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Compound (linguistics)
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In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word-formation that creates compound lexemes (the other word-formation process being derivation). Compounding or Word-compounding refers to the faculty and device of language to form new words by combining or putting together old words. In other words, compound, compounding or word-compounding occurs when a person attaches two or more words together to make them work as one word.
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In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word-formation that creates compound lexemes (the other word-formation process being derivation). Compounding or Word-compounding refers to the faculty and device of language to form new words by combining or putting together old words. In other words, compound, compounding or word-compounding occurs when a person attaches two or more words together to make them work as one word. The meanings of the words interrelate in such a way that a new meaning comes out which is very different from the meanings of the words in isolation.
Colloquial or everyday examples of are fireman and hardware. Someone who believes that nothing he does has a good result might be called a never-go-well person. We combine the words never, go and well to form an adjectival compound. This process of birth and death of words is going on all the time.
Formation of compounds
Compound formation rules vary widely across language types.
In a more synthetic language, the relationship between the elements of a compound may be marked. For example, the German compound Kapitänspatent consists of the lexemes Kapitän 'sea captain' and Patent 'license' joined by an -s- (originally a genitive case marker); and similarly, the Latin lexeme paterfamilias contains the (archaic) genitive form familias of the lexeme familia 'family'. Conversely, in the Hebrew compound ????? ????? bet sefer "school", it is the head that is marked: the compound literally means "house-of book", with ?????? bayit "house" having entered the construct state to become ????? bet "house-of". (This latter pattern is common throughout the Semitic languages, though in some it is combined with an explicit genitive case, such that both parts of the compound are marked.)
Agglutinative languages tend to create very long words with derivational morphemes. Compounds may or may not require the use of derivational morphemes also. The well-known Japanese compound ?? kamikaze consists only of the nouns kami 'god, spirit' and kaze 'wind'.
The longest compounds in the world may be found in Finnish and Germanic languages, such as German. German examples include Kontaktlinsenverträglichkeitstest 'contact-lens compatibility test' and the jocular Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänsmütze 'Danube steamboat shipping company captain's hat'. A Finnish example is lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas, the longest actually used word in Finnish. In theory, even longer compounds are possible, but they are usually not found in actual discourse.
Compounds can be rather long when translating technical documents from English to, for example, Swedish. "Motion estimation search range settings" can be directly translated to rörelseuppskattningssökintervallsinställningar; the length of the word is theoretically unlimited.
Subclasses
Semantic classification
A common semantic classification of compounds yields four types:
- endocentric
- exocentric (also bahuvrihi)
- copulative (also dvandva)
- appositional
An endocentric compound consists of a head, i.e. the categorical part that contains the basic meaning of the whole compound, and modifiers, which restrict this meaning. For example, the English compound doghouse, where house is the head and dog is the modifier, is understood as a house intended for a dog. Endocentric compounds tend to be of the same part of speech (word class) as their head, as in the case of doghouse. (Such compounds were called karmadharaya in the Sanskrit tradition.)
Exocentric compounds (called a bahuvrihi compound in the Sanskrit tradition) do not have a head, and their meaning often cannot be transparently guessed from its constituent parts. For example, the English compound white-collar is neither a kind of collar nor a white thing. In an exocentric compound, the word class is determined lexically, disregarding the class of the constituents. For example, a must-have is not a verb but a noun. The meaning of this type of compound can be glossed as "(one) whose B is A", where B is the second element of the compound and A the first. A bahuvrihi compound is one whose nature is expressed by neither of the words: thus a white-collar person is neither white nor a collar (the collar's colour is a metaphor for socioeconomic status). Other English examples include barefoot and Blackbeard.
Copulative compounds are compounds which have two semantic heads.
Appositional compounds refer to lexemes that have two (contrary) attributes which classify the compound.
| Type | Description | Examples |
|---|
| endocentric | A+B denotes a special kind of B | darkroom, smalltalk | | exocentric | A+B denotes a special kind of an unexpressed semantic head | skinhead, paleface (head: 'person') | | copulative | A+B denotes 'the sum' of what A and B denote | bittersweet, sleepwalk | | appositional | A and B provide different descriptions for the same referent | actor-director, maidservant |
Formal classification
Noun-noun compounds
Most natural languages have compound nouns. The positioning of the language, i. e. the most common order of constituents in phrases where nouns are modified by adjectives, by possessors, by other nouns, etc. While Germanic languages, for example, are left-branching when it comes to noun phrases (the modifiers come before the head), the Romance languages are usually right-branching.
In French, compound nouns are often formed by left-hand heads with prepositional components inserted before the modifier, as in chemin-de-fer 'railway' lit. 'road of iron' and moulin à vent 'windmill', lit. 'mill (that works)-by-means-of wind'.
In Turkish, one way of forming compound nouns is as follows: yeldegirmeni ‘windmill’ (yel: wind, degirmen-i:mill-possessive); demiryolu 'railway'(demir: iron, yol-u: road-possessive).
