English compound
Encyclopedia
A compound
is a word composed of more than one free morpheme.
English compounds may be classified in several ways, such as the word classes or the semantic relationship of their components.
s are noun phrase
s (= nominal phrases) that include a noun modified by adjective
s or attributive nouns. Due to the English tendency towards conversion
, the two classes are not always easily distinguished. Most English compound nouns that consist of more than two words can be constructed recursively
by combining two words at a time. Combining "science" and "fiction", and then combining the resulting compound with "writer", for example, can construct the compound "science fiction writer". Some compounds, such as salt and pepper
or mother-of-pearl, cannot be constructed in this way, however.
Usage in the US and in the UK differs and often depends on the individual choice of the writer rather than on a hard-and-fast rule; therefore, open, hyphenated, and closed forms may be encountered for the same compound noun, such as the triplets container ship
/container-ship/containership and particle board/particle-board/particleboard.
In addition to this native English compounding, there is the classical
type, which consists of words derived from Latin
, as horticulture
, and those of Greek
origin, such as photography
, the components of which are in bound
form (connected by connecting vowels, which are most often -i- and -o- in Latin and Greek respectively) and cannot stand alone.
of the meaning of its head. The modifier
limits the meaning of the head. This is most obvious in descriptive compounds (known as karmadharaya compounds in the Sanskrit tradition), in which the modifier is used in an attributive or appositional manner. A blackboard
is a particular kind of board, which is (generally) black, for instance.
In determinative compounds, however, the relationship is not attributive. For example, a footstool
is not a particular type of stool that is like a foot. Rather, it is a stool for one's foot or feet. (It can be used for sitting on, but that is not its primary purpose.) In a similar manner, an office manager is the manager of an office, an armchair
is a chair with arms, and a raincoat
is a coat against the rain. These relationships, which are expressed by prepositions in English, would be expressed by grammatical case
in other languages. (Compounds of this type are known as tatpurusha in the Sanskrit tradition.)
Both of the above types of compounds are called endocentric
compounds because the semantic head is contained within the compound itself—a blackboard is a type of board, for example, and a footstool
is a type of stool
.
However, in another common type of compound, the exocentric or (known as a bahuvrihi
compound in the Sanskrit tradition), the semantic head is not explicitly expressed. A redhead
, for example, is not a kind of head, but is a person with red hair. Similarly, a blockhead is also not a head, but a person with a head that is as hard and unreceptive as a block (i.e. stupid). And, outside of veterinary surgery, a lionheart
is not a type of heart, but a person with a heart like a lion (in its bravery, courage, fearlessness, etc.).
Note in general the way to tell the two apart:
Exocentric compounds occur more often in adjectives than nouns. A V-8 car is a car with a V-8 engine
rather than a car that is a V-8, and a twenty-five-dollar car is a car with a worth of $
25, not a car that is $25. The compounds shown here are bare, but more commonly, a suffix
al morpheme is added, esp. -ed. Hence, a two-legged person is a person with two legs, and this is exocentric.
On the other hand, endocentric adjectives are also frequently formed, using the suffixal morphemes -ing
or -er/or. A people-carrier is a clear endocentric determinative compound: it is a thing that is a carrier of people. The related adjective, car-carrying, is also endocentric: it refers to an object, which is a carrying-thing (or equivalent, which does carry).
These types account for most compound nouns, but there are other, rarer types as well. Coordinative, copulative
or dvandva
compounds combine elements with a similar meaning, and the compound meaning may be a generalization
instead of a specialization. Bosnia-Herzegovina, for example, is the combined area of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but a fighter-bomber
is an aircraft that is both a fighter and a bomber. Iterative or amredita compounds repeat a single element, to express repetition or as an emphasis. Day by day and go-go are examples of this type of compound, which has more than one head.
Analyzability may be further limited by cranberry morpheme
s and semantic changes. For instance, the word butterfly, commonly thought to be a metathesis
for flutter by, which the bugs do, is actually based on an old bubbe meise that butterflies are petite witches that steal butter
from window sills. Cranberry is a part translation from Low German
, which is why we cannot recognize the element cran (from the Low German kraan or kroon, "crane"). The ladybird or ladybug was named after the Christian expression "our Lady, the Virgin Mary".
