1

Table of Contents

Introduction.7

Theoretical Background10

Word and its definition..10

Word: its internal structure and constituents 11

The internal structure of word11

Word and its constituents12

Word-formation....14

Defining word-formation...14

Overview of word-formation processes in English...15

2.3.2.1. Derivation..15

Conversion..15

Back-formation...16

Acronyms16

Clipping..16

Blends.17

Compounding...17

Defining compounds...17

Spelling patterns of compounds.19

Distinction between compounds and phrases.20

Spelling21

Stress21

Syntactic criteria..22

Semantic criterion22

Main types of compounds.....23

Subordinative, appositional and coordinative compounds.23

Endocentric and exocentric compounds.24

Neoclassical compounds.25

Compound adjectives...25

Properties of the class of adjectives25

Classification of compound adjectives...26

Analysis...27

CAs whose right-hand constituent is present participle....32

Noun + present participle33

Adjective + present participle.34

Adverb + present participle.34

CAs whose right-hand constituent is past participle.....35

Noun + past participle.35

Adjective + past participle..36

Adverb + past participle..37

CAs whose right-hand constituent is an adjective......38

Noun + adjective.38

Adjective + adjective..40

Adverb + adjective..41

Numeral + noun + adjective...41

CAs whose right-hand constituent is an adjective derived from a noun...42

Noun + adjective derived from a noun...42

Adjective + adjective derived from a noun.43

Adverb + adjective derived from a noun44

Compound adjectives whose right-hand constituent is a noun.44

Noun + noun...44

Adjective + noun.45

Numeral + noun..46

CAs containig particles...47

Particle + present participle48

Particle + past participle.48

Verb + particle48

Particle + noun49

Phrasal CAs...49

Summary of findings.50

CAs whose right-hand constituent is present participle..51

CAs whose right-hand constituent is past participle...51

CAs whose right-hand constituent is an adjective..51

CAs whose right-hand constituent is an adjective derived from a noun....51

CAs whose right-hand constituent is a noun..52

CAs containing particles52

Phrasal CAs52

Spelling patterns of CAs.53

Conclusion..55

Bibliography...58

Abbrevations..............71

Resum in English.72

Resum in Czech73

Appendix.74

1. Introduction

Compounding and its types, the topic of this thesis, is the creation of new words on the basis of already existing words or parts of words. After some research into the topic, I decided to focus on the process of compounding, and their occurrence in English language. I chose to investigate the types of compounding, because I think that due to the large number of diverse patterns that can be distinguished within this group as well as their high productivity, compounding represent a remarkable example of the creativity and diversity of word-formation processes in the English language.

The aim of this thesis is to provide a classification of compounding and its types.

The thesis is divided into, the area of word-formation in general is introduced and the theoretical background necessary for understanding the various word-formation processes in English is provided. The main attention is devoted to the proces of compounding.

The first part of the thesis opens with a discussion of the notion of the term 'word'. A description of the internal structure of word follows. Word-formation as a part of morphology is defined, followed by a brief overview of the various word-formation processes in English. The processes of derivation, conversion, back-formation, acronyms, clipping and blends are described. A separate chapter is dedicated to the process of compounding. Definitions of compounding are provided and the most frequently used criteria for determining compound hood and distinguishing between compounds and syntactic phrases are discussed. The main types of compounds are described.

The second part of this thesis is concerned with compound adjectives. First, the process of identifying compound adjectives in the corpus is described. The criteria used for theirclassification are presented together with an overview of the classification used for the purpose of this thesis. The largest part of this section is devoted to the analysis of the compound adjectives found in the corpus. Each type of compound adjectives is analysedaccording to the stated criteria and several examples of each type of compound adjectives are provided. Their morphological and functional properties are discussed.

The characteristics that are usually ascribed to the class of adjectives are applied to the compounds in order to test their adjectival status. Attention is devoted to the number of occurences of the individual types of compound adjectives in the corpus, their position in the sentence and their spelling patterns. For easier orientation, the results are presented in tables.

Finally, conclusions are drawn from the presented findings. The most important features of compounds and compound adjectives are summed up. It is evaluated, what types of compounds occured most frequently in the corpus. Also their adjectival status is discussed. The main differences between the discussed types of compound adjectivesare drawn from the observations made in the second part of the thesis. Results of the conducted analysis are summed up.

2. Theoretical background

2.1 Word and its definition

Because the central topic of this thesis is word-formation, it is useful to define what the term 'word' actually stands for. Although speakers of a language usually have some kindof intuitive feeling for what a word is, there is not a universal definition of the term and it can be sometimes unclear what it refers to. The aim of this chapter is to clarify the ambiguity in the term 'word'. First, word as a unit in speech or writing is defined and thecriteria used for its identification are presented. Secondly, different senses in which the term 'word' is used are introduced.

