is the type of word-building in which new words are produced by combining two or more stems which occur in the language as free forms. Compounding is one of the three most productive types of word-building in Modern English. The other two are affixation and conversion.
So, compounds are characterized by: a) one word or hyphenated spelling; b) one stress; c) semantic integrity; d) structural-syntactic unity.
Compounds may be classified proceeding from different criteria:
a) according to the parts of speech to which they belong;
b) according to the means of composition used to link their IC-s;
c) according to their semantic characteristics.
As parts of speech, compound words fall into 6 groups: 1) nouns (e.g. blueprint, eyelash, highball, joyride, lily-of-the-valley); 2) pronouns (e.g. everybody, somebody, nobody, whoever, whosesoever); 3) adjectives (e.g. two-fold, heavy-duty, cock-sure, snow-white, heart-breaking);3) verbs (e.g. overdo – заходить слишком далеко, underestimate, out-stay, side-step – уступить дорогу);4) adverbs (e.g. posthaste, alongside, however, nevertheless, whenever, wherein). 5) prepositions (e.g. into, onto, unto, upon);6) conjunctions (e.g. wherever, whereas, whenever, nevertheless, whereupon).
Juxtapositional compounding. Compounding can be defined as the formation of a lexical unit of two or more stems. One should distinguish between morphological, syntactical and juxtapositional (or neutral) composition.
The term „juxtapositional” seems more exact for it characterizes the manner of composition – placing the stems side-by-side: a) in the same syntactical order (e.g. ash-tray, shirt-collar, gas-mask); b) in apposition (e.g. girl-friend, man-servant, lady-companion); c) in reversed order (e.g. shoe-making – making shoes; lady-killer – kill ladies; pitch-dark – as dark as pitch; sun-burnt – burnt by the sun, short-lived – that lived short, etc.).
Syntactic compounding is the process of semantic isolation and structural integration of free word-groups. These words are formed from segments of speech preserving articles, prepositions, adverbs, etc. E.g.: forget-me-not, lily-of-the-valley, Jack-of-all-trades, good-for-nothing, man-of-war (военный корабль), pick-me-up, milk-and-water (безвкусный; безвольный), tongue-in-cheek (неискренний), mums-to-be, hit-or-miss (случайный, сделанный кое-как), stay-at-home, know-all, know-nothing, passer-by, son-in-law, cool-to-the-touch, melt-in-the-mouth, etc. This type belongs to syntactical way of word-building in English.
