ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF COMPOUND NOUNS IN ENGLISH

Within morphology, compound nouns represent an important class that expresses added meaning both to the current lexicon and in communication itself. This article therefore undertakes a detailed typological analysis with regard to classification based on three major structural semantic and functional categorizations of the different types of compound nouns used in English, such as notebook, mother-in-law, and ice cream, among others. It also discusses syntactic relations between the members of these compounds: endocentric, exocentric, copulative, and appositional structures. The present study thus adopts both a descriptive and a corpus-based approach to shed light on the linguistic creativity and flexibility of compound nouns in different contexts. The results have implications for language learners and educators with regard to the process of compound noun formation and a deeper understanding of the dynamic nature of English word-formation patterns.