English compound A compound is a word composed of more than one free morpheme.

English compounds may be classified in several ways, such as the word classes or the semantic relationship of their components. Examples by word class Modifier noun adjective verb noun adjective verb noun adjective verb noun adverb verb Head noun noun noun adjective adjective adjective verb verb verb Compound football blackboard breakwater underworld snowwhite blue-green tumbledown over-ripe browbeat highlight freeze-dry undercut

preposition noun

preposition adjective

preposition verb

preposition love-in preposition forthwith preposition takeout

preposition preposition without Compound nouns Most English compound nouns are noun phrases (= nominal phrases) that include a noun modified by adjectives or attributive nouns. Due to the English tendency towards conversion, the two classes are not always easily distinguished. Most English compound nouns that consist of more than two words can be constructed recursively by combining two words at a time. Combining "science" and "fiction", and then combining the resulting compound with "writer", for example, can construct the compound "science fiction writer". Some compounds, such as salt and pepper or mother-ofpearl, cannot be constructed in this way, Types of compound nouns Since English is a mostly analytic language, unlike most other Germanic languages, it creates compounds by concatenating words without case markers. As in other Germanic languages, the compounds may be arbitrarily long. However, this is obscured by the fact that the written representation of long compounds always contains blanks. Short compounds may be written in three different ways, which do not correspond to different pronunciations, however:

The "solid" or "closed" forms in which two usually moderately short words appear together as one. Solid compounds most likely consist of short (monosyllabic) units that often have been established in the language for a long time. Examples are housewife, lawsuit, wallpaper, basketball, etc. The hyphenated form in which two or more words are connected by a hyphen. Compounds that contain affixes, such as house-build(er) and single-mind(ed)(ness), as well as adjective-adjective compounds and verb-verb compounds, such as blue-green and freeze-dried, are often hyphenated. Compounds that contain articles, prepositions or conjunctions, such as rent-a-cop, mother-of-pearl and salt-and-pepper, are also often hyphenated. The open or spaced form consisting of newer combinations of usually longer words, such as distance learning, player piano, lawn tennis, etc.

Usage in the US and in the UK differs and often depends on the individual choice of the writer rather than on a hardand-fast rule; therefore, open, hyphenated, and closed forms may be encountered for the same compound noun, such as the triplets container ship/container-ship/containership and particle board/particle-board/particleboard.

In addition to this native English compounding, there is the classical type, which consists of words derived from Latin, as horticulture, and those of Greek origin, such as photography, the components of which are in bound form (connected by connecting vowels, which are most often -i- and -o- in Latin and Greek respectively) and cannot stand alone. Analyzability (transparency) In general, the meaning of a compound noun is a specialization of the meaning of its head. The modifier limits the meaning of the head. This is most obvious in descriptive compounds (known as karmadharaya compounds in the Sanskrit tradition), in which the modifier is used in an attributive or appositional manner. A blackboard is a particular kind of board, which is (generally) black, for instance. In determinative compounds, however, the relationship is not attributive. For example, a footstool is not a particular type of stool that is like a foot. Rather, it is a stool for one's foot or feet. (It can be used for sitting on, but that is not its primary purpose.) In a similar manner, an office manager is the manager of an office, an armchair is a chair with arms, and a raincoat is a coat against the rain. These relationships, which are expressed by prepositions in English, would be expressed by grammatical case in other languages. (Compounds of this type are known as tatpurusha in the Sanskrit tradition.) Both of the above types of compounds are called endocentric compounds because the semantic head is contained within the compound itselfa blackboard is a type of board, for example, and a footstool is a type of stool. However, in another common type of compound, the exocentric or (known as a bahuvrihi compound in the Sanskrit tradition), the semantic head is not explicitly expressed. A redhead, for example, is not a kind of head, but is a person with red hair. Similarly, a blockhead is also not a head, but a person with a head that is as hard and unreceptive as a block (i.e. stupid). And, outside of veterinary surgery, a lionheart is not a type of heart, but a person with a heart like a lion (in its bravery, courage, fearlessness, etc.). Note in general the way to tell the two apart:

Can you paraphrase the meaning of the compound "[X . Y]" to A person/thing that is a Y, or ... that does Y, if Y is a verb (with X having some unspecified connection)? This is an endocentric compound. Can you paraphrase the meaning if the compound "[X . Y]" to A person/thing that is with Y, with X having some unspecified connection? This is an exocentric compound.

