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Compound (linguistics)

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In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (a word) that consists of more than one other lexeme.

An endocentric compound consists of a head, i.e. the categorical part that contains the basic meaning of the whole compound, and modifiers, which restrict this meaning. For example, the English compound doghouse, where house is the head and dog is the modifier, is understood as a house intended for a dog. Endocentric compounds tend to be of the same part of speech (word class) as their head, as in the case of doghouse. (Such compounds were called karmadharaya in the Sanskrit tradition.)

Exocentric compounds do not have a head, and their meaning often cannot be transparently guessed from its constituent parts. For example, the English compound white-collar is neither a kind of collar nor a white thing. In an exocentric compound, the word class is determined lexically, disregarding the class of the constituents. For example, a must-have is not a verb but a noun.

In the Sanskrit tradition, the type of exocentric compound exemplified by white-collar is called a bahuvrihi compound. The meaning of this type of compound can be glossed as "(one) whose B is A", where B is the second element of the compound and A the first. A bahuvrihi compound is one whose nature is expressed by neither of the words: thus a white-collar person is neither white nor a collar (the collar's colour is a metaphor for socioeconomic status). Other English examples include barefoot and Blackbeard.

Composition should not be confused with derivation, where bound morphemes are added to free ones.

A special kind of composition is incorporation, of which noun incorporation into a verbal root (as in English backstabbing, breastfeed, etc.) is most prevalent (see below).

While the notion of compound has been very important, clear definitions that work even within one language (much less across languages) have not been articulated. The study of compounds in English, for example, often includes expressions that are written as two words. This lack of precision and agreement has hampered the cross-linguistic study of compounds and even a good study within English.

Formation of compounds

Compound formation rules vary widely across language types.

In a perfectly analytic language, compounds are simply elements strung together without any markers. In English, for example, science fiction is a compound noun that consists of two nouns and no markers. A corresponding example from the Chinese language would be Hànyǔ (漢語; simplified: 汉语), or "the Han Chinese language", which also consists of two nouns and no markers.

In a more synthetic language, the relationship between the elements of a compound may be marked. For example, the German compound Kapitänspatent consists of the lexemes Kapitän 'sea captain' and Patent 'license' joined by an -s- (originally a genitive case marker); and similarly, the Latin lexeme paterfamilias contains the (archaic) genitive form familias of the lexeme familia 'family'. Conversely, in the Hebrew compound בֵּית סֵפֶר bet sefer "school", it is the head that is marked: the compound literally means "house-of book", with בַּיִת bayit "house" having entered the construct state to become בֵּית bet "house-of". (This latter pattern is common throughout the Semitic languages, though in some it is combined with an explicit genitive case, such that both parts of the compound are marked.)

Agglutinative languages tend to create very long words with derivational morphemes. Compounds may or may not require the use of derivational morphemes also. The well-known Japanese compound 神風 kamikaze consists only of the nouns kami 'god, spirit' and kaze 'wind'. The longest compounds in the world may be found in Finnish and Germanic languages, such as German language. German examples include Kontaktlinsenverträglichkeitstest 'contact-lens compatibility test' and the jocular Rheindampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänsstellvertreter 'Rhine steamship-company vice-captain'. In theory, even longer compounds are possible, but they are usually not found in actual discourse.

Compounds can be rather long when translating technical documents from English to, for example, Swedish. "Motion estimation search range settings" can be directly translated to rörelseuppskattningssökningsintervallsinställningar; the length of the word is theoretically unlimited.

Compound types

Compound nouns

Most natural languages have compound nouns and sometimes compound adjectives. The positioning of the language, i. e. the most common order of constituents in phrases where nouns are modified by adjectives, by possessors, by other nouns, etc. While Germanic languages, for example, are left-branching when it comes to noun phrases (the modifiers come before the head), the Romance languages are usually right-branching.

In French, compound nouns are often formed by left-hand heads with prepositional components inserted before the modifier, as in chemin-de-fer 'railway' lit. 'road of iron' and moulin à vent 'windmill', lit. 'mill (that works)-by-means-of wind'.

In Turkish, one way of forming compound nouns is as follows: yeldeğirmeni ‘windmill’ (yel: wind, değirmen-i:mill-possessive); demiryolu 'railway'(demir: iron, yol-u: road-possessive).

Verb-noun compounds

A type of compound that is fairly common in the Indo-European languages is formed of a verb and its object, and in effect transforms a simple verbal clause into a noun.

