COMPOUNDING

Definition: In morphology, compounding is the process of combining two words (free

morphemes) to create a new word (commonly a noun, verb, or adjective). The
morpheme which determines the category of the entire word is called the head. Also
called composition it is from the Latin for "put together".
Compounds are written sometimes as one word (sunglasses), sometimes as two
hyphenated words (life-threatening), and sometimes as two separate words (football
stadium).
Properties of Compounds:
Stress Test: Typically, a compound begins as a kind of cliché, two words that are
frequently found together, as are air cargo or light colored.
If the association persists, the two words often turn into a compound, sometimes with a
meaning that is simply the sum of the parts (light switch), sometimes with some sort of
figurative new sense (moonshine). We can be sure we have a compound when the
“primary stress moves forward; normally a modifier will be less heavily stressed than the
word it modifies, but in compounds the first element is always more heavily stressed."
Compounds (1st element generally stressed) versus non-compounds (2nd element
generally stressed):

COMPOUND WORD NON-COMPOUND EXPRESSION

Greenhouse ‘an indoor garden’ Green house ‘a house painted green

Blackboard ‘a chalkboard Black board ‘a board which is black’

Wetsuit ‘a diver’s costume’ Wet suit ‘a suit that is wet’

Distinguishing Features:"[In most compounds] the rightmost morpheme determines the

category of the entire word. Thus, greenhouse is a noun because its rightmost
component is a noun, spoonfeed is a verb because feed also belongs to this category,
and nationwide is an adjective just as wide is.
English orthography is not consistent in representing compounds, which are sometimes
written as single words, sometimes with an intervening hyphen, and sometimes as
separate words. In terms of pronunciation, however, there is an important generalization
to be made. In particular, adjective-noun compounds are characterized by a more
prominent stress on their first component.
"A second distinguishing feature of compounds in English is that tense and plural markers
cannot typically be attached to the first element, although they can be added to the

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compound as a whole. (There are some exceptions, however, such as passers-by and
parks supervisor.)"
Plurals of Compounds
Compounds generally follow the regular rule by adding the regular -s inflection to their
last element. "The following two compounds are exceptional in taking the inflection on the
first element:
 passer-by / passers-by
 listener-in / listeners-in
A few compounds ending in -ful usually take the plural inflection on the last element, but
have a less common plural with the inflection on the first element:
 Mouthful / mouthfuls or mouthsful
 Spoonful / spoonfuls or spoonsful
"Compounds ending in -in-law allow the plural either on the first element or (informally)
on the last element:
 sister-in-law / sisters-in-law or sister-in-laws"
TYPES OF COMPOUNDS
1.Compound Adjective: A compound adjective is made up of two or more words (such
as part-time and high-speed) that act as a single idea to modify a noun (a part-time
employee, a high-speed chase). Also called a phrasal adjective or a compound
modifier.
As a general rule, the words in a compound adjective are hyphenated when they come
before a noun (a well-known actor) but not when they come after (The actor is well
known). Also, compound adjectives formed with an adverb ending in -ly (such as rapidly
changing) are usually not hyphenated
2. Compound Adverb: In English morphology, a compound adverb is a construction in
which one adverb is paired with another adverb (or sometimes with another part of
speech). Together these words are used to modify a verb, an adjective, another adverb,
or an entire clause. Also called a compound modifier.
Compound adverbs are sometimes written as one word (e.g., somewhere), sometimes
as one hyphenated word (self-consciously), and sometimes as two words (inside out).
Multi-word adverbs are commonly called adverbial phrases.
3. Compound Noun: A compound noun (or nominal compound) is a construction made
up of two or more nouns that function as a single noun. With somewhat arbitrary spelling
rules, compound nouns can be written as separate words like tomato juice, as words
linked by hyphens like sister-in-law or as one word like schoolteacher.

