SEMI-AFFIXES

Having discussed the difficulties of distinguishing compounds from phrases, we turn to the problem of telling compounds from derivatives.

The problem of distinguishing a compound from a derivative is actually equivalent to distinguishing a stem from an affix. In most cases the task is simple enough: the immediate constituents of a compound are free forms, likely to occur in the same phonic character as independent words, whereas a combination containing bound forms as its immediate constituents, is a derivative.

There are, however, some borderline cases that do not fit in, and so present difficulties. Some elements of the English vocabulary occurring as independent nouns, such as man, berry, land, have been very frequent as second elements of words for a long time. They seem to have acquired valency similar to that of affixes. They are unstressed, and the vowel sound has been reduced to [mэn], although the reduction is not quite regular: for instance, when the concept “man” is clearly present in the word, there is no reduction. As to land, the pronunciation [lænd] occurs only in ethnic names Scotland, Finland and the like, but not in homeland or fatherland. As these elements seem to come somewhere in between the stems and affixes, the term semi-affix has been offered to designate them. Though not universally accepted, it can be kept for convenience’s sake.

As man is by far the most frequent of semi-affixes it seems worth while to dwell upon it at some length. Its combining activity is very great. In addition to seaman, airman and spaceman one might compile a very long list: chairman, clergyman, countryman, fireman, fisherman, gentleman, horseman, policeman, postman, workman, yes-man (one that agrees with everything that is said to him) and many others. It is interesting to note that seaman and workman go back to the Old English period, but the model is still as productive as ever, which is testified by the neologism spaceman.

The second element, -man is considerably generalised semantically and approaches in meaning a mere suffix of the doer like -er. The fading of the lexical meaning is especially evident when the words containing this element are used about women, as in the following: The chairman, Miss Ellen McGullough, a member of the TUC, said ... ("Daily Worker").

In cases when a woman chairs a sitting, the official form of addressing her is madam Chairman. Chairwoman is also sometimes found unofficially and also chairperson.

The evolution of the element -man in the 70s provides an interesting example of the extra-linguistic factors influencing the development of the language. Concern with eliminating discriminatory attitudes towards women in various professions led to many attempts to degender, i.e. to remove reference to gender in the names of professions. Thus, cameraman is substituted by camera operator, fireman by firefighter, policeman by police officer or police person. Person is increasingly used in replacing the semi-affix -man to avoid reference to gender: houseperson, businessperson. The fact that the generic sense of ‘human being’ is present only in the word man ‘adult male’ but not in the word woman which is only ‘adult female’, is felt as a symptom of implicitly favouring the male sex.¹

A great combining capacity characterises the elements -like, -proof and -worthy, so that they may be also referred to semi-affixes, i.e. elements that stand midway between roots and affixes: godlike, gentlemanlike, ladylike, unladylike, manlike, childlike, unbusinesslike, suchlike. H. Marchand² points out that -like as a semi-affix is isolated from the word like because we can form compounds of the type unmanlike which would be impossible for a free form entering into combination with another free form. The same argument holds good for the semi-affix -worthy and the word worthy. Cf. worthy of note and noteworthy, praiseworthy, seaworthy, trustworthy, and unseaworthy, untrustworthy, unpraiseworthy.

H. Marchand chooses to include among the semi-affixes also the element -wise traditionally referred to adverb-forming suffixes: otherwise, likewise, clockwise, crosswise, etc.

¹ See: The Second Barnhart Dictionary of New English. N.Y., 1980.

² Marchand H. The Categories and Types .... P. 290.

Alongside with these, he analyses combinations with -way and -way(s) representing the Genitive: anyway(s), otherways, always, likeways, side-way(s), crossways, etc. The analysis given by H. Marchand is very convincing. “Way and wise are full words, so it might be objected that combinations with them are compounds. But the combinations are never substantival compounds as their substantival basis would require. Moreover, wise is being used less and less as an independent word and may one day come to reach the state of French -meat (and its equivalents in other Romance languages), which went a somewhat similar way, being developed from the Latin mente, Ablative of mens (‘spirit’, ‘character’, later ‘manner’).”

Two elements, very productive in combinations, are completely dead as independent words. These are -monger and -wright.¹ The existing combinations with the element -monger have a strongly disparaging character, e . g . : If any passages of the present tale should startle the reader’s faith, I must be content to bear the stigma of a fictionmonger (Waugh). Cf. fashionmonger, newsmonger, scandalmonger, warmonger. Only the words that existed in the language from before 1500 are emotionally neutral: fishmonger, ironmonger, -wright occurs in playwright, shipwright, wheelwright.