In Spanish, for example, such compounds consist of a verb conjugated for third person singular, present tense, indicative mood followed by a noun (usually plural): e.g., rascacielos (modelled on "skyscraper", lit. 'scratches skies'), sacacorchos 'corkscrew', lit. 'removes corks'). These compounds are formally invariable in the plural (but in many cases they have been reanalyzed as plural forms, and a singular form has appeared). French and Italian have these same compounds with the noun in the singular form: Italian grattacielo 'skyscraper', French grille-pain 'toaster', lit. 'toasts bread', and torche-cul 'ass-wipe' (Rabelais: See his "propos torcheculatifs").

This construction exists in English, generally with the verb and noun both in uninflected form: examples are spoilsport, killjoy, breakfast, cutthroat, pickpocket, dreadnought, and know-nothing.

Also common in English is another type of verb-noun (or noun-verb) compound, in which an argument of the verb is incorporated into the verb, which is then usually turned into a gerund, such as breastfeeding, finger-pointing, etc. The noun is often an instrumental complement. From these gerunds new verbs can be made: (a mother) breastfeeds (a child) and from them new compounds mother-child breastfeeding, etc.

In the Australian Aboriginal language Jingulu, (a Pama-Nyungan language), it is claimed that all verbs are V+N compounds, such as "do a sleep", or "run a dive", and the language has only three basic verbs: do, make, and run.

Verb-verb compounds

Main article: Compound verb

Verb-verb compounds are sequences of more than one verb acting together to determine clause structure. They are of two types:

  • In a serial verb, two actions, often sequential, are expressed in a single clause. For example, Ewe trɔ dzo, lit. "turn leave", means "turn and leave", and Hindi जाकर देखो jā-kar dekh-o, lit. "go-CONJUNCTIVE PARTICIPLE see-IMPERATIVE", means "go and see". In each case, the two verbs together determine the semantics and argument structure.

Serial verb expressions in English may include What did you go and do that for?, or He just upped and left; this is however not quite a true compound since they are connected by a conjunction and the second missing arguments may be taken as a case of ellipsis.

  • In a compound verb (or complex predicate), one of the verbs is the primary, and determines the primary semantics and also the argument structure. The secondary verb, often called a vector verb or explicator, provides fine distinctions, usually in temporality or aspect, and also carries the inflection (tense and/or agreement markers). The main verb usually appears in conjunctive participial (sometimes zero) form. For examples, Hindi निकल गया nikal gayā, lit. "exit went", means 'went out', while निकल पड़ा nikal paRā, lit. "exit fell", means 'departed' or 'was blurted out'. In these examples निकल nikal is the primary verb, and गया gayā and पड़ा paRā are the vector verbs. Similarly, in both English start reading and Japanese 読み始める yomihajimeru "start-CONJUNCTIVE-read" "start reading," the vector verbs start and 始める hajimeru "start" change according to tense, negation, and the like, while the main verbs reading and 読み yomi "reading" usually remain the same. An exception to this is the passive voice, in which both English and Japanese modify the main verb, i.e. start to be read and 読まれ始める yomarehajimeru lit. "read-PASSIVE-(CONJUNCTIVE)-start" start to be read. With a few exceptions all compound verbs alternate with their simple counterparts. That is, removing the vector does not affect grammaticality at all nor the meaning very much: निकला nikalā '(He) went out.' In a few languages both components of the compound verb can be finite forms: Kurukh kecc-ar ker-ar lit. "died-3pl went-3pl" '(They) died.'
De rabia puso rompiendo la olla, 'In anger (he/she) smashed the pot.' (Lit. from anger put breaking the pot)
Botaremos matándote 'We will kill you.' (Cf. Quichua huañuchi-shpa shitashun, lit. kill-CP throw.1plFut, तेरे को मार डालेंगे )
  • Compound verb equivalents in English (examples from the internet):
What did you go and do that for?
If you are not giving away free information on your web site then a huge proportion of your business is just upping and leaving.
Big Pig, she took and built herself a house out of brush.
  • Caution: In descriptions of Persian and other Iranian languages the term 'compound verb' refers to noun-plus-verb compounds, not to the verb-verb compounds discussed here.

Compound adpositions

Compound prepositions formed by prepositions and nouns are common in English and the Romance languages (consider English on top of, Spanish encima de, etc.). Japanese shows the same pattern, except the word order is the opposite (with postpositions): no naka (lit. "of inside on", i.e. "on the inside of").

