Semi-affixes

There are, however, some borderline cases. Some elements of the English vocabulary occurring as independent nouns, such as man, berry, land are-frequent as second elements of words. They have developed a great com­bining ability and a very general meaning similar to affixes. They are called semi-affixes. They receive this name because semantically, functionally, structurally and statistically they behave more like affixes than like roots. They seem to have acquired valency similar to that of affixes. They are unstressed, and the vowel sound is mostly reduced. The most frequent semi-affixes are man, berry, land, like, -proof –worthy: godlike, gentle­manlike, ladylike, unladylike, manlike, Marchand chooses to include among the semi-affixes also the elements wise, ways, monger: otherwise, likewise, clockwise, anyway (s), otherways, always, likeways, newsmonger, scandalmonger, warmonger.

Classification of compounds

The great variety of compound types brings about a great variety of classifications. Compound words may be classified 1)according to the type of composition and the linking element; 2)according to the part of speech to which the compound belongs and within each part of speech 3)according to the structural pattern. It is also possible to subdivide compounds according to other characteristics, i.e.semantically, into motivated and idiomatic compounds Structu­rally, compounds are distinguished as endocentric and exocentric, with the subgroup of "bahuvrihi" and syntactic and asyntactic combinations. There also some miscellaneous types, such as phrase com­pounds, reduplicative compounds, pseudo-compounds and quotation com­pounds.

The classification according to the type of composition includes the following groups:

1) The predominant type is a mere juxtaposition without connecting elements: heartache; heart-beat; heart-break;

2) Composition with a vowel or a consonant as a linking element. The examples are very few: speedometer; Afro-Asian; handicraft; statesman.

3) Compounds with linking elements represented by preposition or conjunction stems: down-and-out, matter-of-fact, son-in-law

According to the part of speech there are

1) compound nouns: sunbeam, maidservant ,looking-glass, searchlight, blackboard.

2) compound adjectives: threadbare , airtight, bloodthirsty, carefree.

3) compound verbs: outgrow, overflow, stand up, black-list, stage-manage, white­wash.

According to the structure of im­mediate constituents the following types are distinguished(structural pattern):

1) compounds consisting of simple stems: film-star.

2) compounds where at least one of the constituents is a derived stem: mill-owner.

3) compounds where at least one of the constituents is a clipped stem:

maths-mistress (in British English) and math-mistress (in American Eng­lish). The subgroup will contain abbreviations like H-bag (handbag) or Xmas (Christmas), but the first is not used in spoken language, and the second is considered sub-standard;

4) compounds where at least one of the constituents is a compound stem: wastepaper-basket.

Derivational compounds

Compound derivatives or derivational com­pounds are words which are formed by a suffix referring to the combination as a whole, not to one of its elements: kind-hearted, old-timer, schoolboyishness, teenager. The essence of the derivational compounds becomes clear if we compare them with derivatives and compounds proper that possess a similar structure: honeymooner and mill-owner. The ultimate constituents of these are: noun stem+noun stem+ -er. Analysing into immediate constituents, we see that the imme­diate constituents (IC's) of the compound mill-owner are two noun stems, the first simple, the second derived: mill+owner. For the word honeymooner no such division is possible, since mooner does not exist as a free stem. The IC's are honeymoon + -er, and the suffix -er signals that the whole denotes a person: the structure is (honey-{-moon) + -er.

The process of word-building in these seemingly similar words is dif­ferent: mill-owner is coined by composition, honey-mooner — by deriva­tion from the compound honeymoon. Honeymoon being a compound, honeymooner is a derivative.

The suffix -er is one of the productive suffixes in forming derivational compounds.

Another frequent type of derivational compounds are compounds of the type kind-hearted: adjective stem+ noun stem+ -ed. Its IC's are a noun phrase kind heart and the suffix -ed that unites the elements of the phrase and turns them into the elements of a compound adjective.

The first element may also be a noun stem: bow-legged, heart-shaped and a numeral: three-coloured. The derivational compounds often become the basis of further deriva­tion. E.g. war-minded - war-mindedness; whole-hearted - whole-hearted-ness :: whole-heartedly.

Some combinations may be called compounds as they consist of two parts, but have some peculiarities. Their motivation is mostly based upon sound-symbolism.Such words are all stylistically coloured.

The group consists of reduplicative compounds that fall into three main subgroups: reduplicative compounds proper, ablaut combinations and rhyming combinations.

Reduplicative compounds proper is a very mixed group containing usual free forms, onomatopoeic stems and pseudo-morphemes. Onomatopoeic repe­tition exists but it is not very extensive: hush-hush - secret, pooh-pooh (to express contempt). Ablaut combinations are twin forms consisting of one basic morpheme (usually the second), sometimes a pseudo-morpheme which is repeated in the other constituent with a different vowel. The typical changes are [i]—[ae]: chit-chat - gossip, knick-knack - small articles of ornament. Rhyme combinations are twin forms consisting of two elements (most often two pseudo-morphemes) which are joined to rhyme: boogie-woogie, flibberty-gibberty.

The words like sparrow-grass are not actually compounds at all, they are cases of false etymology, an attempt to find mo­tivation for a borrowed word: sparrcw-grass from Latin asparagus.

The group of bahuvrihi compound nouns is not very numerous. The term "bahuvrihi" is borrowed from the grammarians of ancient India. Its literal meaning is 'much-riced'. It is used to designate possessive exocentric formations in which a person, animal or thing are metonymically named after some striking feature they possess, chiefly a striking feature in their appearance. The formula of the bahuvrihi compound nouns is adjective stem + noun stem: e.g. bigwig - a person of importance, black-shirt -'an Italian fascist (also, by analogy, any fascist.Some scholars consider such word-combinations as phraseological units.