English compound nouns in the novel “jane eyre” by charlotte bronte with reference to their vietnamese equivalents

THESIS ENGLISH COMPOUND NOUNS IN THE NOVEL “JANE EYRE” BY CHARLOTTE BRONTE WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS DANH TỪ GHÉP TIẾNG ANH TRONG TIỂU THUYẾT ―JANE EYRE‖ CỦA TÁC

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

ENGLISH COMPOUND NOUNS IN THE NOVEL

“JANE EYRE” BY CHARLOTTE BRONTE WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(DANH TỪ GHÉP TIẾNG ANH TRONG TIỂU THUYẾT

―JANE EYRE‖ CỦA TÁC GIẢ CHARLOTTE BRONTE LIÊN HỆ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)

Learner: ĐỒNG THỊ MAI Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

ENGLISH COMPOUND NOUNS IN THE NOVEL

“JANE EYRE” BY CHARLOTTE BRONTE WITH

REFERENCE TO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(DANH TỪ GHÉP TIẾNG ANH TRONG TIỂU THUYẾT

―JANE EYRE‖ CỦA TÁC GIẢ CHARLOTTE BRONTE LIÊN HỆ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)

Learner: ĐỒNG THỊ MAI Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01

Supervisor: Dr Nguyễn Thị Vân Đông

Hanoi, 2020

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled

English compound nouns in the novel “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents (Danh từ ghép tiếng Anh trong tiểu thuyết “Jane Eyre” của tác giả Charlotte Bronte liên hệ tương đương trong tiếng Việt) submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person‘s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Hanoi, 2020

Đồng Thị Mai

Approved by SUPERVISOR

Dr Nguyễn Thị Vân Đông

Date:………

A special word of thanks goes to all the lectures of the Master course at Hanoi Open University and many others, without whose support and encouragement it would never have been possible for me to have this thesis accomplished

Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to my family members and friends who supported me and contributed to the completion of my study

Finally, my sincere thanks are due to all of you who will give me some comments after reading the thesis

To all mentioned and to many more, my heart extends the warmest thanks

2.4.2 Characteristics of English compound nouns 18

2.4.4 Classification of English compound nouns 25

2.4.4.2 Classification according to the componential relationship 27

2.5 An overview of Vietnamese compound nouns 31 2.5.1 General characteristics of Vietnamese compound nouns 32 2.5.2 The classification of Vietnamese compound nouns 33

3.3 Data collection and data analysis techniques 39

CHAPTER 4:

COMPOUND NOUNS IN THE NOVEL “JANE EYRE”

EQUIVALENTS

43

4.1 General view of compound nouns in the novel ―Jane Eyre‖ 42

4.1.3.1 Compound nouns formed by juxtaposition 48 4.1.3.2 Compound nouns formed by morphological meaning 49 4.1.3.3 Compound nouns formed by syntactical meaning 49 4.1.3.4 Compound nouns formed by both morphological and

syntactical means

50

4.1.3.5 Compound nouns formed by prepositional adverb 50 4.1.4 Classification according to the componential relationship

4.1.4.1 Coordinative compound nouns

4.1.4.2 Subordinative compound nouns

50

50

50 4.1.5 Classification according to the meaning 51

4.2 Equivalence case in English compound nouns and Vietnamese

compound nouns

53

4.2.3 Noun + Verb and Verb + Noun

4.3 Non-equivalences in English compound nouns and

Vietnamese compound nouns

54

56

4.4.1 Difficulties in distinguishing compound nouns and noun

phrases and free group words

59

4.4.2 Confusion in forming plural and possessive English 61

5.4.3 Recommendations/Suggestions for further research 69

REFERENCES……… APPENDICES………

ABSTRACT

The study aims at helping Vietnamese teachers and learners of English identify functional and structural features of compound nouns and pointing out the expressions of compound nouns in the novel "Jane Eyre" and their equivalents in Vietnamese translated version as well as providing them some suggestions for improving the teaching-learning process of English compound nouns To achieve this end, descriptive method is used to give the deep and detail description of functional and structural features of English compound nouns reference with Vietnamese equivalents Basing on the qualitative and quantitative approaches, the study has pointing out the various features of English compound nouns with reference to Vietnamese from examples extracted from the novel

"Jane Eyre" Furthermore, basing the result of survey, the author has pointed out the difficulties in learning English compound nouns at high school, so the study will provide a comprehensive and overall knowledge about functional and structural features of compound nouns in English For the students, they can learn more about morphology, especially the formation of compound nouns Besides, they will get new knowledge about types of compound nouns which appear in the novel "Jane Eyre" This thesis has focused only on studying the English compound nouns in the novel ―Jane Eyre‖ by Charlotte Bronte with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents Therefore, there are still some aspects related to this problem left for further researchers

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1: Gender of the research participants

Table 4.1: The learners‘ acquisition levels on distinguishing compound nouns and noun phrases

Table 4.2: The learners‘ acquisition levels on plural features

Table 4.3: The learners‘ acquisition levels on the semantic features

Graph 4.1: Type of compound nouns

Graph 4.2: Type of compound nouns

Graph 4.3: Function of compound nouns

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

1 CP: Compound nouns

2 ECNs: English compound nouns

3 GCSE: General Certificate of Secondary Education

4 VCNs: Vietnamese compound nouns

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

Nowadays, in the era of science and technology, language as a means of communication, has shown its great effects in many fields of our life It takes part in people‘s activities, such as economy, education, society and so on Thus, language is also considered as a decisive factor for the development process of society When a language is developed, its vocabulary is always in constant development At that time, the vocabulary is used to express new ideas, concepts

to reflect people‘s activities, characters and mentalities And enriching one‘s vocabulary of a language is very important as Wilkins (1972:111) comments:

"Without grammar, very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary nothing can

be conveyed." Besides, possessing a rich source of vocabulary in English will enable learners to speak and to write concisely, and in fact, new English words are formed in various ways such as borrowing, affixation, conversion, composition, shortening, etc Among which, compounding or composition is a rich source of English neologisms

