COMPOUNDING
The combination of lexical categories called compounding. It
consists of nouns, adjectives, verbs, or prepositions. The morpheme
which determines the category of the entire word is called the head.
Examples:
a) Noun compounds
- greenhouse
- bluebird
- fire engine
- oil well
- overlook
- underestimate
- dropkick
- breakdance
- red hot
- deep blue
- sky blue
- nation wide
- dog food box
- baseball bat rack
Structure below is the combining of a simple word (debate) with the derived word abortion.
- abortion debate
Compounds are not consistent since they are written as single words, or with an intervening hyphen, or as separate word sometimes. There is an important generalization to be made in terms of pronunciation.
Compounds (1st element generally stressed) versus non-compounds (2nd element generally stressed):
COMPOUND
|
WORD
|
NON-COMPOUND
|
EXPRESSION
|
Greénhoùse | ‘an indoor garden’ | Greèn hoúse | ‘a house painted green |
Bláckboàrd | ‘a chalkboard | Blàck boárd | ‘a board which is black’ |
Wét suìt | ‘a diver’s costume’ | Wèt suít | ‘a suit that is wet’ |
- Tense on the 1st element in a compound à [dropped kick]
- Plural marking on the 1st element in a compound is usually disallowed
(there a few exceptions such as passers-by, parks supervisor and mothers-in-law)
Plural on the entire compound is the norm à [fox hunter]s ; [road map]s
An A-N compound can be identified with the help of a different test. As illustrated below, the A in a compound cannot be preceded by a word such as very.
- Compound with very à We live to a very [greenhouse].
- Very with adjective that isn’t part of compound à We live next to a very green fence.
Compounds are used to express a wide range of semantic relationships in English.
Some N-N compounds called endocentric:
EXAMPLE
|
MEANING
|
Steamboat | ‘a boat powered by steam’ |
Air hose | ‘a hose that carries air’ |
Fire truck | ‘a vehicle used to put out fires’ |
Fire drill | ‘a practice in the event of a fire’ |
Bath towel | ‘a towel used after bathing’ |
- Greenbottle = a fly of the genus lucilia (not a type of bottle)
- Redneck = an ultra-conservative; white working-class person (not a type of neck)
- Sugar-daddy = a woman’s lover who is deemed to be both overgenerous and much too old for her (not a type of sugar-coated father)
IN ENDOCENTRIC COMPOUNDS | IN EXOCENTRIC COMPOUNDS |
Oak leaves | Maple leafs (Toronto’s NHL hockey team) |
Wisdom teeth | Sabre tooths (extinct species of tiger) |
Club feet | Bigfoots (members of an extinct tiger species) |
policemen | Walkmans (a type of portable audio cassette player) |
The exocentric compounds permit the plural suffix –s for words such as leaf, tooth, foot, and man, though these forms require an irregular plural when used elsewhere in the language.
Compounds in other languages
The practice of combining lexical categories to build a word is very widespread. With the exception of Tagalog, in which compounds are left-headed, these languages all have compounds in which the rightmost element is the head. A special type of compounding process involves incorporation (combination of a word/a noun with a verb to form a compound verb).
EXERCISES
1) Infix : an affix that is inserted inside the word
Example –>
The infix or is characteristic of hip-hop slang:
- hizouse for house
- shiznit for shit
- Sophistimacated
- Saxomaphone
- Edumacation
- Picoline à pipecoline
- lutidine à lupetidine
- phenidine à phenetidine
- xanthoxylin à xanthoxyletin
- ungett-ABLE-at (something that one could not get at)
- passER=by (a person who was passing by)
- motherS-in-law (an alternative plural to “mother-in-laws).
Example –>
- It’s a big … big … dog.
- Bling-bling
- The town is very very crowded.
- Teeny weeny
- Okey-dokey
- Zig-zag
- Wee-wee
- Hocus-pocus
- Itsy-bitsy
- Walkie-talkie
Example –>
- The English article the, when unstressed and with a reduced vowel, is a proclitic (the house)
- “They love to dance” à “They love t’dance”
- d’habitude
- an apple
Examples –>
- Sing – sang
- Drive – drove
- Foot – feet
- Mouse – mice
- Tooth – teeth
- Geese – goose
- Man – men
- Break – broke – broken
- Sing – sang – sung
- Live – life
- Breath – breathe
- Prove – proof
Example –>
- Go – went – gone
- Is/are – was/were – been
- Good – better – best
- Bad – worse – worst
- Bovine – cow
References :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_%28linguistics%29
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