Exercises in lexicology

How can suffixes be classified?

Give examples of polysemantic and homonymous affixes.

Prove that -ish in boyish and in bluish are homonymous suffixes.

Give example of synonymous affixes. Is there any regularity in choosing between them?

Give example of dead and living affixes, productive and non-productive affixes. How can productivity be estimated?

Conversion. Approaches to Conversion. Synchronic and Diachronic Treatment of Conversion. Types of Relations between Converted Pairs

R.S. Ginzburg, A Course in Modern English Lexicology, Conversion [pp. 127-140]

Conversion, one of the principal ways of forming words in Modern English is highly productive in replenishing the English word-stock with new words.The term conversion, which some linguists find inadequate, refers to the numerous cases of phonetic identity of word-forms, primarily the so-called initial forms, of two words belonging to different parts of speech. This may be illustrated by the following cases:work--to work; love--to love; paper--to paper; brief--to brief, etc. As a rule we deal with simple words, although there are a few exceptions, e.g.wireless--to wireless.

It is fairly obvious that in the case of a noun and a verb not only are the so-called initial forms (i.e. the infinitive and the common case singular) phonetically identical, but all the other noun forms have their homonyms within the verb paradigm, cf.(my) work [w?:k]--(I) work[w?:k]; (the) dog's[d?gz](head)-(many) dogs[d?gz]--(he) dogs [d?gz], etc.

It will be recalled that, although inflectional categories have been greatly reduced in English in the last eight or nine centuries, there is a certain difference on the morphological level between various parts of speech, primarily between nouns and verbs. For instance, there is a clear-cut difference in Modern English between the noundoctor and the verb to doctor--each exists in the language as a unity of its word-forms and variants, not as one form doctor. It is true that some of the forms are identical in sound, i.e. homonymous, but there is a great distinction between them, as they are both grammatically and semantically different.

If we regard such word-pairs asdoctor--to doctor; water--to water; brief--to brief from the angle of their morphemic structure, we see that they are all root-words. On the derivational level, however, one of them should be referred to derived words, as it belongs to a different part of speech and is understood through semantic and structural relations with the other, i.e. is motivated by it. Consequently, the question arises: what serves as a word-building means in these cases? It would appear that the noun is formed from the verb (or vice versa) without any morphological change, but if we probe deeper into the matter, we inevitably come to the conclusion that the two words differ in the paradigm. Thus it is the paradigm that is used as a word-building means. Hence, we may define conversion as the formation of a new word through changes in its paradigm.

It is necessary to call attention to the fact that the paradigm plays a significant role in the process of word-formation in general and not only in the case of conversion. Thus, the nouncooker (ingas-cooker) is formed from the wordto cook not only by the addition of the suffix -er, but also by the change in its paradigm. However, in this case, the role played by the paradigm as a word-building means is less obvious, as the word-building suffix -er comes to the fore. Therefore, conversion is characterized not simply by the use of the paradigm as a word-building means, but by the formation of a new word solely by means of changing its paradigm. Hence, the change of paradigm is the only word-building means of conversion. As a paradigm is a morphological category conversion can be described as a morphological way of forming words.

The following indisputable cases of conversion have been discussed in linguistic literature:

1) formation of verbs from nouns and more rarely from other parts of speech, and

2) formation of nouns from verbs and rarely from other parts of speech.

Opinion differs on the possibility of creating adjectives from nouns through conversion. In the so-called "stone wall" complexes the first members are regarded by some linguists as adjectives formed from the corresponding noun-stems by conversion, or as nouns in an attributive function by others, or as substantival stems by still others so that the whole combination is treated as a compound word. In our treatment of conversion on the pages that follow we shall be mainly concerned with the indisputable cases, i.e. deverbal substantives - and denominal verbs.

Conversion has been the subject of a great many linguistic discussions since 1891 when H. Sweet first used the term in his New English Grammar. Various opinions have been expressed on the nature and character of conversion in the English language and different conceptions of conversion have been put forward.

The treatment of conversion as a morphological way of forming words accepted in the present book was suggested by the late Prof. A. I. Smirnitsky in his works on the English language.

Other linguists sharing, on the whole, the conception of conversion as a morphological way of forming words disagree, however, as to what serves here as a word-building means. Some of them define conversion asa non-affixal way of forming words pointing out that the characteristic feature is that a certain stem is used for the formation of a different word of a different part of speech without a derivational affix being added. Others hold the view that conversion is the formation of new words with the help of a zero-morpheme.

The treatment of conversion as a non-affixal word-formation process calls forth some criticism, it can hardly be accepted as adequate, for it fails to bring out the specific means making it possible to form, for instance, a verb from a noun without adding a derivational affix to the base. Besides, the term a non-affixal word-formation process does not help to distinguish between cases of conversion and those of sound-interchange, e.g.tosing--song; to feed--food; full--to fill, etc. which lie outside the scope of word-formation in Modern English.

