Coordinate compounding in English and Spanish
-
Vincent Renner
and
Jesús Fernández-Domínguez
Abstract
Coordinate compounding is a process which has been only sporadically considered in word-formation studies on Germanic and Romance languages. In this paper, we compare the situation in English with that in Spanish as far as formal structure and semantics are concerned. To this end, an operational definition of coordinate compounding is first provided, after which a semantic classification of coordinate compounds is developed. For each type, variants are discussed, representative examples are provided, and similarities and dissimilarities between the two languages are highlighted. We finish by raising the issues of recursiveness and productivity in coordinate compounding and we examine the possibilities of expansion and profitability of the different patterns. Our analysis reveals marked similarities between English and Spanish coordinate compounding at various levels, hinting at the possible existence of a cross-linguistic set of common core features in the class of coordinate compounds in both Germanic and Romance.
© School of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland, 2011
Articles in the same Issue
- Special issue on contrastive word-formation: Editors’ preface
- Contrastive word-formation today: Retrospect and prospect
- Aspect indicators for deverbal nominals on different syntactic levels
- Adverb formation and modification: English, German and Dutch adverbial morphology in contrast
- On English and German resultative and causative-resultative derived verbs
- Intensifying affixes across Italian and English
- Negation and lexical morphology across languages: Insights from a trilingual translation corpus
- Contrastive word-formation and lexicography: Compound verbs in English and Bulgarian
- Coordinate compounding in English and Spanish
- The similarities and differences of four neglected lexical categories: English [VerN]N and [VingN]N, and French [NVveur]N and [NVant]N units
- English–French contrasts in word-formation. Morphological patterns and stylistic effects
Articles in the same Issue
- Special issue on contrastive word-formation: Editors’ preface
- Contrastive word-formation today: Retrospect and prospect
- Aspect indicators for deverbal nominals on different syntactic levels
- Adverb formation and modification: English, German and Dutch adverbial morphology in contrast
- On English and German resultative and causative-resultative derived verbs
- Intensifying affixes across Italian and English
- Negation and lexical morphology across languages: Insights from a trilingual translation corpus
- Contrastive word-formation and lexicography: Compound verbs in English and Bulgarian
- Coordinate compounding in English and Spanish
- The similarities and differences of four neglected lexical categories: English [VerN]N and [VingN]N, and French [NVveur]N and [NVant]N units
- English–French contrasts in word-formation. Morphological patterns and stylistic effects
