Editing English compound

{{Short description|Aspect of English grammar}}
{{more citations needed|date=June 2014}}
{{Grammar series}}
A [[compound (linguistics)|compound]] is a word composed of more than one [[free morpheme]].<ref>Adams, §3.1.</ref>  The [[English language]], like many others, uses compounds frequently. '''English compounds''' may be classified in several ways, such as the [[word class]]es or the [[semantic]] relationship of their components.

==History==

English inherits the ability to form compounds from its parent the [[Proto-Indo-European language]] and expands on it.<ref>Fortson, §682.</ref> Close to two-thirds of the words in the [[Old English]] poem [[Beowulf]] are found to be compounds.<ref>Meyer, p. 179.</ref> Of all the types of word-formation in English, compounding is said to be the most productive.<ref>Plag, §6.1.</ref>

==Compound nouns==<!-- This section is linked from [[American and British English differences]] -->
Most English compound [[noun]]s are [[noun phrase]]s (i.e. nominal phrases) that include a noun modified by [[adjective]]s or [[noun adjunct]]s. Due to the English tendency toward [[Conversion (word formation)|conversion]], the two classes are not always easily distinguished. Most English compound nouns that consist of more than two words can be constructed [[recursion|recursively]] by combining two words at a time. Combining "science" and "fiction", and then combining the resulting compound with "writer", for example, can construct the compound "science fiction writer" or "science-fiction writer". Some compounds, such as ''[[wikt:salt_and_pepper|salt and pepper]]'' or ''[[mother-of-pearl]]'', cannot be constructed in this way, however.

===Orthography: open, hyphenated, or solid (closed up)===
English uses many open compound nouns, a large subclass of which, by convention in accepted [[English orthography]], are not closed up (not solidified) and are sometimes optionally hyphenated in attributive position (that is, when functioning as a [[noun adjunct]]). Examples are ''[[high school]]'', ''[[kidney disease]]'', and ''[[file format]]''. Although some other languages would close up these nouns' components (for example, German usually does so), English has a tendency whereby it closes up only certain ones, usually only ones in which the [[head (linguistics)|head noun]] is monosyllabic (and even within that category, only sometimes, and in a way that is not fully [[standardized spelling|standardized]]). For example, ''[[data set]]'' and ''[[dataset]]'', or ''[[file name]]'' and ''[[filename]]'', are accepted alternative forms, but ''[[file format]]'', ''[[data format (disambiguation)|data format]]'', and ''[[data analysis]]'' can only be spelled as open in accepted English orthography<!--across thousands of common examples ([[WP:BLUE]])-->. This pattern holds for countless nouns with few exceptions; notice that the latter pair involve multisyllabic heads. For the class with monosyllabic heads, there is a tendency that "compounds tend to solidify as they age,"<ref name=Bernstein-1965>{{cite book |year=1965 |last=Bernstein |first=Theodore |author-link=Theodore Menline Bernstein |title=The Careful Writer |publisher=Atheneum |isbn=9780684826325}}</ref>{{rp|368}} which is how a term such as ''[[data set]]'' becomes ''[[dataset]]'', ''[[pin-up]]'' becomes ''[[pinup]]'',<ref name=Bernstein-1965/>{{rp|368}} ''[[coal mine]]'' becomes ''[[coalmine]]'', ''[[bottle cap]]'' becomes ''[[bottlecap]]'', and so on<!--across thousands of common examples ([[WP:BLUE]])-->. Such alternative forms usually continue to coexist in accepted use; [[style guide]]s often convene on preferred dictionaries as a way of achieving consistency, by declaring that the [[headword]] form there will be the default styling for each such term.

===Types of compound nouns===

====Native English compound====
Since English is a mostly [[analytic language]], unlike most other [[Germanic language]]s, it creates compounds by concatenating words without [[case marker]]s. 

