Meaning and Motivation in Compound Words

Many compounds are motivated. It means that it is possible to deduce the meaning of a compound from the meanings of the derivational bases constituting the word and the meaning of the word-formation pattern, as the compound word meaning also depends on the order of the components. A compound word is a minimal context of its kind where one meaning of the word, which has become a derivational base, is realized. For example, the word foot is polysemantic and its various meanings are realized in combinations with different bases in compound words: foot-print, foot-pump, foothold, foot-bath, footwear the base foot- has the meaning ?termination of leg beginning at ankle?; in the compounds foot-note, foot-lights, foot-stone ? the meaning ?lower end?; in the compounds foot-high, foot-wide, foot rule ? ?foot as a unit of length?.

The role, the word-formation pattern (the order of the ICs) plays in compound words, can be illustrated by the examples (see above) dog-house and house-dog, also fruit-market ?a market where fruit is sold? and market-fruit ?fruit to be sold at a market?, life-boat ?a boat for helping persons in danger at sea? and boat-life ?spending time (holiday-making) in a boat?. Of course, the meaning of a compound word is not a mere sum of its constituents. A word acquires a new quality. For instance, a hand-writing is not just ?writing by hand?, but ?(person's style of) writing by hand?.

Compound words have different degrees of motivation:

1) Completely motivated compounds (non-idiomatic), the meaning of which can be deduced from the meanings of its constituents and the meaning of its structural pattern with a very high degree of probability: sky-blue, new-borne, snow-white, birdcage, headache, battleship, etc.

2) Partially motivated compounds of different degrees of motivation. E.g. words watch work, handwriting possess a high degree of motivation. The words flower-bed ?plot of land where flowers are grown?, castle-builder ?day-dreamer?, gate-crasher ?spectator without a ticket?, couch potato ?someone who is very lazy and who spends a lot of time watching TV? are motivated in less degree, their meanings have undergone metaphoric or metonymic transferences. Partially motivated compounds are idiomatic.

3) Unmotivated compounds are those whose meanings are not deducible from the meanings of their constituents and the structural pattern. For example, lady-bird ?reddish brown or yellow insect with black spots (????? ???????)?, eye-wash ?sth. said or done to deceive (?????????????????, ?????)?, fiddlesticks ?Nonsense!?. These words are also idiomatic.

Many polysemantic compound words have LSVs of different degrees of motivation. E.g., watchdog 1) dog kept to protect property, 2) guard, controller. LSV 1 of this word is fully motivated. LSV 2 is partially motivated; its meaning is a result of a metaphoric transference by association of similarity of function.

In linguistic literature are found semantic classifications of compound words based on the criterion of semantic correlations between the constituents. It is impossible to present here all the subdivisions of the compounds based on this principle. Several examples will do. O.Jespersen mentions the following relations between the constituents of compound nouns of the following type: n + n → N: the first constituent may denote a subject: sunrise, earthquake; object: sun-worship, dog-show;place: garden-party, air-mail;time: day-dream, wedding star;goal: flagstaff, Salvation army; means, instrument: gunshot, book learning;something that is in the second constituent: stone-fruit, mountain-range; something that resembles the second constituent: needle-fish, bell-flower;material: gold ring, stone wall [Jespersen 1954: 164].

This classification was criticized for its inconsistency [?????? 1976: 218]. Thus the words garden-party and airmail belong to one and the same type but their transformations into free phrases show the obvious differences in the relations between their constituents: garden-party → party in the garden; airmail → mail by/through air.

H. Marchand makes another attempt at classifying relations between the constituents of compound nouns of n + n → N type. He ?laims that at the basis of such relations might be: comparison (blockhead, wiregrass), material (tinware, network), goal (gunpowder, breadbasket), place (water horse, headache), time (evening song, moon-flower) [Marchand 1960: 22].

Another approach to classifying the relations between the constituents of compound nouns is based on investigation the propositions motivating the compound words. The semantic patterns of compound words are presented as a list of predicates. The following predicates make up the invariable nucleus of the list. [?????????? 1992: 187]:

Cause (hay fever, disease germ)

Have (sand beach)

Use (handwriting, footstep)

Be (oak tree, fighter-bomber, king-emperor)

In (water horse, garden-party, headache)

For (gunpowder, birdcage, raincoat, battleship)

From (country boy)

About (tax law)

Resemble (goldfish, bellflower, silver-seed, wiregrass)

The predicates are singled out after the procedures of transformation of a compound word into a proposition expressed by a free word combination, e.g.: hay fever → fever causedby hay, garden-party → a party inthe garden, bellflower → a flower resembling a bell, etc.

There are polysemantic patterns of a compound word , e.g., n + a → A: a) a pattern denoting comparison: world-wide ~ wide as the world, snow-white ~ as white as snow; b) patterns expressing adverbial meanings: road-weary ~ weary of the road, colour-blind ~ blind to colour, etc.

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 3314