14. Compounding

Compounding: This type of word-building, in which new words are produced by combining two or more stems, is one of the three most productive types in Modern English, the other two are conversion and affixation. Compounds, though certainly fewer in quantity than derived or root words, still represent one of the most typical and specific features of English word-structure.

Compounds, on the one hand, are generally clearly distinguished from free word-groups, on the other hand they borderline between them display close ties and it’s sometimes difficult to identity where is a compound word and where is a word phrase. So there are some criteria which are used to differentiate them: phonetic criterion, morphological, semantic and graphic.

Phоnetiсallу compounds are marked by a specific structure of their own. No phonemic changes of bases occur in composition but the compound word acquires a new stress pattern, different from the stress in the motivating words (key, hole = keyhole, each possess their own stress but when the stems of these words are brought together to make up a new compound word the latter is given a different stress pattern). Compound words have three stress patterns:

a) a high or unity stress on the first component as in ‘honeymoon, doorway, etc.

b) a double stress, with a primary stress on the first component and a weaker, secondary stress on the second component, e.g. ´blood-`vessel, ´mad-`doctor.

It is not infrequent, however, for both iCs to have level stress as in, e.G., ‘arm-'chair, ‘icy-'cold, ‘grass-'green, etc.

Graphically most compounds have two types of spelling — they are spelt either solidly or with a hyphen. It is true that hyphenated spelling by itself may be sometimes misleading, as it may be used in word-groups to emphasise their phraseological character as in e.g. daughter-in-law, man-of-war, brother-in-arms. The two types of spelling typical of compounds and this makes the problem of distinguishing between compound words and word-groups especially difficult.

Semantically compound words are generally motivated units. The meaning of the compound is first of all derived from the’ combined lexical meanings of its components. In compound words semantic relations between the base and the stem on which the word is built is more obvious.

Morphologically compound words are characterised by the specific order and arrangement in which bases follow one another. The order in which the two bases are placed within a compound is rigidly fixed in Modern English and it is the second IC that makes the head-member of the word, i.e. its structural and semantic centre. The head-member is of basic importance as it ‘preconditions both the lexico-grammatical and semantic features of the first component.

The meaning of the compound is derived not only from the combined lexical meanings of its components, but also from the meaning signalled by the patterns of the order and arrangement of its ICs. The semantic centre of the compound is the lexical meaning of the second component modified and restricted by the meaning of the first.

There are different classifications of compound words:

From the point of view of degree of semantic independence: coordinative compounds – the two ICs are semantically equally important (oak-tree, girl-friend, Anglo-American); and 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 IC. The second IC thus is the semantically and grammatically dominant part of the word, which preconditions the part-of-speech meaning of the whole compound as in stone-deaf, age-long which are obviously adjectives, a wrist-watch, road-building, a baby-sitter which are nouns.

From part of speech they form: compound words are found in all parts of speech, but the bulk of compounds are nouns and adjectives. Each part of speech is characterised by its set of derivational patterns and their semantic variants.

From the point of view of the means by which the components are joined together compound words may be classified into: words formed by merely placing one constituent after another in a definite order; compound words whose ICs are joined together with a special linking-element — the linking vowels [ou] and occasionally [i] and the linking consonant [s/z] — which is indicative of composition as in, e.g., speedometer, tragicomic, statesman;

Compounds may be also classified according to the nature of the bases: Compounds proper are formed by joining together bases built on the stems. Derivational compounds, e.g. long-legged, three-cornered, a break-down, a pickpocket, those that have derivational affixes in their structure – blue-eyed, golden-haired, film-goer, lady-killer).

4) The description of compound words through the correlation with variable word-groups makes it possible to classify them into four major classes: adjectival-nominal (snow-white, age-long, care-free), verbal-nominal (office-management, price-reduction, wage-cut, hand-shake), nominal (windmill, horse-race, pencil-case) and verb-adverb compounds (break-down, runaway, castaway).

15. Abbreviation.

Shortening is a comparatively new way of word-building, which has achieved a high degree of productivity nowadays, especially in American English.

