From Word-combinations in English
As English compounds consist of free forms, it is difficult to distinguish them from phrases. The combination "top dog"; though formally broken up is not analyzable semantically as well as the word "underdog";. And yet the 1-st is counted as a phrase (a top dog) and the second as a word. How can we explain this? In reality the problem is still more complicated - separating compounds from phrases and also from derivatives is not an easy task, and scientists do not agree upon the question of criteria. This problem did not receive its final solution yet. Some scientists suggest different criteria for separating compounds from phrases. They are: 1. The graphic criterion of solid or hyphenated spelling. But this criterion may be argued because there is no consistency in English spelling in this respect. headmaser, loudspeaker (both are possible) head master, loud speaker 2. The phonic creation of stress. There is a marked tendency in English to give compounds a heavy stress on the first element. It is true with compound nouns (blackboard but black board, bluebottle but blue bottle). But the rule doesn't hold with adjectives. Compound adjectives are double-stressed (grey-green, new-born, easy-going). It follows that phonological creation holds for certain types of words only. 3. The semantic criterion, the advocates of which are Jespersen, Kruisinga and many others. They define a compound as a combination forming a unit, expressing a single idea, which is not identical in meaning to the sum of the meanings of its components in a free. If to take this criterion we should include all idiomatic phrases into the class of compounds. Thus no type of criteria is normally sufficient for establishing whether the unit is a compound or a phrase and for ensuring isolation of word from phrase. In the majority of cases we have to depend on the combination of two or more criteria. But even then the ground is not very safe.
|