In the case of verb+noun compounds, the noun may be either the subject
or the object
of the verb. In playboy, for example, the noun is the subject of the verb (the boy plays), whereas it is the object in callgirl (someone calls the girl).
patterns may distinguish a compound word from a noun phrase consisting of the same component words. For example, a black board, adjective plus noun, is any board that is black, and has equal stress on both elements. The compound blackboard, on the other hand, though it may have started out historically as black board, now is stressed on only the first element, black. Thus a compound such as the White House
normally has a falling intonation which a phrase such as a white house does not.
, leftover ingredients, gunmetal
sheen, and green monkey disease are only a few examples.
A compound adjective is a modifier of a noun. It consists of two or more morphemes of which the left-hand component limits or changes the modification of the right-hand one, as in "the dark-green dress": dark limits the green that modifies dress.
.
However, in British usage, these, apart from downtown, are more likely written with a hyphen: ear-splitting, eye-catching.
Other solid compound adjectives are for example:
Generally, a compound adjective is hyphenated if the hyphen helps the reader differentiate a compound adjective from two adjacent adjectives that each independently modifies the noun. Compare the following examples:
The hyphen is unneeded when capitalization or italicization makes grouping clear:
If, however, there is no risk of ambiguities, it may be written without a hyphen: Sunday morning walk.
Hyphenated compound adjectives may have been formed originally by an adjective preceding a noun:
Others may have originated with a verb preceding an adjective or adverb:
Yet others are created with an original verb preceding a preposition.
The following compound adjectives are always hyphenated when they are not written as one word:
The following compound adjectives are not normally hyphenated:
A compound verb is usually composed of a preposition and a verb
, although other combinations also exist. The term compound verb was first used in publication
in Grattan and Gurrey's Our Living Language (1925).
From a morphological point of view, some compound verbs are difficult to analyze because several derivations are plausible. Blacklist
, for instance, might be analyzed as an adjective+verb compound, or as an adjective+noun compound that becomes a verb through zero derivation. Most compound verbs originally have the collective meaning of both components, but some of them later gain additional meanings that may supersede the original, emergent sense. Therefore, sometimes the resultant meanings are seemingly barely related to the original contributors.
Compound verbs composed of a noun and verb are comparatively rare, and the noun is generally not the direct object of the verb. In English, compounds such as *bread-bake or *car-drive do not exist. Yet, we find literal action words, such as breastfeed, and washing instructions on clothing as for example hand wash.
ated. Those with longer modifiers may originally be hyphenated, but as they became established, they became solid, e.g.,
There was a tendency in the 18th century to use hyphens excessively, that is, to hyphenate all previously established solid compound verbs. American English
, however, has diminished the use of hyphens, while British English
is more conservative.
distinguishes between phrasal verb
s and prepositional verbs. Consider the following:
The first three sentences are possible in English; the last one is unlikely. When to hold up means to raise, it is a prepositional verb; the preposition up can be detached from the verb and has its own individual meaning "from lower to a higher position". As a prepositional verb, it has a literal meaning. However, when to hold up means to rob, it is a phrasal verb
. A phrasal verb is used in an idiomatic, figurative or even metaphorical context. The preposition is inextricably linked to the verb; the meaning of each word cannot be determined independently but is in fact part of the idiom.
The Oxford English Grammar (ISBN 0-19-861250-8) distinguishes seven types of prepositional or phrasal verbs in English:
English has a number of other kinds of compound verb idioms. There are compound verbs with two verbs (e.g. make do). These too can take idiomatic prepositions (e.g. get rid of). There are also idiomatic combinations of verb and adjective (e.g. come true, run amok) and verb and adverb (make sure), verb and fixed noun (e.g. go ape); and these, too, may have fixed idiomatic prepositions (e.g. take place on).
Compound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...
is a word composed of more than one free morpheme.
English compounds may be classified in several ways, such as the word classes or the semantic relationship of their components.
| Modifier | Head | Compound |
|---|---|---|
| noun | noun | football |
| adjective | noun | blackboard |
| verb | noun | breakwater |
| preposition | noun | underworld |
| noun | adjective | snowwhite |
| adjective | adjective | blue-green |
| verb | adjective | tumbledown |
| preposition | adjective | over-ripe |
| noun | verb | browbeat |
| adjective | verb | highlight |
| verb | verb | freeze-dry |
| preposition | verb | undercut |
| noun | preposition | love-in |
| adverb | preposition | forthwith |
| verb | preposition | takeout |
| preposition | preposition | without |
Compound nouns
Most English compound nounNoun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s are noun phrase
Noun phrase
In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
s (= nominal phrases) that include a noun modified by adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s or attributive nouns. Due to the English tendency towards conversion
Conversion (linguistics)
In linguistics, conversion, also called zero derivation, is a kind of word formation; specifically, it is the creation of a word from an existing word without any change in form...