According to an analysis of the Longman Register of new words Vol 1, it accounts for 39.8 % of new words (Ayto, in Anderman 1996:65) while a similar analysis of the Macquarie Dictionary of new words shows that it can account for 54.5% (Butler, in Ayato in Anderman 1996:66) Given, therefore, that compounding is highly productive process of word formation Moreover, compounding is an effective tool to express ideas concisely However, compound words have specific and complicated features that many learners of English find it not easy to use because compound nouns originate by coining two or more lexemes with their individual meanings in order to create a new lexeme with its new single meaning This type of word formation process is one

of the most productive and is considered to be a rich source of new English vocabulary

Besides, the words of a compound can also occur as independent words (Katamba, 1993) Meanwhile, phrase is the combination of two words which does not act as a single lexical item One word acts as the dependent (attributive), while the other acts as the independent (Giegerich, 2004) Moreover, Frank (1972) states that a noun has a function of head in every

sentence It means that a noun has an important role to determine the meaning

of a sentence Therefore, compound nouns are more common than other types

of compounds

In fact compound nouns appear most in our daily life, especially in professional texts as in business, novels, science and technology, etc and a good

example for this is the novel ―Jane Eyre‖by Charlotte Bronte one of the most

famous was written with many compound nouns However, sometimes, the readers find it difficult to understand the fuctional and structural features as well

as expressions of compound nouns in the novels There have been a number of studies on compound nouns conducted by many researchers for suggestions dealing with compound nouns in commerce, science, technology and software computer texts but there is no fuctional and structural features on compound

nouns in the novel ―Jane Eyre‖

For those reasons, as a learner as well as an English teacher I would like

to do a research on compound nouns in the novel ―Jane Eyre‖ by Charlotte

Bronte with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents with the hope that the study could show English learners the characteristics and the usage of

compound nouns in the novel ―Jane Eyre‖ by Charlotte Bronte and help me

understand properly the features of English compound nouns and find out an appropriate way to teach them to my students

1.2 Aims and Objectives of the study

The study aims at helping Vietnamese teachers and learners of English identify functional and structural features of compound nouns as well as providing them some suggestions for improving the teaching-learning process of English compound nouns

To achieve the aims, the following objectives can be put forward:

- Providing learners some functional and structural features of English compound nouns in the novel "Jane Eyre"

- Pointing out the expressions of compound nouns in the novel "Jane Eyre" with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents

- Proposing some suggestions for improving the teaching-learning process of English compound nouns for Vietnamese teachers and learners of English

1.3 Research questions

To fulfill the objectives mentioned above, the study tries to seek the answer to the following questions:

1 What are the functional and structural features of compound nounsin the novel "Jane Eyre"?

2 What are the semantics of compound nouns in the novel "Jane Eyre" with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents?

3 What are the suggestions to improve the teaching-learning process of English compound nouns for Vietnamese teachers and students of English?

1.4 Methods of the study

In order to complete this study, some effective and flexible combination of serveral methods research methods will be applied for finding out the functional and structural features of English and Vietnamese compound nouns

Firstly, the descriptive method is used in the first stage To give the deep and detail description of functional and structural features of English compound nouns reference with Vietnamese equivalents These features are illustrated by a list of English compound nouns taken from the reference grammar books written

by contemporary influential linguists in English as Quirk, R.et, Bauer, L (1983), Plag, I (2003) and Mgr Marie Gajzlerová (2007) and in the novel ―Jean Eyre‖ The second qualitative research is used because according to Ary et al (2002), the goal of qualitative research is the depth of understanding rather than the numerical data Moreover, ―data analysis in qualitative research is often done concurrently or simultaneously with data collection through an iterative, recursive, and dynamic process‖ (Ary et al, 2010, p 481) It means that the researcher also did the data analysis while collecting the data In addition,

―qualitative data might be quantitized by counting the number of times a particular word is used or the number of times a particular theme is identified‖ (Ary et al, 2010, p 564) That is why the researcher used frequency list to expose the data in this study This kind of study is also called mixed method because the data collection is qualitative but the data analysis is quantitative (Ary et al, 2010,

p 564)

In this research method, survey questionnaires in form of a written test is used as one of data collection methods to evaluate the participants‘ ability in understanding ECNs in terms of functional and structural features Then statistic

method is applied to present quantitative descriptions in manageable form to simplify large amounts of data in a sensible way

In addition, at the end of research, the comparative method is used to find out the expressions of compound nouns in the novel "Jane Eyre" with reference

to Vietnamese equivalents and also made to identify the operating mechanism of compound nouns in English and Vietnamese equivalences in order that effective measures can be put forth to deal with the problems possibly arisen in using English compound nouns

1.5 Scope of the study

In the frame work of the study, the thesis only focuses on functional and

structural features of English compound nouns extracted from the novel ―Jane

Eyre‖ by Charlotte Bronte with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents

The compound nouns analyzed in this study are those formed by two words

with the data source mainly from the novel ―Jane Eyre‖ by Charlotte Bronte, not

from the dictionaries However, the theory of compound nouns are extracted from the reference grammar books by Quirk, R & Greenbaum, S (1985), Charteris-Black, J (1999), Mgr Marie Gajzlerová (2007), Lone Secher Wingreen

Christensen (2014) and especially in the novel ―Jane Eyre‖ by Charlotte Bronte

Moreover, the study collects data regarding features, the use and the translation of English compound nouns with reference to Vietnamese from the novel through survey questionnaires, so the survey questionnaires designed in this research focus primarily on the use of English compound nouns with reference to Vietnamese and on reliable data and information for research from students‘ habits in using English compound nouns The participants of the research would be eighty five students at Le Ich Moc high school who acted as significant means to collect the students‘ most common mistakes This thesis aims at providing some suggestions for improving the teaching-learning process

of English compound nouns

1.6 Significance of the study

Theoretically, the study will provide a comprehensive and overall knowledge about functional and structural features of compound nouns in English For the students, they can learn more about morphology, especially the formation of compound nouns Besides, they will get new knowledge about types of compound nouns which appear in the novel "Jane Eyre"

