Editing Compound (linguistics) (section)

==Formation of compounds==
Compound formation rules vary widely across language types.

In a [[synthetic language]], the relationship between the elements of a compound may be marked with a case or other [[morpheme]]. For example, the [[German language|German]] compound {{lang|de|Kapitänspatent}} consists of the lexemes {{lang|de|Kapitän}} (sea captain) and {{lang|de|Patent}} (license) joined by an ''-s-'' (originally a [[genitive case]] suffix); and similarly, the [[Latin]] lexeme {{lang|la|paterfamilias}} contains the [[Old Latin|archaic]] genitive form {{lang|la|familias}} of the lexeme {{lang|la|familia}} (family). Conversely, in the [[Hebrew language]] compound, the word בֵּית סֵפֶר {{lang|he-Latn|bet sefer}} (school), it is the head that is modified: the compound literally means "house-of book", with בַּיִת {{lang|he-Latn|bayit}} (house) having entered the [[construct state]] to become בֵּית {{lang|he-Latn|bet}} (house-of). This latter pattern is common throughout the [[Semitic languages]], though in some it is combined with an explicit genitive case, so that both parts of the compound are marked, e.g.

{{interlinear|lang=ar
|indent=5|number=Arabic
|top={{lang|ar|عبد الله}}
|ʕabd-u l-lāh-i
|servant-NOM DEF-god-GEN
|"servant of-the-god: the servant of God"}}

[[Agglutinative language]]s tend to create very long words with derivational morphemes. Compounds may or may not require the use of derivational morphemes also.

In [[German language|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, mostly because the German rule suggests combining all [[noun adjunct]]s with the noun as the last stem. German examples include {{lang|de|Farb&shy;fernsehgerät}} (color television set), {{lang|de|Funk&shy;fernbedienung}} (radio remote control), and the often quoted jocular word {{lang|de|Donau&shy;dampfschifffahrts&shy;gesellschafts&shy;kapitänsmütze}} (originally only two Fs, [[Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft|Danube-Steamboat-Shipping Company]] captain['s] hat), which can of course be made even longer and even more absurd, e.g. ''Donau&shy;dampfschifffahrts&shy;gesellschafts&shy;kapitänsmützen&shy;reinigungs&shy;ausschreibungs&shy;verordnungs&shy;diskussionsanfang'' ("beginning of the discussion of a regulation on tendering of Danube steamboat shipping company captain hats") etc. According to several editions of the [[Guinness Book of World Records]], the longest published German word has 79 letters and is '' [[Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft|Donau&shy;dampfschiffahrts&shy;elektrizitäten&shy;hauptbetriebswerkbau&shy;unterbeamten&shy;gesellschaft]] ''("Association for Subordinate Officials of the Main Electric[ity] Maintenance Building of the Danube Steam Shipping"), but there is no evidence that this association ever actually existed.

In Finnish, although there is theoretically no limit to the length of compound words, words consisting of more than three components are rare. Internet folklore sometimes suggests that {{lang|fi|lentokone&shy;suihkuturbiinimoottori&shy;apumekaanikko&shy;aliupseerioppilas}} (airplane jet turbine engine auxiliary mechanic non-commissioned officer student) is the longest word in Finnish, but evidence of its actual use is scant and anecdotal at best.<ref>{{Cite web|url = http://www.finnsnw.org/etc.html|title = Seattle FinnFest '09}}</ref>

Compounds can be rather long when translating technical documents from English to some other language, since the lengths of the words are theoretically unlimited, especially in chemical terminology. For example, when translating an English technical document to Swedish, the term "Motion estimation search range settings" can be directly translated to {{lang|sv|rörelse&shy;uppskattnings&shy;sökintervalls&shy;inställningar}}, though in reality, the word would most likely be divided in two: {{lang|sv|sökintervalls&shy;inställningar för rörelse&shy;uppskattning}} – "search range settings for motion estimation".