Word formation. Compounding

Word formation. Compounding.

In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes (the other word-formation process being derivation). Compounding or Word-compounding refers to the faculty and device of language to form new words by combining or putting together old words. In other words, compound, compounding or word-compounding occurs when a person attaches two or more words together to make them one word.

Compounds may be compositional, meaning that the meaning of the new word is determined by combining the meanings of the parts, or noncompositional, meaning that the meaning of the new word cannot be determined by combining the meanings of the parts. For example, a blueberry is a berry that is blue. However, a breakup is not a relationship that was severed into pieces in an upward direction.

Compound words may be written as one word or as two words joined with a hyphen. For example:

noun-noun compound: note + book → notebook

adjective-noun compound: blue + berry → blueberry

verb-noun compound: work + room → workroom

noun-verb compound: breast + feed → breastfeed

verb-verb compound: stir + fry → stir-fry

adjective-verb compound: high + light → highlight

verb-preposition compound: break + up → breakup

preposition-verb compound: out + run → outrun

adjective-adjective compound: bitter + sweet → bittersweet

preposition-preposition compound: in + to → into

Compound nouns should not be confused with nouns modified by adjectives, verbs, and other nouns. For example, the adjective black of the noun phrase black bird is different than the adjective black of the compound noun blackbird in that black of black bird functions as a noun phrase modifier while the black of blackbird is an inseparable part of the noun: a black bird also refers to any bird that is black in color while a blackbird is a specific type of bird. 

Semantic classification.

A common semantic classification of compounds yields four types:

endocentric

exocentric (also bahuvrihi)

copulative (also dvandva)

appositional

An endocentric compound consists of a head, i.e. the categorical part that contains the basic meaning of the whole compound, and modifiers, which restrict this meaning. For example, the English compound doghouse, where house is the head and dog is the modifier, is understood as a house intended for a dog. Endocentric compounds tend to be of the same part of speech (word class) as their head, as in the case of doghouse. (Such compounds were called tatpuruṣa in the Sanskrit tradition.)

darkroom, smalltalk

Exocentric compounds (called a bahuvrihi compound in the Sanskrit tradition) are hyponyms of some unexpressed semantic head (e.g. a person, a plant, an animal...), and their meaning often cannot be transparently guessed from its constituent parts. For example, the English compound white-collar is neither a kind of collar nor a white thing. In an exocentric compound, the word class is determined lexically, disregarding the class of the constituents. For example, a must-have is not a verb but a noun. The meaning of this type of compound can be glossed as "(one) whose B is A", where B is the second element of the compound and A the first. A bahuvrihi compound is one whose nature is expressed by neither of the words: thus a white-collar person is neither white nor a collar (the collar's colour is a metaphor for socioeconomic status). Other English examples include barefoot and Blackbeard.

skinhead, paleface (head: 'person')

Copulative compounds are compounds which have two semantic heads.

bittersweet, sleepwalk

Appositional compounds refer to lexemes that have two (contrary) attributes which classify the compound.

actor-director, maidservant