form is used as an independent lexical unit. This type of word-formation is in English highly productive. a. Final clipping – the beginning of the prototype is ad, advert < advertisement, memo < memorandum, lab < laboratory, gym < gymnasium, vac < vacuum cleaner. b. Initial clipping – the final part is retained. E. g. chute < parachute, phone < telephone, copter < helicopter, plane < aeroplane. c. The middle is retained. E. g. Liz < Elizabeth , flu < influenza, tec < detective. d. The middle is left. E. g. fancy < fantasy, retained. E. g.

Minor Types of Word Building 1. SHORTENNING (CLIPPING) is a process of creating of a new word by shortening of the original polysyllabic word (prototype). According to what part is cut off we distinguish: final – doc (doctor), initial – net (Internet) medial clipping – poli-sci (political science).

2. SOUND INTERCHANGE is an opposition in which words or word forms are differentiated due to an alteration in the phonemic composition of the root. The process is not active in the language at present, and oppositions survive in the vocabulary only as remnants of previous stages. food – feed, speak – speech, woman-women

Minor Types of Word Formation 3. STRESS INTERCHANGE Some otherwise homographic, mostly disyllabic nouns and verbs of Romanic origin have a distinctive stress pattern. ‘conduct n — ‘behaviour’ con’duct v — ‘to lead or guide (in a formal way)’ ADJ. VERBS ‘absent – to ab’sent; ‘frequent — to fre’quent; ‘perfect – to per’fect; ‘abstract – to ab’stract etc.

Minor Types of Word Formation 4. SOUND IMITATION is the naming of an action or thing by a more or less exact reproduction of a sound associated with it. bubble or splash — the sound of water clink, tinkle- the noise of metallic things buzz, croak, crow, moo, mew, neigh, purr, roarsounds produced by animals, birds and insects giggle, murmur, whisper — sounds produced by human beings in the process of communication or in expressing their feelings etc.

Minor Types of Word Formation 5. ABBREVIATION is the process and the result of forming a word out of the initial elements (letters, morphemes) of a word combination.

Types of abbreviation 1) Acronym is a written form which reads as an ordinary English word NATO — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization laser — light amplification by stimulated emission radiation 2) Initial abbreviation with the alphabetical reading, i. e. pronounced as a series of letters. B. B. C. [‘bi: ‘si: ] — the British Broadcasting Corporation 3) Shortened form of a written word or phrase used in a text in place of the whole for economy of space and effort. In oral speech the unabbreviated words are pronounced govt for government, wd for word N. Y. for New York State 4) Latin abbreviations which sometimes are not read as Latin words but substituted by their English equivalents. e. g. (Lat exempli gratia) — for example;

Minor Types of Word Formation 6. BLENDING — is combining parts of two words to form one. — refer words consisting of shortened parts of two derivational bases: the first constituent part of a blend represents a base whose final part is curtailed, the second part of it is made of a base whose initial part is missing. smog = sm(oke) + (f)og. brunch = breakfast + lunch dancercise = dance + exercise.

Minor Types of Word Formation 7. BACK-FORMATION