Sapir (1921) defines word as "one of the smallest, completely satisfying bits of isolated 'meaning' into which the sentence resolves itself" and which "cannot be cut into withouta disturbance of meaning" (p. 35). According to Crystal (2009), word is "a unit of expression which has universal intuitive recognition by native speakers, in both spoken and written language" (p. 521).

The criteria used by Crystal (2009) for the identification of words include their stable internal structure, uninterruptibility and the fact that word is "the smallest unit which can constitute, by itself, a complete utterance" (p. 522). Plag (2002) identifies the following properties of words:

words are entities having a part of speech specification

words are syntactic atoms

words (usually) have one main stress

words (usually) are indivisible units (no intervening material possible) (p. 9). Three main senses of the term 'word' are usually distinguished. In the first sense,

word is defined simply as a unit consisting of syllables which are built up of letters (if itis understood as a unit in the writing system) or phonemes (if it is defined in terms of its

sound structure) (Matthews, 1974, p. 20; Plag, 2002, p. 4-6). Because it is the particular orthographic or phonological shape of the word that is under consideration, it is referredto as the orthographic or phonological word (Bauer, 1983/2010, p. 12; Crystal, 2009, p. 522). A single term word form is often used to subsume both (Crystal, 2009, p. 522).

In a more abstract sense, word is defined as an abstract unit that represents "all the possible shapes that the word can have" (Bauer, 1983/2010, p. 11). Or, as described by Crystal (2009), "the common factor underlying the set of forms which are plainly variants of the same unit" (p. 522). For this sense of word the term lexeme is used (Bauer, 2010, p. 11). Matthews (1974) says that lexeme is the "fundamental unit of the lexicon of the language" (p. 22). Lexemes do not actually occur in a language. Instead, they are realized by word forms because their "actual occurrences in speech or writing always have phonic or orthographic form" (Bauer, 1983/2010, p. 12).

In the third sense, word is referred to as morphemic, morphosyntactic or grammatical word (Crystal, 2009, p. 522). It is defined as a grammatical unit whose function is to show how words work in the grammar (Crystal, 2009, p. 522).

2.2 Word: its internal structure and constituents

In order to understand the various processes that are involved in word-formation, it is necessary to take a look at the structure of the word and to identify its constituents.

2.2.1 The internal structure of word

Words may consist of one or more elements. Those elements are called morphemes and they are the basic units of analysis recognized in morphology, a branch of linguistics that deals with the internal structure of words (Bauer, 1983/2010, p. 13).

Morphemes are defined as the smallest parts of words that have meaning or grammatical function (Yule, 2006, p. 63).1

As the minimal units of grammar, morphemes serve as the basis for larger units such as words (Matthews, 1974, p. 78). Words in English may be either simple or complex. Simple words are indivisible units composed of only one element that cannot be further divided into its constituents (Adams, 1973, p. 7). Such forms are also called free morphemes because they are the smallest units that can stand alone and still carry a meaning (Yule, 2006, p. 63).

Complex words, on the other hand, consist of more than one element (Adams, 1973, p. 7). They may consist of free morphemes which are independent in other contexts, or bound morphemes which do not appear independently (Adams, 1973, p. 7). Bound morphemes can only be used in combination with other morphemes to produce a word because they have no meaning on their own and therefore they normally cannot stand alone (Yule, 2006, p. 63).

Morphemes, though, are only "abstract elements of analysis" and they do not occur as forms in a language (Bauer, 1983/2010, p. 15). What actually occurs is a phonetic (or orthographic) representation of a morpheme (Bauer, 1983/2010, p. 15). Morphemes are realized by individual units known as morphs (Crystal, 2009, p. 313). Some morphemesare realized by more than one morph depending on their position in a word. These variants of morphs are termed allomorphs (Crystal, 2009, p. 313).

2.2.2 Word and its constituents

When a word is decomposed into its constituents, the terms affix, root, stem and base are used to refer to the individual parts of the word.

1 Morphemes with a specific lexical meaning are termed lexical morphemes. Morphemes with a more abstract and general grammatical meaning are termed grammatical morphemes (Mair, 2008, p. 43).

Affixes are those parts of word that can only occur when attached to a morpheme. Thus,all affixes in English are bound morphemes (Yule, 2006, p. 63). Based on their occurrence in word, three types of affixes are distinguished: prefixes, infixes and suffixes.

Prefixes are added to the beginning of the word. Their role in English is purely lexical because they are the constituents involved in the formation of new words (Crystal, 2004, p. 198). Suffixes, on the other hand, are added to the end of the word. They are divided into two groups. Most of them are purely lexical because their function is to change the meaning of the base form (Crystal, 2004, p.198). There are also a few purelygrammatical suffixes2 that indicate how the word is used in a sentence. These are calledinflectional affixes (Crystal, 2004, p. 198). On rare occasions in English, affixes can also be inserted inside the word. These are termed infixes and they are used in a very restricted manner, usually to express emotion or emphasis, e.g. absogoddamlutely, unfuckinbelievable (Yule, 2006, p. 58).