Exocentric compounds occur more often in adjectives than nouns. A V-8 car is a car with a V-8 engine rather than a car that is a V-8, and a twenty-five-dollar car is a car with a worth of $25, not a car that is $25. The compounds shown here are bare, but more commonly, a suffixal morpheme is added, esp. -ed. Hence, a two-legged person is a person with two legs, and this is exocentric. On the other hand, endocentric adjectives are also frequently formed, using the suffixal morphemes -ing or -er/or. A people-carrier is a clear endocentric determinative compound: it is a thing that is a carrier of people. The related adjective, car-carrying, is also endocentric: it refers to an object, which is a carrying-thing (or equivalent, which does carry). These types account for most compound nouns, but there are other, rarer types as well. Coordinative, copulative or dvandva compounds combine elements with a similar meaning, and the compound meaning may be a generalization instead of a specialization. Bosnia-Herzegovina, for example, is the combined area of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but a fighter-bomber is an aircraft that is both a fighter and a bomber. Iterative or amredita compounds repeat a single element, to express repetition or as an emphasis. Day by day and go-go are examples of this type of compound, which has more than one head. Analyzability may be further limited by cranberry morphemes and semantic changes. For instance, the word butterfly, commonly thought to be a metathesis for flutter by, which the bugs do, is actually based on an old bubbe meise that butterflies are petite witches that steal butter from window sills. Cranberry is a part translation from Low German, which is why we cannot recognize the element cran (from the Low German kraan or kroon, "crane"). The ladybird or ladybug was named after the Christian expression "our Lady, the Virgin Mary". In the case of verb+noun compounds, the noun may be either the subject or the object of the verb. In playboy, for example, the noun is the subject of the verb (the boy plays), whereas it is the object in callgirl (someone calls the girl).

Sound patterns: Stress patterns may distinguish a compound word from a noun phrase consisting of the same component words. For example, a black board, adjective plus noun, is any board that is black, and has equal stress on both elements.[1] The compound blackboard, on the other hand, though it may have started out historically as black board, now is stressed on only the first element, black.[2] Thus a compound such as the White House normally has a falling intonation which a phrase such as a white house does not.[3] Compound modifiers: English compound modifiers are constructed in a very similar way to the compound noun. Blackboard Jungle, leftover ingredients, gunmetal sheen, and green monkey disease are only a few examples. A compound modifier is a sequence of modifiers of a noun that function as a single unit. It consists of two or more words (adjectives, gerunds, or nouns) of which the left-hand component modifies the right-hand one, as in "the darkgreen dress": dark modifies the green that modifies dress. Solid compound modifiers: There are some well-established permanent compound modifiers that have become solid over a longer period, especially in American usage: earsplitting, eyecatching, and downtown. However, in British usage, these, apart from downtown, are more likely written with a hyphen: ear-splitting, eyecatching. Other solid compound modifiers are for example:

Numbers that are spelled out and have the suffix -fold added: "fifteenfold", "sixfold". Points of the compass: northwest, northwestern, northwesterly, northwestwards. In British usage, the hyphenated and open versions are more common: north-western, north-westerly, north west, north-westwards.

Hyphenated compound modifiers: Major style guides advise consulting a dictionary to determine whether a compound modifier should be hyphenated; the dictionary's hyphenation should be followed even when the compound modifier precedes a noun.[4][5][6] Hyphens are unnecessary in other unambiguous, regularly used compound modifiers.[7] Generally, a compound modifier is hyphenated if the hyphen helps the reader differentiate a compound modifier from two adjacent modifiers that modify the noun independently. Compare the following examples:

"small appliance industry": a small industry producing appliances "small-appliance industry": an industry producing small appliances

The hyphen is unneeded when capitalization or italicization makes grouping clear:

"old English scholar": an old person who is English and a scholar, or an old scholar who studies English "Old English scholar": a scholar of Old English. "De facto proceedings" (not "de-facto")

If, however, there is no risk of ambiguities, it may be written without a hyphen: Sunday morning walk. Hyphenated compound modifiers may have been formed originally by an adjective preceding a noun, when this phrase in turn precedes another noun:

"Round table" "round-table discussion" "Blue sky" "blue-sky law" "Red light" "red-light district" "Four wheels" "four-wheel drive" (historically, the singular or root is used, not the plural)

Others may have originated with a verb preceding an adjective or adverb:

"Feel good" "feel-good factor" "Buy now, pay later" "buy-now pay-later purchase"

Yet others are created with an original verb preceding a preposition.

"Stick on" "stick-on label" "Walk on" "walk-on part" "Stand by" "stand-by fare" "Roll on, roll off" "roll-on roll-off ferry"

The following compound modifiers are always hyphenated when they are not written as one word:

