Compound (linguistics)

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In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes (the other word-formation process being derivation). That is, in familiar terms, compounding occurs when two or more words are joined together to make them one word. The meaning of the compound may be very different from the meanings of its components in isolation.

Formation of compounds[edit]

Compound formation rules vary widely across language types.


Agglutinative languages tend to create very long words with derivational morphemes. Compounds may or may not require the use of derivational morphemes also. The longest compounds in the world may be found in the Finnic and Germanic languages. In German, extremely extendable compound words can be found in the language of chemical compounds, where in the cases of biochemistry and polymers, they can be practically unlimited in length. German examples include Farbfernsehgerät (color television set), Funkfernbedienung (radio remote control), and the jocular word Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänsmütze (Danube steamboat shipping company Captain's hat).




Semantic classification[edit]

A common semantic classification of compounds yields four types:


Exocentric compounds (called a bahuvrihi compound in the Sanskrit tradition) are hyponyms of some unexpressed semantic head (e.g. a person, a plant, an animal...), but not of any its component which may be perceived as a formal head, and their meaning often cannot be transparently guessed from its constituent parts. For example, the English compound white-collar is neither a kind of collar nor a white thing. In an exocentric compound, the word class is determined lexically, disregarding the class of the constituents. For example, a must-have is not a verb but a noun. The meaning of this type of compound can be glossed as "(one) whose B is A", where B is the second element of the compound and A the first. A bahuvrihi compound is one whose nature is expressed by neither of the words: thus a white-collar person is neither white nor a collar (the collar's colour is a metaphor for socioeconomic status). Other English examples include barefoot and blackboard.

Copulative compounds are compounds which have two semantic heads.

Appositional compounds refer to lexemes that have two (contrary) attributes which classify the compound.

Type Description Examples

Syntactic classification[edit]

Noun–noun compounds[edit]

Most natural languages have compound nouns. The positioning of the words (i. e. the most common order of constituents in phrases where nouns are modified by adjectives, by possessors, by other nouns, etc.) varies according to the language. While Germanic languages, for example, are left-branching when it comes to noun phrases (the modifiers come before the head), the Romance languages are usually right-branching.

In French, compound nouns are often formed by left-hand heads with prepositional components inserted before the modifier, as in chemin-de-fer 'railway' lit. 'road of iron' and moulin à vent 'windmill', lit. 'mill (that works)-by-means-of wind'.

In Turkish, one way of forming compound nouns is as follows: yeldeğirmeni ‘windmill’ (yel: wind, değirmen-i:mill-possessive); demiryolu 'railway'(demir: iron, yol-u: road-possessive).

Verb–noun compounds[edit]





In the Australian Aboriginal language Jingulu, (a Pama–Nyungan language), it is claimed that all verbs are V+N compounds, such as "do a sleep", or "run a dive", and the language has only three basic verbs: do, make, and run.[2]

A special kind of composition is incorporation, of which noun incorporation into a verbal root (as in English backstabbing, breastfeed, etc.) is most prevalent (see below).

Verb–verb compounds[edit]

Main article: Compound verb




What did you go and do that for?

Compound adpositions[edit]

Compound prepositions formed by prepositions and nouns are common in English and the Romance languages (consider English on top of, Spanish encima de, etc.). Japanese shows the same pattern, except the word order is the opposite (with postpositions): no naka (lit. "of inside", i.e. "on the inside of"). Hindi has a small number of simple (i.e., one-word) postpositions and a large number of compound postpositions, mostly consisting of simple postposition ke followed by a specific postposition (e.g., ke pas, "near"; ke nīche, "underneath").

