Specific features of English, Uzbek and German Compounds
The open or spaced form consisting of newer combinations of usually longer, such as: distance learning, player piano, lawn tennis
The Criteria of Compounds
Motivation in Compound words
Verb + verb = сотиб олмоқ, чиқариб олмоқ, ютиб олмоқ
Compound words and free word groups
Diachronic approach to compound words
Навигация
The open or spaced form consisting of newer combinations of usually longer, such as: distance learning, player piano, lawn tennis
Comparative Analysis of the Compound Words
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3. The open or spaced form consisting of newer combinations of usually longer, such as: distance learning, player piano, lawn tennis.
In Uzbek there are also such kind of open compounds: стол тенниси, масофавий ўқитиш.
But German is far from this rule: All German compounds words are written together.
A compound word possesses a single semantic structure. The meaning of the compound is first of all derived from the combined lexical meanings of its components, which as a rule; retain their lexical meanings, although their semantic range becomes considerably narrowed. The lexical meanings of the components are closely fused together to create a new semantic unit with a new meaning that is not merely additive but dominates the individual meanings of the components. The semantic centre of the compound is found in the lexical meaning of the second component which is modified and restricted by the lexical meaning of the first, e.g. hand-bag is essentially 'a bag carried in the hand for money, papers, face-powder, etc.'; pencil-case is 'a case for pencils', etc.
The components are often stems of polysemantic words but there is no difficulty, as a rule, of defining which of the' multiple denotational meanings the stem retains in one or another compound word. Compound words with a common second component can serve as an illustration. Let us take words with a common second component, e.g. board-. Board- is the stem of a polysemantic word but it retains only one of its multiple denotational meanings in each compound word: in chess-board it retains the denotational meaning of ’a wooden slab', in pasteboard, cardboard it can be traced to the meaning of 'thick, stiff paper’, in overboard to 'a ship's side', in notice-board, foot-board, key-board to 'a flat piece of wood square or oblong'; in school-board to 'an authorized body of men1, in side-board, above-board to the meaning of 'table'. The same can be observed in words with a common first component, e.g. foot-, in foot-high, foot-wide the stem foot- retains the lexical meaning of 'measure'; in foot-print, foot-pump, foot-hold—'the terminal part of the leg'; in foot-path, foot-race the meaning of 'the way of motion'; in foot-note, foot-lights, foot-stone—the meaning of 'the lower part, base’. It is obvious from these examples that the meanings of the sterns of compound words are interdependent and in each case the stems retain only one lexical meaning and that the choice of the particular lexical meaning of each component is delimited, as in free word-groups, by the nature of the other member of the word.1 Thus we may say that the combination of stems serves as a kind of minimal context distinguishing the particular individual lexical meaning of each component.
Both components, besides their denotational and co notational meanings possess distributional and differential types of meaning typical of morphemes2 the differential meaning, found in both components especially comes to the fore in a group of compound words containing identical stems. In compound nouns eye-tooth—'a canine tooth of the upper jaw’, eye-lash—'the fringe of hair that edges the eyelid', eye-witness—'one who can bear witness from his own observation', eye-glasses—'a pair of lens used to assist defective sight', eye-sore—'an ugly or unpleasant thing to see', eye-strain—'weariness of the eye', etc, it is the differential meaning of the second components—tooth-, glasses-, witness-, etc. that brings forth -the different lexical meanings of the stem . eye- and serves as a distinguishing clue between these words. We observe a similar significance of the differential meaning for the choice of the lexical meaning of the other component in words with the identical second component. In compound words, e.g. wedding-ring, nose-ring, ear-ring, finger-ring, key-ring, circus-ring, prize-ring, etc., it is not only the denotational but mostly the differential meaning of nose-, ear-, finger-, etc. that distinguishes wedding-ring—'a ring worn constantly as a distinctive mark of a married woman' from ear-ring—'an ornament worn in the lobe of ear', key-ring — 'a ring for keeping keys on', circus-ring—'an arena in a circus' and prize-ring—'an enclosed area for fighting'.
Structural Meaning of the Pattern.
The lexical meanings of the components alone, important as they are, do not make the meaning of the compound word. The meaning of the compound is derived not only from the combined lexical meanings of its components, but also from the meaning signaled by the pattern of the order and arrangement of the stems.
A mere change in the order of stems with the same lexical meanings brings about a radical change in the lexical meaning of the compound word. For illustration let us compare lifeboat— 'a boat of special construction for saving lives front wrecks or along the coast' with boat-fife—'life on board the ship', a fruit-market — 'market where fruit is sold' with market-fruit—'fruit designed for selling', etc. Thus the structural pattern or the distributional formula in compound words carries a certain meaning which is independent of the actual lexical meanings of their components. In other words the lexical meaning of a compound is derived from the combined lexical meanings of its components and the structural meaning of the distributional formula.
The structural meaning of the distributional formulas of compounds may be abstracted and described through the interrelation of their components. In analyzing compound adjectives, e.g. duty-bound, wind-driven, tear-stained, we observe that the distributional formula they are built after, i.e. n+ved, conveys the generalized meaning of instrumental or agentive relations between the components which can be interpreted as 'done by' or 'with the help of something'; the denotational meanings of the stems supply the action itself and the actual doer of the action or objects with the help of which the action is done. Thus, duty-bound may be interpreted as 'bound by duty', wind-driven as 'driven by wind', smoke-filled as 'filled with smoke'. In this case the distributional formula is monosemantic, hence compound adjectives of this type would also be monosemantic and their lexical meanings would be derived from the structural meaning of the distributional formula and the combined meanings of the stems.
The distributional formula in compounds, however, is not always monosemantic; if we take compound adjectives like, e.g., age-long, world-wide, oil-rich, pleasure-tired, etc. built after n+a formula, we shall see that the generalized meaning of the structure itself may be interpreted in two ways: (a) through relations of comparison between the components as in world-wide—'wide as the world', snow-white, knee-high, etc. and (b) through various relations of adverbial type as in oil-rich that can be interpreted as 'rich in oil', pleasure-tired—'tired of pleasure', colour-blind—'blind to colors’, etc. Compound nouns, consisting of two simple noun-stems (n+n) are most polysemantic in structure. The polisemy of the structure often leads to a certain freedom of interpretation of the semantic relations between the components. For example, it is equally correct to interpret the compound noun toy-man as 'a toy in the shape of a man' or 'a man who makes toys, a toy-maker'. The compound noun clock-tower may likewise be understood as 'a tower with a clock fitted in’ or 'a tower that serves as a clock'. Other examples to illustrate the polisemy of the distributional formula and the variety of semantic relations that can be read into the same structure1 are pontoon-bridge which may be interpreted as 'a bridge supported by pontoons, a bridge made of pontoons, pontoons in the form of a bridge, bridge for pontoons'. Witch doctor may mean 'a doctor who is a witch', 'a person whose business it is to detect or smell out witches, a doctor who witches'. The illustrations may be easily multiplied, but the given examples are sufficient proof that the polisemy of compound words is the result of the polisemy of the structure and not the polysemantic character of individual components.
Chapter II
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