Verb-noun compounds
A type of compound that is fairly common in the Indo-European languages is formed of a verb and its object, and in effect transforms a simple verbal clause into a noun.
In Spanish, for example, such compounds consist of a verb conjugated for third person singular, present tense, indicative mood followed by a noun (usually plural): e.g., rascacielos (modelled on "skyscraper", lit. 'scratches skies'), sacacorchos 'corkscrew', lit. 'removes corks'). These compounds are formally invariable in the plural (but in many cases they have been reanalyzed as plural forms, and a singular form has appeared). French and Italian have these same compounds with the noun in the singular form: Italian grattacielo 'skyscraper', French grille-pain 'toaster', lit. 'toasts bread', and torche-cul 'ass-wipe' (Rabelais: See his "propos torcheculatifs").
This construction exists in English, generally with the verb and noun both in uninflected form: examples are spoilsport, killjoy, breakfast, cutthroat, pickpocket, dreadnought, and know-nothing.
Also common in English is another type of verb-noun (or noun-verb) compound, in which an argument of the verb is incorporated into the verb, which is then usually turned into a gerund, such as breastfeeding, finger-pointing, etc. The noun is often an instrumental complement. From these gerunds new verbs can be made: (a mother) breastfeeds (a child) and from them new compounds mother-child breastfeeding, etc.
In the Australian Aboriginal language Jingulu, (a Pama-Nyungan language), it is claimed that all verbs are V+N compounds, such as "do a sleep", or "run a dive", and the language has only three basic verbs: do, make, and run.
A special kind of composition is incorporation, of which noun incorporation into a verbal root (as in English backstabbing, breastfeed, etc.) is most prevalent (see below).
Verb-verb compounds
Verb-verb compounds are sequences of more than one verb acting together to determine clause structure. They have two types:
- In a serial verb, two actions, often sequential, are expressed in a single clause. For example, Ewe tr? dzo, lit. "turn leave", means "turn and leave", and Hindi ???? ???? ja-kar dekh-o, lit. "go-CONJUNCTIVE PARTICIPLE see-IMPERATIVE", means "go and see". In each case, the two verbs together determine the semantics and argument structure.
Serial verb expressions in English may include What did you go and do that for?, or He just upped and left; this is however not quite a true compound since they are connected by a conjunction and the second missing arguments may be taken as a case of ellipsis.
- In a compound verb (or complex predicate), one of the verbs is the primary, and determines the primary semantics and also the argument structure. The secondary verb, often called a vector verb or explicator, provides fine distinctions, usually in temporality or aspect, and also carries the inflection (tense and/or agreement markers). The main verb usually appears in conjunctive participial (sometimes zero) form. For examples, Hindi ???? ??? nikal gaya, lit. "exit went", means 'went out', while ???? ???? nikal paRa, lit. "exit fell", means 'departed' or 'was blurted out'. In these examples ???? nikal is the primary verb, and ??? gaya and ???? paRa are the vector verbs. Similarly, in both English start reading and Japanese ????? yomihajimeru "start-CONJUNCTIVE-read" "start reading," the vector verbs start and ??? hajimeru "start" change according to tense, negation, and the like, while the main verbs reading and ?? yomi "reading" usually remain the same. An exception to this is the passive voice, in which both English and Japanese modify the main verb, i.e. start to be read and ?????? yomarehajimeru lit. "read-PASSIVE-(CONJUNCTIVE)-start" start to be read. With a few exceptions all compound verbs alternate with their simple counterparts. That is, removing the vector does not affect grammaticality at all nor the meaning very much: ????? nikala '(He) went out.' In a few languages both components of the compound verb can be finite forms: Kurukh kecc-ar ker-ar lit. "died-3pl went-3pl" '(They) died.'
- De rabia puso rompiendo la olla, 'In anger (he/she) smashed the pot.' (Lit. from anger put breaking the pot)
- Botaremos matándote 'We will kill you.' (Cf. Quichua huañuchi-shpa shitashun, lit. kill-CP throw.1plFut, ???? ?? ??? ??????? )
- Compound verb equivalents in English (examples from the internet):
- What did you go and do that for?
- If you are not giving away free information on your web site then a huge proportion of your business is just upping and leaving.
- Big Pig, she took and built herself a house out of brush.
- Caution: In descriptions of Persian and other Iranian languages the term 'compound verb' refers to noun-plus-verb compounds, not to the verb-verb compounds discussed here.
Compound adpositions
Compound prepositions formed by prepositions and nouns are common in English and the Romance languages (consider English on top of, Spanish encima de, etc.). Japanese shows the same pattern, except the word order is the opposite (with postpositions): no naka (lit. "of inside", i.e. "on the inside of").
Examples from different languages
Spanish:
- Ciencia-ficción 'science fiction': ciencia, 'science', + ficción, 'fiction' (This word is a calque from the English expression science fiction. In English, the head of a compound word is the last morpheme: science fiction. Conversely, the Spanish head is located at the front, so ciencia ficción sounds like a kind of fictional science rather than scientific fiction.)