The conception of conversion as derivation with a zero-morpheme, however, merits attention. The propounders of this interpretation of conversion rightly refer to some points of analogy between affixation and conversion. Among them is similarity of semantic relations between a derived word and its underlying base, on the one hand, and between words within a conversion pair,

e.g. 1. action--doer of the action:

to walk--a walker(affixation)

to tramp--a tramp(conversion);

2. action--result of the action:

to agree--agreement (affixation),

to find--a find (conversion), etc.

They also argue that as the derivational complexity of a derived word involves a more complex semantic structure as compared with that of the base, it is but logical to assume that the semantic complexity of a converted word should manifest itself in its derivational structure, even though in the form of a zero derivational affix.

If one accepts this conception of conversion, then one will have to distinguish between two types of derivation in Modern English: one effected by employing suffixes and prefixes, the other by using a zero derivational affix.

There is also a point of view on conversion as a morphological-syntactic word-building means, for it involves, as the linguists sharing this conception maintain, both a change of the paradigm and a change of the syntactic function of the word, e.g.I need some good paper for my rooms and He is papering his room. It may be argued, however, that as the creation of a word through conversion necessarily involves the formation of a new word-stem, a purely morphological unit, the syntactic factor is irrelevant to the processes of word-formation proper, including conversion.

Besides, there is also a purely syntactic approach commonly known as a functional approach to conversion. Certain linguists and lexicographersespecially those in Great Britain and the USA are inclined to regard conversion in Modern English as a kind of functional change. They define conversion as a shift from one part of speech to another contending that in Modern English a word may function as two different parts of speech at the same time. If we accept this point of view, we should logically arrive at the conclusion that in Modern English we no longer distinguish between parts of speech, i.e. between noun and verb, noun and adjective, etc., for one and the same word cannot simultaneously belong to different parts of speech. It is common knowledge, however, that the English word-stock is subdivided into big word classes each having its own semantic and formal features. The distinct difference between nouns and verbs, for instance, as in the case of doctor--to doctor discussed above, consists in the number and character of the categories reflected in their paradigms. Thus, the functional approach to conversion cannot be justified and should be rejected as inadequate.

Conversion pairs are distinguished by thestructural identity of the root and phonetic identity of the stem of each of the two words. Synchronically we deal with pairs of words related through conversion that coexist in contemporary English. The two words, e.g. to break and a break, being phonetically identical, the question arises whether they have the same or identical stems, as some linguists are inclined to believe. It will be recalled that the stem carries quite a definite part-of-speech meaning; for instance, within the word-cluster to dress--dress--dresser--dressing--dressy, the stem dresser--carries not only the lexical meaning of the root-morpheme dress-, but also the meaning of substantivity, the stem dressy- the meaning of quality, etc. These two ingredients--the lexical meaning of the root-morpheme and the part-of-speech meaning of the stem--form part of the meaning of the whole word. It is the stem that requires a definite paradigm; for instance, the word dresser is a noun primarily because it has a noun-stem and not only because of the noun paradigm; likewise, the word materialize is a verb, because first and foremost it has a verbal stem possessing the lexico-grammatical meaning of process or action and requiring a verb paradigm.

What is true of words whose root and stem do not coincide is also true of words with roots and stems that coincide: for instance, the word atom is a noun because of the substantival character of the stem requiring the noun paradigm. The word sell is a verbbecause of the verbal character of its stem requiring the verb paradigm, etc. It logically follows that the stems of two words making up a conversion pair cannot be regarded as being the same or identical: the stem hand- of the noun hand, for instance, carries a substantival meaning together with the system of its meanings, such as: 1) the end of the arm beyond the wrist; 2) pointer on a watch or clock; 3) worker in a factory; 4) source of information, etc.; the stem hand-of the verb hand has a different part-of-speech meaning, namely that of the verb, and a different system of meanings: 1) give or help with the hand, 2) pass, etc. Thus, the stems of word-pairs related through conversion have different part-of-speech and denotational meanings. Being phonetically identical they can be regarded as homonymous stems.

A careful examination of the relationship between the lexical meaning of the root-morpheme and the part-of-speech meaning of the stem within a conversion pair reveals that in one of the two words the former does not correspond to the latter. For instance, the lexical meaning of the root-morpheme of the noun hand corresponds to the part-of-speech meaning ofits stem: they are both of a substantival character; the lexical meaning of the root-morpheme of the verbhand, however, does not correspond to the part-of-speech meaning of the stem: the root-morpheme denotes an object, whereas the part-of-speech meaning of the stem is that of a process. The same is true of the nounfall whose stem is of a substantival character (which is proved by the noun paradigmfall--falls--fall's--falls', whereas the root-morpheme denotes a certain process.

