Compounding in modern English

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Словосложение в современном английском языке

1. Peculiarities of compound words in English. Compounding or word-composition is one of the productive types of word-formation in Modern English. Compound words (or compounds) are defined as indivisible lexical units made up of at least two elements which are both derivational bases: week-end, sugar-basin, snowdrift, tea-pot, fountain-pen, sunset etc.

English compounds possess certain structural, phonetic, graphic and semantic peculiarities which distinguish them from other groups and classes of lexical units. Structurally compound words are characterized by the specific order and arrangement of derivational bases. In Modern English the order of the derivational bases is rigidly fixed. As a rule the second element of a compound word makes its structural and semantic centre, this fact is proved by the existence of compound words with identical constituent elements which differ in their meanings due to the different arrangement of the derivational bases. Compare the following pairs of compound words:

pond-fish - прудовая рыба fish-pond - рыбоводный пруд

flower-garden - цветник garden-flower - садовый цветок

fruit-market - фруктовый рынок market-fruit - фрукты для продажи

The second aspect of compound words is phonetic. Phonetically compounds have three stress patterns: high stress, double stress and level stress. Compound words which follow the first stress pattern are pronounced with one stress falling on the first derivational base:

doorway, keyhole, hothouse, honeymoon, snow-drift etc.

Double-stress pattern is ascribed to the compound words pronounced with a primary stress on the first element and a secondary stress on the second element:

washing-machine, blood-vessel, mad-doctor, vacuum-cleaner, woman-driver

Level-stress pattern is to be observed in the words with two equally important (primary) stresses on both elements:

emerald-green, icy-cold, easy-chair etc.

Graphically most compounds have two types of spelling - solid and hyphenated:

wartime and war-time, moneylender and money-lender

There also exists the third type of spelling - with a break:

blood-poisoning and blood poisoning, money-order and money order

In this case we are faced by the problem of distinguishing free phrases and compound words. Considering this problem it would be helpful to remember that free phrases, unlike compound words, are not fixed in dictionaries. Besides, compound words are usually more complicated semantically than free phrases. For example the meaning of the free phrase “a castle builder” is deducible from the meanings of both elements - “a person who builds castles”, whereas the meaning of the compound word “a castle-builder” can be described as figurative - “a person who is day-dreaming, who has plans and hopes that are unlikely to be realized”. Such transfiguration of meaning testifies to the fact of its semantic complexity in comparison with the above-mentioned free phrase.

2. Motivation of compound words. It should be noted that on the semantic level compound words are generally motivated units, i.e. the meaning of the compound word is first of all derived from the combined lexical meanings of its components. At the same time it must not be forgotten that derivational bases may realize different meanings of a root morpheme or different meanings of homonymous words. Thus the derivational base “foot-“ in the nouns “foot-print” (след), “foot-fall” (звук шагов), “foot-race” (состязание в беге), “foot-path” (тропинка, тротуар) realizes the meaning “the terminal part of the leg”, while the base “foot-“ in such words as “foot-note” (сноска, примечание), “foot-lights” (рампа) has the meaning “the lower part of something”.

Homonymous derivational bases can be exemplified by the nouns “chess-board” (шахматная доска), “notice-board” (доска объявлений) and “key-board” (доска для ключей) in which the derivational base “-board” has the meaning “a flat piece of wood”, however in such nouns as “school-board” (школьный совет), “church-board” (церковный совет) the meaning of the derivational base “-board” can be defined as “ an authorized body of men”. So “board 1” and “board 2” are homonyms.

Though the lexical meanings of derivational bases are important in forming the meaning of a compound word, there is still another factor which contributes to the meaning of compounds: the structural meaning of the pattern by which a compound word is built. As it has been mentioned above, positional changes of constituent derivational bases within a compound word result in change of meaning. Thus the meaning of the noun “life-boat” is defined as “ a boat for saving lives from wrecks or along the coast” while the noun “boat-life” means “life on board the ship”. Consequently we can make a conclusion that the lexical meaning of a compound word is derived from combined lexical meanings of its components and the structural meaning of the derivational pattern.