Practically, through the research, teachers and students at Le Ich Moc high school can have better knowledge about English compound nouns with reference

to Vietnamese equivalents by using and translating them properly in the relevant context in their teaching and learning process in their daily life

As for future researchers, the study about compound nouns can give clear information about the types of compound nouns This analysis of compound nouns in the novel "Jane Eyre" probably can be a reference for the researchers

to conduct deeper research about a similar topic Future researchers may also conduct other compounds, for instance, compound adjectives and compound verbs

1.7 Structure of the study

The study consists of five following chapters:

Chapter I, Introduction, includes the rationale, the aims and objectives,

the research questions, the scope, the methods, the significance and the structural organization

Chapter II, Literature review, introduces previous studies related to the

thesis Also, this is an introduction to theoretical background which is designed

to serve as the basic foundation of data analysis and discussion of findings in the following chapter

Chapter III, Methodology, presents the research questions and research

approach with various methods and techniques to conduct the research thesis

Chapter IV, Findings and discussion, ―Compound nouns in the novel

―Jane Eyre‖ by Charlotte Bronte with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents‖,

describes and analyzes the functional and structural features of compound nouns

in the novel with reference to Vietnamese equivalents in order to provide some possible suggestions for improving teaching-learning process of English compound nouns for Vietnamese teachers and students of English

Chapter V, Conclusion, gives the summary of the study Furthermore, this

chapter also presents the limitations of the research and some suggestions for further studies

References

Appendices

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

In this section, previously conducted research in the detail fields of compound nouns will be presented and discussed This must be done in order to place the thesis in the context relevant to the research which will be conducted Furthermore, it will provide the readers with some basic knowledge of the background and present state of this field of research

2.1 Review of previous studies

2.1.1 Previous studies overseas

There are many previous studies in compound nouns However, they vary

in subjects and ways of analysis Therefore, each of them has a different result They provide a good ground for this research to accomplish the target

Charteris-Black, J (1999) reported that the second language learners encounter comprehension problems with compound nouns and that idiomatic, syntactic and lexicalization factor may influence their comprehension And he also pointed out that the problems come from the learner‘s word combination This problem is very similar with native speakers However, the research only focuses on the acquisition of English Neologism

Mgr Marie Gajzlerová (2007) pointed at the types and classification of English Compound Nouns and other compoundings And he also proved that ECNs had a higher frequency However the research is mainly general information

Lone Secher WingreenChristensen (2014) researched on translating compound nouns in User Manuals His study aided translators and people training to be translators in discovering the best way in which to translate CNs in technical language Although the study can only say something more specific about the 10 user manuals, which were used as the data, those user manuals should represent a good sample of the user manuals available for electric products Furthermore, the study has provided both a theoretical look at the compound nouns in the qualitative analysis, in which the use of various strategies was considered, and a more real-world look at the translation of ECNs in connection with comprehensibility in the quantitative part

Yulianita, Nadia Gitya (2015) studied on Compound Nouns in The Articles

of The Jakarta Post Online Edition Used by National and International Writers

The researcher decided to analyze only compound nouns It is because this compound is the most common compound (Katamba,1993) Moreover, it is difficult to explore other compounds (compound verbs, compound adjectives) in the articles of a newspaper In addition, the researcher only analyzes the compound nouns which have two lexemes even though compounds can consist

of more than two lexemes It is because the researcher wants to discuss the most basic compound in English

2.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam

Đoàn Thi Chi (2009) studied on English compound nouns and Vietnamese equivalence Her research pointed at the types of English compound and the way

of using English compound nouns of English-speaking countries in everyday conversation

Dương Thị Ngoc Anh (2009) pointed out the general information of ECNs

on classifications, form, syntactic and semantic features The study also mentioned ECNs in the book ― Hotel and tourism industry‖ However, the study was only a minor thesis, it couldn‘t prove and analysis deeply and in detail on tourism and hotel industry

Dương Thi Ngân (2010) on her minor thesis ―Compound Nouns in the novel Jean Eyre by Charlotte Bronte‖ Ho Ngoc Phuong Tram (2010) researched

on ―Compound nouns in Vietnamese focused on the descriptions of English compound nouns in the comparison to Vietnamese equivalents Bùi Thị Thảo Uyên ( 2010) Vietnamese and English Compounding, a Contrastive Analyis Nguyễn Thi Phương (2016) researched on syntactic and semantic features

of ECNs with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents The compound nouns being analyzed in this study are those that are formed from two words while the data source of the compound nouns are in some dictionaries, the reference grammar books by Quirk, R & Greenbaum, S (1985)

Great efforts of the researcher were made to find a better way of teaching and learning compound nouns However, they are all minor thesis, many other related issues cannot be discussed thoroughly Compared to those previous studies, this study will will focus on structural and functional features and

expressions of compound nouns in the novel Jean Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and

their equivalents in Vietnamese

2.2 Review of theoretical background

2.2.1 Noun in English

2.2.1.1 Definition

The term "noun" seems to be a simple concept but in fact, it quite difficult

to define In process of studying, I found some definitions of noun:

Randolph Quirk (1987:p21) defined nouns as "entities that are regarded as

stable, whether these are concrete (physical) like house, table, paper, or abstract (of the mind) like hope, botany, length"

Richard Nordquist denoted that noun is the part of speech (or word class)

that is used to name a person, place, thing, quality, or action Adjective: nominal

A noun can function as the subject or object of a verb, the object of a preposition,

In the first definition, noun was defined by meaning and in the second one; it

was defined by grammatical functions

A word used as the designation or appellation of a creature or thing, existing in fact or in thought; a substantive

"Open-class" includes noun, verb, adjective, and adverb; meanwhile, system" embraces article, demonstrative, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and interjection