It will be recalled that the same kind of non-correspondence is typical of the derived word in general. To give but two examples, the part-of-speech meaning of the stemblackness -- is that of substantivity, whereas the root-morphemeblack-denotes a quality; the part-of-speech meaning of the stemeatable- (that of qualitativeness) does not correspond to the lexical meaning of the root-morpheme denoting a process. It should also be pointed out here that in simple words the lexical meaning of the root corresponds to the part-of-speech meaning of the stem, cf. the two types ofmeaning of simple words likeblack a,eat v,chair n, etc. Thus, by analogy with the derivational character of the stem of a derived word it is natural to regard the stem of one of the two words making up a conversion pair as being of a derivational character as well. The essential difference between affixation and conversion is that affixation is characterized by both semantic and structural derivation (e.g.friend--friendless, dark--darkness, etc.), whereas conversion displays only semantic derivation, i.e.hand--to hand, fall--to fall, taxi--to taxi, etc.; the difference between the two classes of words in affixation is marked both by a special derivational affix and a paradigm, whereas in conversion it is marked only by paradigmatic forms.

As one of the two words within a conversion pair is semantically derived from the other, it is of great theoretical and practical importance to determine the semantic relations between words related through conversion. Summing up the findings of the linguists who have done research in this field we can enumerate the following typical semantic relations.

I. Verbs converted from nouns (denominal verbs).

This is the largest group of words related through conversion. The semantic relations between the nouns and verbs vary greatly. If the noun refers to some object of reality (both animate and inanimate) the converted verb may denote:

1) action characteristic of the object, e.g.ape n--ape v--'imitate in a foolish way';butcher n--butcher v--'kill animals for food, cut up a killed animal';

2) instrumental use of the object, e.g.screw n--screw v--'fasten with a screw';whip n--whip v--'strike with a whip';

3) acquisition or addition of the object, e.g.fish n--fish v--'catch or try to catch fish';coat n--'covering of paint'--coat v--'put a coat of paint on';

4) deprivation of the object, e.g.dust n--dust v--'remove dust-from something';skin n--skin v--'strip off the skin from'; etc.

II. Nouns converted from verbs (deverbal substantives).

The verb generally referring to an action, the converted noun may denote:

1) instance of the action, e.g.jump v--jump n--'sudden spring from the ground';move v--move n--a change of position';

2) agent of the action, e.g.helpv--help n--`a person who helps'; it is of interest to mention that the deverbal personal nouns denoting the doer are mostly derogatory, e.g.bore v--bore n--'a person that bores'; cheat v--cheat n--'a person who cheats';

3) place of the action, e.g.drive v-- drive n--'a path or road along which one drives';walk v--walk n--'a place for walking';

4) object or result of the action, e.g.peel v--peel n--'the outer skin of fruit or potatoes taken off';find v--find n--'something found, esp. something valuable or pleasant'; etc.

In conclusion it is necessary to pointout that in the case of polysemantic words one and the same member of a conversion pair, a verb or a noun, belongs to several of the above-mentioned groups making different derivational bases. For instance, the verbdust belongs to Group 4 of Denominal verbs (deprivation of the object) when it means 'remove dust from something', and to Group 3 (acquisition or addition of the object) when it means 'cover with powder'; the nounslide is referred to Group 3 of Deverbal substantives (place of the action) when denoting 'a stretch of smooth ice or hard snow on which people slide' and to Group 2 (agent of the action) when it refers to a part of an instrument or machine that slides, etc.

Modern English vocabulary is exceedingly rich in conversion pairs. As a way of forming words conversion is extremely productive and new conversion pairs make their appearance in fiction, newspaper articles and in the process of oral communication in all spheres of human activity gradually forcing their way into the existing vocabulary and into the dictionaries as well. New conversion pairs are created on the analogy of those already in the word-stock on the semantic patterns described above as types of semantic relations. Conversion is highly productive in the formation of verbs, especially from compound nouns. 20th century new words include a great many verbs formed by conversion, e.g.to motor--'travel by car';to phone--'use the telephone'; to wire--'send a telegram';to microfilm--'produce a microfilm of';to tear-gas--'to use tear-gas';to fire-bomb--'drop fire-bombs';to spearhead--'act as a spearhead for';to blueprint--'work out, outline', etc.

A diachronic survey of the present-day stock of conversion pairs reveals, however, that not all of them have been created on the semantic patterns just referred to. Some of them arose as a result of the disappearanceof inflections in the course of the historical development of the English language due to which two words of different parts of speech, e.g. a verb and a noun, coincided in pronunciation. This is the case with such word-pairs, for instance, asloven (OE. lufu)--love v (OE. lufian);workn (OE. weorc)--work v (OE. wyrcan);answer n (OE. andswaru)--answer v (OE. andswarian) and many others. For this reason certain linguists consider it necessary to distinguish between homonymous word-pairs which appeared as a result of the loss of inflections and those formed by conversion. The term conversion is applied then only to cases likedoctor n-- doctor v; brief a--brief v that came into being after the disappearance of inflections, word-pairs likework n--work v being regarded exclusively as cases of homonymy.