The majority of compound words in English are completely motivated, their meanings are transparent and can be easily understood through the meanings of their components. Here are some examples:

sleep-walker (лунатик), guide-book (путеводитель), fox-fur (мех лисы),

alarm-bell (набатный колокол), guide-dog (поводырь-собака)

Some compound words are partially motivated due to the fact that one of the derivational bases is used in its direct meaning but the meaning of the second derivational base is figurative (transferred):

frogman (водолаз, ныряльщик с аквалангом), mouth-friend (мнимый друг, друг на словах), snake-story (невероятная история, охотничий рассказ)

Compound words may altogether lack motivation. In such cases the meanings of compounds are obscure and cannot be deduced from the meanings of their constituent parts:

eye-wash - something said or done to deceive a person

a poison-pen - a person who writes anonymous letters

a lion-heart - a brave person

fiddlesticks - nonsense, rubbish

In all the examples given above there is no obvious connection between the meaning of the compound word and lexical meanings of the derivational bases.

3. Classification of compounds. Another aspect of compound words which needs special attention is the problem of their classification. English compounds may be classified according to several principles. From the point of view of degree of semantic independence of their constituents compound words fall into two large classes: coordinative and subordinative compounds (сложные слова с сочинительной и подчинительной связью компонентов). In coordinative compounds the constituent elements are equally important, for example: oak-tree, boy-friend, Anglo-American, woman-doctor. On the contrary, 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 element of the word: dark-blue, wrist-watch, road-building, baby-sitter etc.

Coordinative compounds in their turn are further subdivided into several types. The first group of coordinative compounds includes the words made up by the repetition of the same derivational base: goody-goody (ханжеский, ханжа), fifty-fifty (равный), hush-hush (тайный). Compounds belonging to the second group are formed by joining phonetically variated twin bases. Such words often possess certain emotional or stylistic colouring:

hodge-podge (derogatory) - odds and ends, their mixture

namby-pamby (ironical) - sentimental, sensitive

wing-ding (American jargon) - a fit of rage, ado, quarrel, row

fiddle-faddle (colloquial) - nonsense, small talk, chatter

fuddy-duddy (colloquial) - a fussy and old-fashioned person

Coordinative compounds referring to the third group are built on stems of words of the same part of speech. They usually denote a person or an object that is two things at the same time:

a secretary-stenographer - both a secretary and a stenographer

a woman-doctor - both a woman and a doctor

a bed-sitting-room - both a bedroom and a sitting-room

Compound words may be also classified according to their part-of-speech meaning. Compounds are found in all parts of speech, but the bulk of English compounds are nouns and adjectives. Compound adverbs and pronouns make closed sets of words: somebody, something, someone, somewhere; anybody, anything, anyone, anywhere; everybody, everything, everyone, everywhere; nobody, nothing, no one, nowhere. Verbs present a special interest. There is a small group of compound verbs made up of the combination of verbal and adverbial stems:

to bypass (обходить) - from “to pass by”

to inlay (делать инкрустацию) - from “to lay in”

Another group is represented by verbs built from compound nouns by conversion, so having the morphological structure of compound words they actually refer to conversions (if we take into account only the last step of derivation):

to spotlight (осветить прожектором, поставить в центре внимания) - from “a spotlight” (прожектор)

to blacklist (вносить в чёрный список) - from “a blacklist” (чёрный список)

The third principle of classifying compound words is structural. Compounds are not homogeneous in their structure. Usually three structural types of compound words are distinguished: neutral type, morphological type and syntactic type.

The neutral type is highly productive in Modern English, here belong compound words which are formed by joining their component parts without any linking elements:

bedroom, sunflower, shop-window, raindrop, sunrise, flower-bed etc.