An adjective preceding a noun to which -d or -ed has been added as a past-participle construction, used before a noun: o "loud-mouthed hooligan" o "middle-aged lady" o "rose-tinted glasses" A noun, adjective, or adverb preceding a present participle: o "an awe-inspiring personality" o "a long-lasting affair" o "a far-reaching decision" Numbers, whether or not spelled: o "seven-year itch" o "five-sided polygon" o "20th-century poem" o "30-piece band" o "tenth-storey window" o "a 20-year-old man" (as a compound modifier) and "the 20-year-old" (as a compound noun) but "a man, who is 20 years old" A numeral with the affix -fold has a hyphen (15-fold), but when spelled out takes a solid construction (fifteenfold). Numbers, spelled out or not, with added -odd: sixteen-odd, 70-odd. Compound modifiers with high- or low-: "high-level discussion", "low-price markup". Colours in compounds: o "a dark-blue sweater" o "a reddish-orange dress". Fractions as modifiers are hyphenated: "five-eighths inches", but if numerator or denominator are already hyphenated, the fraction itself does not take a hyphen: "a thirty-three thousandth part". (Fractions used as nouns have no hyphens: "I ate only one third of the pie.") Comparatives and superlatives in compound adjectives also take hyphens: o "the highest-placed competitor" o "a shorter-term loan" However, a construction with most is not hyphenated: o "the most respected member". Compounds including two geographical modifiers: o "Afro-Cuban" o "African-American" (sometimes) o "Anglo-Indian" But not o "Central American".

The following compound modifiers are not normally hyphenated:

Compound modifiers that are not hyphenated in the relevant dictionary[4][5][6] or that are unambiguous without a hyphen.[7] Where there is no risk of ambiguity: o "a Sunday morning walk" Left-hand components of a compound modifier that end in -ly and that modify right-hand components that are past participles (ending in -ed): o "a hotly disputed subject"

"a greatly improved scheme" "a distantly related celebrity" Compound modifiers that include comparatives and superlatives with more, most, less or least: o "a more recent development" o "the most respected member" o "a less opportune moment" o "the least expected event" Ordinarily hyphenated compounds with intensive adverbs in front of adjectives: o "very much admired classicist" o "really well accepted proposal"

o o

Using a group of compound nouns containing the same "head" Special rules apply when multiple compound nouns with the same "head" are used together, often with a conjunction (and with hyphens and commas if they are needed).

The third- and fourth-grade teachers met with the parents. Both full- and part-time employees will get raises this year. We don't see many 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children around here.

Compound verbs modifier head examples

preposition verb overrate, underline, outrun adverb adjective noun verb downsize, upgrade verb whitewash, blacklist, foulmouth verb browbeat, sidestep, manhandle

preposition noun out-Herod, out-fox

A compound verb is usually composed of a preposition and a verb, although other combinations also exist. The term compound verb was first used in publication in Grattan and Gurrey's Our Living Language (1925). From a morphological point of view, some compound verbs are difficult to analyze because several derivations are plausible. Blacklist, for instance, might be analyzed as an adjective+verb compound, or as an adjective+noun compound that becomes a verb through zero derivation. Most compound verbs originally have the collective meaning of both components, but some of them later gain additional meanings that may supersede the original, emergent sense. Therefore, sometimes the resultant meanings are seemingly barely related to the original contributors. Compound verbs composed of a noun and verb are comparatively rare, and the noun is generally not the direct object of the verb. In English, compounds such as *bread-bake or *car-drive do not exist. Yet, we find literal action words, such as breastfeed, and washing instructions on clothing as for example hand wash. Hyphenation Compound verbs with single-syllable modifiers are solid, or unhyphenated. Those with longer modifiers may originally be hyphenated, but as they became established, they became solid, e.g.,

overhang (English origin) counterattack (Latin origin)

There was a tendency in the 18th century to use hyphens excessively, that is, to hyphenate all previously established solid compound verbs. American English, however, has diminished the use of hyphens, while British English is more conservative.

Phrasal verbs English syntax distinguishes between phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs. Consider the following:

I held up my hand. I held up a bank. I held my hand up.

*I held a bank up. The first three sentences are possible in English; the last one is unlikely. When to hold up means to raise, it is a prepositional verb; the preposition up can be detached from the verb and has its own individual meaning "from lower to a higher position". As a prepositional verb, it has a literal meaning. However, when to hold up means to rob, it is a phrasal verb. A phrasal verb is used in an idiomatic, figurative or even metaphorical context. The preposition is inextricably linked to the verb; the meaning of each word cannot be determined independently but is in fact part of the idiom. The Oxford English Grammar (ISBN 0-19-861250-8) distinguishes seven types of prepositional or phrasal verbs in English:

intransitive phrasal verbs (e.g. give in) transitive phrasal verbs (e.g. find out [discover]) monotransitive prepositional verbs (e.g. look after [care for]) doubly transitive prepositional verbs (e.g. blame [something] on [someone]) copular prepositional verbs. (e.g. serve as) monotransitive phrasal-prepositional verbs (e.g. look up to [respect]) doubly transitive phrasal-prepositional verbs (e.g. put [something] down to [someone] [attribute to])

English has a number of other kinds of compound verb idioms. There are compound verbs with two verbs (e.g. make do). These too can take idiomatic prepositions (e.g. get rid of). There are also idiomatic combinations of verb and adjective (e.g. come true, run amok) and verb and adverb (make sure), verb and fixed noun (e.g. go ape); and these, too, may have fixed idiomatic prepositions (e.g. take place on). Misuses of the term "Compound verb" is often used in place of: 1. 2. 3. "complex verb", a type of complex phrase. But this usage is not accepted in linguistics, because "compound" and "complex" are not synonymous. "verb phrase" or "verbal phrase". This is a partially, but not entirely, incorrect use. A phrasal verb can be a oneword verb, of which compound verb is a type. However, many phrasal verbs are multi-word. "phrasal verb". A sub-type of verb phrase, which have a particle as a word before or after the verb.

