Compounding

What is Compounding?

Compounding (from Latin componere, meaning 'to put together') combines two or more words to create a new one.

Compound elements

A compound is made up of various parts of speech such as a noun, verb, and adverb.

This means that compounds can be a combination of noun plus noun, verb plus noun, adjective plus noun, etc.

Compounds can be written as one word, two separate words, or a word with a hyphen.

Classical compounds is another category of compounds, derived from Latin or ancient Greek.

Pronunciation

Pronunciation can help to determine the meaning of words. Depending on how we pronounce a word, this can change its meaning. One important aspect of our pronunciations is stress. Let's look at this in more detail:

Stress

Stress is useful in helping us to understand the difference between a compound noun and an adjective with a noun. In the following examples, note where the stress falls:

Compound elements

Noun + noun

Noun + verb

Noun + adverb

Verb + noun

Verb + adverb

Adverb + noun

Adjective + verb

Adjective + noun

Adverb + verb

The Suspended Compound

The suspended compound is used to avoid repetition with longer words.

For example, instead of saying: 'There are mostly eighteenth-century or nineteenth-century buildings in the town centre,' we can shorten the first compound and say: '' There are mostly eighteenth- or nineteenth-century buildings in the town centre. ''

Other examples:

Short- and long-term plans are equally valid.

Both first- and second-class tickets cost the same.

Compounding across the globe

Compounds exist in virtually every language.

Let's look at some examples from around the world.

Compounds and form

Compound nouns can be written in three ways: open form, closed form and hyphenated form.

Open form compounds

An open (or spaced) compound is written as two separate words.

Closed form compounds

A closed (or solid) compound is written as one word.

Hyphenated form compounds

A hyphenated compound is written with a hyphen.

Some compounds are made up of two similar-sounding elements, such as:

• goody-goody,
• hush-hush,
• razzle-dazzle.

These are called reduplicative compounds and are usually hyphenated if each element has one or more syllables. However, closed form is also common, as in:

• crisscross,
• knickknack,
• singsong.

Compound subclasses

Compounds are usually made up of two words:

One word gives the basic meaning of the whole compound and is called the head, the other word (the modifier) qualifies this meaning (ie. it gives us more specific information about the head).

Compounds can be divided into four subclasses:

Endocentric

Exocentric

Coordinative

Appositional

Endocentric compounds

In endocentric compounds, the meaning of the whole word tends to be clear and relates to the head.

The first word will be the modifier. The head word comes second and categorizes the compound. This is called a head final. The modifier will qualify the meaning of the head final.

Endocentric compounds tend to be of the same part of speech (word class) as their head, as in the case of doghouse, which is made up of a noun plus noun .

Cat food tells us what type of food (food intended for cats).

Water bottle tells us what type of bottle (a bottle we can drink water from).

Because the modifier gives us a specialisation of the head word, this type of compound is also known as a descriptive compound.

Fig. 2 - Cookbook is an endocentric compound.

Exocentric compounds

With exocentric compounds, the meaning is not obvious and often seems unrelated to any part of the compound itself.

Facebook is a social media platform, yet we couldn't guess this from the words used to make the compound. The same goes for scarecrow, a figure created to scare birds away from crops, and paperback, which is a type of book.

Exocentric compounds lack a clear head and are also often called headless compounds.

Coordinative compounds

Coordinative (or copulative) compounds are compounds with two semantic heads that work in coordination. The meanings will be related, or have similar origins, without being the same thing.

For example, actor-manager means someone who is an actor and a theatre manager.

Coordinative compounds are often used to describe people's professions and can be made up of as many as five words.

Fig. 3 - Musician-writer-filmmaker is a coordinative compound.

Appositional compounds

Appositional compounds are made up of (two) words that each describe the compound differently.

For example, instead of saying 'these prehistoric tribes were both hunters and gatherers' you could say 'these prehistoric tribes were hunter-gatherers'.

Table summary

The term comes from Sanskrit bahuvrīhi, which is also this type of compound, from bahu much + vrīh rice.

Possessive or bahuvrihi compounds are often used in English to describe characteristics of people, and can be figurative, or non-literal, in their meaning.

What are Compound Sentences?

Compound words are a combination of two or more words.

Compound sentences are a combination of two or more independent clauses.

In the above sentence, we have three independent clauses. Note how they are linked by commas and the conjunction 'and'.

A compound sentence has at least two independent clauses. They can be joined by:

• a semicolon,
• a comma and coordinating conjunction eg 'and', 'or' and 'but'.