, the two classes are not always easily distinguished. Most English compound nouns that consist of more than two words can be constructed recursively
Recursion
Recursion is the process of repeating items in a self-similar way. For instance, when the surfaces of two mirrors are exactly parallel with each other the nested images that occur are a form of infinite recursion. The term has a variety of meanings specific to a variety of disciplines ranging from...
by combining two words at a time. Combining "science" and "fiction", and then combining the resulting compound with "writer", for example, can construct the compound "science fiction writer". Some compounds, such as salt and pepper
Salt and Pepper
Salt and Pepper is a 1968 comedy film starring Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, Michael Bates, Ilona Rodgers and John Le Mesurier. The film was directed by Richard Donner, who later would direct such blockbuster successes as Superman and Lethal Weapon.It spawned a 1970 sequel, One More Time,...
or mother-of-pearl, cannot be constructed in this way, however.
Types of compound nouns
Since English is a mostly analytic language, unlike most other Germanic languages, it creates compounds by concatenating words without case markers. As in other Germanic languages, the compounds may be arbitrarily long. However, this is obscured by the fact that the written representation of long compounds always contains blanks. Short compounds may be written in three different ways, which do not correspond to different pronunciations, however:- The "solid" or "closed" forms in which two usually moderately short words appear together as one. Solid compounds most likely consist of short (monosyllabicSyllableA syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
) units that often have been established in the language for a long time. Examples are housewifeHousewifeHousewife is a term used to describe a married woman with household responsibilities who is not employed outside the home. Merriam Webster describes a housewife as a married woman who is in charge of her household...
, lawsuitLawsuitA lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
, wallpaperWallpaperWallpaper is a kind of material used to cover and decorate the interior walls of homes, offices, and other buildings; it is one aspect of interior decoration. It is usually sold in rolls and is put onto a wall using wallpaper paste...
, basketballBasketballBasketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
, etc. - The hyphenated form in which two or more words are connected by a hyphenHyphenThe hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen should not be confused with dashes , which are longer and have different uses, or with the minus sign which is also longer...
. Compounds that contain affixAffixAn affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
es, such as house-build(er) and single-mind(ed)(ness), as well as adjective-adjective compounds and verb-verb compounds, such as blue-green and freeze-dried, are often hyphenated. Compounds that contain articlesArticle (grammar)An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
, prepositions or conjunctionsGrammatical conjunctionIn grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses together. A discourse connective is a conjunction joining sentences. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each...
, such as rent-a-cop, mother-of-pearl and salt-and-pepper, are also often hyphenated. - The open or spaced form consisting of newer combinations of usually longer words, such as distance learning, player pianoPlayer pianoA player piano is a self-playing piano, containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism that operates the piano action via pre-programmed music perforated paper, or in rare instances, metallic rolls. The rise of the player piano grew with the rise of the mass-produced piano for the home in...
, lawn tennis, etc.
Usage in the US and in the UK differs and often depends on the individual choice of the writer rather than on a hard-and-fast rule; therefore, open, hyphenated, and closed forms may be encountered for the same compound noun, such as the triplets container ship
Container ship
Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport.-History:...
/container-ship/containership and particle board/particle-board/particleboard.
In addition to this native English compounding, there is the classical
Classical compound
Classical compounds are compound words composed from Latin or Ancient Greek root words. A large portion of the technical and scientific lexicon of English and other Western European languages consists of classical compounds. For example, bio- combines with -graphy to form biography...
type, which consists of words derived from Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, as horticulture
Horticulture
Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation including the process of preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop production, plant breeding and genetic...
, and those of Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
origin, such as photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
, the components of which are in bound
Bound
Bound may refer to:*Upper and lower bounds, observed limits of mathematical functions*Terms or bounds, segments of each astrological sign that are said to have different ruling planets*Bound state, in physics*Bounds checking, in computer programming...
form (connected by connecting vowels, which are most often -i- and -o- in Latin and Greek respectively) and cannot stand alone.
