In this connection it should be stressed that Modern English nouns (in the Common Case, Sg.) as has been universally recognized possess an attributive function in which they are regularly used to form numerous nominal phrases as, e. g. peace years, stone steps, government office, etc. Such variable nominal phrases are semantically fully derivable from the meanings of the two nouns and are based on the homogeneous attributive semantic relations unlike compound words. This system of nominal phrases exists side by side with the specific and numerous class of nominal compounds which as a rule carry an additional semantic component not found in phrases.
It is also important to stress that these two classes of vocabulary units — compound words and free phrases — are not only opposed but also stand in close correlative relations to each other.
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. The semantic peculiarity of the derivational bases and the semantic difference between the base and the stem on which the latter is built is most obvious in compound words. Compound words with a common second or first component can serve as illustrations. The stem of the word board is polysemantic and its multiple meanings serve as different derivational bases, each with its own selective range for the semantic features of the other component, each forming a separate set of compound words, based on specific derivative relations. Thus the base board meaning ‘a flat piece of wood square or oblong’ makes a set of compounds chess-board, notice-board, key-board, diving-board, foot-board, sign-board; compounds paste-board, cardboard are built on the base meaning ‘thick, stiff paper’; the base board– meaning ‘an authorized body of men’, forms compounds school-board, board-room. The same can be observed in words built on the polysemantic stem of the word foot. For example, the base foot– in foot-print, foot-pump, foothold, foot-bath, foot-wear has the meaning of ‘the terminal part of the leg’, in foot-note, foot-lights, foot-stone the base foot– has the meaning of ‘the lower part’, and in foot-high, foot-wide, footrule — ‘measure of length’. It is obvious from the above-given examples that the meanings of the bases of compound words are interdependent and that the choice of each is delimited as in variable word-groups by the nature of the other IC of the word. It thus may well be said that the combination of bases serves as a kind of minimal inner context distinguishing the particular individual lexical meaning of each component. In this connection we should also remember the significance of the differential meaning found in both components which becomes especially obvious in a set of compounds containing identical bases.
Compound words can be described from different points of view and consequently may be classified according to different principles. They may be viewed from the point of view:
(1) of general relationship and degree of semantic independence of components;
(2) of the parts of speech compound words represent;
(3) of the means of composition used to link the two ICs together;
(4) of the type of ICs that are brought together to form a compound;
(5) of the correlative relations with the system of free word-groups.
From the point of view of degree of semantic independence there are two types of relationship between the ICs of compound words that are generally recognized in linguistic literature: the relations of coordination and subordination, and accordingly compound words fall into two classes: coordinative compounds (often termed copulative or additive) and subordinative (often termed determinative).
In coordinative compounds the two ICs are semantically equally important as in fighter-bomber, oak-tree, girl-friend, Anglo-American. The constituent bases belong to the same class and той often to the same semantic group. Coordinative compounds make up a comparatively small group of words. Coordinative compounds fall into three groups:
a) Reduplicative compounds which are made up by the repetition of the same base as in goody-goody, fifty-fifty, hush-hush, pooh-pooh. They are all only partially motivated.
b) Compounds formed by joining the phonically variated rhythmic twin forms which either alliterate with the same initial consonant but vary the vowels as in chit-chat, zigzag, sing-song, or rhyme by varying the initial consonants as in clap-trap, a walky-talky, helter-skelter. This subgroup stands very much apart. It is very often referred to pseudo-compounds and considered by some linguists irrelevant to productive word-formation owing to the doubtful morphemic status of their components. The constituent members of compound words of this subgroup are in most cases unique, carry very vague or no lexical meaning of their own, are not found as stems of independently functioning words. They are motivated mainly through the rhythmic doubling of fanciful sound-clusters.
Coordinative compounds of both subgroups (a, b) are mostly restricted to the colloquial layer, are marked by a heavy emotive charge and possess a very small degree of productivity.
c) The bases of additive compounds such as a queen-bee, an actor-manager, unlike the compound words of the first two subgroups, are built on stems of the independently functioning words of the same part of speech. These bases often semantically stand in the genus-species relations. They denote a person or an object that is two things at the same time. A secretary-stenographer is thus a person who is both a stenographer and a secretary, a bed-sitting-room (a bed-sitter) is both a bed-room and a sitting-room at the same time. Among additive compounds there is a specific subgroup of compound adjectives one of ICs of which is a bound root-morpheme. This group is limited to the names of nationalities such as Sino-Japanese, Anglo-Saxon, Afro-Asian, etc.
Additive compounds of this group are mostly fully motivated but have a very limited degree of productivity.
However it must be stressed that though the distinction between coordinative and subordinative compounds is generally made, it is open to doubt and there is no hard and fast border-line between them. On the contrary, the border-line is rather vague. It often happens that one and the same compound may with equal right be interpreted either way — as a coordinative or a subordinative compound, e. g. a woman-doctor may be understood as ‘a woman who is at the same time a doctor’ or there can be traced a difference of importance between the components and it may be primarily felt to be ‘a doctor who happens to be a woman’ (also a mother-goose, a clock-tower).
In 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.
Functionally compounds are viewed as words of different parts of speech. It is the head-member of the compound, i.e. its second IC that is indicative of the grammatical and lexical category the compound word belongs to.
Compound words are found in all parts of speech, but the bulk of compounds are nouns and adjectives. Each part of speech is characterized by its set of derivational patterns and their semantic variants. Compound adverbs, pronouns and connectives are represented by an insignificant number of words, e. g. somewhere, somebody, inside, upright, otherwise moreover, elsewhere, by means of, etc. No new compounds are coined on this pattern. Compound pronouns and adverbs built on the repeating first and second IC like body, ever, thing make closed sets of words
| SOME | + | BODY |
| ANY | THING | |
| EVERY | ONE | |
| NO | WHERE |
On the whole composition is not productive either for adverbs, pronouns or for connectives.
