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 noun doctor 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 as doctor — 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 noun cooker (in gas-cooker) is

formed from the word to 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.

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 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, for example, 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 (prf + [n +

n]), to weekend, to spotlight ([n + n] + conversion).

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 in compound

adjectives. Adjectives like long, wide, rich are characterized by

grammatical forms of degrees of comparison longer, 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 adjective oil-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 words key and hole or hot and house each

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 'hothouse — ‘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 first component and a

weaker, secondary stress on the second component, e. g. 'blood-

?vessel, 'mad-?doctor, 'washing-?machine, etc.

c) It is not infrequent, however, for both ICs to have level stress as

in, for instance, 'arm-'chair, 'icy-'cold, 'grass-'green, etc.

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 words war-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[25]. 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-groups 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 word

board 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 base board meaning

‘a flat piece of wood square or oblong’ makes a set of compounds chess-

board, notice-board, key-board, diving-board, foot-board, sign-board;

compounds paste-board, cardboard are built on the base meaning ‘thick,

stiff paper’; the base board– meaning ‘an authorized body of men’, forms

compounds school-board, board-room. The same can be observed in words built

on the polysemantic stem of the word foot. For example, the base foot– in

foot-print, foot-pump, foothold, foot-bath, foot-wear has the meaning of

‘the terminal part of the leg’, in foot-note, foot-lights, foot-stone the

base foot– has the meaning of ‘the lower part’, and in foot-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.

Compound words can be described from different 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 free word-groups.

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 той 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 the phonically variated rhythmic twin

forms which either alliterate with the same initial consonant but vary

the vowels as in chit-chat, zigzag, sing-song, or rhyme by varying the

initial consonants as in clap-trap, a walky-talky, 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 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. 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 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.

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-doctor may be

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