LINGUIST 1A03 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Preposition And Postposition, Polyethylene Terephthalate, Syntactic Category

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Linguistics
• Course: LINGUIST 1A03
• Professor: Catherine Anderson

Document Summary

Week 12 reading section 4. 3 & 4. 5. Another common technique for word building in english involves compounding, the combination of two already existing words. With very few exceptions, the result of compounding is typically a noun, verb, or adjective. In the most common type of english compound, the rightmost morpheme determines the category of the entire word: ex. Bluebird a noun because the rightmost morpheme (bird) is a noun: ex. Spoon-feed is a verb because the rightmost morpheme (feed) is a verb: ex. Nationwide is an adjective because the rightmost morpheme (wide) is an adjective. The morpheme that determines the category of the entire word is called the head. Once compounds are formed, they can be combined with other words to form even larger words. In addition, compounding can interact with derivation, yielding forms in which the first word in the compound is the result of derivation.