A Handbook of the English Language Part 43

The difference between a compound word and a pair of words is further ill.u.s.trated by comparing such terms as the following:--_black bird_, meaning a _bird that is black_, with _blackbird_ = the Latin _merula_; _blue bell_, meaning a _bell that is blue_, with _bluebell_, the flower.

Expressions like a _sharp edged instrument_, meaning _an instrument that is sharp and has edges_, as opposed to _a sharp-edged instrument_, meaning _an instrument with sharp edges_, further exemplify this difference.

Subject to a few exceptions, it may be laid down, that, in the English language, _there is no composition unless there is either a change of form or a change of accent_.

-- 359. The reader is now informed, that unless he has taken an exception to either a statement or an inference, he has either seen beyond what has been already laid down by the author, or else has read him with insufficient attention. This may be shown by drawing a distinction between a compound form and a compound idea.

In the words _a red house_, each word preserves its natural and original meaning, and the statement suggested by the term is _that a house is red_.

By a parity of reasoning _a mad house_ should mean a _house that is mad_; and provided that each word retain its _natural meaning_ and its _natural accent_, such is the fact. Let a _house_ mean, as it often does, a _family_. Then the phrase, _a mad house_, means that the _house_, _or family_, _is mad_, just as a _red house_ means that the _house is red_.

Such, however, is not the current meaning of the word. Every one knows that _a mad house_ means _a house for mad men_; in which case it is treated as a compound word, and has a marked accent on the first syllable, just as _Limehouse_ has. Now, compared with the word _red house_, meaning a house of a _red colour_, and compared with the words _mad house_, meaning a _deranged family_, the word _madhouse_, in its common sense, expressed a compound idea; as opposed to two ideas, or a double idea. The word _beef steak_ is evidently a compound idea; but as there is no disparity of accent, it is not a compound word. Its sense is compound. Its form is not compound but double. This indicates the objection antic.i.p.ated, which is this: viz., that a definition, which would exclude such a word as _beef steak_ from the list of compounds, is, for that very reason, exceptionable.

I answer to this, that the term in question is a compound idea, and not a compound form; in other words, that it is a compound in logic, but not a compound in etymology. Now etymology, taking cognisance of forms only, has nothing to do with ideas, except so far as they influence forms.

Such is the commentary upon the words, _treating the combination as a single term_; in other words, such the difference between a compound word and two words. The rule, being repeated, stands (subject to exceptions indicated above) thus:--_there is no true composition without either a change of form or a change of accent_.

-- 360. As I wish to be clear upon this point, I shall ill.u.s.trate the statement by its application.

The term _tree-rose_ is often p.r.o.nounced _tree rose_; that is, with the accent at _par_. It is compound in the one case; it is a pair of words in the other.

The terms _mountain ash_ and _mountain height_ are generally (perhaps always) p.r.o.nounced with an equal accent on the syllables _mount-_ and _ash_, _mount-_ and _height_, respectively. In this case the word _mountain_ must be dealt with as an adjective, and the words considered as two. The word _mountain wave_ is often p.r.o.nounced with a visible diminution of accent on the last syllable. In this case there is a disparity of accent, and the word is compound.

-- 361. The following quotation indicates a further cause of perplexity in determining between compound words and two words:--

1.

A wet sheet and a blowing gale, A breeze that follows fast; That fills the white and swelling sail, And bends the _gallant mast_.--ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

2.

Britannia needs no bulwarks, No towers along the steep; Her march is o'er the _mountain-wave_, Her home is on the deep.--THOMAS CAMPBELL.

To speak first of the term _gallant mast_. If _gallant_ mean _brave_, there are _two words_. If the words be two, there is a stronger accent on _mast_.

If the accent on _mast_ be stronger, the rhyme with _fast_ is more complete; in other words, the metre favours the notion of the words being considered as _two_. _Gallant-mast_, however, is a compound word, with an especial nautical meaning. In this case the accent is stronger on _gal-_ and weaker on -mast. This, however, is not the state of things that the metre favours. The same applies to _mountain wave_. The same person who in prose would throw a stronger accent on _mount-_ and a weaker one on _wave_ (so dealing with the word as a compound), might, in poetry, the words _two_, by giving to the last syllable a parity of accent.