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Examples by word class
! Modifier !! Head !! Compound
|-
| noun || noun || football
|-
| adjective || noun || blackboard
|-
| verb || noun || breakwater
|-
| preposition || noun || underworld
|-
| noun || adjective || snow white
|-
| adjective || adjective || blue-green
|-
| verb || adverb || tumbledown
|-
| preposition || adjective || over-ripe
|-
| noun || verb || browbeat
|-
| adjective || verb || highlight
|-
| verb || verb || freeze-dry
|-
| preposition || verb || undercut
|-
| noun || preposition || love-in
|-
| adverb || preposition || forthwith
|-
| verb || adverb || takeout
|-
| preposition || adverb || without
|}

Most noun-verb compounds denoting people are of the form ''noun + verb + -er'', where the noun is the object of the verb, for example ''fire-fighter''. {{Anchor|cutthroat compound}} Ḥowever, there are a few dozen common verb-object compounds – mostly dating from the 16th century and mostly with negative connotations – which have the opposite French order and which do not have a suffix ''-er''. These have been labeled ''cutthroat compounds'' because 'cutthroat' is a typical example.<ref>see [[wiktionary:Category:English exocentric verb-noun compounds]]</ref> 

As in other Germanic languages, the compounds may be arbitrarily long.{{efn|"There is no structural limitation on the recursivity of compounding, but the longer a compound becomes the more difficult it is for the speakers/listeners to process, i.e. produce and understand correctly. Extremely long compounds are therefore disfavored not for structural but for processing reasons." - Plag}} However, this is obscured by the fact that the written representation of long compounds always contains spaces. Short compounds may be written in three different forms, which do not correspond to different pronunciations, though:

*The {{em|spaced}} or {{em|open}} form<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Chicago manual of style |date=2017 |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-28705-8 |editor-last=University of Chicago press |edition=17th |location=Chicago |pages=443–444 |quote=Compounds defined.  An open compound is spelled as two or more words (''high school'', ''lowest common denominoator'').  A hyphenated compound is spelled with one or more hyphens (''mass-produced'', ''kilowatt-hour'', ''non-English-speaking''). A closed (or solid) compound is spelled as a single word (''birthrate'', ''smartphone'').}}</ref> usually consisting of newer combinations or longer words,<ref>{{Cite book |last1=McArthur |first1=Thomas Burns |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QMsWFsI0YkIC&dq=%22open+compounds%22+%22linguistics%22&pg=PT237 |title=Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language |last2=McArthur |first2=Roshan |date=2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-280637-6 |pages=237 |language=en}}</ref> such as "distance learning", "player piano", "ice cream".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nagarajan |first=Hemalatha |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nKWTEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22open+compound%22+%22linguistics%22&pg=PT103 |title=The Routledge Companion to Linguistics in India |date=2022-10-20 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-000-77574-7 |language=en |quote=The compound can be a closed compound, where the two words are written together (e.g., ''blackboard''), an open compound, where they are written separate (e.g., ''ice cream''), or hyphenated, with a hyphen in between (e.g., ''short-term'').}}</ref>
*The {{em|hyphenated}} form in which two or more words are connected by a [[hyphen]]. Are often hyphenated:
** Compounds that contain [[affix]]es: "house-build(er)" and "single-mind(ed)(ness)",
** Adjective–adjective compounds: "blue-green",
** Verb–verb compounds: "freeze-dried",
** Compounds that contain [[Article (grammar)|articles]], [[English prepositions|prepositions]] or [[Grammatical conjunction|conjunctions]]: "rent-a-cop", "mother-of-pearl" and "salt-and-pepper".
*The {{em|solid}} or {{em|closed}} form in which two usually moderately short words appear together as one. Solid compounds most likely consist of short ([[syllable|monosyllabic]]) units that often have been established in the language for a long time. Examples are "housewife", "lawsuit", "wallpaper", "basketball".

