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COMPOSITION

Composition is the way of wordbuilding when a word is formed by joining
two or more stems to form one word. The structural unity of a compound
word depends upon : a) the unity of stress, b) solid or hyphonated
spelling, c) semantic unity, d) unity of morphological and syntactical
functioning. These are charachteristic features of compound words in all
languages. For English compounds some of these factors are not very
reliable. As a rule English compounds have one uniting stress (usually on
the first component), e.g. hard-cover, best-seller. We can also have a
double stress in an English compound, with the main stress on the first
component and with a secondary stress on the second component, e.g. blood-
vessel. The third pattern of stresses is two level stresses, e.g. snow-
white,sky-blue. The third pattern is easily mixed up with word-groups
unless they have solid or hyphonated spelling.
Spelling in English compounds is not very reliable as well because they
can have different spelling even in the same text, e.g. war-ship, blood-
vessel can be spelt through a hyphen and also with a break, iinsofar,
underfoot can be spelt solidly and with a break. All the more so that there
has appeared in Modern English a special type of compound words which are
called block compounds, they have one uniting stress but are spelt with a
break, e.g. air piracy, cargo module, coin change, pinguin suit etc.
The semantic unity of a compound word is often very strong. In such cases
we have idiomatic compounds where the meaning of the whole is not a sum of
meanings of its components, e.g. to ghostwrite, skinhead, brain-drain etc.
In nonidiomatic compounds semantic unity is not strong, e. g., airbus, to
bloodtransfuse, astrodynamics etc.
English compounds have the unity of morphological and syntactical
functioning. They are used in a sentence as one part of it and only one
component changes grammatically, e.g. These girls are chatter-boxes.
«Chatter-boxes» is a predicative in the sentence and only the second
component changes grammatically.
There are two characteristic features of English compounds:
a) Both components in an English compound are free stems, that is they
can be used as words with a distinctive meaning of their own. The sound
pattern will be the same except for the stresses, e.g. «a green-house» and
«a green house». Whereas for example in Russian compounds the stems are
bound morphemes, as a rule.
b) English compounds have a two-stem pattern, with the exception of
compound words which have form-word stems in their structure, e.g. middle-
of-the-road, off-the-record, up-and-doing etc. The two-stem pattern
distinguishes English compounds from German ones.

WAYS OF FORMING COMPOUND WORDS.
Compound words in English can be formed not only by means of composition
but also by means of :
a) reduplication, e.g. too-too, and also by means of reduplicatin
combined with sound interchange , e.g. rope-ripe,
b) conversion from word-groups, e.g. to micky-mouse, can-do, makeup etc,
c) back formation from compound nouns or word-groups, e.g. to
bloodtransfuse, to fingerprint etc ,
d) analogy, e.g. lie-in ( on the analogy with sit-in) and also phone-in,
brawn-drain (on the analogy with brain-drain) etc.


CLASSIFICATIONS OF ENGLISH COMPOUNDS

1. According to the parts of speech compounds are subdivided into:
a) nouns, such as : baby-moon, globe-trotter,
b) adjectives, such as : free-for-all, power-happy,
c) verbs, such as : to honey-moon, to baby-sit, to henpeck,
d) adverbs, such as: downdeep, headfirst,
e) prepositions, such as: into, within,
f) numerals, such as : fifty-five.

2. According to the way components are joined together compounds are
divided into:
a) neutral, which are formed by joining together two stems without any
joining morpheme, e.g. ball-point, to windowshop,
b) morphological where components are joined by a linking element :
vowels «o» or «i» or the consonant «s», e.g. {«astrospace», «handicraft»,
«sportsman»),
c) syntactical where the components are joined by means of form-word
stems, e.g. here-and-now, free-for-all., do-or-die .

3. According to their structure compounds are subdivided into:

a) compound words proper which consist of two stems, e.g. to job-hunt,
train-sick, go-go, tip-top ,

b) derivational compounds, where besides the stems we have affixes, e.g.
ear-minded, hydro-skimmer,

c) compound words consisting of three or more stems, e.g. cornflower-
blue, eggshell-thin, singer-songwriter,

d) compound-shortened words, e.g. boatel, tourmobile, VJ-day, motocross,
intervision, Eurodollar, Camford.