"closed-2.2.1.2 Classification

Đỗ Thanh Loan (2003; p9) divided nouns into these following types by two ways

People: - Man, girl, boy, mother, father, child, person, teacher, student

Animals: - Horse, cat, dog, fish, ant, snake

Things: - House, book, table, chair, phone

Places: - Hospital, school, city, building, shop

Ideas: -Love, hate, idea, pride

Each part of a person‘s name is a proper noun:

- Lynne Hand - Elizabeth Helen Ruth Jones

The names of companies, organizations or trade marks:

-Microsoft - Rolls Royce - the Round Table - WWW

The names of cities and countries and words derived from those proper

nouns:

-Paris - London - New York - England - English

Geographical and Celestial Names:

-The Red Sea - Alpha Centauri - Mars

Historical events, documents, laws, and periods:

- The Civil War – the Industrial Revolution - World War I

Months, days of the week, holidays:

- Monday - Christmas - December Religions, deities, scriptures:

- God - Christ - Jehovah - Christianity - Judaism - Islam - the Bible

Awards, vehicles, vehicle models and names, brand names:

- The Nobel Peace Prize - the Scout Movement - Ford Focus

(http: //www.learnenglish de/grammar/nounproper.htm)

Abstract nouns

An abstract noun is a noun that you cannot sense; it is the name we give to an emotion, ideal or idea They have no physical existence, you can't see, hear, touch, smell or taste them

However, in many cases, the 'thing' might be an intangible concept, which means

it is an abstract form of noun

In this instance, abstract means to exist apart from concrete existence A noun that is abstract is an aspect, concept, idea, experience, state of being, trait, quality, feeling, or other entity that cannot be experienced with the five senses E.g.:

Emotions/Feelings: love, hate, anger, peace, pride, sympathy

States/Attributes: bravery, loyalty, honesty, integrity, compassion, success Ideas/Concepts/Ideals: beliefs, dreams, justice, truth, faith

Movements/Events: progress, education, trouble, leisure, friendship

(http://yourdictionary.com/grammar-rules/Abstract-Nouns.html)

Concrete nouns

A concrete noun is the name of something or someone that we experience through our senses, sight, hearing, smell, touch or taste Most nouns are concrete nouns The opposite of a concrete noun is an abstract noun

E.g.:

Common Concrete Nouns dog, cat, girl, plate air, water etc

Countable Concrete Nouns singular -chair, computer, song, window

plural - chairs, computers, songs, windows Uncountable Concrete Nouns water, air, oil, sugar, salt, rice, cheese etc

(http://www.english-the-easy-way.com/Nouns/Concrete Nouns.htm)

Collective nouns

In linguistics, a collective noun is a word used to define a group of objects, where objects can be people, animals, emotions, inanimate things, concepts, or other things

E.g.: A gaggle (of geese), a convoy (of lorries), a team (of football), a group (of

Classification by relationship with other components like gender, case, number:

Singular nouns and plural nouns

When a noun means one only, it is said to be singular The singular form of a noun refers to one person, place or thing

The plural form of the noun refers to two or more persons, places or things

Flower flowers

Pen pens

(http://www.lovetolearnplace.com/Grammar/singular&pluralnouns.htm)

Countable nouns and uncountable nouns

Countable nouns are easy to recognize They are things that we can count

For example: "book" We can count books

Here are some more countable nouns:

coin, note, dollar

cup, plate, fork

table, chair, suitcase, bag

(https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/nouns-un-countable 1 htm)

Uncountable nouns are substances, concepts etc that we cannot divide into

separate elements We cannot "count" them

For example: we cannot count "sugar" We can count "bottles of sugar" or

"kilos of sugar", but we cannot count "sugar" itself

Here are some more uncountable nouns:

furniture, luggage rice, milk, butter, water

(http:// englishclub.com/grammar/nouns-un-countable 1.htm)

We usually treat uncountable nouns as singular We use a singular verb

Nouns of masculine, feminine, common and neuter gender

Masculine gender: Noun is said to be in the Masculine gender if it refers to a male character or member of a species

Man, lion, hero, boy, king, horse and actor are nouns of masculine gender

For example:

A boy is playing in the play-ground

Hero of the movie is not a native of this country

(http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/nouns 1)

In these sentences the words ―boy‖ and ―hero" are masculine-gender nouns Feminine gender: A noun is said to be in the feminine gender if it refers to a female member of a species

Woman, lioness, heroine, girl, mare, niece, empress, cow and actress are few of

the feminine-gender nouns that we use

For example:

A girl is playing in the play-ground

Heroine of the movie is not a native of this country

(http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/ nouns 1 )

In these sentences the words ―girl‖ and ―heroine‖ are feminine-gender nouns

Common gender: A noun is said to be in Common gender if it refers to a member

of species which can be a male or a female

Child, student, friend, applicant, candidate, servant, member, parliamentarian

and leader are few of the common-gender nouns

For example

A child is playing in the play-ground

A Parliamentarian should have command over his language

(http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/nouns1)

In these sentences the words, ―child‖ and ―parliamentarian‖ are nouns of common gender

Neuter gender: A noun is said to be in the neuter gender if it refers to a member

of a species which is neither a male nor a female Normally nouns referring to lifeless objects are in neuter nouns

For example:

Chair, table, tree, star, mountain, street, book, car, school, paper, pencil, computer

Here are some sentences:

Computer has brought about drastic changes in our lives

Tree is cleansing the air

Stars are not visible in the day-time

They are talking about the football team

She is a girl with blue eyes

In a sentence noun can be Subject, Direct Object, Indirect Object, Subject Complement, Object Complement, or Adverbial Here are some examples:

Noun as Subject (S)

The speeding hotrod crashed into a telephone pole

Ron's bathroom is a disaster

The bathroom tiles are fuzzy with mold

The big, hungry, green Martian grabbed a student from the back row Around the peach trees are several buzzing bumblebees