Usage in the US and in the UK differs and often depends on the individual choice of the writer rather than on a hard-and-fast rule; therefore, spaced, hyphenated, and solid forms may be encountered for the same compound noun, such as the triplets ''[[wikt:place name|place name]]''/''[[wikt:place-name|place-name]]''/''[[wikt:placename|placename]]'' and ''[[wikt:particle board|particle board]]''/''[[wikt:particle-board|particle-board]]''/''[[wikt:particleboard|particleboard]]''.

====Neo-classical compound====
{{Main|Neoclassical compound}}
In addition to this native English compounding, there is the ''neo-classical'' type, which consists of words derived from [[Classical Latin]], as ''[[wikt:horticulture|horticulture]]'', and those of [[Ancient Greek]] origin, such as ''[[wikt:photography|photography]]'', the components of which are in [[bound (grammar)|bound]] form (connected by [[Connecting vowel|connecting vowels]], which are most often ''-i-'' and ''-o-'' in Classical Latin and Ancient Greek respectively) and cannot stand alone.<ref>Adams, §3.2.</ref>

===Analyzability (transparency)===
In general, the meaning of a compound noun is a [[Specialization (linguistics)|specialization]] of the meaning of its head. The [[Grammatical modifier|modifier]] limits the meaning of the head. This is most obvious in [[descriptive compound]]s (known as ''[[karmadharaya]]'' compounds in the Sanskrit tradition), in which the modifier is used in an attributive or appositional manner. A ''[[blackboard]]'' is a particular kind of board, which is (generally) black, for instance.

In [[determinative compound]]s, however, the relationship is not attributive. For example, a ''[[footstool]]'' is not a particular type of stool that is like a foot. Rather, it is a ''stool for one's foot or feet''. (It can be used for sitting on, but that is not its primary purpose.) In a similar manner, an ''[[office manager]]'' is the manager of an office, an ''[[Chair#Armrests|armchair]]'' is a ''chair with arms'', and a ''[[raincoat]]'' is a ''coat against the rain''. These relationships, which are expressed by [[preposition]]s in English, would be expressed by [[grammatical case]] in other languages. (Compounds of this type are known as ''[[tatpurusha]]'' in the Sanskrit tradition.)

Both of the above types of compounds are called [[endocentric]] compounds because the semantic head is contained within the compound itself—a blackboard is a type of board, for example, and a [[footstool]] is a type of [[chair|stool]].

However, in another common type of compound, the [[exocentric]] (known as a [[bahuvrihi]] compound in the Sanskrit tradition), the semantic head is not explicitly expressed. A ''[[red hair|redhead]]'', for example, is not a kind of head, but is a person ''with'' red hair. Similarly, a ''[[wiktionary:blockhead|blockhead]]'' is also not a head, but a person with a head that is as hard and unreceptive as a block (i.e. stupid). And a ''[[lionheart (disambiguation)|lionheart]]'' is not a type of heart, but a person with a heart like a lion (in its bravery, courage, fearlessness, etc.).

There is a general way to tell the two apart. In a compound "[X . Y]":

* Can one substitute Y  with a noun that ''is'' a Y, or a verb that ''does'' Y? This is an endocentric compound.
* Can one substitute Y with a noun that is ''with'' Y? This is an exocentric compound.

Exocentric compounds occur more often in adjectives than nouns. A ''V-8 car'' is a car ''with'' a [[V8 engine|V-8 engine]] rather than a car that ''is'' a V-8, and a ''twenty-five-dollar car'' is a car ''with'' a worth of [[Dollar sign|$]]25, not a car that ''is'' $25. The compounds shown here are bare, but more commonly, a [[suffix]]al morpheme is added, such as ''-ed'': a ''two-legged'' person is a person ''with'' two legs, and this is exocentric.

On the other hand, endocentric adjectives are also frequently formed, using the suffixal morphemes ''[[-ing]]'' or ''-er/or''. A ''[[people-carrier]]'' is a clear endocentric determinative compound: it is a thing that ''is'' a carrier of people. The related adjective, ''car-carrying'', is also endocentric: it refers to an object which ''is'' a carrying-thing (or equivalently, which ''does'' carry).