Examples from different languages[edit]



Chinese (Cantonese Jyutping):

  • 學生 'student': 學 hok6 learn + 生 sang1 grow
  • 太空 'universe': 太 taai3 great + 空 hung1 emptiness
  • 摩天樓 'skyscraper': 摩 mo1 touch + 天 tin1 sky + 樓 lau2 building (with more than 1 storey)
  • 打印機 'printer': 打 daa2 strike + 印 yan3 stamp/print + 機 gei1 machine
  • 百科全書 'encyclopaedia': 百 baak3 100 + 科 fo1 (branch of) study + 全 cyun4 entire/complete + 書 syu1 book


  • arbeidsongeschiktheidsverzekering 'disability insurance': arbeid 'labour', + ongeschiktheid 'inaptitude', + verzekering 'insurance'.
  • rioolwaterzuiveringsinstallatie 'wastewater treatment plant': riool 'sewer', + water 'water', + zuivering 'cleaning', + installatie 'installation'.
  • verjaardagskalender 'birthday calendar': verjaardag 'birthday', + kalender 'calendar'.
  • klantenservicemedewerker 'customer service representative': klanten 'customers', + service 'service', + medewerker 'worker'.
  • universiteitsbibliotheek 'university library': universiteit 'university', + bibliotheek 'library'.
  • doorgroeimogelijkheden 'possibilities for advancement': door 'through', + groei 'grow', + mogelijkheden 'possibilities'.


  • sanakirja 'dictionary': sana 'word', + kirja 'book'
  • tietokone 'computer': tieto 'knowledge, data', + kone 'machine'
  • keskiviikko 'Wednesday': keski 'middle', + viikko 'week'
  • maailma 'world': maa 'land', + ilma 'air'
  • suihkuturbiiniapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas: 'Jet engine assistant mechanic NCO student'
  • atomiydinenergiareaktorigeneraattorilauhduttajaturbiiniratasvaihde: literally "atomic nuclear energy reactor generator condenser turbine cogwheel stage"
The German language has many compounds



  • járnbraut 'railway': járn 'iron', + braut 'path' or 'way'
  • farartæki 'vehicle': farar 'journey', + tæki 'apparatus'
  • alfræðiorðabók 'encyclopædia': al 'everything', + fræði 'study' or 'knowledge', + orða 'words', + bók 'book'
  • símtal 'telephone conversation': sím 'telephone', + tal 'dialogue'


  • millepiedi 'centipede': mille 'thousand', + piedi 'feet'
  • ferrovia 'railway': ferro 'iron', + via 'way'
  • tergicristallo 'windscreen wiper': tergere 'to wash', + cristallo 'crystal, (pane of) glass'




  • 안팎 anpak 'inside and outside': 안 an 'inside' + 밖 bak 'outside' (As two nouns compound, the consonant sound 'b' fortifies into 'p,' becoming 안팎 anpak rather than 안밖 anbak)


  • ciempiés 'centipede': cien 'hundred', + pies 'feet'
  • ferrocarril 'railway': ferro 'iron', + carril 'lane'
  • paraguas 'umbrella': para 'to stop, stops' + aguas '(the) water'
  • cabizbajo 'keeping the head low, in a bad mood'
  • subibaja 'seesaw'
  • limpiaparabrisas 'windshield wiper' is a nested compound:[3] limpia 'clean' + parabrisas 'windshield' which is itself a compound of para 'stop' + brisas 'breezes'.


In koṭuntamizh (Non-standard Tamil), parts of words from other languages may be morphed into Tamil. Common examples include 'ratta-azhuttam' (blood pressure) from the Sanskrit 'rakta' (blood) and Cemmozhi 'azhuttam' (pressure); note how 'rakta' becomes 'ratta' in Tamil order to remove the consonant-cluster. This also happens with English, for examples 'kāpi-kaṭai' (coffee shop) is from English 'coffee' which becomes 'kāpi' in Tamil, and the Tamil 'kaṭai' meaning shop.