(http: //chompchomp.com/terms/subj ect.htm)

Noun as Direct Object (Od)

They planted trees in the garden yesterday

To see magnified blood cells, Gus squinted into the microscope on the lab

table

(http: //chompchomp.com/terms/directobj ect.htm)

Noun as Indirect Object (Oi)

They bought me a book

(http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object - grammar)

Noun as Subject Complement (Cs)

She is a teacher

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject-complement)

Noun as Object Complement (Co)

They elected him president

The people made Ambrose bishop

(http://sil.org/linguistics/ Glossary of LinguisticTerms /What is An Object Compleme nt.htm)

Noun as Adverbial (A)

Tomorrow the children will wake up early

Yesterday my mother went to work late

(languagestudy.suite101.com/article.cfm/english-nouns and noun-phrases)

2.3 An overview of English compounding

Compounding, or also equally termed composition, is one of the major English word-formation processes and also serves as an excellent source of noun formations (formations created for a single occasion) and neologisms As mentioned by Štekauer (2000, p 99) it is even often regarded as the most productive process of the English word-formation Plag (2002) also maintained this opinion Furthermore, Plag (2002, p.169) added that compounding is the

most controversial process in English in terms of linguistic analysis This is due

to the fact that ―numerous issues remain unresolved and convincing solutions are

generally not easy to find‖ (Plag, 2002, p 169) Because of this, there is no

universal definition of compounds (Kavka and Štekauer, 2006), so an attempt to find one, which would be highly unfeasible, will not be made

2.3.1 Definitions

Adams (1973: 30) sees compound as "the result of the (fixed) combination

of two free forms, or words that have an otherwise independent existence" He

adds that compounds," though clearly composed of two elements, have the

identifying characteristics of single words"

Molhova (1976: 136) explains that ―composition is that means of forming

new words which causes two or more roots to be merged into one, whose meaning might be the sum total of the meanings of the components or it might be idiomatic‖

The probably most intuitive definition of compounding was proposed by Bauer

(1983, p 11) who described it as ―the process of putting two words together to

form a third‖ But as this definition is rather vague at first sight and would also

rule out many established compounds, need for providing a more complex one The most suitable definition for purposes of this thesis may be the treating of

compounds as free lexical units consisting of two or more roots and ―functioning

both grammatically and semantically as a single word‖ (Quirk et al., 1985, p

Hatch (1995:191) announces that it is possible to say the same thing

without the compound (e.g.:I like cakes that are chocolate or somebody can say I

like chocolate cakes) which is the reason why some people may wonder why

they should actually create compounds The reason why compounds are created

in English is stated by Hatch who says that ‗compounds are useful ways of

condensing information and they add variation to the way we refer to concepts in discourse For example, in a composition we might begin by talking about cuts in education and then later refer back to this as education cuts (1995:191)

Compound words offer speakers new ways of referring to the same information

as well as condense the information which is why they are often used in advertisements, announcements and for newspaper headlines

Plag (2002) claims that compound is in fact a combination of no more than two elements According to his explanation, even compounds consisting of more elements can be analyzed as essentially binary structures (p 170-172)

Vogel (2007) characterises a compound as ―a vocabulary unit consisting of more

than one lexical stem (called a base) Compounds apparently include in their structure two or more lexemes, but they function as a single item with its own grammar and meaning‖ (Vogel 2007: 17)

Crystal (2009: 96) gives a more detailed definition of compound saying it is

"a linguistic unit which is composed of elements that function independently in

other circumstances" He calls these elements free morphemes claiming that

there are two or more such elements in each compound

In other words, based on Jesenská (2015:59), it can be said that compounding is a hugely productive word-formation process during which two (or more than two)

morphemes are put together to create a single form, e.g.: forget-me-not,

pickpocket, teapot, anyone etc

The authors offer comprehensible definitions and provide an explicit explanation of word composition Although the different terminology is used by

each author, e.g.: root, stem, base, element, the meaning is the same

Concluded, a compound can be defined as a combination of two or more elements If the compound is composed of more than two elements it is still analyzable into two-element structures This characteristic of compounds is called banality Other important factors that are being used to define compounds (except for the number of their constituents) are their function and meaning Units that are labeled as compounds behave as single units in regards to their syntactic and semantic function Besides, it has been received a lot of concern from linguistic scholars such as Yule(1985), Fromkin, V; Rodmar, R.; Collins P and Blair P (1998), Hornby, A.S (1995), Jackson, H & Amvela E Z (2000), Leech, G,N (1974),etc They have proposed a number of different definitions on compounding In this study the definition of Quirk et al (1985) is considered to

be of appropriate, sufficient and easy one to understand: ―Compound is a lexical

unit consisting of more than one base and functioning both grammatically and semantically as a single word ‖ (1985:1567)

2.4 An overview of English compound nouns

2.4.1 Definitions

A compound noun is a noun that is made up of two or more words Most compound nouns in English are formed by nouns modified by other nouns or adjectives However, compound nouns are more specific and expressive than simple nouns, so they are more valuable as index terms and increase the precision in search experiments There are many definitions for the compound nouns which cause ambiguities as to whether a given continuous noun sequence

is compound noun or not We, therefore, need a clean definition of compound nouns in terms of information retrieval, according to ―Corpus-Based Learning of compound noun Indexing‖- The research was supported by Kosef special

purpose basic research (1997.9-2000.8), authors define a compound noun as ―any

continuous noun sequence that appears frequently in documents‖

In Basic English Lexicology, compounding (or words –composition) is the building of a new word by joining two or more words A compound word (or just

―compound‖ for short) is therefore a word that consists of at least two root morphemes It is clear that the components of a compound may be either simple

or derived words or even other compound words

Mark Lauer stated that ―compound nouns are a commonly occurring

construction in language consisting of a sequence of nouns, acting as a noun‖ pottery coffee mug, for example For a detailed linguistic theory of compound noun syntax andsemantics, see Levi (1978) Compound nouns are analyzed syntactically by means of the rule NN N applied recursively Compounds of more than two nouns are ambiguous in syntactic structure compounds of more than two nouns are ambiguous in syntactic structure A necessary part of producing an interpretation of a compound noun is an analysis of the attachments within the compound Syntactic 10 papers cannot choose an appropriate analysis, because attachments are not syntactically governed