Verbs are of special interest. There is a small group of compound verbs made up of the combination of verbal and adverbial stems that language retains from earlier stages, e. g. to bypass, to inlay, to offset. This type according to some authors, is no longer productive and is rarely found in new compounds.
There are many polymorphic verbs that are represented by morphemic sequences of two root-morphemes, like to weekend, to gooseflesh, to spring-clean, but derivationally they are all words of secondary derivation in which the existing compound nouns only serve as bases for derivation. They are often termed pseudo-compound verbs. Such polymorphic verbs are presented by two groups:
(1) verbs formed by means of conversion from the stems of compound nouns as in to spotlight from a spotlight, to sidetrack from a side-track, to handcuff from handcuffs, to blacklist from a blacklist, to pinpoint from a pin-point;
(2) verbs formed by back-derivation from the stems of compound nouns, e. g. to baby-sit from a baby-sitter, to playact from play-acting, to housekeep from house-keeping, to spring-clean from spring-cleaning.
From the point of view of the means by which the components are joined together, compound words may be classified into:
(1) Words formed by merely placing one constituent after another in a definite order which thus is indicative of both the semantic value and the morphological unity of the compound, e. g. rain-driven, house-dog, pot-pie (as opposed to dog-house, pie-pot). This means of linking the components is typical of the majority of Modern English compounds in all parts of speech.
As to the order of components, subordinative compounds are often classified as:
a) asyntactic compounds in which the order of bases runs counter to the order in which the motivating words can be brought together under the rules of syntax of the language. For example, in variable phrases adjectives cannot be modified by preceding adjectives and noun modifiers are not placed before participles or adjectives, yet this kind of asyntactic arrangement is typical of compounds, e. g. red-hot, bluish-black, pale-blue, rain-driven, oil-rich. The asyntactic order is typical of the majority of Modern English compound words;
b) syntactic compounds whose components are placed in the order that resembles the order of words in free phrases arranged according to the rules of syntax of Modern English. The order of the components in compounds like blue-bell, mad-doctor, blacklist ( a + n ) reminds one of the order and arrangement of the corresponding words in phrases a blue bell, a mad doctor, a black list ( A + N ), the order of compounds of the type door-handle, day-time, spring-lock ( n + n ) resembles the order of words in nominal phrases with attributive function of the first noun ( N + N ), e. g. spring time, stone steps, peace movement.
(2) 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, for example, speedometer, tragicomic, statesman. Compounds of this type can be both nouns and adjectives, subordinative and additive but are rather few in number since they are considerably restricted by the nature of their components. The additive compound adjectives linked with the help of the vowel [ou] are limited to the names of nationalities and represent a specific group with a bound root for the first component, e. g. Sino-Japanese, Afro-Asian, Anglo-Saxon.
In subordinative adjectives and nouns the productive linking element is also [ou] and compound words of the type are most productive for scientific terms. The main peculiarity of compounds of the type is that their constituents are nonassimilated bound roots borrowed mainly from classical languages, e. g. electro-dynamic, filmography, technophobia, videophone, sociolinguistics, videodisc.
A small group of compound nouns may also be joined with the help of linking consonant [s/z], as in sportsman, landsman, saleswoman, bridesmaid. This small group of words is restricted by the second component which is, as a rule, one of the three bases man–, woman–, people–. The commonest of them is man–.
Compounds may be also classified according to the nature of the bases and the interconnection with other ways of word-formation into the so-called compounds proper and derivational compounds.
Compounds proper are formed by joining together bases built on the stems or on the word-forms of independently functioning words with or without the help of special linking element such as doorstep, age-long, baby-sitter, looking-glass, street-fighting, handiwork, sportsman. Compounds proper constitute the bulk of English compounds in all parts of speech, they include both subordinative and coordinative classes, productive and non-productive patterns.
Derivational compounds, e. g. long-legged, three-cornered, a break-down, a pickpocket differ from compounds proper in the nature of bases and their second IC. The two ICs of the compound long-legged — ‘having long legs’ — are the suffix –ed meaning ‘having’ and the base built on a free word-group long legs whose member words lose their grammatical independence, and are reduced to a single component of the word, a derivational base. Any other segmentation of such words, say into long– and legged– is impossible because firstly, adjectives like *legged do not exist in Modern English and secondly, because it would contradict the lexical meaning of these words. The derivational adjectival suffix –ed converts this newly formed base into a word. It can be graphically represented as long legs - [ (long–leg) + –ed] - long–legged. The suffix –ed becomes the grammatically and semantically dominant component of the word, its head-member. It imparts its part-of-speech meaning and its lexical meaning thus making an adjective that may be semantically interpreted as ‘with (or having) what is denoted by the motivating word-group’. Comparison of the pattern of compounds proper like baby-sitter, pen-holder
[ n + ( v + –er ) ] with the pattern of derivational compounds like long-legged [ (a + n) + –ed ] reveals the difference: derivational compounds are formed by a derivational means, a suffix in case if words of the long-legged type, which is applied to a base that each time is formed anew on a free word-group and is not recurrent in any other type if words. It follows that strictly speaking words of this type should be treated as pseudo-compounds or as a special group of derivatives. They are habitually referred to derivational compounds because of the peculiarity of their derivational bases which are felt as built by composition, i.e. by bringing together the stems of the member-words of a phrase which lose their independence in the process. The word itself, e. g. long-legged, is built by the application of the suffix, i.e. by derivation and thus may be described as a suffixal derivative.