Re: Question about a grammatical term

En réponse à Harald Stoiber <hstoiber@...>:

> Hello Ladies and Gentlemen,
>
> You've never read my name on this list and I will post more information
> about myself and my current conlang project soon. :-))
>
Well, since this is your first post on the list, Welcome!

> Regarding the question I agree with Christophe. All examples are
> compounds. As a German speaker I sometimes have to look twice at English
> phrases because if you do compounding in German then the space between
> the components disappears. So, the first example "water cooler" is made
> from the components "water" (German "Wasser") and "cooler" (German
> "Kühler") which gives a German result of "Wasserkühler". Christophe, you
> are perfectly right that there will be no assimilation of sounds and no
> shift of stress. If the first syllable of a component is stressed, then
> it is still done - although with slightly less intensity if it's not the
> first component. :-)
>
Thanks! I've never actually spoken German, so I'm happy to see that a
Germanophone agrees with my analysis ;))) .

> Keeping the noun phrases separate would constitute an apposition but
> this is not the case in all the examples (water cooler, basketball
> court, road rage, license plate, Coke machine, toilet humour, store
> hours).
>
Indeed not. Apposition refers to putting more than one word together to refer
to the same entity. The main noun of the phrase refers primarily to the entity,
and the apposed nouns refer to the same entity. It's indeed not the case in any
of the examples ("water" and "cooler" don't refer to the same entity, nor
do "toilet" and "humour" - I hope ;))) -). Also, apposition is often marked in
writing by a comma between the nouns, and in speech by a little pause.

Another analysis of the examples which could be valid is to consider the first
part of the compounds as an adjective, which qualifies thus the second noun.
Since parts of speech in English have somewhat blurry frontiers, it could be
valid. But the same blurriness makes this analysis also a bit useless :))) .
The analysis of these forms as actual compounds which are just not written as
one word stays better, as it allows a better comparison with other Germanic
languages, which more often than not use actual compounds (and written as
compounds) where English uses those constructions.

So, finally, let's give a final answer to the question of Mr. I-am-nothing ;)) :
What is the grammatical term referring to the construction in things
like "water cooler" and "toilet humour"? Answer: compounding :)) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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