Compounding Is One of the Most Productive Ways of Modern English Word-Building

Compounding Is One of the Most Productive Ways of Modern English Word-Building

  • Submitted By: amazinggg
  • Date Submitted: 03/23/2013 8:21 AM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 3368
  • Page: 14
  • Views: 4

Introduction

alongside with affixation and conversion. Compounds are words consisting of at least two stems which occur in the language as free forms. And there are at least three aspects of composition which present special interest. In compound words the immediate constituents obtain integrity and structural cohesion that make them function in a sentence as a separate lexical unit. The structural cohesion and integrity of a compound may depend upon unity of stress, solid or hyphenated spelling, semantic unity, unity of morphological and syntactic functioning or, more often, upon the combined effect of several of these or similar phonetic, semantic, morphological or syntactic factors. The integrity of the compound is manifested in its indivisibility that is the impossibility of inserting another word or word-group between its elements. In describing the structure of the compound one should examine three kinds of relations, namely the relations of the members to each other, the relation of the whole to its members, and correlation with equivalent free phrases.



Compounding
Compounds are words consisting of at least 2 stems which occur in the language as free morphemes and though they are fewer in quantity than derived or root words they still represent one of the most typical and specific features of Modern English word-structure. It should be noted that the immediate constituents of the compound word possess structural and lexical integrity. When describing the structural integrity of the compound it of great importance to examine the relations of the compound members to each other. It is believed that some compounds consist of determining and determined parts which are called determinant and the determinatum. For example in the word sunbeam the stem beam which is considered to be the basic part of the compound is the determinatum while the root sun is the determinant. The determinatum is the most essential part of...

Similar Essays