As -proof is also very uncommon in independent use except in the expression proof against, and extremely productive in combinations, it seems right to include it among the semi-affixes: damp-proof, fire-proof, bomb-proof, waterproof, shockproof, kissproof (said about a lipstick), foolproof (said about rules, mechanisms, etc., so simple as to be safe even when applied by fools).

Semi-affixes may be also used in preposition like prefixes. Thus, anything that is smaller or shorter than others of its kind may be preceded by mini-: mini-budget, mini-bus, mini-car, mini-crisis, mini-planet, mini-skirt, etc.

Other productive semi-affixes used in pre-position are midi-, maxi-, self- and others: midi-coat, maxi-coat, self-starter, self-help.

The factors conducing to transition of free forms into semi-affixes are high semantic productivity, adaptability, combinatorial capacity (high valency), and brevity.

§ 6.2.3 “THE STONE WALL PROBLEM”

The so-called stone wall problem concerns the status of the complexes like stone wall, cannon ball or rose garden. Noun premodifiers of other nouns often become so closely fused together with what they modify that it is difficult to say whether the result is a compound or a syntactical free phrase. Even if this difficulty is solved and we agree that these are phrases and not words, the status of the first element remains to be determined. Is it a noun used as an attribute or is it to be treated as an adjective?

¹ -monger < OE mangere ‘a tradesman’, -wright < OE wyrhta ‘a worker’. 118

The first point to be noted is that lexicographers differ in their treatment. Thus, “The Heritage Dictionary of the English Language” combines in one entry the noun stone and the adjective stone pertaining to or made of stone’ and gives as an example this very combination stone wall. In his dictionary A.S. Hornby, on the other hand, when beginning the entry — stone as an uncountable noun, adds that it is often used attributively and illustrates this statement with the same example — stone wall.

R. Quirk and his colleagues in their fundamental work on the grammar of contemporary English when describing premodification of nouns by nouns emphasise the fact that they become so closely associated as to be regarded as compounds. The meaning of noun premodification may correspond to an of-phrase as in the following the story of his life — his life story, or correlate with some other prepositional phrase as in a war story — a story about war, an arm chair — a chair with arms, a dish cloth — a cloth for dishes.

There is no consistency in spelling, so that in the A.S. Hornby’s Dictionary both arm-chair and dish-cloth are hyphenated.

R. Quirk finds orthographic criteria unreliable, as there are no hard and fast rules according to which one may choose solid, hyphenated or open spelling. Some examples of complexes with open spelling that he treats as compound words are: book review, crime report, office management, steel production, language teacher. They are placed in different structural groups according to the grammatical process they reflect. Thus, book review, crime report and haircut are all compound count nouns formed on the model object+deverbal noun:X reviews books → the reviewing of books → book review. We could reasonably take all the above examples as free syntactic phrases, because the substitution of some equonym for the first element would leave the meaning of the second intact. We could speak about nickel production or a geography teacher. The first elements may be modified by an adjective — an English language teacher especially because the meaning of the whole can be inferred from the meaning of the parts.

H. Marchand also mentions the fact that 'stone 'wall is a two-stressed combination, and the two-stressed pattern never shows the intimate permanent semantic relationship between the two components that is characteristic of compound words. This stress pattern stands explained if we interpret the premodifying element as an adjective or at least emphasise its attributive function. The same explanation may be used to account for the singularisation that takes place, i.e. the compound is an arm-chair not *an arms-chair. Singularisation is observed even with otherwise invariable plural forms. Thus, the game is called billiards but a table for it is a billiard table and it stands in a billiard-room. A similar example is a scissor sharpener that is a sharpener for scissors. One further theoretical point may be emphasised, this is the necessity of taking into account the context in which these complexes are used. If the complex is used attributively before a third noun, this attributive function joins them more intimately. For example: I telephoned: no air-hostess trainees had been kept late (J. Fowles).

It is especially important in case a compound of this type is an author’s neologism. E. g. : The train was full of soldiers. I once again felt the great current of war, the European death-wish (J. Fowles).

It should, perhaps, be added that an increasing number of linguists are now agreed — and the evidence at present available seems to suggest they are right — that the majority of English nouns are regularly used to form nominal phrases that are semantically derivable from their components but in most cases develop some unity of referential meaning. This set of nominal phrases exists alongside the set of nominal compounds. The boundaries between the two sets are by no means rigid, they are correlated and many compounds originated as free phrases.