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A compound noun whose form no longer clearly reveals its origin, such as bonfire or
marshall, is sometimes called an amalgamated compound; many place names (or
toponyms) are amalgamated compounds — for example, Norwich is the combination of
"north" and "village" while Sussex is a combination of "south" and "Saxons."
One interesting aspect of most compounds nouns is that one of the origin words is
syntactically dominant. This word, called the headword, grounds the word as a noun, such
as the word "chair" in the compound noun "easychair."
4. Compound Verb: A compound verb is made up of two or more words that function as
a single verb. Conventionally, verb compounds are written as either one word ("to
housesit") or two hyphenated words ("to water-proof"). Also called a compound (or
complex) predicate.
Similarly, a compound verb can be a phrasal verb or a prepositional verb that behaves
either lexically or syntactically as a single verb.
In such cases, a verb and its particle may be separated by other words ("drop the essay
off"). This structure is now more commonly known as a multi-word verb.
The term compound verb can also refer to a lexical verb along with its auxiliaries; in
traditional grammar, this is called a verb phrase.
5. Exocentric Compound: In morphology, an exocentric compound is a compound
construction that lacks a head word: that is, the construction as a whole is not
grammatically and/or semantically equivalent to either of its parts. Also called a headless
compound.
Linguist Valerie Adams illustrates exocentricity in this way: "The term exocentric
describes expressions in which no part seems to be of the same kind as the whole or to
be central to it. The noun change-over is exocentric, and so are 'verb-complement' noun
compounds like stop-gap, along with adjective + noun and noun + noun compounds like
air-head, paperback, lowlife.
6. Endocentric Compound: A type of compound in which one-member functions as the
head and the other as its modifier, attributing a property to the head. For example; The
English compound steamboat as compared with boat is a modified, expanded version of
boat with its range of usage restricted, so that steamboat will be found in basically the
same semantic contexts as the noun boat. The compound also retains the primary
syntactic features of boat, since both are nouns. Hence, a steamboat is a particular type
of boat.
Examples below are very striking differences between endocentric and exocentric
compounds where the head of the compound has an irregular plural.

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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)

Walkmans (a type of portable audio cassette

policemen 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.
7. Root Compound: In morphology, a root compound is a compound construction in
which the head element is not derived from a verb. Also called a primary compound or
an analytic compound.
Root compounds are made up of free morphemes, and the semantic relation between the
two elements in a root compound is not inherently restricted. Like coffee cup, towel rack
or laptop.
8. Rhyming Compound: The combination of two rhyming words (the second sometimes
a coinage for the purpose) to form one, as in hurry-skurry, popsy-wopsy. Rhyming
compounds include some evocative and useful compounds: creepy-crawly, dilly-dally,
fuddy-duddy.
9. Synthetic Compound: In morphology, a synthetic compound is a type of compound
that parallels a verbal construction, with the head derived from a verb and the other
element functioning as an object. Also known as a verbal compound. Contrast with root
compound. Synthetic compounding is a type of word formation in which compounding
and derivation are combined. Like deer hunting, sweet-smelling, peacekeeping.
10. Suspended Compound: A suspended compound is a set of compound nouns or
compound adjectives in which an element common to all members is not repeated. Also
called suspensive hyphenation.
A hyphen and a space follow the first element of a suspended compound. (A hyphen with
a space after it is called a hanging hyphen.) for instance; More than half of three- and
four-year-old children in the U.S. attend preschool.
11. Complex Compounds: It is possible to form a compound from two words one of
which is itself a compound. For example, we can combine the compound law degree with

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the word requirement to get the complex compound law degree requirement. This
compound can in turn be combined with changes to get law degree requirement changes.
12. Copulative Compounds: In copulative compounds the constituents refer to
properties of the same entity. For instance, a tuinman-chauffeur gardener-chauffeur is
someone who is both a gardener and a chauffeur or bittersweet, sleepwalk
13. Appositional Compounds: are lexemes that have two (contrary) attributes that
classify the compound, the meaning of which can be characterized as 'AS WELL AS'.
Example: player-coach means 'someone who is a player as well as a coach' or actor-
director, maidservant.