Other linguists share Prof. Smirnitsky's views concerning discrimination between conversion as a derivational means and as a type of word-building relations between words in Modern English. Synchronically in Modern English there is no difference at all between cases liketaxi n-- taxi v and cases likelove n--love v from the point of view of their morphological structure and the word-building system of the language. In either case the only difference between the two words is that of the paradigm: the historical background is here irrelevant. It should be emphatically stressed at this point that the present-day derivative correlations within conversion pairs do not necessarily coincide with the etymological relationship. For instance, in the word-pairawe n--awe v the noun is the source, of derivation both diachronically and synchronically, butitis quite different with the pairmould v--mould n: historically the verb is the derived member,whereas it is the other way round from the angle of Modern English (cf. the derivativesmouldable, moulding, moulderwhich have suffixes added to verb-bases).

A diachronic semantic analysis of a conversion pair reveals that in the course of time the semantic structure of thebase may acquire a new meaning or several meanings under the influence of the meanings of the converted word. This semantic process has been termed reconversion in linguistic literature. There is an essential difference between conversion and reconversion: being a way of forming words conversion leads to a numerical enlargement of the English vocabulary, whereas reconversion only brings about a new meaning correlated with one of the meanings of the converted word. Research has shown that reconversiononly operates with denominal verbs and deverbal nouns. As an illustration the conversion pairsmoke n--smoke v may be cited. According to the Oxford English Dictionary some of the meanings of the two words are:

Comparison makes it possible to trace the semantic development of each word. The verbsmoke formed in 1000 from the nounsmoke in the corresponding meaning had acquired by 1663 another meaning by a metaphorical transfer which, in turn, gave rise to a correlative meaning of the nounsmoke in 1715 through reconversion.

Questions:

Give examples of conversion. Give definition of conversion.

Describe conversion as non-affixal way of forming words. Why cannot this approach be accepted as adequate?

Describe conversion as derivation with zero-morpheme.

Describe conversion as a morphological-syntactic word-building means.

Describe purely syntactic approach to conversion. Why is it not satisfactory?

What is the approach introduced by Smirnitsky?

What are the two groups of semantic relation within a conversion pair? What are the subtypes within groups?

What peculiarities of some conversives can be found within diachronic approach?

What is reconversion?

Compounding

R.S. Ginzburg, A Course in Modern English Lexicology, Word-Composition [pp. 146-158]

Compounding or word-compositionis one of the productivetypes 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 conducive to productivity.

Compounds, as has been mentioned elsewhere, are made up of two ICs which are both derivational bases. Compound words are inseparable vocabulary units. They are formally and semantically dependent on the constituent bases and.the semantic relations between them which mirror the relations between the motivating units. The ICs of compound words represent bases of all three structural types. The bases built on stems may be of different degree of complexity as, e.g.,week-end, office-management, postage-stamp, aircraft-carrier, fancy-dress-maker, etc. However, this complexity of structure of bases is not typical of the bulk of Modern English compounds.

In this connection care should be taken not to confuse compound words with polymorphic words of secondary derivation, i.e. derivatives built according to an affixal pattern but on a compound stem for its base such as, e.g.,school-mastership([n+n]+suf),ex-housewife (prep+[n+n]), to weekend, to spotlight ([n+n]+conversion).

Compound words like all other inseparable vocabulary units take shape in a definite system of grammatical forms, syntactic and semantic features. Compounds, on the one hand, are generally clearly distinguished from and often opposed to free word-groups, on the other hand they lie astride the border-line between words and word-groups and display close ties and correlation with the system of free word-groups. The structural inseparability of compound words finds expression in the unity of their specific distributional pattern and specific stress and spelling pattern.

Structurally compound words are characterized by the specific order and arrangement in which bases follow one another. The order in which the two bases are placed within a compound is rigidly fixed in Modern English and it is the second IC that makes the head-member of the word, i.e. its structural and semantic centre. The head-member is of basic importance as it preconditions both the lexico-grammatical and semantic features of the first component. It is of interest to note that the difference between stems (that serve as bases in compound words) and word-forms they coincide with is most obvious in some compounds, especially incompound adjectives. Adjectives like long, wide, rich are characterized by grammatical forms of degrees of comparisonlonger, wider, richer. The corresponding stems functioning as bases in compound words lack grammatical independence and forms proper to the words and retain only the part-of-speech meaning; thus compound adjectives with adjectival stems for their second components, e.g.age-long, oil-rich, inch-wide, do not form degrees of comparison as the compound adjectiveoil-rich does not form them the way the word rich does, but conforms to the general rule of polysyllabic adjectives and has analytical forms of degrees of comparison. The same difference between words and stems is not so noticeable in compound nouns with the noun-stem for the second component.

