COMPOUNDS

One special type of morphology stands somewhat outside these distinctions because none of the morphemes involved are necessarily bound, thus none can be considered as true derivational or inflectional morphemes.

This is the process of compounding, which is the combination of two or more stems, rather than a single stem with an affix. Although in English we often write spaces between the elements of a compound, they function as single words.

In English, the most common kind of compound is a sequence of two or more nouns forming a single complex noun, such as olive oil, credit card, or employee training manual.

These are "single" nouns in the sense that they can substitute in a sentence for a one-word noun, from the point of view of the syntax: I put olive oil on the bread. I put butter on the bread.

Similarly, to pluralize a compound noun, a single -s is added (not one for each element): credit cards (*credits cards)

Another test for compounds is that in syntactic phrases in English (such as adjective + noun), stress normally falls on the rightmost word; whereas in a compound (such as noun + noun), stress falls further to the left:

a funny cárd, an expensive cárd

a bírthday card, a crédit card

There are a number of ways of approaching the study and classification of compound words, the most accessible of which is to classify them according to the part of speech of the compound and then subclassify them according to the parts of speech of its constituents. Table is based on discussion in Bauer, Laurie. English Word-Formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

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