Shortenings are produced in two different ways:

To make a new word from a syllable of the original word. The word may lose its beginning (phone – from telephone, fence – from defence) , it’s ending (hols – for holidays, vac – for vacation, props – for properties, ad – from advertisement) or both the beginning and the ending (flu – from influenza, fridge – from refrigerator).

To make a new word from the initial letters of a word group: a) If the abbreviated written form tends itself to be read as though it were an ordinary English word and sounds like an English word, it will be read like one. The words thus formed are called acronyms,U.N.O. ['ju:neu] from the United Nations Organisation, NATO — the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, SALT—Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.

b) The other subgroup consists of initial abbreviation with the alphabetical reading retained, i.e. pronounced as a series of letters. B.B.C. from the British Broadcasting Corporation, M.P. from Member of Parliament. This type is called initial shortenings. They are found not only among formal words, such as the ones above, but also among colloquialisms and slang. So, g. f. is a shortened word made from the compound girl-friend.

Both types of shortenings are characteristic of informal speech in general and of uncultivated speech particularly. Here are some more examples of informal shortenings: Movie (from moving-picture), gent (from gentleman), specs (from spectacles), exhibish (from exhibition), posish (from position), Billery (Bill+Hillery).

Sound Imitation (onomatopoeia - [onemaete'pie]).

Such words are made by imitating different kinds of sounds that may be produced by animals, birds, insects, human beings and inanimate objects.

It is of some interest that sounds produced by the same kind of animal are frequently represented by quite different sound groups in different languages. For instance, English dogs bark (cf. the R. лаять). The English cock cries cock-a-doodle-doo (cf. the R. ку-ка-ре-ку). Semantically, according to the source of sound, onomatopoeic words fall into a few very definite groups. Many verbs denote sounds produced by human beings in the process of communication or in expressing their feelings: babble, chatter, giggle, grunt, grumble, murmur, mutter, titter, whine, whisper and many more. Then there are sounds produced by animals, birds and insects, e.g. buzz, cackle, croak, crow, hiss, honk, howl, moo, mew, neigh, purr, roar and others. Some birds are named after the sound they make, these are the crow, the cuckoo, the whippoor-will and a few others. Besides the verbs imitating the sound of water such as bubble or splash, there are others imitating the noise of metallic things: clink, tinkle, or forceful motion: clash, crash, whack, whip, whisk, etc.

Reduplication.

In reduplication new words are made by doubling a stem, either without any phonetic changes as in bye-bye (coll, for good-bye) or with a variation of the root-vowel or consonant as in ping-pong, chit-chat (this second type is called gradational reduplication). Stylistically speaking, most words made by reduplication represent informal groups: colloquialisms and slang. E. g. walkie-talkie ("a portable radio"), riff-raff ("the worthless or disreputable element of society"; "the dregs of society"), chi-chi (sl. for chic as in a chi-chi girl).

Back formation.

The earliest examples of this type of word-building are the verb to beg that was made from the French borrowing beggar, to burgle from burglar, to cobble from cobbler. In all these cases the verb was made from the noun by subtracting what was mistakenly associated with the English suffix -er. So, in the case of the verbs to beg, to burgle, to cobble the process was reversed: instead of a noun made from a verb by affixation (as in painter from to paint), a verb was produced from a noun by subtraction. That is why this type of word-building received the name of back-formation or reversion.

Later examples of back-formation are to butle from butler, to baby-sit from baby-sitter, to force-land from forced landing, to blood-transfuse from blood-transfuing.

Sound interchange.Sound interchange may be defined as an opposition in which words or word forms are differentiated due to an alternation in the phonemic composition of the root. The change may affect the root vowel, as in food n : : feed v; or root consonant as in speak v : : speech n; or both, as for instance in life n : : live v. It may also be combined with affixation: strong a : : strength n; or with affixation and shift of stress as in 'democrat : : de'mocracy.

The type is not productive. No new words are formed in this way, yet sound interchange still stays in the language serving to distinguish one long-established word from another. Synchronically, it differentiated parts of speech, i.e. it may signal the non-identity of words belonging to different parts of speech: full a : : fill v; food n : : feed v; or to different lexico-grammatical sets within the same part of speech: fall intransitive v : : fell causative v; compare also lie : : lay, sit : : set, rise : : raise.