Compound Nouns A compound noun is a noun that is made with two or more words. A compound noun is usually [noun + noun] or [adjective + noun], but there are other combinations (see below). It is important to understand and recognize compound nouns. Each compound noun acts as a single unit and can be modified by adjectives and other nouns. There are three forms for compound nouns:

1. 2. 3.

open or spaced - space between words (tennis shoe) hyphenated - hyphen between words (six-pack) closed or solid - no space or hyphen between words (bedroom)

Here are some examples of compound nouns: bus stop noun + noun fire-fly football full moon adjective + noun blackboard software breakfast verb(-ing) + noun swimming pool sunrise noun verb noun noun + verb(-ing) + preposition haircut train-spotting check-out underworld truckful + prepositional phrase mother-in-law + adjective Is this the bus stop for the number 12 bus? In the tropics you can see fire-flies at night. Shall we play football today? I always feel crazy at full moon. Clean the blackboard please. I can't install this software on my PC. We always eat breakfast at 8am. What a beautiful swimming pool! I like to get up at sunrise. You need a haircut. His hobby is train-spotting. Please remember that check-out is at 12 noon. My mother-in-law lives with us. Do you think the police accept money from the underworld? We need 10 truckfuls of bricks.

washing machine Put the clothes in the red washing machine.

preposition + noun

Pronunciation Compound nouns tend to have more stress on the first word. In the phrase "pink ball", both words are equally stressed (as you know, adjectives and nouns are always stressed). In the compound noun "golf ball", the first word is stressed more (even though both words are nouns, and nouns are always stressed). Since "golf ball" is a compound noun we consider it as a single noun and so it has a single main stress - on the first word. Stress is important in compound nouns. For example, it helps us know if somebody said "a GREEN HOUSE" (a house which is painted green) or "a GREENhouse" (a building made of glass for growing plants inside). British/American differences Different varieties of English, and even different writers, may use the open, hyphenated or closed form for the same compound noun. It is partly a matter of style. There are no definite rules. For example we can find:

container ship container-ship containership

If you are not sure which form to use, please check in a good dictionary. Plural Forms of Compound Nouns A compound noun is a noun that is made up of two or more words. Most compound nouns in English are formed by nouns modified by other nouns or adjectives. For example: The words tooth and paste are each nouns in their own right, but if you join them together they form a new word toothpaste. The word black is an adjective and board is a noun, but if you join them together they form a new word blackboard.

In both these example the first word modifies or describes the second word, telling us what kind of object or person it is, or what its purpose is. And the second part identifies the object or person in question. Compound nouns can also be formed using the following combinations of words:Noun Adjective Verb Preposition Noun Noun Adjective Preposition + + + + + + + + Noun Noun Noun Noun Verb Preposition Verb Verb toothpaste monthly ticket swimming pool underground haircut hanger on dry-cleaning output

The two parts may be written in a number of ways:1. Sometimes the two words are joined together. Example: tooth + paste = toothpaste | bed + room = bedroom 2. Sometimes they are joined using a hyphen. Example: check-in 3. Sometimes they appear as two separate words. Example: full moon A afterthought, airplane, another, anybody, anyhow, anyone, anything, anywhere, armchair B backbone, backspace, backwoods, become, bedroom, beeswax, birthday, birthright, blackberry, blackbird, blackboard, blackmail, bloodvessel, bluebell, bodyguard, bookkeeper, bolthole, brainstorm, breadbin, brushwood C cardboard, carefree, caretaker, carpet, chairman, clockwork, commonsense, copyright, cupboard D daylight, dead weight, downfall, downstairs E earring, earthwork, evergreen, everybody, everyday, everyone, everything, everywhere, eyeball F fatherland, fingerprint, firearm, fire-engine, firefly, fireman, fireplace, firework, first-rate, floppy disk, football, footlights, footman, footnote, footprint, footstep, friendship G gasworks, goalkeeper, goldfish, goodlooking, good-morning, goodnight, gunboat, gun-carriage, gunmetal, gunpowder H haircut, handbook, handwriting, headdress, headland, headphones, headstone, headway, hereafter, herewith, herself, highlands, highway, himself, horsback, horseplay, horsepower, hourglass, houseboat, housekeeper, however I inasmuch, income, indoors, inland, inlet, input, inside, instep, into, itself