Phonetically compounds are also marked by a specific structure of their own. No phonemic changes of bases occur in composition but the compound word acquires a new stress pattern, different from the stress in the motivating words, for example wordskey andhole orhot andhouseeach possess their own stress but when the stems of these words are brought together to make up a new compound word,'keyhole--'a hole in a lock into which a key fits', or'hot-house--'a heated building for growing delicate plants', the latter is given a different stress pattern--a unity stress on the first component in our case. Compound words have three stress patterns:

a) a high or unity stress on the first component as in'honeymoon, 'doorway, etc.

b) a double stress, with a primary stress on the firstcomponent anda weaker, secondary stress on the second component, e.g.'blood-vessel, 'mad-doctor--'a psychiatrist','washing-machine, etc. These two stress patterns are the commonest among compound words and in many cases they acquire a contrasting force distinguishing compound words from word-groups, especially when the arrangement and order of ICs parallel the word-order and the distributional pattern of a phrase, thus a'greenhouse--'a glass house for cultivating delicate plants' is contrasted to a 'green 'house--'a house that is painted green';'dancing-girl--'a dancer' to a'dancing 'girl--'a girl who is dancing'; a'mad-doctor--'a psychiatrist' to 'mad 'doctor--'a doctor who is mad'. The significance of these stress patterns is nowhere so evident as in nominal compounds built on the n+n derivational pattern in which the arrangement and order of the stems fail to distinguish a compound word from a phrase.

c) It is not infrequent, however, for both ICs to have level stress as in, e.g.,'arm-'chair, 'icy-'cold, 'grass-'green, etc.

The significance of the stress pattern by itself should not be overestimated though, as it cannot be an overall criterion and cannot always serve as a sufficient clue to draw a line of distinction between compound words and phrases. This mostly refers to level stress pattern. In most cases the level stress pattern is accompanied by other structural and graphic indications of inseparability.

Graphically most compounds have two types of spelling-- they are spelt either solidly or with a hyphen. Both types of spelling when accompanied by structural and phonetic peculiarities serve as a sufficient indication of inseparability of compound words in contradistinction to phrases. It is true that hyphenated spelling by itself may be sometimes misleading, as it may be used in word-groups to emphasize their phraseological character as in e.g.daughter-in-law, man-of-war, brother-in-arms or in longer combinations of words to indicate the semantic unity of a string of words used attributively as, e.g.,I-know-what-you're-going-to-say expression, we-are-in-the-know jargon, the young-must-be-right attitude. The two types of spelling typical of compounds, however, are not rigidly observed and there are numerous fluctuations between solid or hyphenated spelling on the one hand and spelling with a break between the components on the other, especially in nominal compounds of the n+n type. The spelling of these compounds varies from author to author and from dictionary to dictionary. For example, the wordswar-path, war-time, money-lender are spelt both with a hyphen and solidly;blood-poisoning, money-order, wave-length, war-ship-- with a hyphen and with a break;underfoot, insofar, underhand--solidly and with a break. It is noteworthy that new compounds of this type tend to solid or hyphenated spelling. This inconsistency of spelling in compounds, often accompanied by a level stress pattern (equally typical of word-groups) makes the problem of distinguishing between compound words (of the n+n type in particular) and word-group's especially difficult.

In this connection it should be stressed that Modern English nouns (in the Common Case, Sg.) as has been universally recognized possess an attributive function in which they are regularly used to form numerous nominal phrases as, e.g.peace years, stone steps, government office, etc. Such variable nominal phrases are semantically fully derivable from the meanings of the two nouns and are based on the homogeneous attributive semantic relations unlike compound words. This system of nominal phrases exists side by side with the specific and numerous class of nominal compounds which as a rule carry an additional semantic component not found in phrases.

It is also important to stress that these two classes of vocabulary units--compound words and free phrases--are not only opposed but also stand in close correlative relations to each other.

Semantically compound words are generally motivated units. The meaning of the compound is first of all derived from the combined lexical meanings of its components. The semantic peculiarity of the derivational bases and the semantic difference between the base and the stem on which the latter is built is most obvious in compound words. Compound words with a common second or first component can serve as illustrations. The stem of the wordboard is polysemantic and its multiple meanings serve as different derivational bases, each with its own selective range for the semantic features of the other component, each forming a separate set of compound words, based on specific derivative relations. Thus the baseboard meaning 'a flat piece of wood square or oblong' makes aset of compoundschess-board, notice-board, key-board, diving-board, foot-board, sign-board; compoundspaste-board, cardboard are built on the base meaning 'thick, stiff paper'; the baseboardmeaning 'an authorized body of men', forms compoundsschool-board, board-room. The same can be observed in words built on the polysemantic stem of the wordfoot. For example, the basefoot infoot-print, foot-pump, foothold, foot-bath, foot-wear has the meaning of 'the terminal part of the leg', infoot-note, foot-lights, foot-stone the basefoot has the meaning of 'the lower part', and infoot-high, foot-wide, footrule--'measure of length'. It is obvious from the above-given examples that the meanings of the bases of compound words are interdependent and that the choice of each is delimited as in variable word-groups by the nature of the other IC of the word. It thus may well be said that the combination of bases serves as a kind of minimal inner context distinguishing the particular individual lexical meaning of each component. In this connection we should also remember the significance of the differential meaning found in both components which becomes especially obvious in a set of compounds containing identical bases.