Tłįchǫ Yatiì/Dogrib:


Germanic languages[edit]

In Germanic languages, compounds are formed by prepending a descriptive word in front of the main word. For example, "starfish" is a specific "fish" with a "star" shape. Likewise, the noun phrase "star shape" means a star-like shape. While some compounds (like "starfish") may have a predefined meaning, compounds like "star shape" and "starlike" can be composed when needed, and their interpretations are bound by the rules of compounding. Germanic compounds inherit the lexical category of the main word, and are inflected by inflecting the main word. That is to say, since "fish" and "shape" are nouns, "starfish" and "star shape" must also be nouns, and take plural forms "starfish" and "star shapes". This principle still holds for languages that express definiteness by inflection (as in North Germanic), whereas for languages that use a definite article instead, the definite article precedes the whole compound rather than intermingling with it. The compound is understood as a word in its own right. As such, it may in turn be used in new compounds, so forming an arbitrarily long word is trivial. This contrasts to Romance languages, where prepositions are more used to specify word relationships instead of concatenating the words.

As a member of the Germanic family of languages, English is special in that compounds, as a main rule, are written in their separate parts. Although English does not form compound nouns to the extent of Dutch or German, noun phrases like "Girl Scout troop", "city council member", and "cellar door" are arguably compound nouns and used as such in speech. Writing them as separate words is merely an orthographic convention, possibly a result of influence from French.

Russian language[edit]


Compound nouns may be agglutinative compounds, hyphenated compounds (стол-книга 'folding table' lit. 'table-book', i.e., "book-like table"), or abbreviated compounds (portmanteaux: колхоз 'kolkhoz'). Some compounds look like portmanteaux, while in fact they are an agglutinations of type stem + word: Академгородок 'Akademgorodok' (from akademichesky gorodok 'academic village'). In agglutinative compound nouns, an agglutinating infix is typically used: пароход 'steamship': пар + о + ход. Compound nouns may be created as noun+noun, adjective + noun, noun + adjective (rare), noun + verb (or, rather, noun + verbal noun).

Compound adjectives may be formed either per se, e.g., бело-розовый 'white-pink', or as a result of compounding during the derivation of an adjective from a multiword term: Каменноостровский проспект ([kəmʲɪnnʌʌˈstrovskʲɪj prʌˈspʲɛkt]) 'Stone Island Avenue', a street in St.Petersburg.

Reduplication in Russian language is also a source of compounds.

Quite a few Russian words are borrowed from other languages in an already compounded form, including numerous "classical compounds" or internationalisms: автомобиль 'automobile'.

Sanskrit language[edit]

Main article: Sanskrit compounds

Sanskrit is very rich in compound formation with seven major compound types and as many as 55 sub-types.[5] The compound formation process is an open-set, and it is not possible to list all Sanskrit compounds in a dictionary. Compounds of two or three words are more frequent, but longer compounds with some running through pages are not rare in Sanskrit literature.[5] Some examples are below (hyphens below show individual word boundaries for ease of reading but are not required in original Sanskrit).


Modern-day Indo-Aryan languages retain many compounds showing Sanskrit sandhi. For example, from Hindi:

  1. Naresh - meaning a ruler or a Man with god like qualities, is composed of two words Nar (Man) + Ish (God).
  2. Adideva - meaning the first and foremost and prominent of gods, this is composed of two words Adi (First) + Dev (God).
  3. Nirbhaya - meaning having no fear or without fear. This has two words Nir (Without) + Bhaya (Fear).

Recent trends[edit]




Compounding by language[edit]

See also[edit]


  1. ^ "Seattle FinnFest '09". 
  3. ^ "Diccionario De La Lengua Española : limpiaparabrisas". Real Academia Española. Retrieved 16 February 2013. 
  4. ^ Student Dictionary of Compound Words of the Russian Language(1978) ISBN 0-8285-5190-1
  6. ^ Harper, Douglas. "Himalaya". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 2011-07-17. 
  7. ^ Kumar, Animesh (May 23, 2007). "Sruti Krta Rama Stuti". Retrieved July 1, 2011. 
  8. ^ "Virudavali – Jagadguru Rambhadracharya". Shri Tulsi Peeth Seva Nyas. Retrieved October 25, 2011. 



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