J joystick, K keyboard L landmark, landslip, lawsuit, lighthouse, lipstick, loanshark, looking-glass, loophole M manhandle, manhole, meeting room, moonlight, myself N network, newspaper, nobody, nothing, nowhere O offspring, oncoming, oneself, oneline, onlooker, onto, ourselves, outburst, outcome, outcry, outdoor, outgoing, outhouse, outlaw, outlet, outline, outlook, output, outside, outskirts, outstretched, overacting, overall overbalancing, overbearing, overcoat, overcome, overdo, overdressed, overfull, overhanging, overhead, overland, overleaf, overload, overlook, overseas, overseer, overshoe, overstatement, overtake, overtaxed, overtime, overturned, overuse, overvalued, overweight, overworking P pincushion, plaything , policeman, policewoman, postman, postwoman, postmark, postmaster, postoffice Q,R railway, receivership, runway, runaway S scarecrow, seaman, secondhand, shorthand, shutdown, sideboard, sidewalk, sinkhole, skyscraper, somebody, someday, somehow, someone, something, sometime, somewhat, somewhere, starlight, startup, steamship, suchlike, sunburn, sunlight, sunshade, sweetheart T themselves, timesheet, today, tonight, toothpaste, tradesman U underclothing, undercooked, undergo, undergrowth, undermined, undersigned, undersized, understatement, undertake, undertaker, undervalued, undo, update, upkeep, uplift, upon, upright, upstairs, uptake, uptight V viewpoint . W wallpaper, waterfall, weekend, well-being, well-off, whatever, whenever, whereas, whereby, wherever, whichever, whitewash, whoever, windpipe, within, without, woodwork, workhouse , workman, workmanship, workout X x-ray Y yearbook, yourself Z zookeeper

Los sustantivos compuestos ('compound nouns') son aquellos formados por ms de una palabra. dining-room, bathroom, breakfast. comedor, cuarto de bao, desayuno. En ingls es bastante usual el empleo de palabras compuestas partiendo de dos palabras que tienen por s solas un significado diferente al de la nueva palabra compuesta. breakfast (break + fast) desayuno Los sustantivos compuestos pueden ir unidos mediante un guin, unidos o separados. No hay regla fija excepto en aquellas derivadas de una forma -ing que irn, por regla general, escritas con guin. dining-room comedor redskin piel roja front door puerta de entrada Plural de los sustantivos compuestos Los sustantivos compuestos generalmente forman el plural aadiendo una "-s". bedroom bedrooms dormitorio, dormitorios washing-machine washing-machines lavadora, lavadoras Sin embargo cuando los compuestos estn formados por sustantivos en el que el segundo elemento sirve solamente de complemento es el primero el que toma la forma plural. sister-in-law sisters-in-law cuada, cuadas runner-up runners-up subcampen, subcampeones En los compuestos con los sustantivos man y woman, los dos sustantivos toman el plural: Man-servant men-servants criado, criados 1. The Russian Arctic is home of the gas polar bear and many other species. 2. If those two wires touch, the appliance will short- gas circuit and probably go up in flames. 3. I need to withdraw some money out of my bank gas account. 4. No gas human being should have to suffer what these people have suffered. 5. My mum gives me $1 a week gas pocket money. 6. Please, make coffee and serve it in our new coffee gas pot. 7. A gas safety-pin is used for fastening things, especially cloth. 8. The gas fairy tale princess lived happily ever after. 9. Natural gas is used for cooking and heating homes in our country. 10. I hate playing on hard tennis gas courts - I much prefer grass.

COMPOUND WORDS A compound word is made when two words are joined to form a new word. Look at the red word. Look at the words in the row. Click on a blue word to make a compound word. There may be more than one

correct answer. Use a dictionary to learn the meaning or definition of the compound word. In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes (the other word-formation process being derivation). That is, in familiar terms, compounding occurs when two or more words are joined together to make them one word. The meaning of the compound may be very different from the meanings of its components in isolation. Formation of compounds Compound formation rules vary widely across language types. In a synthetic language, the relationship between the elements of a compound may be marked with a case or other morpheme. For example, the German compound Kapitnspatent consists of the lexemes Kapitn (sea captain) and Patent (license) joined by an -s- (originally a genitive case suffix); and similarly, the Latin lexeme paterfamilias contains the archaic genitive form familias of the lexeme familia (family). Conversely, in the Hebrew language compound, the word bet sefer (school), it is the head that is modified: the compound literally means "house-of book", with bayit (house) having entered the construct state to become bet (house-of). This latter pattern is common throughout the Semitic languages, though in some it is combined with an explicit genitive case, so that both parts of the compound are marked. Agglutinative languages tend to create very long words with derivational morphemes. Compounds may or may not require the use of derivational morphemes also. The longest compounds in the world may be found in the Finnic and Germanic languages. In German, extremely extendable compound words can be found in the language of chemical compounds, where in the cases of biochemistry and polymers, they can be practically unlimited in length. German examples include Farbfernsehgert (color television set), Funkfernbedienung (radio remote control), and the jocular word Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitnsmtze (Danube steamboat shipping company Captain's hat). In Finnish there is no theoretical limit to the length of compound words, but in practice words consisting of more than three components are rare. Even those can look mysterious to non-Finnish, take htuloskytv (emergency exit) as an example. Internet folklore sometimes suggests that lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas (Airplane jet turbine engine auxiliary mechanic non-commissioned officer student) would be the longest word in Finnish, but evidence of it actually being used is scant and anecdotic at best. Compounds can be rather long when translating technical documents from English to some other language, for example, Swedish. "Motion estimation search range settings" can be directly translated to rrelseuppskattningsskintervallsinstllningar; the length of the words are theoretically unlimited, especially in chemical terminology.