These types account for most compound nouns, but there are other, rarer types as well. ''Coordinative'', ''[[copula (linguistics)|copula]]tive'' or ''[[dvandva]]'' compounds combine elements with a similar meaning, and the compound meaning may be a [[generalization]] instead of a specialization. ''[[Bosnia-Herzegovina]]'', for example, is the combined area of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but a ''[[fighter-bomber]]'' is an aircraft that is both a fighter and a bomber. ''Iterative'' or ''amredita'' compounds repeat a single element, to express repetition or as an emphasis. ''Day by day'' and ''[[go-go]]'' are examples of this type of compound, which has more than one head.

Analyzability may be further limited by [[cranberry morpheme]]s and semantic changes. For instance, the word ''butterfly'', commonly thought to be a [[Metathesis (linguistics)|metathesis]] for ''flutter by'', which the bugs do, is actually based on an old wives' tale that butterflies are small [[witch]]es that steal [[butter]] from [[window sill]]s. ''Cranberry'' is a part translation from [[Low German]], which is why we cannot recognize the element ''cran'' (from the Low German ''kraan'' or ''kroon'', "crane"). The ''[[ladybird]]'' or ''ladybug'' was named after the Christian expression "our ''Lady'', the [[Virgin Mary]]".

In the case of verb+noun compounds, the noun may be either the [[subject (grammar)|subject]] or the [[object (grammar)|object]] of the verb. In ''playboy'', for example, the noun is the subject of the verb (''the boy plays''), whereas it is the object in ''callgirl'' (''someone calls the girl'').

===Sound patterns===
[[stress (linguistics)|Stress]] patterns may distinguish a compound word from a noun phrase consisting of the same component words. For example, a ''black board,'' adjective plus noun, is any board that is black, and has equal stress on both elements.{{efn|When said in isolation, additional [[prosody (linguistics)|prosodic]] stress falls on the second word, but this disappears in the appropriate context.}} The compound ''blackboard'', on the other hand, though it may have started out historically as ''black board'', now is stressed on only the first element, ''black''.{{efn|Some dictionaries mark [[secondary stress]] on the second element,, ''board''. However, this is a typographic convention due to the lack of sufficient symbols to distinguish full from [[reduced vowel]]s in unstressed syllables. See [[secondary stress]] for more.}} Thus a compound such as ''the [[White House]]'' normally has a falling intonation which a phrase such as ''a white house'' does not.{{efn|A similar falling intonation occurs in phrases when these are emphatically contrasted, as in "Not the ''black'' house, the ''white'' house!"}}

==Compound modifiers==
{{Main article|Compound modifier}}
English compound modifiers are constructed in a very similar way to the compound noun. ''[[Blackboard Jungle]]'', ''leftover ingredients'', ''[[gunmetal]] sheen'', and ''[[green monkey disease]]'' are only a few examples.

A '''compound modifier''' is a sequence of modifiers of a noun that function as a single unit. It consists of two or more words (adjectives, gerunds, or nouns) of which the left-hand component modifies the right-hand one, as in "the dark-green dress": ''dark'' modifies the ''green'' that modifies ''dress''.

===Solid compound modifiers===
There are some well-established permanent compound modifiers that have become solid over a longer period, especially in American usage: ''earsplitting'', ''eyecatching'', and ''[[downtown]]''.

However, in British usage, these, apart from ''downtown'', are more likely written with a hyphen: ''ear-splitting'', ''eye-catching''.

Other solid compound modifiers are for example:
*Numbers that are spelled out and have the [[Affix|suffix]] ''-fold'' added: "fifteenfold", "sixfold".
*[[Points of the compass]]: ''[[Ordinal directions|northwest]]'', ''northwestern'', ''northwesterly'', ''northwestwards''. In British usage, the hyphenated and open versions are more common: ''north-western'', ''north-westerly'', ''north west'', ''north-westwards''.

