Subtheme 4. Word Composition

Word composition in ME and NE was developing towards increase of compound words and rise of new word-building patterns.

The OE pattern Noun stem + Noun stem retained its productivity throughout the whole history. In ME and NE this pattern developed several modifications:

a) Noun + Noun: mousetrap, football, penknife, shopwindow, etc.

b) Noun + Noun in er: householder, fortune-teller, type-writer, etc;

c) Noun + s + Noun: sportsman, craftsman, etc;

Many nouns were built after the patterns which appeared only in ME and later on in NE. The most productive among them were the following:

a) Verb + ing + Noun: looking-glass, working-day, smoking-room, etc;

b) Adjective + Noun: sweetheart, blackboard, redtape, etc;

c) Verb + Adverb: break-down, make-up, fall-out, etc.

Compound adjectives were formed after the following patterns.

a) Noun + Adjective: life-long, country-wide, stone-dead, etc;

b) Noun + Part II: heart-broken, hand-written, moth-eaten;

c) Adjective + Part I: easy-going, good-looking;

The OE pattern Adjective + Noun (mildheort) developed into the pattern Adjective + Noun + ed: mildhearted, gray-haired, black-eyed, etc.

The ME period gave rise to compound pronouns like somebody, something, everybody everything, anybody anything and so on. A Similar pattern was used to build compound adverbs such as: anywhere, somewhere, nowhere.