Ways of forming compound words И The classification of compound words according to their joining element

Ways of forming compound words

Compound words in English can be formed not only by means of composition but also by means of:

a) reduplication (total), e.g. too-too, bye-bye, clop-clop, tick-tick;

and also by means of reduplicatin combined with sound interchange (partial reduplication), e.g. rope-ripe, ping-pong, chit-chat, dilly-dally, flim-flam, knick-knack, scrip-scrap;

b)conversion from word-groups, e.g. to micky-mouse, can-do, makeup;

c)back formation from compound nouns or word-groups, e.g. to bloodtransfuse, to fingerprint;

d)analogy, e.g. lie-in (on the analogy with sit-in) and also phone-in, brawn-drain (on the analogy with brain-drain).

The classification of compound words according to their joining element

According to the way components are joined together compounds are divided into:

a)neutral, which are formed by joining together two stems without any joining morpheme, e.g. ball-point, to windowshop;

b)morphological where components are joined by a linking element: vowels «o» or «i» or the consonant «s», e.g. astrospace, handicraft, sportsman, Anglo-Saxon, Franco-Prussian, gasometer, electromotive, handicraft, statesman, spokesman, herdsman, bridesman, bridesmaid, crowsfeet, sportsman, saleswoman;

c)syntactical where the components are joined by means of form-word stems, e.g. here-and-now, free-for-all., do-or-die, forget-me-not, lily-of-the-valley, Jack-of-all-trades, good-for-nothing, man-of-war, pick-me-up, milk-and-water, tongue-in-cheek, mums-to-be, hit-or-miss, stay-at- home, know-all, know-nothing, passer-by, son-in-law, cool-to-the-touch, melt-in-the-mouth