Examples from different languages

Spanish:

  • Ciencia-ficción 'science fiction': ciencia, 'science', + ficción, 'fiction' (This word is a calque from the English expression science fiction. In English, the head of a compound word is the last morpheme: science fiction. Conversely, the Spanish head is located at the front, so ciencia ficción sounds like a kind of fictional science rather than scientific fiction.)
  • Ciempiés 'centipede': cien 'hundred', + pies 'feet'
  • Ferrocarril 'railway': ferro 'iron', + carril 'lane'

Italian:

  • Centopiedi 'centipede': cento 'hundred', + piedi 'feet'
  • Ferrovia 'railway': ferro 'iron', + via 'way'
  • Tergicristallo 'windscreen wiper': tergere 'to wash', + cristallo 'crystal, (pane of) glass'

German:

  • Wolkenkratzer 'skyscraper': wolken 'clouds', + kratzer 'scraper'
  • Eisenbahn 'railway': Eisen 'iron', + bahn 'track'
  • Kraftfahrzeug 'automobile': Kraft 'power', + fahren/fahr 'drive', + zeug 'machinery'
  • Stacheldraht 'barbed wire': stachel 'barb/barbed', + draht 'wire'

Finnish:

  • sanakirja 'dictionary': sana 'word', + kirja 'book'
  • tietokone 'computer': tieto 'knowledge, data', + kone 'machine'
  • keskiviikko 'Wednesday': keski 'middle', + viikko 'week'
  • maailma 'world': maa 'land', + ilma 'air'

Icelandic:

  • járnbraut 'railway': járn 'iron', + braut 'path' or 'way'
  • farartæki 'vehicle': farar 'journey', + tæki 'apparatus'
  • alfræðiorðabók 'encyclopædia': al 'everything', + fræði 'study' or 'knowledge', + orða 'words', + bók 'book'
  • símtal 'telephone conversation': sím 'telephone', + tal 'dialogue'

Japanese:

  • 目覚まし（時計） mezamashi(dokei) 'alarm clock': 目 me 'eye' + 覚まし samashi (-zamashi) 'awakening (someone)' (+ 時計 tokei (-dokei) clock)
  • お好み焼き okonomiyaki: お好み okonomi 'preference' + 焼き yaki 'cooking'
  • 日帰り higaeri 'day trip': 日 hi 'day' + 帰り kaeri (-gaeri) 'returning (home)'
  • 国会議事堂 kokkaigijidō 'national diet building': 国会 kokkai 'national diet' + 議事 giji 'proceedings' + 堂 dō 'hall'

Russian language

In the Russian language compounding is a common type of word formation, and several types of compounds exist, both in terms of compounded parts of speech and of the way of the formation of a compound. [1]

Compound nouns may be agglutinative compounds, hyphenated compounds (stol-kniga 'folded table' lit. 'table-book', i.e., "book-like table"), or abbreviated compounds (portmanteaux: kolkhoz). Some compounds look like portmanteaux, while in fact they are an agglutinations of type stem + word: "Akademgorodok" (from "akademichesky gorodok" 'Academic Townlet', i.e., Academic Village). In agglutinative compound nouns, an agglutinating infix is typically used: parokhod 'steamship': par + o + khod. Compound nouns may be created as noun+noun, adjective+noun, noun+adjective (rare), noun+verb (or, rather, noun+verbal noun).

Compound adjectives may be formed either per se, e.g., "belo-rozovy" 'white-pink' or as a result of compounding during the derivation of an adjective from a multiword term: Каменноостровский проспект ([kəmʲɪnnʌʌˈstrovskʲɪj prʌˈspʲɛkt]) 'Stone Island Avenue', a street in St.Petersburg.

Reduplication in Russian language is also a source of compounds.

Quite a few Russian words are borrowed from other languages in an already compounded form, including numerous "classical compounds": "avtomobil" (automobile).

Although there is no universally agreed-upon guideline regarding the use of compound words in the English language, in recent decades written English has displayed a noticeable trend towards increased use of compounds. Moreover, although English does not form compound nouns to the extent of Dutch or German, such constructions as "Girl Scout troop", "city council member", and "cellar door" are arguably compound nouns and used as such in speech. Writing them as separate words is merely an orthographic convention.

Types of compounds

Compounding by language

See also

References

  1. ^ [Student Dictionary of Compound Words of the Russian Language (1978) ISBN 0-8285-5190-1]
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