Page 320 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Linguistics

Notes Adjective compounds are those in which adjective takes the second position and form new words
while combining with nun, adjective and verbs. Examples are:
Noun + Adjective (waterproof)
Adjective + Adjective (ice-cold)
Verb + Adjective (freezing-cold)
Verb compounds are those in which verb takes the second position and combines with nourn,
adjective, and verb to form new words. Examples are:
Noun + Verb (brain-clean)
Adjective + Verb (dry-clean)
Verb + Verb (sleep-walk)
Apart from above types of word formations, there are few more types which requires the
involvement of particles and adverbs.
Particle + Adverbs (income, outcast)
Verb + Particle (dropout)
Particle + Noun (overdose)
The Semantic Approach
According to this approach ony those words are capable of forming compounds which when are
combined together, produce a word of meaning which is more than the meaning of individual
words involved. Thus a blackboard is not just any board whichis black but a special board whch
is designed for classroom which is also black in colour. Compound words like ‘girlfriend’, uses
the meaning of both the words involved, but the meaning of compound is more than the meaning
of combined individual words. A girl friend is someone who is a girl and also a friend, but all
friends who are girls cannot be girl friends.
A compound word like blackboard can also be considered as a phrase. The main semantic distinction
between a compound word and a phrase is the position of stress. in compound words the stress is
on the first part of the word while in a phrase stress is always on the second part of the word.
Another characteristic of the compound word is the abritrary relationship between its constituents.
For example, compounds like ‘cleaning women’ and ‘walking stick’ has same structure, i.e., verb
(+ing) + noun but the relationship between the constituents are different. Cleaning woman means
a woman who cleans, but walking stick is not a stick which walks.
The Syntactic-Semantic (Generative) Approach
The generative approach claims that there should be certian set of to generate or produce all
possible compounds of English language. It says that rules for rules required for the sentence
formation. Let us have a look at few:
1. Noun phrase and verb phrase are the constituents of a sentence.
2. A noun phrase may have up to three constituents, i.e., determiners, prepositional phrase, and
nouns. Out of these three only nouns are mandatory.
3. A verb phrase can also have up to three constituents—a verb, a noun phrase and a prepositional
phrase. Out of these three oly verbs are mandatory.
4. A prepositional phrase can have up to two components - a preposition, and a noun phrase.
Both are mediatorycomponents are in this case.
According to generative approach these rules can also be used for the compound formation.
Some Minor Compounds Type: Apart from the types discussed, there are few ore types of
compound like (i) coordinate type of compound, for eample, author-publisher. (ii) Reduplicative
type of compound like, for example, dilly-dallying. And (iii) phrase compounds like more-than-
usual, do-it-if-you-can, etc.

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