The lexical meanings of the bases alone, important as they are, do not make the meaning of the compound word. The meaning of the compound is derived not only from the combined lexical meanings of its components, but also from the meaning signalled by the patterns of the order and arrangement of its ICs.

A mere change in the order of bases with the same lexical meanings brings about a drastic change in the lexical meaning of the compound or destroys it altogether. As an illustration let us comparelife-boat--'a boat of special construction for saving lives from wrecks or along the coast' withboat-life--'life on board the ship'; a fruit-market--'market where fruit is sold' withmarket-fruit--'fruit designed for selling';board-schoolwithschool-board, etc. Thus the structural or distributional pattern in compound words carries a certain meaning of its own which is largely independent of the actual lexical meaning of their ICs. It follows that the lexical meaning of a compound is derived from the combined lexical meanings of its components and the structural meaning of its distributional pattern.

The structural meaning of the derivational pattern of compounds may be abstracted and described through the interrelation of its ICs. In analysing compound adjectives, e.g.duty-bound, wind-driven,mud-stained, we observe that their underlying pattern n+Ven conveys the generalized meaning of instrumental or agentive relations which can be interpreted as 'done by' or 'with the help of something'; the lexical meanings of the bases supply the individual action performed and the actual doer of the action or objects with the help of which the action is done;duty-bound may be interpreted as'bound by duty',wind-driven as 'driven by wind',mud-stained as 'stained with mud'.

The derivational patterns in compounds may be mono semantic as in the above-given examples, and polysemantic. If we take the pattern n+a > A which underlies such compound adjectives assnow-white, world-wide, air-sick, we shall see that the pattern has two different meanings which may be interpreted: a) through semantic relations of comparison between the components as inworld-wide--'wide as the world',snow-white--'as white as snow', etc. and b) through various relations of adverbial type (circumstantial) as inroad-weary--'weary of the road',colour-blind--'blind to colours', etc. The structural pattern n+n> N that underlies compound nouns is also polysemantic and conveys different semantic relations such as relations of purpose, e.g.bookshelf, bed-room, relations of resemblance, e.g. needle-fish, bowler-hat, instrumental or agentive relations, e.g.steamboat, windmill, sunrise, dogbite.

The polysemy of the structure often leads to a certain freedom of interpretation of the semantic relations between the components and consequently to the polysemy of the compound. For example, it is equally correct to interpret the compound nountoy-man as 'a toy having the shape of a man' or 'a man who makes toys, a toy-maker', the compoundclock-tower may likewise be understood as a 'tower with a clock fitted in' or 'a tower that serves as or is at the same time a clock'.

It follows that the meaning of a compound is made up of the combined lexical meaning of the pattern. The semantic centre of the compoundisthe lexical meaning of the second component modified and restricted by the meaning of the first. The semantic centres of compound's and the semantic relations embedded in the structural patterns refer compound words to certain lexico-semantic groups and semantic sets within them as, for example: 1) compound words denoting action described as to its agent, e.g.sunrise, earthquake, handshake, 2) compounds denoting action described as to its time or place, e.g.day-flight, street-fight, 3) compounds denoting individual objects designed forsomegoal, e.g.bird-cage, table-cloth, diving-suit, 4) compounds denoting objects that are parts of the whole, e.g.shirt-collar, eye-ball, 5) compounds denoting active doers, e.g.book-reader, shoe-maker, globe-trotter.

The lexical meanings of both components are closely fused together to create a new semantic unit with a new meaning which is not merely additive but dominates the individual meanings of the bases and is characterized by some additional semantic component not found in any of the bases. For example,a hand-bagis essentially 'a bag, designed to be carried in the hand', but it is also 'a woman's bag to keep money, papers, face-powder and the like';a time-bomb is `a bomb designed to explode at some time', but also 'after being dropped or placed in position'. The bulk of compound words are monosemantic and motivated but motivation in compounds like in all derivatives varies in degree. There are compounds that are completely motivated likesky-blue, foot-pump, tea-taster. Motivation in compound words may be partial, but again the degree will vary. Compound words ahand-bag, aflower-bed, handcuffs, a castle-builder are. all only partially motivated, but still the degree of transparency of their meanings is different: in ahand-bag it is the highest as it is essentially 'a bag', whereashandcuffsretain only a resemblance tocuffs and in fact are 'metal rings placed round the wrists of a prisoner';a flower-bed is neither'a piece of furniture' nor 'a base on which smth rests' but a 'garden plot where flowers grow'; a castle-builder is not a 'builder' as the second component suggests but 'a day-dreamer, one who builds castles in the air'.

