Unit 7

4.2 Compounding
　　Compounding, also called composition, is the formation of new words by joining two or more stems. Words formed in this way are called compounds. So a compound is a 'lexical unit consisting of more than one stem and functioning both grammatically and semantically as a single word'. Silkworm and honey-bee are compounds; so are tear gas and easy chair. These examples show that compounds can be written solid (silkworm), hyphenated (honey-bee) and open (tear gas and easy chair). As open compounds are the same in form as free phrases, what is the dividing line between them?
　　Solid: breakneck, flowerpot
　　Hyphenated: honey-bee, flower-pot
　　Open: easy chair, flower pot
　　●●● Characteristics
　　4.2.1 Characteristics of Compounds
　　Compounds differ from free phrases in the following three aspects.
　　1. Phonetic features. In compounds the word stress usually occurs on the first element whereas in noun phrases the second element is generally stressed if there is only one stress. In cases of two stresses, the compound has the primary stress on the first element and the secondary stress, if any, on the second whereas the opposite is true of free phrases, e.g.

　　But these stress patterns of compounds are not absolute. Sometimes, the primary stress may also fall on the second element as in ash-`blonde and bottle-`green as well as in bining-form compounds, socio-lin`guistic, psycho-a`nalysis. Therefore, this is not always reliable.
　　2. Semantic features. Compounds are different from free phrases in semantic unity. Every compound should express a single idea just as one word. For instance, a green hand is an 'inexperienced person', not a hand that is green in colour; red meat refers to 'beef' or 'lamb' rather than any meat that is red in colour; hot dog is by no means a dog that is hot, but a typical American sausage in between two pieces of bread. The meanings of such examples cannot be easily inferred from the two components of the compounds.
　　Nevertheless, a lot of compounds are transparent, that is the meaning can be inferred from the separate elements of compounds. Consider the following random examples: disaster-related, flower pot, washing machine, dumb show, scarlet fever and many others. But the two elements are inseparable and the change of the element would result in the loss of the original identity. Look at the following examples;
　　　　bird brain 　　　　black mail
　　　　hot potato 　　　　dog days
　　　　the youngest daughter
　　　　that white darkhorse
　　　　a bright darkroom

　　3. Grammatical features. A compound tends to play a single grammatical role in a sentence, for example, a verb, a noun, or an adjective. Bad-mouth used as a verb can take the third person singular -s and the past tense marker -ed, e.g. 'He bad-mouthed me.' Compound nouns show their plural forms by taking inflectional -s at the end, e.g. new-borns, three-year-olds, will-o'-the-wisps, major generals. Of course, there are exceptions such as brothers-in-law, lookers-on. In spite of this their single grammatical role is apparent.
　　　　

　　In adjective-noun compounds, the adjective element cannot take inflectional suffixes, for example:
　　　　

　　●●● Formation
　　4.2.2 Formation of Compounds
　　Compounding can take place within any of the word classes, e.g. prepositions as without, throughout; conjunctions as however, moreover; pronouns as oneself, somebody, but the productive ones are nouns and adjectives followed by verbs to a much lesser extent. Most compounds consist of only two stems but are formed on a rich variety of patterns and the internal grammatical relationships within the words are considerably complex. This section will focus on the three major classes of compounds.
　　1. Noun compounds

　　2. Adjective compounds
　　

　　Of these patterns, (1), (3) and (5) are very productive.

　　3. Verb compounds
　　Verb compounds are not as common as the other two classes. The limited number of verbs are created either through conversion or backformation (See Conversion and Backformation for details).

　　　　　　Through conversion
　　　　

　　　　　　Through backformation
　　　　

　　As shown by the examples, back-formed verb compounds are formed mainly by dropping the suffixes: -er, -ing, -ion, etc.
　　The discussion so far is restricted to two-stem compounds. There are many compounds which contain more than two stems. In fact, these are free phrases or idioms but are joined together by hyphens to form a single unit, for example, stay-at-home, forget-me-not, dog-in-the-manger. This probably accounts for the high productivity of compounding. When a word which is needed does not exist, all one has to do is choose an expression or even a sentence and hyphenate the words. This is the common practice of journalists and popular writers. In mass media we may often come across expressions like a pain-in-stomach gesture, ahead-of-schedule general election, too-eager-not-to-lose champion, a middle-of-the-road politician, and round-the-clock discussion.
　　　　Multistem words
　　　　stay-at-home
　　　　forget-me-not
　　　　dog-in-the-manger
　　　　pain-in-stomach gesture
　　　　ahead-of-schedule general election
　　　　too-eager-not-to-lose champion
　　　　a middle-of-the-road politician
　　　　round-the-clock discussion.
　　　　devil-may-care
　　　　twist-and-turn waist
　　　　paint-yourself-dress
　　A spirited discussion springs up between a young girl who says that women had outgrown the jumping-on-a-chair-at-the-sight-of-a-mouse era and a major who says that they haven't.