The criterion of a compound

What is the criterion of a compound? Many scholars have claimed that a compound is determined by the underlying concept, others have advocated stress, some even seek the solution of the problem in spelling. [...] H. Koziol holds that the criterion of a compound is a psychological unity of a combination, adding that there "seems to be" a difference of intonation between a compound and a syntactic group which it is, however, difficult to describe. […]

Stress also has been advocated as a criterion. "Wherever we hear lesser or least stress upon a word which would always show high stress in a phrase, we describe it as a compound member: ice-cream 'ajs-'krıjm is a compound, but ice cream 'ajs'krıjm is a phrase, although there is no denotative difference of meaning." [...]...Bally defines the compound as a syntagma expressive of a single idea. Jespersen also introduces the criterion of concept and rejects Bloomfield's criterion of stress. [...] As for the criterion of stress, we shall see that it holds for certain types only.

That spelling is no help in solving the problem I will add for the sake of completeness only. A perusal of the book Compounding in the English Language, which is a painstaking investigation into the spelling variants of dictionaries and newspapers, shows the complete lack of uniformity. The fact that a compound-member cannot serve as a constituent in a syntactic construction is no criterion of a compound. Bloomfield argues that "the word black in the phrase black birds can be modified by very (very black birds),but not so the compound-member black in black-birds ". This argument holds for phrases as well. We could not modify the first elements of black market, Black Sea by very, yet the phrases are not compounds, as they do not enter the stress type of blackbird. [...]This is correct, but neither can we split up the group black market which is a double stressed syntactic group with a specified meaning.

For a combination to be a compound there is one condition to be fulfilled: the compound must be morphologically isolated from a parallel syntactic group. [...] Blackbird has the morpho-phonemic stress pattern of a compound, black market has not, despite its phrasal meaning; the latter therefore is a syntactic group, morphologically speaking. Stress isa criterion here. The same distinction keeps apart the types stronghold and long wait, the types sharpshooter and good rider, the types bull's-eye and razor's edge, the types writing-table and folding door.

On the other hand, there are many combinations with double stress which are undoubtedly compounds. Most combinations with participles as second-words belong here: easy-going, high-born, man-made. We have already pointed out their synthetic character. Being determined by first-words which syntactically could not be their modifiers, they must be considered compounds. The type grass-green has two heavy stresses, but again the criterion is that an adjective cannot syntactically be modified by a preceding substantive (the corresponding syntactic construction would be green as grass). The adjectival type icy-cold is isolated in that syntactically the modifier of an adjective can only be an adverb. The corresponding coordinative type German-Russian (war) is likewise morphologically distinct. The corresponding syntactic construction would be typified by long, grey (beard), with a pause between long and grey, whereas the combination German-Russian is marked by the absence of such a pause.

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