=== Hyphenated compound modifiers ===
Major style guides advise consulting a dictionary to determine whether a compound modifier should be hyphenated; the dictionary's hyphenation should be followed even when the compound modifier follows a noun (that is, regardless of whether in attributive or predicative position), because they are permanent compounds<ref name=MLA>{{cite book |editor1-first=Gary R. |editor1-last=VandenBos |title=Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association|edition=6th |year=2010 |publisher=American Psychological Association |isbn=978-1-4338-0559-2 |at=section 4.13|quote=Hyphenation. Compound words take many forms. [...] The dictionary is an excellent guide for such decisions. [...] When a compound can be found in the dictionary, its usage is established and it is known as a permanent compound. }}</ref><ref name=MW>{{cite book |title=Merriam-Webster's Manual for Writers and Editors|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7C6V9zRxSPkC&q=%22permanent+compound+adjectives%22&pg=PA73 |year=1998 |publisher=Merriam Webster |isbn=978-0-87779-622-0 |page=73 |quote=Permanent compound adjectives are usually written as they appear in the dictionary even when they follow the noun they modify }}</ref> (whereas the general rule with temporary compounds is that hyphens are omitted in the predicative position because they are used only when necessary to prevent misreading, which is usually only in the attributive position, and even there, only on a case-by-case basis).<ref name=Chicago780>{{cite book |title=The Chicago Manual of Style|url=http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/ch07/ch07_sec080.html |edition=16th |year=2010 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-10420-1 |at=section 7.80|quote=Where no ambiguity could result, as in ''public welfare administration'' or ''graduate student housing'', hyphenation is unnecessary }}</ref><ref name=Chicago785>{{cite book |title=The Chicago Manual of Style|url=http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/ch07/ch07_sec085.html |edition=16th |year=2010 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-10420-1 |at=section 7.85|quote=In general, Chicago prefers a spare hyphenation style: if no suitable example or analogy can be found either in this section or in the dictionary, hyphenate only if doing so will aid readability }}</ref>

Generally, a compound modifier is hyphenated if the hyphen helps the reader differentiate a compound modifier from two adjacent modifiers that modify the noun independently. Compare the following examples:

* "small appliance industry": a small industry producing appliances
* "small-appliance industry": an industry producing small appliances{{efn|name="Pluralnouns"|When a noun is used as a modifier, the singular form is generally used (even when more than one is meant). Thus, an industry that makes small appliances is a "small-appliance industry", an appliance to press trousers is a "trouser press" (and each pair of trousers may have four "trouser pockets"), a woman who is 28 years old is ''a {{nowrap|28-year-old}} woman'', and a vehicle with four wheels may have ''four-wheel drive''. There are occasional exceptions to this general rule: for instance, with fractions (''a two-thirds majority'') and with  lexically distinct singular and plural senses ("glasses-case design" vs. "glass-case design", or "arms-race prediction" vs. "arm-race prediction").}}

The hyphen is unneeded when capitalization or italicization makes grouping clear:

* "old English scholar": an old person who is English and a [[scholar]], or an old scholar who studies [[English (language)|English]]
* "Old English scholar": a scholar of [[Old English]].
* "''[[De facto]]'' proceedings" (not "''de-facto''")

If, however, there is no risk of ambiguities, it may be written without a hyphen: ''Sunday morning walk'' (a "walk on Sunday morning" is practically the same as a "morning walk on Sunday").

Hyphenated compound modifiers may have been formed originally by an adjective preceding a noun, when this phrase in turn precedes another noun:
* "Round table" → "[[round-table discussion]]"
* "Blue sky" → "[[blue-sky law]]"
* "Red light" → "[[red-light district]]"
* "Four wheels" → "[[four-wheel drive]]" (historically, the [[Grammatical number|singular]] or [[Root (linguistics)|root]] is used, not the [[plural]])

Others may have originated with a verb preceding an adjective or adverb:
* "Feel good" → "feel-good factor"
* "Buy now, pay later" → "buy-now pay-later purchase"

Yet others are created with an original verb preceding a [[preposition]].