- Ciempiés 'centipede': cien 'hundred', + pies 'feet'
- Ferrocarril 'railway': ferro 'iron', + carril 'lane'
Italian:
- Millepiedi 'centipede': mille 'thousand', + piedi 'feet'
- Ferrovia 'railway': ferro 'iron', + via 'way'
- Tergicristallo 'windscreen wiper': tergere 'to wash', + cristallo 'crystal, (pane of) glass'
German:
- Wolkenkratzer 'skyscraper': wolken 'clouds', + kratzer 'scraper'
- Eisenbahn 'railway': Eisen 'iron', + bahn 'track'
- Kraftfahrzeug 'automobile': Kraft 'power', + fahren/fahr 'drive', + zeug 'machinery'
- Stacheldraht 'barbed wire': stachel 'barb/barbed', + draht 'wire'
Finnish:
- sanakirja 'dictionary': sana 'word', + kirja 'book'
- tietokone 'computer': tieto 'knowledge, data', + kone 'machine'
- keskiviikko 'Wednesday': keski 'middle', + viikko 'week'
- maailma 'world': maa 'land', + ilma 'air'
Icelandic:
- járnbraut 'railway': járn 'iron', + braut 'path' or 'way'
- farartæki 'vehicle': farar 'journey', + tæki 'apparatus'
- alfræðiorðabók 'encyclopædia': al 'everything', + fræði 'study' or 'knowledge', + orða 'words', + bók 'book'
- símtal 'telephone conversation': sím 'telephone', + tal 'dialogue'
Japanese:
- ????(??) mezamashi(dokei) 'alarm clock': ? me 'eye' + ??? samashi (-zamashi) 'awakening (someone)' (+ ?? tokei (-dokei) clock)
- ????? okonomiyaki: ??? okonomi 'preference' + ?? yaki 'cooking'
- ??? higaeri 'day trip': ? hi 'day' + ?? kaeri (-gaeri) 'returning (home)'
- ????? kokkaigijido 'national diet building': ?? kokkai 'national diet' + ?? giji 'proceedings' + ? do 'hall'
Russian language
In the Russian language compounding is a common type of word formation, and several types of compounds exist, both in terms of compounded parts of speech and of the way of the formation of a compound.
Compound nouns may be agglutinative compounds, hyphenated compounds (stol-kniga 'folded table' lit. 'table-book', i.e., "book-like table"), or abbreviated compounds (portmanteaux: kolkhoz). Some compounds look like portmanteaux, while in fact they are an agglutinations of type stem + word: "Akademgorodok" (from "akademichesky gorodok" 'Academic Townlet', i.e., Academic Village). In agglutinative compound nouns, an agglutinating infix is typically used: parokhod 'steamship': par + o + khod. Compound nouns may be created as noun+noun, adjective+noun, noun+adjective (rare), noun+verb (or, rather, noun+verbal noun).
Compound adjectives may be formed either per se, e.g., "belo-rozovy" 'white-pink' or as a result of compounding during the derivation of an adjective from a multiword term: ????????????????? ???????? 'Stone Island Avenue', a street in St.Petersburg.
Reduplication in Russian language is also a source of compounds.
Quite a few Russian words are borrowed from other languages in an already compounded form, including numerous "classical compounds": "avtomobil" (automobile).
Germanic Languages
In Germanic languages, compound words are formed by prepending a descriptive word in front of the main word. A good example is "football"; it is a "ball" that has something to do with "foot". Each part may in turn be a compound word, so there is no problem making an arbitrary long word. This contrasts to Romance languages, where prepositions are more used to specify such word relationships instead of concatenating the words.
As a member of the Germanic family of languages, English is special in that compound words are usually written by separating them into their parts. Although English does not form compound nouns to the extent of Dutch or German, such constructions as "Girl Scout troop", "city council member", and "cellar door" are arguably compound nouns and used as such in speech. Writing them as separate words is merely an orthographic convention, possibly a result of influence from French.
A problem with splitting compound words like in English is that the separate parts may make sense as separate words, making it ambiguous. One example is "heavy weight lifter", which is either a "heavy weightlifter", or a "heavyweight-lifter", however the latter two forms are the non-English Germanic way of writing it: In Norwegian, it becomes "tung vektløfter" or "tungvektsløfter" respectively, notice that the interfix "s" replaces the hyphen, making it distinguishable in speech too. In addition, compounds are pronounced continuously as one word in at least German and north Germanic languages, whereas English pronunciation may reflect more the way it is written.
Recent trends
Although there is no universally agreed-upon guideline regarding the use of compound words in the English language, in recent decades written English has displayed a noticeable trend towards increased use of compounds. Moreover, the English way of compounding words is spreading to other languages: There is a trend in Scandinavian languages towards splitting compound words, known as word split error or English disease. Also, recently, many words have been made by taking syllables of words and compounding them, such as pixel (picture element) and bit (binary digit). This is called a syllabic abbreviation.
Types of compounds
Compounding by language
See also
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