WORD-FORMATION PATTERNS : WORD-COMPOSITION

Criteria of Compounds.

Word-composition or compounding of words is the process of creating new words of at least two stems which occur in the language as free forms. As English compounds consist of free forms, it is difficult to distinguish them from phrases [ top dog (a phrase) - a person occupying foremost place and underdog (a word) - a person who has the worst of an encounter ]. But some criteria help us to differentiate them.

The basic criterion for distinguishing phrases from compound words is the combination of phonological, morphological, graphic and syntactic criteria. Phonetically compound words are marked by three stress patterns: a unity stress (‘keyhole is different from ‘key, ‘hole; ‘greenhouse is different from ‘green ‘house; ‘honeymoon, ‘doorway), a double stress (‘washing-ma,chine), and a level stress (‘ arm-‘char). Morphologically compounds have the same meanings and reference but they stand in different relations to the grammatical system of the language (shipwreck and (the) wreck (of)(a) ship). Graphically most compounds have two types of spelling: solid (wartime) or with a hyphen (war-time) whereas words in phrases are written separately. The syntactical criteria is based on comparing the compound and the phrase when we can put an intensifying word, for instance, very before the phrase(very black bird - blackbird). If a compound is characterised by all three criteria, it is called a classical compound, but such cases are rather rare, so it is sometimes still difficult to draw a distinction between a compound and a phrase.

Derivational patterns in compound words may be monosemantic and polysemantic in which case they are based on different semantic relations between the components [the base foot in foot-wear, foot-bath, foot-pump has the meaning of «the terminal of the leg», in foot-lights, foot-stone - «the lower part»; in foot-high, foot-wide - «measure of length» ]. The meaning of compound words is derived from the combined lexical meanings of the components and the meaning of derivational structure [see the examples above, as well as boat-life - «life on board of ship» and life-boat «a boat of special construction for saving lives from wrecks or along the coast» ].

Classification of Compounds.

Classification of compounds is based on some features.

First of all they may be classified according to the type of composition that permits the following groups. Compounds of the first subgroup are mainly formed by joining one stem to another by means of apposition [ raincoat ]. The second subgroup comprises compounds with a vowel or a consonant as a linking element [ hand i work, state s man, etc. ] where the first elements are bound forms; this group is not characteristic of English compounds. Compounds of the third subgroup are those linking elements of which are prepositions, or conjunctions [ man-of-war, pepper-and-salt, stick-in-the-mud ].

According to the structure of the immediate constituents they fall into 1) compounds consisting of simple stems [ filmstar ]; 2) compounds, where at least one of the elements is the derived stem [ chainsmoker ]; 3) compounds where one of the constituents is a compound stem [ wastepaper-basket ]; 4) compounds where at least one element is a clipped stem [ mathsmistress ].

Semantically compounds may by divided into i diomatic and non-idiomatic. In non-idiomatic compounds the meaning of each component is retained [ sky-blue, bedroom, sunlight ]; there compounds may be easily transformed into free phrases [ airmail - mail conveyed by air ]. In idiomatic compounds we can hardly deduce the meaning of a compound from the meanings of the components, as one of this meanings is either lost, or weakened [ a nightcap - «a drink taking before going to bed»].

According to the degree of semantic interdependence of components they are divided into coordinative [ reduplicativ e - fifty-fifty, phonical - walkie-talkie, additive - a queen-bee, Anglo-Saxon, Afro-Asian ]and subordinative, mostly used nowadays, which are based on the domination of the head-member which is, as a rule, the second member [ stone-deaf, a baby-sitter ], but it should be born in mind, that among compounds of this type there are so-called exocentric compounds having no semantic centre [ make-believe: притворство; cutthroat: убийство ].

Functionally compounds a viewed as words of different parts of speech. To take into consideration the word-formation of the compounds, we speak of them as of words of secondary derivation; they are formed either by means of conversion [ to blackball ], or by back derivation [ to baby-sit - baby-sitter ].

According to the type of bases compounds are divided into compounds proper [ door-step, sportsman ] and derivational compounds [ adjectives - long-legged, doll-faced, broad-minded and nouns - a break-down, a lay-out ].

According to the structural-semantic correlation with free phrases compounds are grouped in adjectival-nominal compound adjectives (snow-white, care-free, state-owned, long-legged, one-sided, doll-faced); as well asverbal-nominal (bottle-opener, rocket-flying, wage-cut), verb-adverb (a break-down, a runaway) and nominal (wind-mill, pencil-box) compound nouns.