* "Stick on" → "stick-on label"
* "Walk on" → "walk-on part"
* "Stand by" → "stand-by fare"
* "Roll on, roll off" → "roll-on roll-off [[ferry]]"

The following compound modifiers are ''always'' hyphenated when they are not written as one word:
* An adjective preceding a noun to which -''d'' or -''ed'' has been added as a [[past participle|past-participle]] construction, used before a noun:
** "loud-mouthed [[hooligan]]"
** "[[middle-age]]d lady"
** "[[Rose Colored Glasses (disambiguation)|rose-tinted glasses]]"
* A noun, adjective, or adverb preceding a [[present participle]]:
** "an awe-inspiring personality"
** "a long-lasting affair"
** "a far-reaching decision"
* Numbers, whether or not spelled out, that precede a noun:{{efn|name="Pluralnouns"}}
** "[[Seven-year itch (idiom)|seven-year itch]]"
** "five-sided [[polygon]]"
** "[[History of poetry|20th-century poem]]"
** "30-piece band"
** "tenth-[[storey]] window"
** "a 20-year-old man" (as a compound modifier) and "the 20-year-old" (as a compound noun)—but "a man, who is 20 years old"
* A numeral with the affix ''-fold'' has a hyphen (''15-fold''), but when spelled out takes a solid construction (''fifteenfold'').
* Numbers, spelled out or not, with added ''-odd'': ''sixteen-odd'', ''70-odd''.
* Compound modifiers with ''high-'' or ''low-'': "high-level discussion", "low-price markup".
* Colours in compounds:
** "a dark-blue sweater"
** "a reddish-orange dress".
* Fractions as modifiers are hyphenated: "two-thirds majority", but if [[numerator]] or [[denominator]] are already hyphenated, the fraction itself does not take a hyphen: "a thirty-three thousandth part". (Fractions used as nouns have no hyphens: "I ate two thirds of the pie.")
* Comparatives and superlatives in compound adjectives also take hyphens:
** "the highest-placed competitor"
** "a shorter-term loan"
* However, a construction with ''most'' is not hyphenated:
** "the most respected member".
* Compounds including two geographical modifiers:
:* "[[Anglo-Indian]]"
: '''But not'''
:* "[[Central America]]n", which refers to people from a specific geographical region
:* "[[African American]]", as a hyphen is seen to disparage minority populations as a [[hyphenated ethnicity]]<ref>{{cite web |last1=Fuhrmann |first1=Henry |title=Drop the Hyphen in "Asian American" |url=https://consciousstyleguide.com/drop-hyphen-asian-american/ |website=Conscious Style Guide |access-date=24 June 2022 |date=24 January 2018}}</ref>

'''The following compound modifiers are not normally hyphenated:'''

* Compound modifiers that are not hyphenated in the relevant dictionary<ref name=MLA/><ref name=MW/><ref name=Chicago785/> or that are unambiguous without a hyphen.<ref name=Chicago780/>
* Where there is no risk of ambiguity:
** "a Sunday morning walk"
* Left-hand components of a compound modifier that end in ''-ly'' and that modify right-hand components that are past participles (ending in -''ed''):
** "a hotly disputed subject"
** "a greatly improved scheme"
** "a distantly related celebrity"
* Compound modifiers that include [[comparative]]s and [[superlative]]s with ''more'', ''most'', ''less'' or ''least'':
** "a more recent development"
** "the most respected member"
** "a less opportune moment"
** "the least expected event"
* Ordinarily hyphenated compounds with intensive adverbs in front of adjectives:
** "very much admired [[classicist]]"
** "really well accepted proposal"

==Using a group of compound nouns containing the same "head"==

Special rules apply when multiple compound nouns with the same "head" are used together, often with a conjunction (and with [[Hyphen#Suspended hyphens|hyphens]] and commas if they are needed).

* The third- and fourth-grade teachers met with the parents.
* Both full- and part-time employees will get raises this year.
* We don't see many 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children around here.