The terms root and base are used for the part of the word that remains after all affixes have been removed (Bauer, 1983/2010, p. 20). A root is a term that is used to refer to the base that canot be further analyzed into morphemes (Plag, 2002, p. 13). It is the fundamental part that is always present in a lexeme and which remains after all inflectional and derivational affixes have been removed (Bauer, 1983/2010, p. 20). The term 'stem' is used to refer to the part of the word that remains after removing all inflectional affixes (Bauer, 1983/2010, p. 20). A base, on the other hand, is any part of a word that affixes can be attached to (Plag, 2002, p. 13). Basically, any root or any stem

2 Examples of purely grammatical suffixes include the plural marker -s, the past tense -ed, and the comparative -er (Crystal, 2004, p. 198).

can be termed a base, but not every base is also a root or a stem (Bauer, 1983/2010, p. 21).3

2.4 Compounding

2.4.1 Defining compounds

Compounding is a very common word-formation process in English (Yule, 2006, p. 54). It generates a large number of different types of new naming units.

The process leading to formation of compound words is described by Teal (1892) as "omitting minor or connecting parts of a full expression, and using only the principal elements in more or less arbitrary association and frequently in inverted order" (Custom versus principle section, par. 1).

A universally accepted definition of compounds does not exist (Kavka &

tekauer, 2006, p. 53). In the following section, definitions gathered from various sources including dictionaries of English and definitions provided by scholars are presented with the intention of finding out their common features.

The Dictionary of Lexicography (1998) defines compound word as "a word formed by joining two or more simple words" (p. 26). In A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, Crystal (2009) gives a more detailed definition of compound saying it is "a linguistic unit which is composed of elements that function independently in other

Circumstances" (p. 96). He calls these elements free morphemes claiming that there are two or more such elements in each compound (p. 96). Likewise, Adams (1973) sees compound as "the result of the (fixed) combination of two free forms, or words that have an otherwise independent existence" (p. 30). She adds that compounds, "though clearly composed of two elements, have the identifying characteristics of single words" (p. 30). Lipka (1992) claims that compound is made up of at least two lexemes, i.e. "constituents which occur (or can in principle occur) in isolation" and which "may themselves be complex" (p. 83). According to Jespersen's (1974) simplified definition, compounds are combinations of two or more words that function as one word and a single unit (p. 134). Kavka and tekauer (2006) claim that the usual way of defining compounds merely as a combination of two words is incorrect (p. 52). They say that "compounds result from the combination of word-stems, or better, word-formation bases of originally independent words, i.e., the 'disinflected' parts of words", concludingthat "it is the compound as a whole that is inflected" (p. 52). Bauer (1983/2010) shares asimilar view, claiming that compound is "a lexeme containing two or more potential stems that has not subsequently been subjected to a derivational process" (p. 29).

Summarized, those definitions describe compounds as combinations of two or more elements. Different terms are used to name the elements that make up a compound. However, according to some linguists, compounds are in fact composed of only two elements as can be seen from the following definitions.

Plag (2002) claims that compound is in fact a combination of no more than two elements. According to his explanation, even compounds consisting of more elements can be analyzed as essentially binary structures (p. 170-172). Similarly, Bauer (1983/2010) says that "most longer compounds can be analyzed as combinations of twoelements, each of which may in turn be compound" (p. 202).

Concluded, a compound can be defined as a combination of two or more elements. If the compound is composed of more than two elements it is still analyzable into two-element structures. This characteristic of compounds is called binarity. Other important factors that are being used to define compounds (except for the number of their constituents) are their function and meaning. Units that are labeled as compounds behave as single units in regards to their syntactic and semantic function.

2.4.2 Spelling patterns of compounds

The spelling of compounds varies. There are three possible ways to write a compound. Compounds can be solid, i.e. written as one word, e.g. jellyfish, blackbird, sunflower. Often compounds are spelt with a hyphen placed between the constituents, e.g. blue-eyed, three-year-old, star-shaped. Many compounds are also spelt as separate words, e.g. scuba dive, ice cream, human being. Some compounds may even be spelt in two oreven all three ways mentioned above, e.g. flowerpot, flower-pot and flower-pot.