4. According to the relations between the components compound words are
subdivided into :



a) subordinative compounds where one of the components is the semantic
and the structural centre and the second component is subordinate; these
subordinative relations can be different:

with comparative relations, e.g. honey-sweet, eggshell-thin, with
limiting relations, e.g. breast-high, knee-deep, with emphatic relations,
e.g. dog-cheap, with objective relations, e.g. gold-rich, with cause
relations, e.g. love-sick, with space relations, e.g. top-heavy, with time
relations, e.g. spring-fresh, with subjective relations, e.g. foot-sore etc

b) coordinative compounds where both components are semantically
independent. Here belong such compounds when one person (object) has two
functions, e.g. secretary-stenographer, woman-doctor, Oxbridge etc. Such
compounds are called additive. This group includes also compounds formed by
means of reduplication, e.g. fifty-fifty, no-no, and also compounds formed
with the help of rhythmic stems (reduplication combined with sound
interchange) e.g. criss-cross, walkie-talkie.

5. According to the order of the components compounds are divided into
compounds with direct order, e.g. kill-joy, and compounds with indirect
order, e.g. nuclear-free, rope-ripe .


CONVERSION


Conversion is a characteristic feature of the English word-building
system. It is also called affixless derivation or zero-suffixation. The
term «conversion» first appeared in the book by Henry Sweet «New English
Grammar» in 1891. Conversion is treated differently by different
scientists, e.g. prof. A.I. Smirntitsky treats conversion as a
morphological way of forming words when one part of speech is formed from
another part of speech by changing its paradigm, e.g. to form the verb «to
dial» from the noun «dial» we change the paradigm of the noun (a
dial,dials) for the paradigm of a regular verb (I dial, he dials, dialed,
dialing). A. Marchand in his book «The Categories and Types of Present-day
English» treats conversion as a morphological-syntactical word-building
because we have not only the change of the paradigm, but also the change of
the syntactic function, e.g. I need some good paper for my room. (The noun
«paper» is an object in the sentence). I paper my room every year. (The
verb «paper» is the predicate in the sentence).
Conversion is the main way of forming verbs in Modern English. Verbs can
be formed from nouns of different semantic groups and have different
meanings because of that, e.g.
a) verbs have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting
parts of a human body e.g. to eye, to finger, to elbow, to shoulder etc.
They have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting
tools, machines, instruments, weapons, e.g. to hammer, to machine-gun, to
rifle, to nail,
b) verbs can denote an action characteristic of the living being denoted
by the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to crowd, to wolf,
to ape,
c) verbs can denote acquisition, addition or deprivation if they are
formed from nouns denoting an object, e.g. to fish, to dust, to peel, to
paper,
d) verbs can denote an action performed at the place denoted by the noun
from which they have been converted, e.g. to park, to garage, to bottle, to
corner, to pocket,
e) verbs can denote an action performed at the time denoted by the noun
from which they have been converted e.g. to winter, to week-end .
Verbs can be also converted from adjectives, in such cases they denote
the change of the state, e.g. to tame (to become or make tame) , to clean,
to slim etc.
Nouns can also be formed by means of conversion from verbs. Converted
nouns can denote:
a) instant of an action e.g. a jump, a move,
b) process or state e.g. sleep, walk,
c) agent of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been
converted, e.g. a help, a flirt, a scold ,
d) object or result of the action expressed by the verb from which the
noun has been converted, e.g. a burn, a find, a purchase,
e) place of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been
converted, e.g. a drive, a stop, a walk.
Many nouns converted from verbs can be used only in the Singular form and
denote momentaneous actions. In such cases we have partial conversion. Such
deverbal nouns are often used with such verbs as : to have, to get, to take
etc., e.g. to have a try, to give a push, to take a swim .