==Compound verbs==
{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin:0 0 0.5em 1em"
!modifier!!head!!examples
|-
|adverb||verb||overrate, underline, outrun
|-
|adverb||verb||{{Linktext|downsize}}, [[upgrade]]
|-
|adjective||verb||[[whitewash]], blacklist
|-
|adjective||noun|| badmouth
|-
|noun||verb||browbeat, sidestep, manhandle
|-
|preposition||noun||out-[[Herod Antipas|Herod]], outfox
|}

A '''compound verb''' is usually composed of an [[adverb]] and a [[verb]], although other combinations also exist. The term ''compound verb'' was first used in publication in Grattan and Gurrey's ''Our Living Language'' (1925).

Some compound verbs are difficult to analyze morphologically because several derivations are plausible. ''[[Blacklist]]'', for instance, might be analyzed as an adjective+verb compound, or as an adjective+noun compound that becomes a verb through [[zero derivation]]. Most compound verbs originally have the collective meaning of both components, but some of them later gain additional meanings that may supersede the original, emergent sense. Therefore, sometimes the resultant meanings are seemingly barely related to the original contributors.

Compound verbs composed of a noun and verb are comparatively rare, and the noun is generally not the [[direct object]] of the verb.

Examples of compound verbs following the pattern of indirect-object+verb include "''hand wash''" (e.g. "''you wash it by hand''" ~> "''you handwash it''"), and "''breastfeed''" (e.g. "''she feeds the baby with/by/from her breast''" ~> "''she breastfeeds the baby''").

Examples of non-existent direct-object+verb compound verbs would be *"''bread-bake''"{{efn|This article uses [[Asterisk#Ungrammaticality|asterisks]] to indicate ungrammatical examples.}} (e.g. "''they bake bread''" ~> *"''they bread-bake''") and *"''car-drive''" (e.g. "''they drive a car''" ~> *"''they car-drive''").

Note the example of a compound like "''foxhunt''": although this matches the direct-object+verb pattern, it is ''not'' grammatically ''used'' in a sentence as a verb, but rather as a noun (e.g. "''they're hunting foxes tomorrow''" ~> "''they're going on a foxhunt tomorrow''", but "''not''" *"''they're foxhunting tomorrow''").

===Hyphenation===

Compound verbs with single-syllable modifiers are often solid, or un[[hyphen]]ated. Those with longer modifiers may originally be hyphenated, but as they became established, they became solid, e.g.

*overhang (English origin)
*counterattack (Latin origin)

There was a tendency in the 18th century to use hyphens excessively, that is, to hyphenate all previously established solid compound verbs. [[American English]], however, has diminished the use of hyphens, while [[British English]] is more conservative.

===Phrasal verbs===

English [[syntax]] distinguishes between [[phrasal verb]]s and [[adverb]]ial [[Adjunct (grammar)|adjunct]]s. Consider the following sentences:

: ''I '''held up''' my hand'' implies that I '''raised''' my hand.
: ''I '''held up''' the negotiations'' implies that I '''delayed''' the negotiations.
: ''I '''held up''' the bank to the highest standard'' implies that I '''demanded''' model behavior regarding the bank.
: ''I '''held up''' the bank'' implies either (a) that I '''robbed''' the bank or (b) that I '''lifted upward''' a bank <nowiki>[</nowiki>either literally, as for a toy bank, or figuratively, as in putting a bank forward as an example of something (although usually then the sentence would end with ''... as an exemplar.'' or similar)<nowiki>]</nowiki>.