The following quotation from Ben Jonson may be read in two ways; and the accent may vary with the reading:

1.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart, And thy _silver shining_ quiver.

2.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart, And thy _silver-shining_ quiver.--_Cynthia's Revels._

-- 362. _On certain words wherein the fact of their being compound is obscured._--Composition is the addition of a word to a word, derivation is the addition of certain letters or syllables to a word. In a compound form each element has a separate and independent existence; in a derived form, only one of the elements has such. Now it is very possible that in an older stage of a language two words may exist, may be put together, and may so form a compound, each word having, then, a separate and independent existence. In a later stage of language, however, only one of these words may have a separate and independent existence, the other having become obsolete. In this case a compound word would take the appearance of a derived one, since but one of its elements could be exhibited as a separate and independent word. Such is the case with, amongst others, the word _bishop-ric_. In the present language the word _ric_ has no separate and independent existence. For all this, the word is a true compound, since, in Anglo-Saxon, we have the noun _rice_ as a separate, independent word, signifying _kingdom_ or _domain_.

Again, without becoming obsolete, a word may alter its form. This is the case with most of our adjectives in -ly. At present they appear derivative; their termination -ly having no separate and independent existence. The older language, however, shows that they are compounds; since -ly is nothing else than -lic, Anglo-Saxon; -lih, Old High German; -leiks, Mso-Gothic; = _like_, or _similis_, and equally with it an independent separate word.

-- 363. "Subject to a few exceptions, it may be laid down, that _there is no true composition unless there is either a change of form or a change of accent_."--Such is the statement made in -- 358. The first cla.s.s of exceptions consists of those words where the natural tendency to disparity of accent is traversed by some rule of euphony. For example, let two words be put together, which at their point of contact form a combination of sounds foreign to our habits of p.r.o.nunciation. The rarity of the combination will cause an effort in utterance. The effort in utterance will cause an accent to be laid on the latter half of the compound. This will equalize the accent, and abolish the disparity. The word _monkshood_, the name of a flower (_aconitum napellus_), where, to my ear at least, there is quite as much accent on the -hood as on the _monks-_, may serve in the way of ill.u.s.tration. _Monks_ is one word, _hood_ another. When joined together, the h- of the -hood is put in immediate apposition with the s of the _monks-_. Hence the combination _monkshood_. At the letters s and h is the point of contact. Now the sound of s followed immediately by the sound of h is a true aspirate. But true aspirates are rare in the English language.

Being of rare occurrence, the p.r.o.nunciation of them is a matter of attention and effort; and this attention and effort create an accent which otherwise would be absent. Hence words like _monks-hood_, _well-head_, and some others.

Real reduplications of consonants, as in _hop-pole_, may have the same parity of accent with the true aspirates: and for the same reasons. They are rare combinations that require effort and attention.

-- 364. The second cla.s.s of exceptions contains those words wherein between the first element and the second there is so great a disparity, either in the length of the vowel, or the length of the syllable _en ma.s.se_, as to counteract the natural tendency of the first element to become accented.

One of the few specimens of this cla.s.s (which after all may consist of double words) is the term _upstanding_. Here it should be remembered, that words like _haphazard_, _foolhardy_, _upholder_, and _withhold_ come under the first cla.s.s of the exceptions.

-- 365. The third cla.s.s of exceptions contains words like _perchance_ and _perhaps_. In all respects but one these are double words, just as _by chance_ is a double word. _Per_, however, differs from _by_ in having no separate existence. This sort of words we owe to the multiplicity of elements (cla.s.sical and Gothic) in the English language.