There are compounds that lack motivation altogether, i.e. the native speaker doesn't see any obvious connection between the word-meaning, the lexical meanings of the bases and the meaning of the pattern, consequently, he cannot deduce the lexical meaning of the word, for example, words likeeye-wash--'something said or done to deceive a person',fiddlesticks--'nonsense, rubbish', aneye-servant--'a servant who attends to his duty only when watched', a night-cap--'a drink taken before going to bed at night' all lack motivation. Lackof motivation in compound words may be often due to the transferred meanings of bases or of the whole word as in a slow-coach--'a person who acts slowly' (colloq.),a sweet-tooth--'one who likes sweet food and drink' (colloq.). Such words often acquire a new connotational meaning (usually non-neutral) not proper to either of their components. Lack of motivation may be often due to unexpected semantic relations embedded in the compound.

Sometimes the motivated and the non-motivated meanings of the same word are so far apart that they are felt as two homonymous words, e.g. a night-cap: 1) 'a cap worn in bed at night' and 2) 'a drink taken before going to bed at night' (colloq.); eye-wash: 1) 'a liquid for washing the eyes' and 2) 'something said or done to deceive somebody' (colloq.);an eye-opener: 1) 'enlightening or surprising circumstance' (colloq.) and 2) 'a drink of liquor taken early in the day' (U.S.)

Compound words may be described fromdifferent points of view and consequently may be classified according to different principles. They may be viewed from the point of view: 1) of general relationship and degree of semantic independence of components; 2) of the parts of speech compound words represent; 3) of the means of composition used to link the two ICs together; 4) of the type of ICs that are brought together to form a compound; 5) of the correlative relations with the system of freer word-groups.

Each type of compound words based on the above-mentioned principles should also be described from the point of view of the degree of its potential power, i.e. its productivity, its relevancy to the system of Modern English compounds. This description must aim at finding and setting a system of ordered structural and semantic rules for productive types of compound words on analogy with which an infinite number of new compounds constantly appear in the language.

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 coordinative compounds 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 make up a comparatively small group of words. Coordinative compounds fall into three groups:

a) Reduplicative compounds which are made up by 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 thephonically 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. This subgroup stands very much apart. It is very often referred to pseudo-compounds and considered by some linguists irrelevant to productive word-formation owing to the doubtful morphemic status of their components. The constituent members of compound words of this subgroup are in most cases unique, carry very vague or no lexical meaning of their own, are not found as stems of independently functioning words. They are motivated mainly through the rhythmic doubling of fanciful sound-clusters.

Coordinative compounds of both subgroups (a, b) are mostly restricted to the colloquial layer, are marked by a heavy emotive charge and possess a very small degree of productivity.

c) The bases of additive compounds such asa queen-bee, an actor-manager, unlike the compound words of the first two subgroups, are built on stems of the independently functioning word of the same part of speech. These bases often semantically stand in the genus-species relations. 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 bedroom 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 asSino-Japanese, Anglo-Saxon, Afro-Asian, etc.

Additive compounds of this group are mostly fully motivated but have a very limited degree of productivity.

However it must be stressed that though the distinction between coordinative and subordinative compounds is generally made, it is open to doubt and there is no hard and fast border-line between them. On the contrary, the border-line is rather vague. It often happens that one and the same compound may with equal right be interpreted either way--as a coordinative or a subordinative compound, e.g.a woman-doctormay be understood as 'a woman who is at the same time a doctor' or there can be traced a difference of importance between the components and it may be primarily felt to be 'a doctor who happens to be a woman', cf. alsoa mother-goose, a clock-tower.

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, which preconditions the part-of-speech meaning of the whole compound as instone-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, as to productivity most of the productive types are subordinative compounds.

Functionally compounds are viewed as wordsof different parts ofspeech. It is the head-member of the compound, i.e. its second IC that is indicative of the grammatical and lexical category the compound word belongs to.

Compound words are foundin all parts of speech, but the bulk of compounds are nouns and adjectives. Each part of speech is characterized by its set of derivational patterns and their semantic variants. Compound adverbs, pronouns and connectives are represented by an insignificant number of words, e.g. somewhere, somebody, inside, upright, otherwise, moreover, elsewhere, by means of, etc. No new compounds are coined on this pattern. Compound pronouns and adverbs built on the repeating first and second IC like body, ever, thing make closed sets of words

On the whole composition is not productive either for adverbs, pronouns or for connectives.

Verbs are of special interest. There is a small group of compound verbs made up of the combination of verbal and adverbial stems that language retains from earlier stages, e.g. to bypass, to inlay, to offset. This type according to some authors, is no longer productive and is rarely found in new compounds.

There are many polymorphic verbs that are represented by morphemic sequences of two root-morphemes, like to weekend, to gooseflesh, to spring-clean, but derivationally they are all words of secondary derivation in which the existing compound nouns only serve as bases for derivation. They are often termed pseudo-compound verbs. Such polymorphic verbs are presented by two groups:

1) verbs formed by means of conversion from the stems of compound nouns as in to spotlight from a spotlight, to sidetrack froma side-track, to handcuff from handcuffs, to blacklist from a blacklist, to pinpoint from a pin-point;

2) verbs formed by back-derivation from the stems of compound nouns, e.g. to babysit from a baby-sitter, to playact from play-acting, to housekeep from house-keeping, to spring-clean from spring-cleaning.