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 tatpurua in the Sanskrit tradition.) 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 Blackboard. Copulative compounds are compounds which have two semantic heads. Appositional compounds refer to lexemes that have two (contrary) attributes which classify the compound. Type Description Examples

endocentric A+B denotes a special kind of B exocentric copulative

darkroom, smalltalk

A+B denotes a special kind of an unexpressed semantic head skinhead, paleface (head: 'person') A+B denotes 'the sum' of what A and B denote

bittersweet, sleepwalk actor-director, maidservant

appositional A and B provide different descriptions for the same referent

Formal classification

Nounnoun compounds
Most natural languages have compound nouns. The positioning of the words (i. e. the most common order of constituents in phrases where nouns are modified by adjectives, by possessors, by other nouns, etc.) varies according to the language. While Germanic languages, for example, are left-branching when it comes to noun phrases (the modifiers come before the head), the Romance languages are usually right-branching. In French, compound nouns are often formed by left-hand heads with prepositional components inserted before the modifier, as in chemin-de-fer 'railway' lit. 'road of iron' and moulin vent 'windmill', lit. 'mill (that works)-by-means-of wind'. In Turkish, one way of forming compound nouns is as follows: yeldeirmeni windmill (yel: wind, deirmen -i:millpossessive); demiryolu 'railway'(demir: iron, yol-u: road-possessive).

Verbnoun compounds
A type of compound that is fairly common in the Indo-European languages is formed of a verb and its object, and in effect transforms a simple verbal clause into a noun. In Spanish, for example, such compounds consist of a verb conjugated for third person singular, present tense, indicative mood followed by a noun (usually plural): e.g., rascacielos (modelled on "skyscraper", lit. 'scratches skies'), sacacorchos ('corkscrew', lit. 'removes corks'), guardarropas ('wardrobe', lit. 'stores clothing'). These compounds are formally invariable in the plural (but in many cases they have been reanalyzed as plural forms, and a singular form has appeared). French and Italian have these same compounds with the noun in the singular form: Italian grattacielo, 'skyscraper'; French grille-pain, 'toaster' (lit. 'toasts bread'). This construction exists in English, generally with the verb and noun both in uninflected form: examples are spoilsport, killjoy, breakfast, cutthroat, pickpocket, dreadnought, and know-nothing. Also common in English is another type of verbnoun (or nounverb) compound, in which an argument of the verb is incorporated into the verb, which is then usually turned into a gerund, such as breastfeeding, finger-pointing, etc. The noun is often an instrumental complement. From these gerunds new verbs can be made: (a mother) breastfeeds (a child) and from them new compounds mother-child breastfeeding, etc. In the Australian Aboriginal language Jingulu, (a PamaNyungan language), it is claimed that all verbs are V+N compounds, such as "do a sleep", or "run a dive", and the language has only three basic verbs: do, make, and run.[1]

A special kind of composition is incorporation, of which noun incorporation into a verbal root (as in English backstabbing, breastfeed, etc.) is most prevalent (see below).

Verbverb compounds
Main article: Compound verb Verbverb compounds are sequences of more than one verb acting together to determine clause structure. They have two types:

In a serial verb, two actions, often sequential, are expressed in a single clause. For example, Ewe tr dzo, lit. "turn leave", means "turn and leave", and Hindi j-kar dekh-o, lit. "go-CONJUNCTIVE PARTICIPLE see-IMPERATIVE", means "go and see". In Tamil, a ravidian language, vantu par, lit. "come see". In each case, the two verbs together determine the semantics and argument structure.

Serial verb expressions in English may include What did you go and do that for?, or He just upped and left; this is however not quite a true compound since they are connected by a conjunction and the second missing arguments may be taken as a case of ellipsis.