Each of the foregoing sentences implies a contextually distinguishable meaning of the word, "up," but the fourth sentence may differ syntactically, depending on whether it intends meaning (a) or (b). Specifically, the first three sentences render ''held up'' as a [[phrasal verb]] that expresses an idiomatic, figurative, or metaphorical sense that depends on the contextual meaning of the [[Grammatical particle|particle]], "up." The fourth sentence, however, ambiguously renders ''up'' either as (a) a [[particle]] that [[complement (linguistics)|complement]]s "held," or as (b) an [[adverb]] that modifies "held." The ambiguity is minimized by rewording and providing more context to the sentences under discussion:

: ''I '''held''' my hand '''up''''' implies that I '''raised''' my hand.
: ''I '''held''' the negotiations '''up''''' implies that I '''delayed''' the negotiations.
: ''I '''held''' the bank '''up''' to the highest standard'' implies that I expect model behavior regarding the bank.
: ''I '''held''' the bank '''up''' upstairs'' implies that I '''robbed''' the upstairs bank.
: ''I '''held''' the bank '''up the stairs''''' implies that I lifted a (toy) bank along an upstairs route.

Thus, the fifth sentence renders "up" as the head word of an adverbial prepositional phrase that modifies, the verb, ''held''. The first four sentences remain phrasal verbs.

The ''Oxford English Grammar'' ({{ISBN|0-19-861250-8}}) distinguishes seven types of phrasal verbs in English:

*[[intransitive]] phrasal verbs (e.g. ''give in'')
*transitive phrasal verbs (e.g. ''find out'' [''discover''])
*monotransitive prepositional verbs (e.g. ''look after'' [''care for''])
*doubly transitive prepositional verbs (e.g. ''blame'' [something] ''on'' [someone])
*copular prepositional verbs. (e.g. ''serve as'')
*monotransitive phrasal-prepositional verbs (e.g. ''look up to'' [''respect''])
*doubly transitive phrasal-prepositional verbs (e.g. ''put'' [something] ''down to'' [someone] [''attribute to''])

English has a number of other kinds of compound verb idioms. There are compound verbs with two verbs (e.g. ''make do''). These too can take idiomatic prepositions (e.g. ''get rid of''). There are also idiomatic combinations of verb and adjective (e.g. ''come true'', ''run amok'') and verb and adverb (''make sure''), verb and fixed noun (e.g. ''go ape''); and these, too, may have fixed idiomatic prepositions (e.g. ''take place on'').

===Misuses of the term===
"Compound verb" is often confused with:
# "verb [[phrase]]"/"verbal phrase"—Headed by a verb, many ''verbal phrases'' are multi-word but some are one-word: a verb (which could be a compound verb).
# "[[phrasal verb]]"—A sub-type of verb phrase, which has a [[particle|Grammatical particle]] before or after the verb, often having a more or less idiomatic meaning.
# "complex verb"—A type of [[complex phrase]]: In [[linguistics]], while both "compound" and "complex" contrast with "simple", they are not synonymous (''simple'' involves a single element, ''compound'' involves multiple similar elements, ''complex'' involves multiple dissimilar elements).

==See also==
* [[Metaphor]]
* [[Phrasal verb]]
* [[Portmanteau]]
* [[Syllabic abbreviations]]
* [[Morphology (linguistics)|Morphology]]

== Notes ==
{{notelist|25em}}

==References==
{{Reflist|25em}}

==Bibliography==
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite book |last1=Fortson |first1=Benjamin W |title=Indo-European Language and Culture |year=2010 |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |isbn=978-1-4051-8895-1 |edition=2010}}
* {{cite book |last1=Adams |first1=Valerie |title=An Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation |date=1987 |publisher=Longman Group |isbn=0-582-55042-4}}
* {{cite book |last1=Plag |first1=Ingo |title=Word-Formation in English |date=2003 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-52563-3}}
* {{cite book |last1=Meyer |first1=Charles |title=Introducing English Linguistics |date=2009 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-83350-9 |edition=1st}}
* {{cite book |last1=Carstairs-McCarthy |first1=Andrew |title=An Introduction to English Morphology |date=2002 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=0-7486-1326-9}}
* {{cite book |last1=Pinker |first1=Steven |title=The Language Instinct |date=1994 |publisher=Penguin Books |location=Great Britain |isbn=978-0-14-017529-5 |edition=1st}}
{{refend}}

[[Category:English grammar|Compound]]
[[Category:English words]]