A MORPHOLOGICAL STUDY OF COMPOUNDS IN ONLINE POSTS ON THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

This study examined compound words found in online posts on the COVID-19 pandemic with the view to identifying and analyzing the compounds according to their word classes and structures. The methodology adopted was content analysis and the purposive sampling technique was used in generating data for the study. Through this sampling technique, the available compound words were identified and analysed. The findings revealed that in the formation of compounds related to the COVID-19 pandemic, two types of compounds, namely, noun compounds and verb compounds are used, with noun compounds being the most common. It was also observed that the process of compounding is unlimited and there was no structural limitation on the recursivity of compounds in English. The study maintained that the orthographic structure of compounds was inconsistent. It further noted that as COVID-19 remains in the human life, more compound lexemes continue to emerge through news articles published massively on the internet, especially in social network sites.