Compounding belongs to the linguistic discipline of morphology, which is concerned with the study of the creation, structure and form of words and it is the most significant word formation process next to derivation and conversion. Compounds – the products of compounding - are word combinations of at least two free and already existing morphemes. Hence the basic compound structure is F + F, meaning a free morpheme + another free morpheme. Moreover, there are two different methods of categorizing compounds.
There is one basic definition of the word formation process compounding, namely “compounding as the combination of two words to form a new word” (Plag 133). This definition comprises two substantial presumptions: Firstly, it creates the impression of compounds existing of only two (and not more) elements, – simple compounds - e.g. steam engine, fool proof; secondly, it induces the assumption that these elements are words. However, both presuppositions are in need of clarification. It is true that basic compounds consist of two elements, e.g. apple pie, sleepwalk and nationwide. Nevertheless, there are compounds made up of three, four or five elements – complex compounds -, not necessarily being words, but roots or phrases. For instance tea tree soap bar is seen as a “four-member compound” and university teaching award committee member is regarded as a “five-member compound” (Plag 133); astrophysics would be an example for a compound consisting of the root astro – which cannot stand by itself and is therefore a bound root – and the word physics – neoclassical compound (Plag 155); parks commissioner is a compound of the grammatical word parks and the word commissioner and lastly pipe-and-slipper husband is an example for a phra...
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...and spelling is not a reliable indicator for identifying compounds, the consideration to the conjunction test and word or rather element stress is highly recommended.
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