as, e. g. school-mastership ([n + n] + suf), ex-housewife (prf + [n +
n]), to weekend, to spotlight ([n + n] + conversion).
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) a high or unity stress on the first component as in 'honeymoon,
'doorway, etc.
b) a double stress, with a primary stress on the first component and a
weaker, secondary stress on the second component, e. g. 'blood-
?vessel, 'mad-?doctor, 'washing-?machine, etc.
c) 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 the n+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 break[25]. 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 class 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.
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.
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:
1) of general relationship and degree of semantic independence of
components;
2) of the parts of speech compound words represent;
3) of the means of composition used to link the two ICs together;
4) of the type of ICs that are brought together to form a compound;
5) 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:
a) Reduplicative compounds which are made up by the repetition of the
same base as in goody-goody, fifty-fifty, hush-hush, pooh-pooh. They
are all only partially motivated.
b) Compounds formed by joining the phonically variated rhythmic twin
forms which either alliterate with the same initial consonant but vary
the vowels as in chit-chat, 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