Analyzability (transparency)
In general, the meaning of a compound noun is a specializationSpecialization (linguistics)
In linguistics, the term specialization , refers to one of the five principles by which grammaticalization can be detected while it is taking place...
of the meaning of its head. The modifier
Modifier
Modifier may refer to:* Grammatical modifier, a word that modifies the meaning of another word or limits its meaning* Dangling modifier, a word or phrase that modifies a clause in an ambiguous manner...
limits the meaning of the head. This is most obvious in descriptive compounds (known as karmadharaya compounds in the Sanskrit tradition), in which the modifier is used in an attributive or appositional manner. A blackboard
Blackboard
A chalkboard is a reusable writing surface.Blackboard may also refer to:* Blackboards are synonymous with "boards of infamy", an element of agitation-propaganda in the Soviet Union in 1930s, coincidental with Holodomor...
is a particular kind of board, which is (generally) black, for instance.
In determinative compounds, however, the relationship is not attributive. For example, a footstool
Footstool
A footstool is a piece of furniture, the purpose of which is to support one's feet. There are two main types of footstools, which can be loosely categorized into two categories, those designed for comfort and those designed for function....
is not a particular type of stool that is like a foot. Rather, it is a stool for one's foot or feet. (It can be used for sitting on, but that is not its primary purpose.) In a similar manner, an office manager is the manager of an office, an armchair
Armchair
An armchair is a chair with arm rests.Armchair may also refer to:*Armchair nanotube, a carbon nanotube with chiral symmetry*Armchair, a sitting sex position*Armchair , a bus operator in London...
is a chair with arms, and a raincoat
Raincoat
A raincoat is a waterproof or water-resistant coat worn to protect the body from rain. The term rain jacket is sometimes used to refer to raincoats that are waist length. A rain jacket may be combined with a pair of rain pants to make a rain suit.Modern raincoats are often constructed of...
is a coat against the rain. These relationships, which are expressed by prepositions in English, would be expressed by grammatical case
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
in other languages. (Compounds of this type are known as tatpurusha in the Sanskrit tradition.)
Both of the above types of compounds are called endocentric
Endocentric
In linguistics, an endocentric construction is a grammatical construction that fulfills the same linguistic function as one of its parts. An endocentric construction is not an exocentric construction, and an exocentric construction is not an endocentric construction...
compounds because the semantic head is contained within the compound itself—a blackboard is a type of board, for example, and a footstool
Footstool
A footstool is a piece of furniture, the purpose of which is to support one's feet. There are two main types of footstools, which can be loosely categorized into two categories, those designed for comfort and those designed for function....
is a type of stool
Chair
A chair is a stable, raised surface used to sit on, commonly for use by one person. Chairs are most often supported by four legs and have a back; however, a chair can have three legs or could have a different shape depending on the criteria of the chair specifications. A chair without a back or...
.
However, in another common type of compound, the exocentric or (known as a bahuvrihi
Bahuvrihi
A bahuvrihi compound is a type of compound that denotes a referent by specifying a certain characteristic or quality the referent possesses. A bahuvrihi is exocentric, so that the compound is not a hyponym of its head...
compound in the Sanskrit tradition), the semantic head is not explicitly expressed. A redhead
Red hair
Red hair occurs on approximately 1–2% of the human population. It occurs more frequently in people of northern or western European ancestry, and less frequently in other populations...
, for example, is not a kind of head, but is a person with red hair. Similarly, a blockhead is also not a head, but a person with a head that is as hard and unreceptive as a block (i.e. stupid). And, outside of veterinary surgery, a lionheart
Lionheart
Lionheart may refer to:People*"Richard the Lionheart", a name for Richard I of England*" Brendon 'Lionheart' Hartley" is a nickname given to motor racing driver Brendon Hartley*"Corazon de Leon", former ringname of professional wrestler Chris Jericho...
is not a type of heart, but a person with a heart like a lion (in its bravery, courage, fearlessness, etc.).
Note in general the way to tell the two apart:
- Can you paraphrase the meaning of the compound "[X . Y]" to A person/thing that is a Y, or ... that does Y, if Y is a verb (with X having some unspecified connection)? This is an endocentric compound.
- Can you paraphrase the meaning if the compound "[X . Y]" to A person/thing that is with Y, with X having some unspecified connection? This is an exocentric compound.
