It possible to classify compounds into four major classes: adjectival-nominal, verbal-nominal, nominal and verb-adverb compounds.
1. Adjectival-nominal comprise four subgroups of compound adjectives, three of them are proper compounds and one derivational. Adjectival-nominal compound adjectives have the following patterns:
1) the polysemantic n+a pattern that gives rise to two types:
a) compound adjectives based on semantic relations of resemblance with adjectival bases denoting most frequently colours, size, shape, etc. for the second IC. The type is correlative with phrases of comparative type as A +as + N, e.g. snow-white, skin-deep, age-long, etc.
b) compound adjectives based on a variety of adverbial relations. The type is correlative with one of the most productive adjectival phrases of the A + prp + N type and consequently semantically varied, cf. colour-blind, road-weary, care-free, etc.
2) the monosemantic pattern n+ven based mainly on the instrumental, locative and temporal relations between the ICs which are conditioned by the lexical meaning and valency of the verb, e.g. state-owned, home-made. The type is highly productive. Correlative relations are established with word-groups of the Ven+ with by + N type.
3) the monosemantic пит + п pattern which gives rise to a small and peculiar group of adjectives, which are used only attributively, e.g. (a) two-day (beard), (a) seven-day (week), etc. The type correlates with attributive phrases with a numeral for their first member.
4) a highly productive monosemantic pattern of derivational compound adjectives based on semantic relations of possession conveyed by the suffix -ed. The basic variant is [(a+n)+ -ed], e.g. low-ceilinged, long- legged. The pattern has two more variants: [(пит + n) + -ed), l(n+n)+ -ed], e.g. one-sided, bell-shaped, doll-faced. The type correlates accordingly with phrases with (having) + A+N, with (having) + Num + N, with + N + N or with + N + of + N.
The three other types are classed as compound nouns. Verbal-nominal and nominal represent compound nouns proper and verb-adverb derivational compound nouns. All the three types are productive.
1. Verbal-nominal compounds may be described through one derivational structure n+nv, i.e. a combination of a noun-base (in most cases simple) with a deverbal, suffixal noun-base. The structure includes four patterns differing in the character of the deverbal noun- stem and accordingly in the semantic subgroups of compound nouns. All the patterns correlate in the final analysis with V+N and V+prp+N type which depends on the lexical nature of the verb:
1) [n+(v+-er)], e.g. bottle-opener, stage-manager, peace-fighter. The pattern is monosemantic and is based on agentive relations that can be interpreted ‘one/that/who does smth’.
2) [n+(v+ -ing)], e.g. stage-managing, rocket-flying. The pattern is monosemantic and may be interpreted as ‘the act of doing smth’. The pattern has some constraints on its productivity which largely depends on the lexical and etymological character of the verb.
3) [n+(v+ -tion/ment)], e.g. office-management, price-reduction. The pattern is a variant of the above-mentioned pattern (No 2). It has a heavy constraint which is embedded in the lexical and etymological character of the verb that does not permit collocability with the suffix -ing or deverbal nouns.
4) [n+(v + conversion)], e.g. wage-cut, dog-bite, hand-shake, the pattern is based on semantic relations of result, instance, agent, etc.
3. Nominal compounds are all nouns with the most polysemantic and highly-productive derivational pattern n+n; both bases re generally simple stems, e.g. windmill, horse-race, pencil-case. The pattern conveys a variety of semantic relations, the most frequent are the relations of purpose, partitive, local and temporal relations. The pattern correlates with nominal word-groups of the N+prp+N type.
4. Verb-adverb compounds are all derivational nouns, highly productive and built with the help of conversion according to the pattern l(v + adv) + conversion]. The pattern correlates with free phrases V + Adv and with all phrasal verbs of different degree of stability. The pattern is polysemantic and reflects the manifold semantic relations typical of conversion pairs.
