Compound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or sign) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs when two or more words or signs are joined to make a longer word or sign. Consequently, a compound is a unit composed of more than one stem, forming words or signs. If the joining of the words or signs is orthographically represented with a hyphen, the result is a hyphenated compound (e.g., must-have, hunter-gatherer). If they are joined without an intervening space, it is a closed compound (e.g., footpath, blackbird). If they are joined with a space (e.g. school bus, high school, lowest common denominator), then the result – at least in English[1] – may be an open compound.[2][3][4][5]
The meaning of the compound may be similar to or different from the meaning of its components in isolation. The component stems of a compound may be of the same part of speech—as in the case of the English word footpath, composed of the two nouns foot and path—or they may belong to different parts of speech, as in the case of the English word blackbird, composed of the adjective black and the noun bird. With very few exceptions, English compound words are stressed on their first component stem.
As a member of the Germanic family of languages, English is unusual in that even simple compounds made since the 18th century tend to be written in separate parts. This would be an error in other Germanic languages such as Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, German, and Dutch. However, this is merely an orthographic convention: As in other Germanic languages, arbitrary noun phrases, for example "girl scout troop", "city council member", and "cellar door", can be made up on the spot and used as compound nouns in English too.
For example, German Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän[a] would be written in English as "Danube steamship transport company captain" and not as "Danubesteamshiptransportcompanycaptain".
The meaning of compounds may not always be transparent from their components, necessitating familiarity with usage and context. The addition of affix morphemes to words (such as suffixes or prefixes, as in employ → employment) should not be confused with nominal composition, as this is actually morphological derivation.
Some languages easily form compounds from what in other languages would be a multi-word expression. This can result in unusually long words, a phenomenon known in German (which is one such language) as Bandwurmwörter ("tapeworm words").
Compounding extends beyond spoken languages to include Sign languages as well, where compounds are also created by combining two or more sign stems.
So-called "classical compounds" are compounds derived from classical Latin or ancient Greek roots.
Formation of compounds[edit]
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 Kapitänspatent consists of the lexemes Kapitän (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 בֵּית סֵפֶר bet sefer (school), it is the head that is modified: the compound literally means "house-of book", with בַּיִת bayit (house) having entered the construct state to become בֵּית 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, e.g. Arabic عبد الله ʕabd-u l-lāh-i (servant-NOM DEF-god-GEN) "servant of-the-god: the servant of God".
Agglutinative languages tend to create very long words with derivational morphemes. Compounds may or may not require the use of derivational morphemes also.
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, mostly because the German rule suggests combining all noun adjuncts with the noun as the last stem. German examples include Farbfernsehgerät (color television set), Funkfernbedienung (radio remote control), and the often quoted jocular word Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänsmütze (originally only two Fs, Danube-Steamboat-Shipping Company captain['s] hat), which can of course be made even longer and even more absurd, e.g. Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänsmützenreinigungsausschreibungsverordnungsdiskussionsanfang ("beginning of the discussion of a regulation on tendering of Danube steamboat shipping company captain hats") etc. According to several editions of the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest published German word has 79 letters and is Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft ("Association for Subordinate Officials of the Main Electric[ity] Maintenance Building of the Danube Steam Shipping"), but there is no evidence that this association ever actually existed.
In Finnish, although there is theoretically no limit to the length of compound words, words consisting of more than three components are rare. Internet folklore sometimes suggests that lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas (airplane jet turbine engine auxiliary mechanic non-commissioned officer student) is the longest word in Finnish, but evidence of its actual use is scant and anecdotal at best.[6]
Compounds can be rather long when translating technical documents from English to some other language, since the lengths of the words are theoretically unlimited, especially in chemical terminology. For example, when translating an English technical document to Swedish, the term "Motion estimation search range settings" can be directly translated to rörelseuppskattningssökintervallsinställningar, though in reality, the word would most likely be divided in two: sökintervallsinställningar för rörelseuppskattning – "search range settings for motion estimation".
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#0__titleDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#0__subtitleDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#1__titleDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#1__descriptionDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
Recent trends in orthography[edit]
Although there is no universally agreed-upon guideline regarding the use of compound words in the English language, in recent decades written English has displayed a noticeable trend towards increased use of compounds.[21] Recently, many words have been made by taking syllables of words and compounding them, such as pixel (picture element) and bit (binary digit). This is called a syllabic abbreviation.
In Dutch and the Scandinavian languages there is an unofficial trend toward splitting compound words, known in Norwegian as særskriving, in Swedish as särskrivning (literally "separate writing"), and in Dutch as Engelse ziekte (the "English disease"). Because the Dutch language and the Scandinavian languages rely heavily on the distinction between the compound word and the sequence of the separate words it consists of, this has serious implications. For example, the Danish adjective røykfritt (literally "smokefree", meaning no smoking allowed) if separated into its composite parts, would mean røyk fritt ("smoke freely"). In Dutch, compounds written with spaces may also be confused, but can also be interpreted as a sequence of a noun and a genitive (which is unmarked in Dutch) in formal abbreviated writing. This may lead to, for example, commissie vergadering ("commission meeting") being read as "commission of the meeting" rather than "meeting of the commission" (normally spelled commissievergadering).
The German spelling reform of 1996 introduced the option of hyphenating compound nouns when it enhances comprehensibility and readability. This is done mostly with very long compound words by separating them into two or more smaller compounds, like Eisenbahn-Unterführung (railway underpass) or Kraftfahrzeugs-Betriebsanleitung (car manual). Such practice is also permitted in other Germanic languages, e.g. Danish and Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk alike), and is even encouraged between parts of the word that have very different pronunciation, such as when one part is a loan word or an acronym.
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#2__titleDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#2__subtextDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#3__titleDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#3__subtextDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$