Exocentric compounds occur more often in adjectives than nouns. A V-8 car is a car with a V-8 engine
V8 engine
A V8 engine is a V engine with eight cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two banks of four cylinders, in most cases set at a right angle to each other but sometimes at a narrower angle, with all eight pistons driving a common crankshaft....
rather than a car that is a V-8, and a twenty-five-dollar car is a car with a worth of $
Dollar sign
The dollar or peso sign is a symbol primarily used to indicate the various peso and dollar units of currency around the world.- Origin :...
25, not a car that is $25. The compounds shown here are bare, but more commonly, a suffix
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
al morpheme is added, esp. -ed. Hence, a two-legged person is a person with two legs, and this is exocentric.
On the other hand, endocentric adjectives are also frequently formed, using the suffixal morphemes -ing
Ing
-In English:* -ing, a suffix added to English verbs to make a present active participle or a gerund* Ing, a word for a water-meadow-In old Germanic history:* Ing, Ingui or Yngvi, a Germanic god* Ingaevones, a West Germanic cultural group...
or -er/or. A people-carrier is a clear endocentric determinative compound: it is a thing that is a carrier of people. The related adjective, car-carrying, is also endocentric: it refers to an object, which is a carrying-thing (or equivalent, which does carry).
These types account for most compound nouns, but there are other, rarer types as well. Coordinative, copulative
Copulative
Copulative may refer to:* Copula , a part of speech* Copulation, the union of the sex organs of two sexually reproducing animals for insemination and subsequent internal fertilization...
or dvandva
Dvandva
A dvandva or twin or Siamese compound refers to one or more objects that could be connected in sense by the conjunction 'and', where the objects refer to the parts of an agglomeration described by the compound...
compounds combine elements with a similar meaning, and the compound meaning may be a generalization
Generalization
A generalization of a concept is an extension of the concept to less-specific criteria. It is a foundational element of logic and human reasoning. Generalizations posit the existence of a domain or set of elements, as well as one or more common characteristics shared by those elements. As such, it...
instead of a specialization. Bosnia-Herzegovina, for example, is the combined area of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but a fighter-bomber
Fighter-bomber
A fighter-bomber is a fixed-wing aircraft with an intended primary role of light tactical bombing and also incorporating certain performance characteristics of a fighter aircraft. This term, although still used, has less significance since the introduction of rockets and guided missiles into aerial...
is an aircraft that is both a fighter and a bomber. Iterative or amredita compounds repeat a single element, to express repetition or as an emphasis. Day by day and go-go are examples of this type of compound, which has more than one head.
Analyzability may be further limited by cranberry morpheme
Cranberry morpheme
In linguistic morphology, a cranberry morpheme is a type of bound morpheme that cannot be assigned a meaning or a grammatical function but nonetheless serves to distinguish one word from the other.-Etymology:...
s and semantic changes. For instance, the word butterfly, commonly thought to be a metathesis
Metathesis (linguistics)
Metathesis is the re-arranging of sounds or syllables in a word, or of words in a sentence. Most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more contiguous sounds, known as adjacent metathesis or local metathesis:...
for flutter by, which the bugs do, is actually based on an old bubbe meise that butterflies are petite witches that steal butter
Butter
Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying...
from window sills. Cranberry is a part translation from Low German
Low German
Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...
, which is why we cannot recognize the element cran (from the Low German kraan or kroon, "crane"). The ladybird or ladybug was named after the Christian expression "our Lady, the Virgin Mary".
In the case of verb+noun compounds, the noun may be either the subject
Subject (grammar)
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
or the object
Object (grammar)
An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
of the verb. In playboy, for example, the noun is the subject of the verb (the boy plays), whereas it is the object in callgirl (someone calls the girl).
Sound patterns
StressStress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
patterns may distinguish a compound word from a noun phrase consisting of the same component words. For example, a black board, adjective plus noun, is any board that is black, and has equal stress on both elements. The compound blackboard, on the other hand, though it may have started out historically as black board, now is stressed on only the first element, black. Thus a compound such as the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
normally has a falling intonation which a phrase such as a white house does not.
Compound adjectives
English compound adjectives are constructed in a very similar way to the compound noun. Blackboard JungleBlackboard Jungle
Blackboard Jungle is a 1955 social commentary film about teachers in an inner-city school. It is based on the novel of the same name by Evan Hunter.-Plot:...
