Though such isolation is necessary and may suffice to stamp a group as compound, we must not conclude that every group, where such isolation in one way or another has commenced, is ipso facto looked upon as a compound. Many considerations are here of importance, some of which will be brought out in a further study of some examples in which we can observe the commencement of the fusion.
The first step which a syntactical group takes on the road towards complete isolation and consequent fusion into a compound, is commonly the one we described under No. 1. in the former section. We must here distinguish two cases, which, though perhaps not easily distinguished in words, are yet clearly different.
An example will best serve to explain it. We have already more than once stated that in Lady-day the grammatical isolation of the genitive lady, as against the present genitive lady’s, serves to emphasise the fusion of the two parts into one compound. But we must not forget that this form of the genitive in this combination would not have been preserved if, at the time when the word lady by itself began to assume the genitive s—or, rather, began to follow analogically other genitives in s,—if, we say, the compound had not then already been isolated to a sufficient degree to protect the first component part against the influence which affected it when standing in other combinations. The absence of the s is therefore NOT the CAUSE of the isolation of the group, or the fusion of its parts. We must seek for that cause most likely in the fact that the genitive was, in this combination, used in a sense which always was or had become unusual. Lady-day, even when the form lady was still felt as genitive, would but mean ‘the day consecrated to the service of our Lady,’ or ‘the day sacred to our Lady.’ Now this use of the genitive must always have been an exceptional one. Never, for instance, could a man’s book or a lady’s cloak have had a similar meaning. It was therefore at first not so much the meaning of the component parts, as the MEANING EXPRESSED BY THEIR SYNTACTICAL CO-ORDINATION, which stood apart and became isolated. We see something of the same influence if we compare St. John’s wood and St. John’s Church. In the second group, the latter of the component parts has a meaning which suggests and helps to keep alive the correct meaning of the genitive-relation expressed by the flection of the former part. In St. John’s wood this is not so. This compound is therefore felt to be more intimately fused together than the other, and, while every one who uses the expression St. John’s Church thinks of the Saint who bore the name of John, but few speakers will do so in speaking of St. John’s wood. There is a very clear instance of this at hand in the German Hungersnot, lit. = hungersneed, i.e. ‘famine’ (need, suffering caused by hunger). Here the genitive with the word need has a very special sense, which, e.g., could not be expressed by the otherwise equivalent construction with of. ‘The need of hunger,’ if ever used in German, would be a very forced and uncommon way of expressing the idea ‘famine,’ a way which only a poet could adopt (die Not des Hungers). Here, then, again, it is not the sense of the words, but the sense of their syntactical relation which stands isolated.
On the other hand, if we consider forms like upstairs, always, altogether, we shall find that it is not this relation, but the whole meaning of the group as such, which has become isolated by development or specialisation of meaning. Upstairs has become equivalent to ‘on a floor of the building higher than we are now;’ always has been extended so as to include the relation of time, etc. This development has then generally given rise to what grammarians term ‘indeclinabilia,’ which sometimes, by secondary development have become capable of flection. Thus the German preposition zu (to, at), and the dative case frieden (peace), in a sentence like Ich bin zufrieden, gave rise to the compound zufrieden (lit. = ‘at peace’), ‘contented.’ When once the prepositional phrase at peace had developed into the adjective content, the compound was declined like other adjectives: ein zufriedener mann = ‘a contented man;’ etc.
Again, when the groups round-about and go-between had become nouns, they could be treated as such, and we find the plurals round-abouts and go-betweens.
The more highly a language is inflected, the less liable will the parts of a syntactical group be to fuse into one. It is much easier for a combination like Greenland or Newfoundland to pass into a real compound than for one like the German (das) rote Meer, ‘(the) Red Sea,’ though the amount of isolation of meaning is the same in both. Whether the group Green + land is nominative or dative or genitive, no change in the form of green occurs; in German, das rote Meer is nominative, des roten Meeres is genitive, dem roten Meer is dative. Every time one of the two latter cases is used, the addition of the flection n reminds us of the independence of the two words rot and Meer.
Just as by means of suffixes, etc., we derive new words from others, whether the latter are simple or compound forms (love, love-able; for-get, forget-able; etc.), so we sometimes find whole syntactical groups, which are not yet considered as having been fused into one compound, used with similar suffixes. Instances are: good-for-nothingness, a stand-off-ishness, a devil-may-carish face; That fellow is such a go-a-header; He is not get-at-able, etc., which no doubt scarcely belong to the literary language, but which show that the linguistic feeling of the speaker must have already apprehended these groups as unities; in other words, that the first step on the road towards welding them into a compound has been taken. A well-established instance appears in our ordinal numerals, such as one-and-twentieth, five-and-fortieth, etc.
A similar commencement of fusion we can observe in copulative combinations like wind and weather or town and country, as soon as the whole may be conceived as a single conception. In wind and weather this is the case, the two terms being in this combination SYNONYMOUS, describing the same object from different points of view. Other instances of this we have in bag and baggage, kith and kin, moil and toil, safe and sound, first and foremost, house and home, far and wide.[195] In town and country, on the other hand, we have two elements which, whilst CONTRASTING, supplement one another. Such groups are old and young, heaven and hell, gown and town, big and small, rich and poor, hither and thither, to and fro, up and down, in and out. In a few, the same member is repeated; as, out and out, through and through, again and again, little by little. A careful consideration of the real meaning of such groups will show that, strictly speaking, these form a subdivision of our second class.
Inflected languages like German afford a criterion not applicable to English, as to the fusion of such combinations. We find there, for instance, a group—Habe und Gut (Etymol. = have, as a noun, for ‘property,’ and good = ‘chattels’), for ‘all a man’s possessions.’ The first of these nouns is feminine, and consequently ‘with all (his) belongings’ would be ‘mit aller Habe;’ Gut, on the other hand, is neuter, and requires the form (dative after mit) ‘mit allem Gut.’ Goethe has treated the group Hab’ und Gut as a neuter noun, and written ‘mit allem mobilen Hab’ und Gut’ (‘with all movable possessions’).
We have seen that groups like one and twenty, five and forty, etc., were really far advanced on the way of fusion, as was shown by the formation of the corresponding ordinals. In the case of those which begin with one, we have a further proof of this in the use of the plural noun, e.g. ‘one and twenty men.’