Contents introduction chapter I. Word formation in modern englsh

endocentric
exocentric
copulative
appositional
An endocentric compound consists of a head, i.e. the categorical part that contains the basic meaning of the whole compound, and modifiers, which restrict this meaning. For example, the English compound doghouse, where house is the head and dog is the modifier, is understood as a house intended for a dog. Endocentric compounds tend to be of the same part of speech (word class) as their head, as in the case of doghouse.
An exocentric compound (called a bahuvrihi compound in the Sanskrit tradition) is a hyponym of some unexpressed semantic category (such as a person, plant, or animal): none (neither) of its components can be perceived as a formal head, and its 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.
Copulative compounds are compounds with two semantic heads.
Appositional compounds are lexemes that have two (contrary) attributes that classify the compound.
endocentric A+B denotes a special kind of B – darkroom, smalltalk
exocentric A+B denotes a special kind of an unexpressed semantic head – redhead, scarecrow
copulative A+B denotes 'the sum' of what A and B denote – bittersweet, sleepwalk
appositional A and B provide different descriptions for the same referent – hunter-gatherer, maidservant.⁸
A special group of words incorporating elements of compounding is represented by derivational compounds or compound derivatives. In fact, this complex type of wordformation is not a case of compounding proper, but of wordderivation (affixation) as “the structural integrity of the two free stems is ensured by a suffix referring to a combination as a whole”. In other words, the IC analysis applied to these words will reveal the structure ‘complex (and to be more exact – compound) base + affix’. Such are the words kind-hearted, old-timer, absentmindedness, long-legged, honey-mooner (the hyphen cannot serve as a reliable test in breaking down the word into ICs). As distinct from the cases of compounding proper, where two (as a typical case of the number of stems) free stems are singled out even if one of them is derived (e.g. word-processor), here the two ICs are ‘complex stem/base + affix’
As for unproductive types of word-formation, back-formation is used to denote the formation of new words by subtracting a supposed affix from existing words. The most common back formations form a new verb from an old noun: televise from television, automate from automation, choreograph from choreography, ablute from ablution, for instance. A well-known example cited in nearly all books on lexicology is the verb to beg derived from the noun beggar by back-formation. The noun beggar is itself derived from Old French begard, which in time was wrongly apprehended as a derived word containing the suffix -er. And so by analogy with such pairs as paint/ painter, rob/ robber, swim/ swimmer, the verb to beg came into use. Other examples are to enthuse (to be enthusiastic) from enthusiasm; to reminisce (to talk about one’s memories) from reminiscence; baby-sit from babysitting and bird-watch from bird-watching. The noun butler has undergone semantic change too: originally the word denoted ‘man-servant in charge of the wine’, at present the meaning of the word is ‘the chief servant of a rich household, who is in charge of other servants, receives guests and directs the serving of meals’.⁹