, leftover ingredients, gunmetal
Gunmetal
Gunmetal, also known as yellow brass in the United States, is a type of bronze – an alloy of copper, tin, and zinc. Originally used chiefly for making guns, gunmetal was eventually superseded by steel...
sheen, and green monkey disease are only a few examples.
A compound adjective is a modifier of a noun. It consists of two or more morphemes of which the left-hand component limits or changes the modification of the right-hand one, as in "the dark-green dress": dark limits the green that modifies dress.
Solid compound adjectives
There are some well-established permanent compound adjectives that have become solid over a longer period, especially in American usage: earsplitting, eyecatching, and downtownDowntown
Downtown is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's core or central business district ....
.
However, in British usage, these, apart from downtown, are more likely written with a hyphen: ear-splitting, eye-catching.
Other solid compound adjectives are for example:
- Numbers that are spelled out and have the suffixAffixAn affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
-fold added: "fifteenfold", "sixfold". - Points of the compass: northwest, northwester, northwesterly, northwestwards, but not North-West FrontierNorth-West Frontier ProvinceKhyber Pakhtunkhwa , formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province and various other names, is one of the four provinces of Pakistan, located in the north-west of the country...
. In British usage, the hyphenated and open versions are not uncommon: north-wester, north-westerly, north westerly, north-westwards.
Hyphenated compound adjectives
Major style guides advise consulting a dictionary to determine whether a compound adjective should be hyphenated; the dictionary's hyphenation should be followed even when the compound adjective precedes a noun. Hyphens are unnecessary in other unambiguous, regularly used compound adjectives.Generally, a compound adjective is hyphenated if the hyphen helps the reader differentiate a compound adjective from two adjacent adjectives that each independently modifies the noun. Compare the following examples:
- "small appliance industry": a small industry producing appliances
- "small-appliance industry": an industry producing small appliances
The hyphen is unneeded when capitalization or italicization makes grouping clear:
- "old English scholar": an old person who is English and a scholar, or an old scholar who studies English
- "Old English scholar": a scholar of Old English.
- "De factoDe factoDe facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
proceedings" (not "de-facto")
If, however, there is no risk of ambiguities, it may be written without a hyphen: Sunday morning walk.
Hyphenated compound adjectives may have been formed originally by an adjective preceding a noun:
- "Round tableRound tableA round table is a table which has no "head" and no "sides", and therefore no one person sitting at it is given a privileged position and all are treated as equals. The idea stems from the Arthurian legend about the Knights of the Round Table in Camelot....
" → "round-table discussion" - "Blue sky" → "blue-sky law"
- "Red light" → "red-light districtRed-light districtA red-light district is a part of an urban area where there is a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, adult theaters, etc...
" - "Four wheels" → "four-wheel driveFour-wheel driveFour-wheel drive, 4WD, or 4×4 is a four-wheeled vehicle with a drivetrain that allows all four wheels to receive torque from the engine simultaneously...
" (historically, the singularGrammatical numberIn linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
or rootRoot (linguistics)The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family , which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents....
, not pluralPluralIn linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
, is used)
Others may have originated with a verb preceding an adjective or adverb:
- "Feel good" → "feel-good factor"
- "Buy now, pay later" → "buy-now pay-later purchase"
Yet others are created with an original verb preceding a preposition.
- "Stick on" → "stick-on label"
- "Walk on" → "walk-on part"
- "Stand by" → "stand-by fare"
- "Roll on, roll off" → "roll-on roll-off ferryFerryA ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...
"
The following compound adjectives are always hyphenated when they are not written as one word:
- An adjective preceding a noun to which -d or -ed has been added as a past-participle construction, used before a noun:
- "loud-mouthed hooligan"
- "middle-aged lady"
- "rose-tinted glasses"
- A noun, adjective, or adverb preceding a present participle:
- "an awe-inspiring personality"
- "a long-lasting affair"
- "a far-reaching decision"
- Numbers spelled out or as numerics:
- "seven-year itch"
- "five-sided polygonPolygonIn geometry a polygon is a flat shape consisting of straight lines that are joined to form a closed chain orcircuit.A polygon is traditionally a plane figure that is bounded by a closed path, composed of a finite sequence of straight line segments...