O‘Grady et al (1997: 152) state that a compound noun may be formed from

a noun and a noun, an adjective and a noun, a preposition and a noun, and a

verband a noun The examples of compound nouns are fire truck, high court,

undergraduate, and jump suit

There are two types of compound nouns as put forward by O‘Grady et al

(1997) They are endocentric and exocentric Endocentric means the right most

morpheme of a compound determine the meaning of the compound itself Since the rightmost morpheme of a compound noun is a noun, the meaning of the compound will also be a noun Besides, the meaning will be related to the rightmost morpheme itself The examples of endocentric compound are steamboat which is a kind of boat powered by steam and dog food which is food for dog From those examples, it can be seen that the meaning of those compounds are the same as the rightmost morpheme

Meanwhile, exocentric means that the rightmost morpheme of a compound

is not related to the meaning of the compound itself (O‘Grady et al, 1997) In other words, exocentric is the opposite of endocentric The common examples of exocentric compounds are Greenhouse, Bigfoot, and Broadway

According to Spencer (1991: 309), the heads of these compounds are derived by affixation from a verb The example of this type of compound is matchmaker This compound has the head ―maker‖ which is derived from the verb ―make‖ and followed by an affix ―– er‖ This compound is also called synthetic compounds

Jeremy Nicholson-Bachelor of Science of Melbourne University, Australia adds ―A compound noun is a sequence of two or more nouns comprising a noun‖ (i.e a noun phrase without determiner) In open language, and especially technical language, compound nouns are productive, in that novel instances can

be readily formed and understood in context, as attested to by Lapata and Lascaride (2003)

2.4.2 Characteristics of compound nouns

Structures:

Solid and spaced forms

Basic compound nouns (solid and spaced compounds)

The solid or spaced forms in which two usually moderately short words

appear together as one

For examples: housewife, lawsuit, wallpaper

The “solid” or “closed‖ form consists of short units that often have been

established in the language for a long time and melded together

For examples: fortlight, handmaid, crosstown, secondhand, notebook

Open and spaced forms

The “open” or “spaced‖ form is the compound noun consisting of newer

combinations of usually long word

For examples: drug store, tea rose, road safety, dry land, human beings, post

office, etc

*Note: Sometime, a compound noun is spelt in many ways:

For examples: Nightclub = night club Airline = air line = air-line

Complex compound nouns (hyphenated and other compounds)

The hyphenated forms (as two words joined with a hyphen) in which two or more words are connected by a hyphen The hyphen is often as a visual link, so

as to make the distinction that is made in speech by stressing the first word of the compound

For examples: Mother-in-law, garden -coat, bed-foot dinning-table,

country-made shoes, frost-flowersetc

To be more specific, these are a few guidelines:

Hyphenate two nouns in apposition that indicate different but equally important function The compound constitutes a new, single idea

For examples: tractor-trailer, city-state

The compound constitutes a new, single idea

Hyphenate nouns normally written as two words, when they are precededby

a modifier which might create an ambiguity The late expression clarifying that the letter writers write for the public, rather than that they write letters that are of

a public nature

For examples: letter writer but public letter– writers

Hyphenate compound units of measurement created by combining single units that stand in a mathematical relationship to each other

For examples: kilowatt-hour, person-day

Noun-plus-gerund compounds are not hyphenated They may appear as separate or single words

For examples: shipbuilding, problem solving, decision making

- Besides, according to composition types, compounds also consist the followingcharacters:

Compounds formed by juxtaposition, without connecting elements

For examples: backache, store-keeper, door-step, heart-broken

Compounds formed by morphological means, with vowel or consonant as

For examples: spokesman, Afro-Asian, speedometer, handicraft

Compounds formed by syntactical means, a group of words condensed intoone word

For examples: cash-and-carry, up-to-date, and up-and-up

Compounds formed both by morphological and syntactical means, phrasesturned into compounds by means of suffixes

For examples: long-legged, kind-hearted, teenager

Compound noun formed by ―prepositional adverb‖

Compound nouns formed by ―prepositional adverb‖ are those whose final element are ―preposition like adverbs‖

For examples: Teach-in, breakdown, give away, drop-out

2.4.3 Types of English compound nouns:

Considering the types of English compound nouns, many linguistic scholars give different types based on different criteria Bauer (1983) pays attention to the

part of speech of the constituents‘ combination, meanwhile Quirk et al (1972,

1985) classifies compound nouns based on the underlying structure In the latest publication, Huddleston et al (2002) divide compound nouns into two distinguish groups, namely noun-centred compound nouns and verb-centred compound nouns in which he describes both the elements‘ combination and the semantic relation analyzing underlying structure In each group of compounds, he divides them into subtypes In this study the author gives the priority to Huddleston‘s view

According to Huddleston et al (2002), a noun-centred compound noun (or verbless compound noun as called by other linguists) is a compound in

which the head is purely or at least primarily a noun For example, in girlfriend, the head friend can only be a noun

A compound, by contrast, is a verb-centred compound noun in that the head

is the lexical base of a verb or else formed from one by suffixation or conversion

For example, in bus-driver, life-guard are formed by suffixation, guard is

form by conversion and take is, of course, a verb We will look at these types in turn in the following sections

Type of compound noun Example

cartridge

http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/nouncompound.htm)

Note: Verb-verb compound nouns are not mentioned above because they are less common than others in language

For examples:

Make-believe = the enactment of a pretense

Make-do = something contrived to meet an urgent need or emergency

Make-work = active work of little value

Go-slow = a form of protest by workers in which they deliberately slow

down in order to cause problem from their employers

Watch-guard = short chain or ribbon attaching a pocket watch to a man's

vest

Noun-centred compound nouns:

These compounds have a noun as the final base Usually, the first constituent is the modifier and the second one is the head However, there are some cases as in coordinative, the two elements are equal In noun-centred compound nouns, the first element (the dependent) may be a noun, adjective, verb or some other categories We will look at it in turn in the following parts

Noun + noun

We often use two nouns together to mean one thing/ person/ idea, etc

When we want to give more specific information about someone or something,

we sometime use noun in front of another noun For example, we can use a noun + noun combination to say what something is made of, when something happens,

or what someone does:

Leather jacket is a jacket made of leather

Tomato salad is a salad with tomatoes in it

Chocolate cake is cake with chocolate in them

Chicken soup is soup with chicken in it

Metal box is a box made of metal

The first noun is like an adjective It shows us what kind of thing, idea, or person, etc

For examples: bedrooms, motorbike, printer cartridge, river bank, sky-jacket,

winter clothes, traffic warden, kitchen table…

A road accident is an accident that happens on the road

The sea temperature say us the temperature of the sea

In these noun + noun structure, the first noun behaves similarly to an adjective describes or modifies the second noun

For examples:

A car park is a place for packing cars

A history book is a book of history

Importantly, the frequency of compound nouns in the previous two examples:

stomach bug, cruise ship, Sunday Times, holidaymakers When we use

compound nouns like these, the first noun has the same function as a classifying adjective- it tells or describes the nature of the second noun

Compound nouns are particularly useful in newspaper headlines and reports as they enable a lot of information to be summarized quickly

We often use noun + noun structure when the second noun is made from a verb +

―er‖

For examples:

Bus driver is a person who drives a bus

Hair dryer is a machine for drying hair

Coffee drinker is a person who drinks coffee

Tennis player is a person who plays tennis

Mountain climber is a person who climbs mountains

You are of course familiar with the noun ―book‖ and equally familiar with the noun screen used about the monitor of a computer If an author were to produce a digital novel which he or she would like to look like an ordinary book on the

screen, she might wish to produce a screen book I can hear a lot of you

protesting that nobody in their right mind would want to read a whole novel on the screen instead holding it in their hand- in bed…We sometimes make compound nouns which consist of more than two nouns

For examples:

A dinner - party conversation

A milk chocolate bar

An air - traffic controller

Sometimes there are more than two nouns together:

―He waited at the hotel reception desk‖

―If you want to play table tennis, you need a table tennis table‖

Adjective + noun

This type often causes ambiguous for the learners as it is similar to a noun phrase in its form However, this type possesses a quite high degree of semantic specialization and lexicalization The compound, therefore, differs significantly from a syntactic construction consisting of an attributive adjective

+head noun As we have already seen blackbird is different in meaning from

black bird Many other examples of this class are: blueprint, madman, smalltalk, busybody,etc

crybaby ~ the baby cries

hangman ~ the man hangs (people sentenced to death)

pickpocket ~ person who picks (steal from) pocket

The head noun may match up with a clausal object

For examples:

punch bag ~ X punches the bag

call girl ~ X calls the girl

The noun may also stand in an adverbial relation to verb The relations

involved instrument (e.g swearword, grindstone), location (e.g bake house,

dance hall) or time (e.g payday) with the compounds having the verbal element

in -ing suffix (i.e V-ing + Noun), they denote a purposive meaning

For examples:

chewing gum ~ gum for chewing

frying pan ~ pan for frying

Other categories + noun compounds

This type has a preposition as dependent There are also a few elements which is

a numeral or a gender-specific personal pronoun

For examples:

after - effect, backwater, off-chance, overcoat, six-pack, he-man,

she-wolf, hanger on, passer-by, breakfast, outline, afternoon

Verb-centred

In verb-centred compound nouns, the relation between constituents is similar to that between a verb and a noun phrase i.e the noun is subject or object of the verb element The dependent, therefore, is complementation rather than modification The compound nouns in this group usually consist of a verbal element in combination with a noun, an adjective, or a preposition We will look at them in turn

Noun + verb

The verb element may appear without suffix: bee-sting, bus-stop,

earth-quake, handshake, moon-walk, day dream, haircut, birth-control, waterfall, park etc The verb element may appear in -er suffix and become the deverbal

car-noun For examples: radio- operator, goal-keeper, shoes maker, city-dweller,

factory-worker This type of compounds has a relative narrow range of meanings

The whole compound often denotes the person, animal or machines perform the action expressed in the verbal element Compound nouns consist of Noun +

verballed noun in -ing such as letter-writing, book- keeping, house-keeping,

church-going, hand-writing, shop-lifting, etc and they often denote an

activity, an action or a kind of stool

Verb-adverb

Verb-adverb compound nouns are compound nouns built from a verb + an

adverb such as castaway, look-out

Verb + preposition or preposition + verb

The compounds of this type typically denote some kind of actions

There are many examples of this type such as: walk-over, walk-out,

press-up, sit-in, take-off, show-off, drop-out, outlook, onset, overflow etc

Adjective + verb

Most compounds in this type have the ―-er‖ or ―-ing‖ suffix attached

to the verb The examples are: best-seller, high-flyer, well-being, new-coming,

shortcoming

Adverb-verb

Adverb-verb compound nouns are compound nouns built from an adverb + a

verb such as first-born, best-born

Verb + Verb

Verb-verb compound nouns compound nouns built by verbs such as washstand, make-believe

2.4.4 Classification of English compound nouns

2.4.4.1 According to the meaning

This classification can be call semantic classification‖ According to the

meaning, compounds can be non-idiomatic (motivated) or idiomatic

(nonmotivated)

Idiomatic compound nouns

Idiomatic compound nouns are those whose meanings can‘t be deduced because there is no relationship between the meanings of the components

Lack of motivation in these words is related to figurative usage of their components

For example:

monkey-bussiness = buffoonery (there is no relationship between the meanings

of ―monkey‖ and ―business‖)

teach-in = seminar, workshop ( no relationship between the meaning of ―teach‖

and ―in‖)

lady killer = A gallant who captivates the hearts of women (He makes

acquantances with many people including girls who love him very much It is true that he is a lady killer.)