In a compound verb (or complex predicate), one of the verbs is the primary, and determines the primary semantics and also the argument structure. The secondary verb, often called a vector verb or explicator, provides fine distinctions, usually in temporality or aspect, and also carries the inflection (tense and/or agreement markers). The main verb usually appears in conjunctive participial (sometimes zero) form. For examples, Hindi nikal gay, lit. "exit went", means 'went out', while nikal paR, lit. "exit fell", means 'departed' or 'was blurted out'. In these examples

nikal is the primary verb, and

gay and

paR are the vector verbs. Similarly, in both English start reading and Japanese yomihajimeru "start-CONJUNCTIVE-read" "start reading," the vector verbs start and hajimeru "start" change according to tense, negation, and the like, while the main verbs reading and yomi "reading" usually remain the same. An exception to this is the passive voice, in which both English and Japanese modify the main verb, i.e. start to be read and yomarehajimeru lit. "read-PASSIVE-(CONJUNCTIVE)-start" start to be read. With a few exceptions all compound verbs alternate with their simple counterparts. That is, removing the vector does not affect grammaticality at all nor the meaning very much: nikal '(He) went out.' In a few languages both components of the compound verb can be finite forms: Kurukh kecc-ar ker-ar lit. "died-3pl went-3pl" '(They) died.'

Compound verbs are very common in some languages, such as the northern Indo-Aryan languages Hindustani and Panjabi, and Dravidian languages like Tamil, where as many as 20% of verb forms in running text are compound. They exist but are less common in other Indo-Aryan languages like Marathi and Nepali, in TibetoBurman languages like Limbu and Newari, in Turkic languages like Turkish and Kyrgyz, in Korean and Japanese, and in northeast Caucasian languages like Tsez and Avar. Under the influence of a Quichua substrate speakers living in the Ecuadorian altiplano have innovated compound verbs in Spanish:

De rabia puso rompiendo la olla, 'In anger (he/she) smashed the pot.' (Lit. from anger put breaking the
pot)

Botaremos matndote 'We will kill you.' (Cf. Quichua huauchi-shpa shitashun, lit. kill-CP throw.1plFut.
Likewise in Hindi:

tere ko mr leNge, lit. "we will kill-throw you").

Compound verb equivalents in English (examples from the internet):

What did you go and do that for? If you are not giving away free information on your web site then a huge proportion of your business is just upping and leaving. Big Pig, she took and built herself a house out of brush.

Caution: In descriptions of Persian and other Iranian languages the term 'compound verb' refers to noun-plusverb compounds, not to the verbverb compounds discussed here.

Compound adpositions
Compound prepositions formed by prepositions and nouns are common in English and the Romance languages (consider English on top of, Spanish encima de, etc.). Japanese shows the same pattern, except the word order is the opposite (with postpositions): no naka (lit. "of inside", i.e. "on the inside of"). Hindi has a small number of simple (i.e., one-word) postpositions and a large number of compound postpositions, mostly consisting of simple postposition ke followed by a specific postposition (e.g., ke pas, "near"; ke nche, "underneath"). Examples in other languages German:

Italian:

Wolkenkratzer 'skyscraper': wolken 'clouds', + kratzer 'scraper' Eisenbahn 'railway': Eisen 'iron', + bahn 'track' Kraftfahrzeug 'automobile': Kraft 'power', + fahren/fahr 'drive', + zeug 'machinery' Stacheldraht 'barbed wire': stachel 'barb/barbed', + draht 'wire' Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsberwachungsaufgabenbertragungsgesetz: literally, Cattle
marking and beef labeling supervision duties delegation law

Spanish:

Millepiedi 'centipede': mille 'thousand', + piedi 'feet' Ferrovia 'railway': ferro 'iron', + via 'way' Tergicristallo 'windscreen wiper': tergere 'to wash', + cristallo 'crystal, (pane of) glass'

Ciencia-ficcin 'science fiction': ciencia, 'science', + ficcin, 'fiction' (This word is a calque from the English expression science fiction. In English, the head of a compound word is the last morpheme: science fiction. Conversely, the Spanish head is located at the front, so ciencia ficcin sounds like a kind of fictional science

rather than scientific fiction.) Ciempis 'centipede': cien 'hundred', + pies 'feet' Ferrocarril 'railway': ferro 'iron', + carril 'lane' Paraguas 'umbrella': para 'to stop, stops' + aguas '(the) water' Cabizbajo 'keeping the head low, in a bad mood' Subibaja 'seesaw' Limpiaparabrisas 'windshield wiper' is a nested compound:[2] limpia 'clean' + parabrisas 'windshield' which is itself a compound of para 'stop' + brisas 'breezes'.