Although the spelling of compounds is very varied, some tendencies may be observed. There is a certain tendency to spell established compounds either hyphenated or solid while novel compounds, on the other hand, are usually spelt separately. Kavka and tekauer (2006) propose that the degree of unity between the constituents and "the writer's awareness about the novelty of the given compound" play a role in the way the compound is spelt (p. 33). Similarly, Huddleston (1984) proposes that the transition in spelling of compounds "from space to hyphen to close juxtaposition reflects the progressive institutionalization of the compound" (p. 45). This variation in spelling is diachronic, because it reflects the change that takes place throughout the time as the originally novel compound gradually becomes established (Ryder, 1994, p. 12).5 Some

5 Ryder (1994) demonstrates the diachronic variation in spelling of compounds on the example of the word suitcase which was originally spelt as suit-case (p. 12).

words may be spelt in two or even all three possible ways at the same time, because even the various dictionaries list more alternate spellings of the same word. This is a case of synchronic variation in spelling (Ryder, 1994, p. 12).

Although the spelling of compounds is generally very inconsistent, some guidelines for a preferred spelling of compound words exist. According to APA style, a hyphen should only be used in case it serves a purpose, i.e. if the meaning of the compound is not sufficiently established or in case it could be misread. Hyphenated spelling is commonly used in compound adjectives if the compound precedes the term it modifies. But if the adjective is used in predicative position, it is usually not hyphenated ("When do you need to use a hyphen," n.d.). Usually compounds consisting of more elements and compounds whose constituents are in a coordinate relationship are hyphenated as well as compounds in attributive position (Kavka & tekauer, 2006, p. 34).

2.4.3 Distinction between compounds and phrases

It may be sometimes difficult to decide whether a particular structure should be treated as a compound or a free phrase. The main difference between compounds and phrases lies in the fact that whereas compounds are naming units, phrases are "units of syntax whose basic function is to combine signs for the sake of description" (Kavka &

tekauer, 2006, 52). The problem is that the distinction between compounds and phrases is rather vague and there are hardly any universally accepted criteria for distinguishing between the two structures. The next section presents the most commonly used criteria for distinguishing between compounds and free phrases.

2.4.3.1 Spelling

There may be a certain tendency to regard structures that are spelt solid or hyphenated as compounds and to exclude the ones that are spelt separately. However, as it was stated in the previous section, the spelling of compounds in English is very inconsistent and therefore it cannot be considered an applicable criterion for the identification of these formations.

2.4.3.2 Stress

Another criterion used for determining compoundhood is stress. The assumption concerning stress is that the main stress in compounds should fall on the left-hand constituent while syntactic phrases have a level stress or they are stressed on the right-hand constituent (Kavka & tekauer, 2006, p. 54). However, there are numerous exceptions to this rule. A large number of compounds, especially compound adjectives, carry double-stress (Kavka & tekauer, 2006, p. 32). The stress pattern of adjective compounds in general is more variable than the stress pattern of nominal compounds (Adams, 1973, p. 92). Therefore, with regard to many compounds, the stress criterion is of no use. Adams (1973) notes that this is especially the case of adjectival sequences consisting of the combination adverb + adjective or participle where the stress pattern ofboth compounds and phrases of this combination is the same (Adams, 1973, p. 90). Usually when an adjective compound is in attributive position, the stress is on the first element. When it is in predicative position, the final element is normally stressed (Adams, 1973, p. 91). Sometimes, the semantic value of compound is an important factor in stressing compounds, because stress can be distributed according to the importance that the speaker assigns to the individual constituents of a compound (Kavka& tekauer, 2006, p. 32).

2.4.3.3 Syntactic criteria

There are several syntactic criteria that are used by scholars for delimitating compoundsfrom phrases. First, it is the uninterruptability of a compound. The uninterruptability criterion means that it is impossible to divide a compound by inserting other elements between its constituents, or by interrupting them by a pause (Adams, 1973, p. 7-8).6

Secondly, compounds should be inflected as a whole, i.e. the inflectional morphemes should be attached to the right-hand constituent (Kavka & teakuer, 2006, p. 59). Again,there are exceptions to this rule, e.g. compounds which pluralize both elements, as in men-servants, or compounds in which the first element is a head noun followed by a modifying adjective on the Romance pattern, as in court martial courts martial (Adams, 1973, p. 8).

According to another criterion, the constituents of compounds have fixed order, and switching the order of their constituents would result in changing their meaning or destroying it altogether (Kavka & tekauer, 2006, p. 58).

2.4.3.4 Semantic criterion

Generally, compounds are believed to be more specialised in meaning than phrases (Kavka & tekauer, 2006, p. 24). Jespersen (1974) argues that "we have a compound if the meaning of the whole cannot be logically deduced from the meaning of the elementsseparately" (p. 137). Accordingly, Kavka and tekauer (2006) describe compound as a combination of two or more words "which has a total meaning different from that of simple words in a free syntactic combination" (p. 23).

6 The exceptions to this rule are very rare, e.g. absobloominlutely (Adams, 1973, p. 8).

2.5 Main types of compounds