Classification of Compounds.

Compounding or word-composition is one of the productive types of word-formation in Modern English. Composition like all other ways of deriving words has its own peculiarities as to the means used, the nature of bases and their distribution, as to the range of application, the scope of semantic classes and the factors conductive to productivity.

Compounds are inseparable vocabulary units.

Compounds are made up of two ICs which are both derivational bases. They are formally and semantically dependent on the constituent bases and semantic relations.

From the point of view of degree of semantic independence there are two types of relationship between the ICs of compound words that are generally recognized in linguistic literature: the relations of coordination and subordination, and accordingly compound words fall into two classes:

- coordinative compounds (often termed copulative or additive) and

- subordinative (often termed determinative)

In coordinativecompounds the two ICs are semantically equally important as in fighter-bomber, oak-tree, girl- friend, Anglo-American. The constituent bases belong to the same class and most often to the same semantic group. Coordinative compounds fall into three groups:

a) Reduplicative compounds which are made up the repetition of the same base as in goody-goody, fifty-fifty, hush-hush, pooh-pooh. They are all only partially motivated.

b) Compounds formed by joining the phonically variated rhythmic twin forms which either alliterate with the same initial consonant but vary the vowels as in chit-chat, zig-zag, sing-song, or rhyme by varying the initial consonants as in clap - trap, a walkie – talkie, helter – skelter.

c) The bases of additive compounds such as a queen-bee, an actor- manager, unlike the compound words of the first two subgroups, are built on stems of the independently functioning words of the same part of speech. They denote a person or an object that is two things at the same time. A secretary-stenographer is thus a person who is both a stenographer and a secretary, a bed-sitting-room (a bed-sitter) is both a bed-room and a sitting-room at the same time. Among additive compounds there is a specific subgroup of compound adjectives one of ICs of which is a bound root-morpheme. This group is limited to the names of nationalities such as Sino-Japanese, Anglo-Saxon, Afro-Asian, etc.

In subordinative compounds the components are neither structurally nor semantically equal in importance but are based on the domination of the head- member which is, as a rule, the second IC. The second IC thus is the semantically and grammatically dominant part of the word as in stone-deaf, age-long, which are obviously adjectives, a wrist- watch, road- building, a baby-sitter which are nouns.

Subordinative compounds make the bulk of Modern English compound words.

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