The neutral type is represented by compound words of several groups: compounds proper, derivational compounds and shortened compounds. The above-mentioned examples illustrate the group of compounds proper; as for derivational compounds, they result from two word-formation processes which are going on simultaneously - word-composition and affixation or word-composition and conversion. In the case of word composition and affixation two derivational bases are brought together and at the same time a derivational affix is added to the second base:

broad-shouldered - from “with broad shoulders”

early-riser - from “to rise early”

long-legged - from “with long legs”

However, words of this type should not be confused with those built by pure compounding on the basis of two stems one of which is derived and thus has a derivational affix in its structure:

music-lover - from “music + lover”

theatre-goer - from “theatre + goer”

When both word-composition and conversion are at work the resulting word is shifted to another part of speech in addition to acquiring the properties of a compound lexical unit:

a break-down (развал, разруха, упадок) - from “to break down”

a kill-joy (брюзга) - from “to kill joy”

Shortened compounds differ from compounds proper and derivational compounds in that they have a shortened base in their structure:

a TV-set, a TV-programme, V-day (victory day), H-bomb (hydrogen bomb),

M-day (mobilization day) etc.

The morphological type is not productive in the English language. Within this type the new words are formed by joining the derivational bases with the help of a linking element - a vowel or a consonant:

Anglo-Saxon, craftsman, statesman, sportsman, handiwork etc.

The syntactic type is represented by compound words which are built from syntactic word-groups retaining many traces of syntagmatic relations (i.e. articles, prepositions, adverbs and peculiar arrangement of derivational bases). The outer structure of these words reminds of a sentence or its fragment:

lily-of-the-valley - ландыш, merry-go-round - карусель, Jack-of-all-trades - мастер на все руки, go-between - посредник, know-all - всезнайка, good-for-nothing - бесполезный, around-the-clock - круглосуточный, go-as-you-please - свободный от правил, неограниченный, hue-and-cry - крики «держи», «лови», jack-in-the-box - шкатулка с выскакивающей фигуркой, half-and-halfer - ни то ни сё, ни рыба ни мясо

Syntactic compounds are highly productive in English which is proved by the existence of nonce-words (occasional words):

Randy managed to weave through a maze of one-way-streets, no-left-turns and no-stopping-zones.

You go down to the department of motor vehicles tomorrow and take your behind-the-wheel-test.

4. Compound words and free phrases. Linguistic analysis of extensive language material proves that there exists a regular correlation between the system of free phrases on the one hand and all types of compound words on the other hand. This correlation embraces both the structure and the meaning of compounds. The structural correlation manifests itself in the morphological character of components and the arrangement of the derivational bases. The derivational bases in compound words may be built only on the stems of those parts of speech which can form corresponding free phrases. The head member of the free phrase becomes the head member of the compound:

a sword-fish - a fish like a sword; a country-club - a club in the country;

a bottle-neck - the neck of the bottle; a wind-mill - a mill worked by the wind;

oil-rich - rich in oil; snow-covered - covered with snow

Semantically, relations between the components of a compound word reflect the semantic relations between the words of a free phrase:

a story-teller - one who tells stories; a music-lover - one who loves music;

a theatre-goer - one who goes to the theatre

In the given examples both compound words and corresponding free phrases express agentive relations. At the same time the correlation of a compound word and a free phrase should not be understood as a binding condition for every free phrase to have a corresponding compound. It is only a potential possibility of expressing one thought (or one notion) by different means: either by a compound or a free phrase.

Summary. Compound words are made up of two ICs, both of which are derivational bases. The structural and semantic centre of a compound is its second IC which determines the part of speech the compound belongs to and its lexical class. Phonetically compound words are marked by three stress patterns - high stress, double stress and level stress. The first two are the commonest stress patterns in compounds. Graphically as a rule compounds are marked by three types of spelling - solid spelling, hyphenated spelling and spelling with a break.

The meaning of compound words is derived from the combined lexical meanings of their components and the meaning of the derivational pattern. Compound words may be described from different angles: according to the degree of semantic and structural independence of their components; according to the parts of speech they belong to; according to the means by which their components are joined together.

There is 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.

word linguistic homonymous derivation

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