" - "20th-century poemModern poetryModern poetry may refer to:*The more recent periods in the history of poetry; or*Modernist poetry, the application of modernist aesthetics to poetry....
" - "30-piece band"
- "tenth-storeyStoreyA storey or story is any level part of a building that could be used by people...
window" - "a 20-year-old man" (as a compound adjective) and "the 20-year-old" (as a compound noun) – but "a man, who is 20 years old"
- A numeric with the affix -fold has a hyphen (15-fold), but when spelled out takes a solid construction (fifteenfold).
- Numbers, spelled out or numeric, with added -odd: sixteen-odd, 70-odd.
- Compound adjectives with high- or low-: "high-level discussion", "low-price markup".
- Colours in compounds:
- "a dark-blue sweater"
- "a reddish-orange dress".
- Fractions as modifiers are hyphenated: "five-eighths inches", but if numerator or denominator are already hyphenated, the fraction itself does not take a hyphen: "a thirty-three thousandth part". (Fractions used as nouns have no hyphens: "I ate only one third of the pie.")
- Comparatives and superlatives in compound adjectives also take hyphens:
- "the highest-placed competitor"
- "a shorter-term loan"
- However, a construction with most is not hyphenated:
- "the most respected member".
- Compounds including two geographical modifiers:
- "Afro-CubanAfro-CubanThe term Afro-Cuban refers to Cubans of Sub Saharan African ancestry, and to historical or cultural elements in Cuba thought to emanate from this community...
" - "African-American" (sometimes)
- "Anglo-IndianAnglo-IndianAnglo-Indians are people who have mixed Indian and British ancestry, or people of British descent born or living in India, now mainly historical in the latter sense. British residents in India used the term "Eurasians" for people of mixed European and Indian descent...
"
- "Afro-Cuban
- But not
- "Central AmericaCentral AmericaCentral America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
n".
- "Central America
The following compound adjectives are not normally hyphenated:
- Compound adjectives that are not hyphenated in the relevant dictionary or that are unambiguous without a hyphen.
- Where there is no risk of ambiguity:
- "a Sunday morning walk"
- Left-hand components of a compound adjective that end in -ly that modify right-hand components that are past participles (ending in -ed):
- "a hotly disputed subject"
- "a greatly improved scheme"
- "a distantly related celebrity"
- Compound adjectives that include comparativeComparativeIn grammar, the comparative is the form of an adjective or adverb which denotes the degree or grade by which a person, thing, or other entity has a property or quality greater or less in extent than that of another, and is used in this context with a subordinating conjunction, such as than,...
s and superlativeSuperlativeIn grammar, the superlative is the form of an adjective that indicates that the person or thing modified has the quality of the adjective to a degree greater than that of anything it is being compared to in a given context. English superlatives are typically formed with the suffix -est In...
s with more, most, less or least:- "a more recent development"
- "the most respected member"
- "a less opportune moment"
- "the least expected event"
- Ordinarily hyphenated compounds with intensive adverbs in front of adjectives:
- "very much admired classicist"
- "really well accepted proposal"
Compound verbs
| modifier | head | examples |
|---|---|---|
| preposition | verb | overrate, underline, outrun |
| adverb | verb | downsize, upgrade Upgrade The term upgrade refers to the replacement of a product with a newer version of the same product. It is most often used in computing and consumer electronics, generally meaning a replacement of hardware, software or firmware with a newer or better version, in order to bring the system up to date... |
| adjective | verb | whitewash Whitewash Whitewash, or calcimine, kalsomine, calsomine, or lime paint is a very low-cost type of paint made from slaked lime and chalk . Various other additives are also used... , blacklist, foulmouth |
| noun | verb | browbeat, sidestep, manhandle |
| preposition | noun | out-Herod Herod Antipas Herod Antipater , known by the nickname Antipas, was a 1st-century AD ruler of Galilee and Perea, who bore the title of tetrarch... , out-fox |
A compound verb is usually composed of a preposition and a verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
, although other combinations also exist. The term compound verb was first used in publication
Publication
To publish is to make content available to the public. While specific use of the term may vary among countries, it is usually applied to text, images, or other audio-visual content on any medium, including paper or electronic publishing forms such as websites, e-books, Compact Discs and MP3s...
in Grattan and Gurrey's Our Living Language (1925).
From a morphological point of view, some compound verbs are difficult to analyze because several derivations are plausible. Blacklist
Blacklist
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle...
