RESUMEN “LA FORMACIÓN DE PALABRAS

COMPUESTAS EN INGLÉS Y EN ESPAÑOL”

GIULIO MONGELLI

Any language is naturally bound to widen its world of expression to describe reality
accordingly to the passage of time and to the changes reality undergoes periodically :
when required by circumstances, languages are asked to create new expressions to
point to things or notions originally absent in their lexicon and – in order to do that –
they look for new acquisition and words formation methods.
The following essay shows how one language molds new words by using the linguistic
elements of the language itself and it touches on a specific procedure amid all the
procedures used in linguistics: composition.
Before analyzing composition, it is our understanding that languages are functionally
different so certain procedures could be less successful in some languages than in
others in concordance with the typological characteristics of the language: the English
language is an isolating and analytical language, whereas the Spanish one is syntactic
and fusional language.
Words formation in the English language is dependent on monomorphism and,
contrary to that, the Spanish language employs several morphems suggesting various
lexical and grammar meanings. Basically, composition differs according to the
language itself: in the English language it refers to how two or more morphems join
together to create a new word intended as a free lexical item; in Spanish composition
is responsible for compounds (as in English) but most of times the first morphem
seems different from the one used in the single form.
However, creating new words is not as easy as it seems since it is required also to
assess whether the compound is an actual new word, if it conveys a new semantic
meaning. There are specific criteria responding to this problem.
The morphological criterion shows certain elements are indivisible and, concurrently,
the unit is a free lexical unit: in Spanish the phonetic modification of the first element
prevails on the relationship between the elements (like in the English language). (i.e in
English craftsman; in Spanish agridulce)
By using the syntactic criterion, we assess the nature of compounds through syntactic
modifications related to one of the separate elements: if the outcome has grammatical
nature, the item is a new one. (i.e in English darkroom or very dark room; in Spanish
limpiabotas or limpiabotas negras)
The phonological criterion stresses out the relevance of tonic syllables and how to
pronounce them, but the criterion is still not comprehensive because some elements
can still be pronounced as if they were free morphems. (i.e in English bláckboard; in
Spanish mediodía)
The graphic criterion underlines the space between elements: if we write words by
using hyphens, by leaving space or by join words, we will produce different outcomes
but ortography changes accordingly to the authors and to the time they write. (i.e in
the English language headmaster, head master and head-master and in Spanish
lexicosintáctico or léxico-sintáctico)
Last but not least, the semantic criterion is the most comprehensive method to
determine the nature of the compound - and by doing so - it demonstrates whether it
has a different meaning from the elements’ one (if taken separately). All these criteria
can be of help to establish the nature of compounds only if they are used together, not
distinctly.
Alongside the meaning of compounds, we should take into account the kind of
semantic relation between elements, something which seems to be difficult to analyse
sometimes. Time could be a vital factor to determine it because if we create a new
word, we struggle to give a name to a notion, to give a form to a concept: the problem
is that time is not a linear variable but it should be studied only if correlated to other
factors such as the frequency of the term used or how close, in terms of meaning, the
compound is to the gist we are trying to describe.
Linguistics provides also a classification of compounds according to their nature and
compound nouns clearly stand out among all.
Compound nouns are combinations of free morphems whose main structure is not
fixed and they may serve as substantives. The relationship linking the morphems lies
in the distinction between the head of the compound and the modifier: the meaning of
a compound noun is a specialization of the meaning of its head whilst the modifier
limits the meaning of the head.
The position of the head is susceptible to the word order and to the focus of the
language itself (in the English language the head follows the modifier, in Spanish most
of times it is quite the opposite).The head and the modifier are not always so easy to
spot because speakers may avoid refer to them directly. The modifier may or may not
be omitted: if the modifier is simply implicit, the compound name is said exocentric; if
it is not, the compound name is said endocentric.
Here are a list of all the possible compound names:
1 Name – Name (this type of compound is more common in English, it could be
used in Spanish but it could be difficult to understand what is referring to whom)
i.e maidservant naranjapiña
2 Gerundive form– Name (it does not exist in Spanish, the gerundive form has a
noun function without losing its verb function completely)
i.e swimming pool
3 Name – Gerundive form (it does not exist in Spanish, this time the gerundive
form is affected by a name)
i.e book-keeping
 4 Verb – Name (in both Spanish and English, the compound is used differently:
Spanish verbs have always the transitive form and are conjugated, whilst in English
the verb is intransitive and by doing so giving to the compound an endocentric aspect)
i.e rattlesnake aguasfiesta
5 Adjective – Name (common structure in both languages but only in Spanish
the adjective can be posed either before or after a name, in Spanish this combination
is usually exocentric, whilst in English it could be endocentric or exocentric)
i.e blackboard malacara
6 Adverb – Name (more common in English than in Spanish, the adverb has
almost an adjectival function related to time, place and modality)
i.e under-dog
7 Verb – Adverb (impossible to find in Spanish since no verbs could be followed
by an adverbial particle ,it is usually exocentric)
i.e kick-off
8 compound names using prepositions (it is more common in Spanish due to
the higher number of prepositions, each preposition in Spanish conveys a different
shade of meaning but by making sentences more unstable or extravagant, these
compound names are usually relegated to informal language
i.e cuartopollo pateplancha
9 adjective- preposition – name (it is used in Spanish and it is introduced by the
preposition de relating to area or field the subject may deal with)
i.e muertoehambre
10 preposition – name
i.e sobrecama
11 compound name using conjunctions
i.e buchipluma bread-and-butter
12 verb- conjuction-verb
i.e rock- and-roll entrisale
13 adjective- adjective (the compound is made of two adjectives, it may undergo
a phonetic modification, it is more common in Spanish)
i.e durofrío
14 adverb-adjective (used for exocentric compounds referring to plants in
Spanish)
i.e sempreviva
15 compound adjective (they serve as adjectives morphologically and
syntactically speaking)
They are divided into:
 a) Name-adjective
b) Adjective- adjective
c) Adjective (or adverb) – present participle
d) Adjective (or adverb) – past participle
e) Name – present participle
f) Name – past participle
16 verb compound (they serve as verbs morphologically and syntactically
speaking)
A) Name (or adjective) – verb
B) Name- verb
C) Adverb- verb
17 adverbial compound ( they are rare in both languages, in Spanish the suffix –
mente should not be intended as free lexical unit because it has lost its original
semantic value as for the suffix –ly in the English language)
i.e head-on bocarriba