Introduction to the study of the history of language

by Herbert A. Strong; Willem Sijbrand Logeman; Benjamin Ide Wheeler

IX. Adverbs with Adverbs. Each (= á (aye) + gelic = like, A.S. aelc).

X. Adverbs with Pronouns. None (= ne + one), naught (= ne + aught).

XI. Adverbs with Prepositions. Therefrom.

XII. Adverbs with Adverbs. Henceforth, forthwith.

XIII. Prepositions with their Case. Downstairs, uphill, instead.

XIV. Adverbs with Verbs. Foretell, gainsay, withstand, etc.

We also find more than two members formed into one; such as man-o’-war, will-o’-the-wisp, brother-in-law, nevertheless, whatsoever, etc. Sentences and phrases coalesce; as in good-bye (= ‘God be with you’), the provincial beleddy (= ‘By our lady,’ i.e. the Virgin Mary), may-be (provincially in America written mebbe), and, aided by metaphorical usage, forget-me-not, kiss-me-quick, etc.

The student should carefully go over these examples, and, in each of them, attentively study the full force of the compound, and see what is really expressed by the component part, and what implied by the mere fact that they are thus joined.[194] If he is acquainted with any foreign languages, he should also study all the various habits of these languages as regards composition. He will then gain a clear insight into the nature of the process, and see how impossible it is to fix a line of demarcation between compounds and syntactical combinations. This is further illustrated by the fact that much, which in one language is looked upon as a compound, in another is kept asunder; nay, in the same language one calls a compound what the other would count as two distinct words. Thus a German writes derselbe (= ‘the self,’ i.e. ‘the same’) as one word, whereas an Englishman writes the same; an Englishman writes himself where the German has, in two words, sich selbst. Cf. the Eng. long-measure with the Ger. langenmass; the Fr. malheureux (from malum augurium, ‘evil omen’) with the Eng. ill-starred, etc. It is this uncertainty, this vacillation, to which we owe the compromise of writing such combinations with a hyphen; e.g., a good-for-nothing. Though even this usage is not fixed and invariable; for one author will write, e.g., head-dress, another headdress, etc.

If there is no line of logical demarcation between compound and syntactical groups, no more is there a phonetic one. Misled by the fact that the words of a syntactical group are written asunder, and a compound written as one word, we might think that the members of such a compound were pronounced as though more intimately connected than those of a syntactical group. But combinations like those of article and noun, preposition and noun, are really pronounced as one continuous whole as much as any compound. Nor is there an essential difference in the accent, either in place or in force. Compare, for instance, with him and withstand or withdraw; the degree of strength (or perhaps rather the absence) of emphasis on the first word in Lord Randolph, Lord Salisbury, with that on the last ‘syllable’ in landlord; or, again, the quantity of stress we give to the preposition in the expression in my opinion with that on the first syllable of insertion. If the example of Lord Randolph v. landlord seemed to show that the PLACE of the accent has some significance, we have but to read the sentences Not Lord Randolph but Lady R. Churchill, or Not the landlord but the landlady spoke to the lodger, to find the accents in exactly the opposite relations and places. No special place of accent, then, is characteristic of a compound. A very instructive example we have in the compound Newfoundland. This is actually pronounced by various speakers in three different ways: one says Néwfoundland, another Newfóundland, and, again, another Newfoundlánd. What, then, makes every one feel this word, in all three pronunciations, to be compound? Nothing physiological, but simply and solely the psychological fact that the meaning of the group new-found-land has become specialised, and no longer corresponds to what once would have been a perfectly equivalent group, land-newly-discovered. Semasiological development and isolation is the criterion of a compound. What degree of such isolation is required cannot be stated in any hard and fast rule.

Such isolation can be effected in four different ways. (1) In the first place, the whole group, as such, can develop its meaning in a manner, or to a degree, not shared by the compound members. An example of this we saw just now in Newfoundland. (2) Or, again, the component parts, as separate words, may develop and change their meaning, without being followed in that development by the same words as part of the group. Thus, e.g., with originally meant against. This meaning it still has in withstand, whilst as a separate word it is not now used in that meaning. (3) Thirdly, the compound parts may become obsolete as separate words; as, for instance, ric in ‘bishopric’ (cf. supra, p. 317). (4) And lastly, the peculiar construction according to which the parts are connected or combined may become obsolete, surviving only in the formula, which thus becomes isolated. Thus, e.g., the genitive singular of feminine nouns can no longer be formed without s; hence Lady-day is now felt as a compound word, whilst ladies’-cloak or ladies’-house would not be so felt.