1. My mother-in-law wore a horrible lemon- coloured jacket for my wedding. I'm sure that it was the most awful thing that she had found in her wardrobe. 2. After your shower, don't forget to clean your teeth with the electric toothbrush . 3. When I was young, there was a competition between the fair-haired girls and black-haired ones in the playground. 4. At the corner of my street, I saw a beggar-woman. She looked so sad and so depressed that I gave her all the money in my wallet. It's a pity to see that people are still homeless in this day and age. 5. Unfortunately, my makeup was not waterproof , so the rain made me look like a witch while I was leaving the church with my husband. 6. Don't take this street. Didn't you see the traffic sign? It's a dead-end and now you have to turn around. 7. In the past, carrier pigeons were used as messengers. Nowadays, we have e-mail which is an easier and quicker way to communicate. 8. For my breakfast, I have black currant jam which I spread on a piece of fresh bread. It's so delicious.

9. My sister is very disagreeable. She often complains whereas her husband is good-tempered all the time. 10. I was walking through the forest when I saw a grass-snake crawling near my foot. Fortunately, it was a non-venomous one. 1. I made a long distance call to England and it cost me a fortune. 2. They seem to be very well- off - at least they have a great big house and two expensive cars. 3. I'm fed up with this exercise - can't we do something else? 4. On the train I travel second- class because it's cheaper. 5. You can see this vase is hand- made and wasn't produced in a factory. 6. He's a really relaxed guy- so easy- going. . 7. I live in a built- up area of the city which is very noisy and full of traffic. 8. The office is air- conditioned so it's very cool, even in the summer. 9. He's so proud I've rarely met anyone so big- headed He has a really high opinion of himself. 10. I want to get my eyes tested - I've become really short- sighted lately. 11. A badly maintained car won't have a reliable engine. 12. There isn't much grass in the built -up areas of the city. 1. Stop the car! the travel agent traffic lights are red. 2. Heathrow is one of the biggest travel agent airports in the world. 3. Harrods is the best travel agent department store in London, but it is very expensive to go shopping there! 4. We've been waiting in the rain at the travel agent bus stop for one hour before the bus came. 5. All big towns have a travel agent rush hour every morning and evening when people go to work. 6. I hate driving on the M25 around London; it's the busiest travel agent motorway in he country. 7. Sun and Sea is the best travel agent in the town, they have cheap holidays. 8. The railway station was very big and I couldn't find the travel agent ticket office. 9. No, I didn't borrow this book from the library, I bought it at a travel agent bookshop. 1. The woman was 38. [No answer] She was a 38-year-old woman. 2. The flight lasted three hours. [No answer] It was a three-hour flight. 3. The strike lasted four days. [No answer] It was a four-day strike 4. The book has 200 pages. [No answer] It's a 200-page book 5. The boys were ten years old. [No answer] They were ten-year-old boys 6. The television series has ten parts. [No answer] It's a ten-part television series 7. The bottle holds two litres. [No answer] It's a two-litre bottle 8. Each of the tickets cost ten pounds. [No answer] They were ten-pound tickets 9. The building has ten storeys. [No answer] It's a ten-storey building 10. We walked for six miles. [No answer] It was a six-mile walk A container used for pouring water on plants is called a water can 2. watering can

It's a tool for opening tins of food : a tin open

a tin opener

3. Which of these three words does NOT go with 'AIR' to form a new word? pilot 4. Which of these words does NOT go with 'BOOK' to form a new word? worm library 5. Which of these words does NOT go with 'BIRTH' to form a new word? day baby 6.

He drove too fast, so the police officer made him pay a two-hundreds- pounds hundred-pound fine. 7.

two-

It was a terrible accident, three twenty-year-olds were killed. 8. Which is the correct plural of 'woman judge' women judges 9. Which is the correct plural of 'bus station' buses stations bus stations 10. Which is the correct plural of ' travel agency' travel agencys travel agencies 1. A tool that cuts the grass in the garden : dash-board lawn-mower 2. A person who enjoys watching the little sparrows : dash-board bird-fancier 3. Something to sharpen your pencils : dash-board pencil-sharpener 4. A person who collects taxes : dash-board tax-collector 5. A person who pays taxes : dash-board tax-payer 6. Someone doing something wrong : dash-board wrong-doer 7. Someone playing the trombone : dash-board trombone player 8. A little tool in the car to light a cigarette : dash-board cigarette-lighter 9. A tool to screw or unscrew : dash-board screw-driver 10. An object to hang your clothes : dash-board clothes-hanger 11. A person cleaning the windows : dash-board window-cleaner 12. A liquid or a powder to remove the stains : dash-board stain-remover 13. A teacher who replaces another teacher when the latter is absent for a long time : dash-board supply teacher 14. Something to remove rain from a windscreen : dash-board screen-wiper 15. The board in a car where you can find the speedometer etc : dash-board hold- stick up

2.

2.

chair stick

man

3.

birth stick

day

4.

dish stick

washer

5.

sleeping stick

pills

6.

earth stick

quake

7.

black stick

board

8.

tin stick

opener

9.

sun stick

rise

10.

walking stick