Lip-service in idiom ―give lip-service to something‖ (say that one supports

something while do nothing so in reality)  no relationship between the

meanings of ―lip‖ or ―service‖

Blackleg is person who works when other workers are in strike  no relationship

between the meanings of ―black‖ or ―leg‖

egghead = very intellectual person

blacksheep = person who brings shame to his family as in below

Example 1:

Jame‗s family is very famous for studiuos tradition His siblings all are studying

in universities and receives schorlarships every year But he has failed his

extrance exam to become a student He is certainly the blacksheep of his family

Because idiomatic compounds are related to figurative usage of their

components, It is very difficult for the learners to understand the meaning of

these compounds that makes learners misunderstand and confuse when speaking

with foreigners as in following examples:

Example 2

John: Nam, there is a bluebottle on the table

Nam: Yes, I know Why?

John: Bluebottles are dirty, you know?

Nam: Nonsence, I‗ve washed it carefully

In the dialogue below, the Vietnamese people make a mistake because a

bluebottle here is a fly - one kind of insect which is very dirty and causes many

diseases

In some cases, it also creates a lot of jokes and funny as in a story below:

Example 3

First women: That doctor is quite a lady-killer

Second women (not very attentive): My God! I‗d better go and see another

The second women makes a mistake when thinking that doctor is a person killing

many people, but in fact, he is a gallent who captivates the hearts of women

Example 4

―Why should one country want to be top dog over the rest of the world?‖

Top dog is the person, country, etc That is considered to be the most powerful,

influential or superior

Example 5

―Alex said nothing at all when he told him about Diana‘s misfortune He‘s a real

cold fish.” (Do you guess the meaning if you don‘t look at that situation)

A cold fish is someone who is little moved by emotions, who is regarded

asbeing hard and unfeeling

Example 6

―Philip didn‘t tell any of the office staff why he had been absent for a month, but

then he‘s always been a dark house.‖

A dark house is a person who doesn‘t talk much to others about his activities, feelings, etc

Example 7

―The tax office had a lot of question about Frank‘s declared profits They

obviously thought there was some monkey business going on.‖

Monkey business is dishonest behavior (no relation with the word ―monkey‖)

Non-idiomatic compound nouns

Non-idiomatic compound nouns are those whose meanings are easily deduced fromthe meanings of the components:

For example: Salesgirl is the girl who sells goods

Goalkeeper is player who stands in the goal

In general, the modifier limits the meanings of the head This is most obvious indescriptive compounds, in which the modifier is used in an attributive

or appositional manner

For example: Blackboard is a particular kind of board, which is general black

In some cases, they are partially non-idiomatic since the motivation is partial

For example: Mother-in-law is mother of one‘s wife or husband

For example: ―David is a real busy bee today, he‘s been rushing around all

morning‖

A busy bee is a busy, active person who moves quickly from task to task However, in some cases, the semantic head is not explicitly expressed

For examples

A redhead is not a kind of head, but is a person with red hair

A blockhead is also not a head, but a person with a head that is as head and

unreceptive as a block (stupid)

A lion heart is not a type of heart, but a person with a heart like a lion

(in its bravery, courage, fearlessness, etc.)

2.4.4.2 Classification according to the componential relationship

Subordinative compound nouns

Subordinative compound are those that are characterized by the domination

of one component over the other

The second component is the structural centre, the determminatum (the basic part) And the first component is the determinant (the determining one)

For example: Book-keeper distinguishes from goal-keeper

Structural centre

Book and goal are the determinant

Similarity, we can list some compound words

In the examples above, house is the structural centre (the determinant - the basic

part) We distinguish each from the others according to the determinant book,

boat, big, bake, bat

In terms of farmilies of compound, there are many sets of compounds base on the same word In such sets, the second element is the same, but its relationship with each member of its set likely tobe different

For example: schoolboy = a boy attend a school

Lowboy is not a boy who is short, is a chest of drawers not more than four

feet high

Air bed = a bed is full of air

Flower bed = is not a bed with flowers, is a place in which flowers are

growing

Similarly, we have:

 Space station: use as a base for operation in space

 Railway station: stopping place for trains

 Police station: office of local police force

In these three examples, station is the structural centre We distinguish each from the others according to the determinant, such as space, railway, and police.In terms of families of compounds, there are many sets of compounds based on the

same word In such sets, the second element is generic, but its relationship witheach member of its set likely to be different.For instance, we have one set of compound noun:

Steamboat is a boat propelled by steam But riverboat is not a boat propelled by a

river It is a boat used in a river

Houseboat is neither a boat propelled by a house nor a boat used on or in ahouse,

but a floating house in the form of a boat, or a boat in a form of a house, usually moored in one place

Gunboat is a boat with one or more large guns on it Rowboat is American

English for a boat that can be rowed, British English equivalence a rowing boat

In determinative compounds, the relationship is not attributive

For example:

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, the office manager is the manager of an office; an armchair is a chair with arms and a raincoat is a coat against the rain

These relationships, which are expresses by prepositions in English, would be expressed by grammatical case in other languages

This type of compound noun is called endocentric compounds because the semantichead is contained within the compound itself A blackboard is type of board, for example, and a footstool is a type of stool

Coordinative compound nouns

Coordinative are those whose components are both structurally and

semantically independent

For example: Actor + manager = actor-manager (actor and manager are both structurally and semantically independent)

Also, Anglo – Saxon = Anglo + Saxon ( Anglo and Saxon are both structurally

and semantically independent)

To be more clearly, see some coodinative commpounds:

willy-nilly, hoity-toity, fifty-fifty, goody-goody

These coordinative components are not numerous but we can coin many for the sake of economy:

Parent-teacher ( parent-teacher association)