, for instance, might be analyzed as an adjective+verb compound, or as an adjective+noun compound that becomes a verb through zero derivation. Most compound verbs originally have the collective meaning of both components, but some of them later gain additional meanings that may supersede the original, emergent sense. Therefore, sometimes the resultant meanings are seemingly barely related to the original contributors.
Compound verbs composed of a noun and verb are comparatively rare, and the noun is generally not the direct object of the verb. In English, compounds such as *bread-bake or *car-drive do not exist. Yet, we find literal action words, such as breastfeed, and washing instructions on clothing as for example hand wash.
Hyphenation
Compound verbs with single-syllable modifiers are solid, or unhyphenHyphen
The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen should not be confused with dashes , which are longer and have different uses, or with the minus sign which is also longer...
ated. Those with longer modifiers may originally be hyphenated, but as they became established, they became solid, e.g.,
- overhang (English origin)
- counterattack (Latin origin)
There was a tendency in the 18th century to use hyphens excessively, that is, to hyphenate all previously established solid compound verbs. American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
, however, has diminished the use of hyphens, while British English
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
is more conservative.
Phrasal verbs
English syntaxSyntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
distinguishes between phrasal verb
Phrasal verb
A phrasal verb is a combination of a verb and a preposition, a verb and an adverb, or a verb with both an adverb and a preposition, any of which are part of the syntax of the sentence, and so are a complete semantic unit. Sentences may contain direct and indirect objects in addition to the phrasal...
s and prepositional verbs. Consider the following:
- I held up my hand.
- I held up a bank.
- I held my hand up.
* I held a bank up.
The first three sentences are possible in English; the last one is unlikely. When to hold up means to raise, it is a prepositional verb; the preposition up can be detached from the verb and has its own individual meaning "from lower to a higher position". As a prepositional verb, it has a literal meaning. However, when to hold up means to rob, it is a phrasal verb
Phrasal verb
A phrasal verb is a combination of a verb and a preposition, a verb and an adverb, or a verb with both an adverb and a preposition, any of which are part of the syntax of the sentence, and so are a complete semantic unit. Sentences may contain direct and indirect objects in addition to the phrasal...
. A phrasal verb is used in an idiomatic, figurative or even metaphorical context. The preposition is inextricably linked to the verb; the meaning of each word cannot be determined independently but is in fact part of the idiom.
The Oxford English Grammar (ISBN 0-19-861250-8) distinguishes seven types of prepositional or phrasal verbs in English:
- intransitive phrasal verbs (e.g. give in)
- transitive phrasal verbs (e.g. find out [discover])
- monotransitive prepositional verbs (e.g. look after [care for])
- doubly transitive prepositional verbs (e.g. blame [something] on [someone])
- copular prepositional verbs. (e.g. serve as)
- monotransitive phrasal-prepositional verbs (e.g. look up to [respect])
- doubly transitive phrasal-prepositional verbs (e.g. put [something] down to [someone] [attribute to])
English has a number of other kinds of compound verb idioms. There are compound verbs with two verbs (e.g. make do). These too can take idiomatic prepositions (e.g. get rid of). There are also idiomatic combinations of verb and adjective (e.g. come true, run amok) and verb and adverb (make sure), verb and fixed noun (e.g. go ape); and these, too, may have fixed idiomatic prepositions (e.g. take place on).
Misuses of the term
"Compound verb" is often used in place of:- "complex verb", a type of complex phrase. But this usage is not accepted in linguisticsLinguisticsLinguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, because "compound" and "complex" are not synonymous. - "verb phrasePhraseIn everyday speech, a phrase may refer to any group of words. In linguistics, a phrase is a group of words which form a constituent and so function as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence. A phrase is lower on the grammatical hierarchy than a clause....
" or "verbal phrase". This is a partially, but not entirely, incorrect use. A phrasal verb can be a one-word verb, of which compound verb is a type. However, many phrasal verbs are multi-word. - "phrasal verbPhrasal verbA phrasal verb is a combination of a verb and a preposition, a verb and an adverb, or a verb with both an adverb and a preposition, any of which are part of the syntax of the sentence, and so are a complete semantic unit. Sentences may contain direct and indirect objects in addition to the phrasal...
". A sub-type of verb phrase, which have a particle as a word before or after the verb.