Compounding.

Compounding is the process of making new words by combining several stems. This is the most productive of word-formation. Compounding or word-compositionis is one of the productive types of word-formation in Modern English. Composition like all other ways of deriving words has its own peculiarities as to the means used, the nature of bases and their distribution, as to the range of application, the scope of seman­tic classes and the factors conducive to pro­ductivity. There are tree aspects of Compounding:

Structural aspect.Structurally we can deal with tree types of compounds:

1. Neutral – there are no linking elements.

· Simple: sunflower, bedroom, blackmail, tallboy, blackbird.

· Derived: two stems +affix: early-riser, music-lover, honey-mooner.

· Contracted: there is an element is a contraction: TV-set, H-bag, V-day.

2. Morphological – are fewer in number, non-productive; there is a linking element, usually “o”: anglosaxon, spokesman, handiwork, craftsmanship.

3. Syntactic – very English type, formed of segments of speech and preserve in their structure traces of syntagmatic relations typical of speech: good-for-nothing, sit-at-home, Jack-of-all-trades, breakfast-in-the-bedder, lily-of-the-valley.

Semantic aspect.Three major groups of compounds:

1. Transparant/Non-idiomatic: meaning can be deduced from the meaning of two components: classroom, dancing hall, sleeping car. Meaning is the sum of compounds.

2. Semi-transparant: one of the components shifts its meaning: chatterbox, lady-killer, pickpocket, good-for-nothing.

3. Enigmas: impossible to deduce meaning of compound from the meaning of components: ladybird, wallflower, horse marine, tallboy, blue stocking.

Criteria for distinguishing between compounds and word combinations:

1. spelling

2. phonetic criteria – compound has single stress

3. morphological

4. syntactical – word combination: tall boy – tall handsome boy

5. semantical – two meaningful words must form one solid meaning: lipstick.