From the point of view of the means bywhich the components are joined together compound words may be classified into:

1) Words formed by merely placing one constituent after another in a definite order which thus is indicative of both the semantic value and the morphological unity of the compound, e.g. rain-driven, house-dog, pot-pie (cf. dog-house, pie-pot). This means of linking the components is typical of the majority of Modern English compounds in all parts of speech.

As to the order of components, subordinative compounds are often classified as: a) syntactic compounds in which the order of bases runs counter to the order in which the motivating words can be brought together under the rules of syntax of the language. For example, in variable phrases adjectives cannot be modified by preceding adjectives and noun modifiers are not placed before participles or adjectives, yet this kind of asyntactic arrangement is typical of compounds, e.g.red-hot, bluish-black, pale-blue, rain-driven, oil-rich. The asyntactic order is typical of the majority of Modern English compound words; b) syntactic compounds whose components are placed in the order that resembles the order of words in free phrases arranged according to the rules of syntax of Modern English. The order of the components in compounds likeblue-bell, mad-doctor, blacklist (a+n) reminds one of the order and arrangement of the corresponding words in phrases a blue bell, a mad doctor, a black list (A+N), the order of compounds of the typedoor-handle, day-time, spring-lock (n+n) resembles the order of words in nominal phrases with attributive function of the first noun (N+N), e.g.spring time, stone steps, peace movement.

2) Compound words whose ICs are joined together with a special linking-element--the linking vowels [ou] and occasionally [?] and the linking consonant [s/z]--which is indicative of composition as in, e.g.,speedometer, tragicomic, statesman. Compounds of this type can be both nouns and adjectives, subordinative and additive but are rather few in number since they are considerably restricted by the nature of their components. The additive compound adjectives linked with the help of the vowel [ou] are limited to the names of nationalities and represent a specific group with a bound root for the first component, e.g.Sino-Japanese, Afro-Asian, Anglo-Saxon.

In subordinative adjectives and nouns the productive linking element is also [ou] and compound words of the type are most productive for scietific terms. The main peculiarity of compounds of the type is that their constituents are nonassimilated bound roots borrowed mainly from classical languages, e.g.electro-dynamic, filmography, technophobia, videophone, sociolinguistics, videodisc.

A small group of compound nouns may also be joined with the help of linking consonant [s/z], as insportsman, landsman, saleswoman, bridesmaid. This small group of words is restricted by the second component which, is, as a rule, one of the three basesman-, woman-, people-. The commonest of them isman-.

Compounds may be also classified according to the nature of the bases and the interconnection with other ways of word-formation into the so-called compounds proper and derivational compounds.

Compounds proper are formed by joining together bases built on the stems or on the word-forms of independently functioning words with or without the help of special linking element such asdoorstep, age-long, baby-sitter, looking-glass, street-fighting, handiwork, sportsman. Compounds proper constitute the bulk of English compounds in all parts of speech, they include both subordinative and coordinative classes, productive and non-productive patterns.

Derivational compounds, e.g.long-legged, three-cornered, a break-down, a pickpocket differ from compounds proper in the nature of bases and their second IC. The two ICs of the compound long-legged--'having long legs'--are the suffix-edmeaning 'having' and the base built on a free word-group long legs whose member words lose their grammatical independence, and are reduced to a single component of the word, a derivational base. Any other segmentation of such words, say into long- and legged- is impossible because firstly, adjectives like legged do not exist in Modern English and secondly, because it would contradict the lexical meaning of these words. The derivational adjectival suffix-edconverts this newly formed base into a word. It can be graphically represented as long legs>| (long-leg) + -ed|>long-legged. The suffix -ed becomes the grammatically and semantically dominant component of the word, its head-member. It imparts its part-of-speech meaning and its lexical meaning thus making an adjective that may be semantically interpreted as 'with (or having) what is denoted by the motivating word-group'. Comparison of the pattern of compounds proper like baby-sitter, pen-holder [n+(v + -er)] with the pattern of derivational compounds like long-legged[(a+n) + -ed] reveals the difference: derivational compounds are formed by a derivational means, a suffix in case of words of the long-legged type, which is applied to a base that each time is formed anew on a free word-group and is not recurrent in any other type of words. It follows that strictly speaking words of this type should be treated as pseudo-compounds or as a special group of derivatives. They are habitually referred to derivational compounds because of the peculiarity of their derivational bases which are felt as built by composition, i.e. by bringing together the stems of the member-words of a phrase which lose their independence in the process. The word itself, e.g. long-legged, is built by the application of the suffix, i.e. by derivation and thus may be described as a suffixal derivative.