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 (too-too) b)
conversion from word-groups c) back formation from compound nouns or word-groups d)
analogy, e.g. lie-in ( on the analogy with sit-in)
Classifications of english compounds.
1. According to the parts of speech compounds are subdivided into: a) nouns b)
adjectives c) verbs(to honey-moon) d) adverbs e) prepositions (into, within) f)
numerals
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 b) morphological where components are joined by a linking element c)
syntactical where the components are joined by means of form-word stems
3. According to their structure compounds are subdivided into: a) compound words
proper which consist of two stems b) derivational compounds, where besides the
stems we have affixes c) compound words consisting of three or more stems d)
compound-shortened words
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
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 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. 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
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 or if nouns denoting tools, machines, instruments,
weapons 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 .

The classification according to the type of composition permits us to es-tablish

the following groups:
1) The predominant type is a mere juxtaposition without connecting elements:
heartache n, heart-beat n, heart-break n, heart-breaking a, heart-broken a, heart-
felt a.
2) Composition with a vowel or a consonant as a linking element. The examples
are very few: electromotive a, speedometer n, Afro-Asian a, handicraft n, statesman
n.
3) Compounds with linking elements represented by preposition or con-junction
stems: down-and-out n, matter-of-fact a, son-in-law n, pepper-and-salt a, wall-to-
wall a, up-to-date a, on the up-and-up adv (continually im-proving), up-and-coming,
as in the following example: No doubt he�d had the pick of some up-and-coming
jazzmen in Paris (Wain). There are also a few other lexicalised phrases like devil-
may-care a, forget-me-not n, pick-me-up n, stick-in-the-mud n, what�s-her name n.
The classification of compounds according to the structure of immedi-ate
constituents distinguishes:
1) compounds consisting of simple stems: film-star;
2) compounds where at least one of the constituents is a derived stem: chain-
smoker;
3) compounds where at least one of the constituents is a clipped stem: maths-
mistress (in British English) and math-mistress (in American Eng-lish). The
subgroup will contain abbreviations like H-bag (handbag) or Xmas (Christmas),
whodunit n (for mystery novels) considered substan-dard;
4) compounds where at least one of the constituents is a compound stem:
wastepaper-basket.
In what follows the main structural types of English compounds are de-scribed in
greater detail. The list is by no means exhaustive but it may serve as a general
guide.

H. Marchand calls them pseudo-compounds, because they are created as verbs not by
the process of composition but by conversion and back-formation. His classification
may seem convincing, if the vocabu-lary is treated diachronically from the
viewpoint of those processes that are at the back of its formation. It is quite
true that the verb vacuum-clean was not coined by compounding and so is not a
compound genetically (on the word-formation level). But if we are concerned with
the present-day struc-ture and follow consistently the definition of a compound
given in the open-ing lines of this chapter, we see that it is a word containing
two free stems. It functions in the sentence as a separate lexical unit. It seems
logical to consider such words as compounds by right of their structural pattern.