 Compounding, which is also referred to as composition, is a word formation process that involves at least two base forms or lexemes. Here are the main questions that we will address in the following. The first concern is the question of how can compounds be classified and in this unit we will concentrate on present-day English. The second question is how compounds can be formed or built in present-day English and finally we will look at the spelling of compounds. So let's start with the classification. Like other constituents, compounds can be defined as consisting of a head or a non-head or modifier. Let's look at an example here. So here we have a compound such as schoolboy. Now the head, and I will show you why this is so in a second, is boy whereas the modifier is the item school. Why is this so? Well, while the non-head is peripheral to the overall construction, the head determines the number of its properties. For example, it determines the category or word class. So schoolboy is clearly a noun because boy is a noun. Then it determines the gender. Now gender in present-day English is a difficult issue. For example, here we can draw a distinction between animate, inanimate and human versus non-animate. So we clearly know that boy is human and animate and we can signal that by the following operation. Now if we insert this item into a relative class, we have the schoolboy who and not the schoolboy which because the who is related to boy. Whereas which would be related to school so boy must be the head. Then the head takes the inflectional properties for example number. So if you want to turn the compound schoolboy into the plural, you have schoolboys. You attach the suffix for the plural at the head and not you don't add it to the modifier. And finally in syntax it is a case. For example, the genitive case here in present-day English would be the schoolboy's best friend and not the school's boy best friend. So these are then properties that determine the head. As you can see, the head normally stands on the right hand side. However, there are some exceptional compounds in present-day English like this one. I'm sorry for this wonderful picture here where you have something like mother in law. And here the head is clearly on the left hand side whereas the modifier is on the right. So mother's in law would be the plural so mother takes number. And it's also animate in human the mother in law who and not the mother in law which and the whole thing is announced. So clearly these criteria apply also to left-headed compounds. What about the meaning of compounds? Well, there are two types of meaning in classifying compounds concerning their meaning. The central question is now does the grammatical head the heads we've just defined boy in schoolboy mother in mother in law. Does this grammatical head define the meaning or not? Well, if yes, if the answer is yes, we have a so-called endocentric compound. If no, we have a so-called exocentric compound. Endocentric compounds would be something like schoolboy or mother in law where the heads boy and mother determine the meaning. We will look at them in particular in a second. Exocentric ones would be something like red skin where the head skin does not really determine the meaning. Neither does it in pick pocket where again, well, the head would be on the right hand side. Perhaps it's nowhere really in this case. But again, a pick pocket is not a type of pocket really. So let us illustrate these two main types or these two main semantic types to be precise of compounds. Let's look at exocentric compounds first. Now, here we have two compounds illustrated by these pictures. The one we know already, that's our schoolboy. And this here, well, let's put it a little bit over here, is a boys' school. That is a school for boys. In both cases, we have the head on the right hand side. A quick test will show us a schoolboy who, so gender determined by the head, and a boys' school which again gender determined by the head. In both cases, the head defines the meaning. Now, how can we test that? Well, we can construct so-called hypotomy relationships, a term from semantics, where we could say a schoolboy is a hyponym of the superordinate term boy. And a boys' school is a hyponym of the superordinate term school. In other words, a schoolboy is a special type of boy. For example, other types would be something like a ballboy. And a boys' school is a type of school. Other types of school would be something like girls' school. So this is then a typical endocentric compound. An exocentric compound, by contrast, is a compound where the grammatical head does not straightforwardly define the meaning. Rather, the meaning is a hyponym of some unexpressed semantic head. Well, if we look at our two compounds, red skin and pick pocket. Let's write them down like this. We can see that there are slight variance in terms of the definition of the meaning. In red skin, the unexpressed semantic head refers to a specific person. Thus, let's take green here. Skin is the element that receives concerning the meaning, the main emphasis. It is a person who has a special type of skin. A more complex type is pick pocket. Someone who picks valuables from someone else's pocket, a thief. Here, the unexpressed semantic head refers to a person who picks valuables. So really, this is the more important element. The emphasis is on the modifier. In both cases, we can clearly say that exocentric compounds must be listed in our mental lexicon because we cannot freely generate the meaning. A very interesting aspect in compounding concerns the effect of recursion. Now, especially in nominal compounds, we can build compounds in a relatively productive, in a recursive way. Here we have a base form or a lexine bath. Let's take that as an input to a compound. Well, we could add the element room and we'll get a bathroom. This could serve as a new input to the next stage where we add something like a towel. Now here, we have a bathroom towel. We can go on. If we add two bathroom towels, which is now the input to the next stage, the derivative designer, then we have the compound bathroom towel designer. This is quite interesting. Here we have a derivative designer. Now, even this can function as an input to another process of compounding. If we add, well, let's say, the element meeting, then we will have a bathroom towel designer meeting. Meeting, you see how productive this process is, in particular, if you take nominal base forms and that the rule is one of recursion. Let's finally look at the spelling of compounds. Exocentric compounds, you know, are normally written in a solid form as one word, but endocentric compounds can vary. We have, for example, the solid or closed form in words like, well, let's take examples, housewife. This is a closed form or to take another example, keyboard. Then we have the hyphenated form where the components are linked by a hyphen. In linguistics, you normally write word class with a hyphen. And we saw the example with a left-headed one, mother-in-law. And finally, we can use the open or spaced form like in distance learning, something you are doing at the moment. Even though there is no rule as to how to write compounds, newer combinations of long single items are preferably written using the open form, distance learning. Thus, the spelling may indicate their status. Compounds may begin as open forms, and once they become permanent, their written may be first of all with a hyphen and then eventually written as closed form. Let's summarize. All compounds have a grammatical head. Normally, it occurs on the right-hand side in present-day English. If the head defines the meaning, we get endocentric compounds. If it doesn't, we have exocentric compounds. In addition to these, we have some other types of compounds where we could say these are special forms. For example, corpulative compounds where we cannot clearly define a semantic head. An example would be fighter-bomber. So it is an airplane that can be used for fighting and for bombing. Or we could define so-called synthetic compounds. An example would be bus-driver. Now here, the interesting thing is that the head is always a verbal base. So the head contains the verb drive. And the modifier is the argument of the verb. So a bus-driver is someone who drives a bus. A bus would be the object of the verb drive. You could, of course, argue that a bus-driver is a type of driver, so it would be endocentric as well. And finally, we have neoclassical compounds. Neoclassical compounds where you have lexemes or base forms involved that originate in Latin or Greek to combine new words. So an example would be something like biochemistry. Well, these forms, corpulative, synthetic and neoclassical compounds have not been dealt with in this unit.