Chapter 4: Morphology

Nominal compounds: 
N + N: backbone, barman, nutshell, pony tail, seat-belt, timetable, wallpaper 
Adj + N: greenhouse, high-chair, smalltalk, stronghold 
[V + ing] + N: dancing girl, building-block, dressing gown, racing car 
V + N: cease-fire, copyright, showroom, stopgap 
N + [V + ing]: credit rating 
Adjectival compounds: 
N + Adj: accident-prone, carefree
N + [V + ing]: awe-inspiring, eye-catching, time-consuming 
Adj + [V + ing]: good-looking, hard-drinking 
True verbal compounds, i.e. complex lexemes with verbs as heads which are actually the 
result of a compounding process, do not seem to exist in English or are in any case very rare. 
Potential candidates such as to sightsee, to babysit or to handmake are not verbal compounds, 
but result from the backformation or conversion of nominal or adjectival compounds, here 
sightseeing, babysitting and handmade. 
With regard to morphological structure, determinative compounds, in which the first 
constituent actually modifies the second, stand out as the most common type of compounds. 
All examples in Table 4.5 above are of this type, which are also known as endocentric 
compounds, which means that the head is actually part of the compound. Counterparts to 
endocentric compounds are exocentric compounds, whose head does not appear in the 
morphological form of the compound. Although it presumably results from a clipping from 
paperback book, the word paperback can be used as an illustration of this type. As we have 
seen in Section 4.4, the head of paperback is located outside the compound, and this is what 
the term „exocentric‟ means. Many exocentric compounds rely on a possessive or „has a‟-
relation: consider redhead „person with red hair‟, paleface „person who has a pale face‟, 
redbreast „bird that has a red breast‟. Compounds of this type are therefore also known as