Compound words and free word groups

2.4 Compound words and free word groups

Compound words as inseparable vocabulary units are on the one hand clearly distinguished from free word-groups by a combination of their specific stress pattern, spelling and their distributional formulas. On the other hand, compound words in Modern English lie astride the border between words and word-groups and display many features common to word-groups, thus revealing close lies and parallelism with the system of free phrases.1 The linguistic analysis of extensive language data proves that there exists a rigid correlation between the system of free phrases and all types of subordinative compounds. The correlation embraces both the structure and the meaning of compound words and seems to be the pivot point of the entire system of productive present-day English composition. The analysis of the structural and semantic correlation between compound words and free word-groups enables us to find the features most relevant to composition and set e system o; ordered rules for productive formulas after which an infinite number of new compounds constantly appear in the language.

Structural Correlation.

There is a correlation and parallelism between the structure of subordinative compound words and corresponding phrases, which manifests it in the morphological character of the components. Compound words are generally made up of the stems of those parts of speech that form the corresponding free word-groups. The stem of the central member or she head2 of the word-group becomes the structural and semantic centre of the compound, i.e. its second component. e.g. heart-sick, is made up of the stems of "the noun' heart and adjective sick which form the corresponding phrase sick at heart, with the adjective sick for its head; man-made consists of the stems of the words that make the corresponding phrase made by man; door-handle similarly corresponds to the handle of the door, clasp-knife to the knife that clasps, etc. In all these cases the stem of the head-member of the word-group, in our case sick-, made-, handle- becomes the structural centre of the corresponding compound, i.e. its second component.

The order of the stems coincides with the word-order in word-groups only in the case of syntactic compounds, such as, e.g., blackboard, mad-doctor, pickpocket, tell-tale, etc., in which the structural centre takes the same place as the head of corresponding word-groups.

In compounds each part of speech correlates only with certain structural types of phrases. For example, productive compound adjectives reveal correlation mostly with adjectival-nominal word-groups,1 i.e. word-groups whose heads are adjectives (or Numerals and Participles) of the type A+prp+N, V_ed+ by/with+N, with+A+N, e.g, adjectives oil-rich, heart-sick correspond to word-groups rich in oil, sick at heart (i.e., n+a→A+prp+N); duty-bound, smoke-filled to bound by duty, filled with smoke (i.e., n+ved+Ved+by/with+N); low-ceilinged to with a low ceiling {[(a+n) +ed] →with+A+N}. Productive compound nouns correlate mostly with nominal word-groups (consisting of two nouns), verbal-nominal and verb-adverb word-groups, e.g.. Moonlight, diving-suit, correspond to the light of the moon, a suit for diving" (i.e. n+n→N+prp+N): proof-reader, peace-fighting to (to) read proofs, (to) fight for peace (i.e., n+nv→V+N, V+prp+N), etc. So it follows that the distributional formulas of compound words in each part of speech are circumscribed by the structure of correlated word-groups.

Semantic Correlation.

Semantically, the relations between the components of a compound mirror the semantic relations between the member-words in correlated word-groups. The semantic relations established between the components, for example, in compound adjectives built after n+ved formula, e.g. duty-bound, snow-covered are circumscribed by the instrumental relations typical of the members of correlated word-groups of the type Ved + by /with+N regardless of the actual lexical meanings of the stems; compound adjectives of the (a+n)+ed pattern like long-legged, straight-backed mirror possessive relations found between words in correlated word-groups of the with+A+N type, e.g. with long legs, with a straight back; compound nouns built after the pattern n+(v+-er)—letter-writer, bottle-opener, traffic-controller display agentive semantic relations typical of word-groups 'one who writes letters'; 'the thing that opens bottles' built after the general formula N that V+N.

Structural and semantic correlation by no means implies a one-to-one correspondence of each individual pattern of compound words to one word-group formula or pattern. For example the n+nv formula of compound nouns comprises different patterns such as [n+(v+-er)] rocket-flyer, bottle- opener, cover-shooter, [n+(v+-ing] street-fighting, rocket-flying, cover-shooting; both patterns correlate in the final analysis with verbal-nominal word-groups of one formula—V+N or V+prp+N,e.g. to flyrockets, to fight in the streets, to shoot from a cover. However, the reverse relationship is not uncommon, e;g. one distributional formula of compound adjectives (n+a) in words like age-long, sky-high, colour
blind corresponds to a variety of individual word-group patterns which differ in the grammatical and semantic relations between member-words expressed by the preposition, thus, compounds journey-tired, girl-shy, oil-rich, world-wide correspond to tired of journey (A+of+N), shy before girls (A+before+N); rich in oil (A+in+N);wide as the world (A+as+N). Nominal compound made up of two simple noun-stems (n+n) may serve, as another example of the semantic correlation between formulas of compound nouns with a variety of individual patterns of nominal word-groups. Compound nouns like doorstep, hand-bag, handcuffs incorporate manifold semantic relations found between member-words of various patterns of the general formula of word-groups N+prp+N. Nominal compounds appear to express freely in a concise form what can be expressed only in a more elaborate and complicated periphrastic way by word-groups. "It should be remembered that the semantic relations in some cases may be interpreted differently.

Even the few examples given as illustration lead us to the conclusion that the structure of compound words, as a rule, is more concise and of much wider semantic range than the structure of correlated word-groups due to the fact that compound words do not require any elaborates way to express the relationship between their components except their order. Therefore compound words which establish regular correlative relations with word-groups are on the one hand motivated and on the other hand serve as patterns, or sets of structural and semantic rules guiding the spontaneous formation of new compound words. Consequently motivation and regular semantic and structural correlation between compound words and word-groups may be regarded as factors which arc most conducive to high productivity of compound words. It is natural that formulas which do not establish such regular correlative" relations and which result in compound words characterized by lack or very low degree of motivation, must he regarded as unproductive, for example, compound nouns built after a+n formula, e. g. blackbird, bluebell, mad-doctor, etc., are marked by lack of motivation or high degree of idiomaticity, hence the formula a+n for compound nouns is unproductive for Modern English.

Chapter V

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