Compounds - Main Properties and Problems

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2008 im Fachbereich Didaktik fr das Fach Englisch - Pdagogik Sprachwissenschaft Note: 27 Philipps-Universitt Marburg (Anglistik) Veranstaltung: Morphology and Syntax Sprache: Deutsch Abstract: 1. Introduction This termpaper deals with compounding an important process of word formation. Ingo Plag wrote that compounding was the most productive type of word formation but also the most controversial one he forewarns his readers because compounding is a field of study where intricate problems abound numerous issues remain unsolved and convincing solutions are generally not so easy to find (Plag 2006 132). Due to this high productivity compounding can be regarded as the most fundamental complex cognitive representations of the mental lexicon (Libben 2006 vi). Compounds are extremely widespread among the worlds languages and represent perhaps the easiest way to form a new cognitive representation from two or more existing ones (Libben 2006 vi). Laurie Bauer claims that no known language is without compounds and in many languages compounds are the main type of a new lexeme (Bauer 1988 33/34). This termpaper focuses on compounds and their properties including subcategories productivity and the problems that can occur among compounds like questions of stress and categorization difficulties. The first part will deal with the definition of compounds all the compound subcategories and also with productivity of compounds. In the second part questions of stress and difficulties of categorization will be examined.