-- 366. _Peac.o.c.k_, _peahen_.--If these words be rendered masculine or feminine by the addition of the elements -c.o.c.k and -hen, the statements made in the beginning of the present chapter are invalidated. Since, if the word _pea-_ be particularized, qualified, or defined by the words -c.o.c.k and -hen, the _second_ term defines or particularises the _first_, which is contrary to the rule of -- 356. The truth, however, is, that the words -c.o.c.k and -hen are defined by the prefix _pea-_. Preparatory to the exhibition of this, let us remember that the word _pea_ (although now found in composition only) is a true and independent substantive, the name of a species of fowl, like _pheasant_, _partridge_, or any other appellation. It is the Latin _pavo_, German _pfau_. Now if the word _peac.o.c.k_ mean a _pea_ (_pfau_ or _pavo_) that is a male, then do _wood-c.o.c.k_, _black-c.o.c.k_, and _bantam-c.o.c.k_, mean _woods_, _blacks_, and _bantams_ that are male. Or if the word _peahen_ mean a _pea_ (_pfau_ or _pavo_) that is female, then do _moorhen_ and _guineahen_ mean _moors_ and _guineas_ that are female.

Again, if a _peahen_ mean a _pea_ (_pfau_ or _pavo_) that is female, then does the compound _pheasant-hen_ mean the same as _hen-pheasant_; which is not the case. The fact is that _peac.o.c.k_ means a _c.o.c.k that is a pea_ (_pfau_ or _pavo_); _peahen_ means a _hen that is a pea_ (_pfau_ or _pavo_); and, finally, _peafowl_ means a _fowl that is a pea_ (_pfau_ or _pavo_). In the same way _moorfowl_ means, not a _moor that is connected with a fowl_, but a _fowl that is connected with a moor_.

-- 367. It must be clear that in every compound word there are, at least, two parts; i.e., the whole or part of the original, and the whole or part of the superadded word. In the most perfect forms of inflection, however, there is a _third_ element, viz., a vowel, consonant, or syllable that joins the first word with the second.

In the older forms of all the Gothic languages the presence of this third element was the rule rather than the exception. In the present English it exists in but few words.

a. The -a- in _black-a-moor_ is possibly such a connecting element.

b. The -in- in _night-in-gale_ is most probably such a connecting element.

Compare the German form _nacht-i-gale_, and remember the tendency of vowels to take the sound of -ng before g.

-- 368. _Improper compounds._--The -s- in words like _Thur-s-day_, _hunt-s-man_, may be one of two things.

a. It may be the sign of the genitive case, so that _Thursday_ = _Thoris dies_. In this case the word is an _improper compound_, since it is like the word _pater-familias_ in Latin, in a common state of syntactical construction.

b. It may be a connecting sound, like the -i- in _nacht-i-gale_. Reasons for this view occur in the following fact:--

In the modern German languages the genitive case of feminine nouns ends otherwise than in -s. Nevertheless, the sound of -s- occurs in composition equally, whether the noun it follows be masculine or feminine. This fact, as far as it goes, makes it convenient to consider the sound in question as a connective rather than a case. Probably, it is neither one nor the other exactly, but the effect of a false a.n.a.logy.

-- 369. _Decomposites._--"Composition is the joining together of _two_ words."--See -- 357.

Words like _mid-ship-man_, _gentle-man-like_, &c., where the number of verbal elements seems to amount to _three_, are no exception to this rule; since _compound radicals_ like _midship_ and _gentleman_, are, for the purposes of composition, single words. Compounds wherein one element is compound are called _decomposites_.

-- 370. There are a number of words which are never found by themselves; or, if so found, have never the same sense that they have in _combination_.

Mark the word _combination_. The terms in question are points of _combination_, not of composition: since they form not the parts of words, but the parts of phrases. Such are the expressions _time and tide_--_might and main_--_rede me my riddle_--_pay your shot_--_rhyme and reason_, &c.

These words are evidently of the same cla.s.s, though not of the same species with _bishopric_, _colewort_, _spillikin_, _gossip_, _mainswearer_, &c.

These last-mentioned terms give us obsolete words preserved in composition.

The former give us obsolete words preserved in combination.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

ON DERIVATION AND INFLECTION.

-- 371. _Derivation_, like _etymology_, is a word used in a wide and in a limited sense. In the wide sense of the term, every word, except it be in the simple form of a root, is a derived word. In this sense the cases, numbers, and genders of nouns, the persons, moods, and tenses of verbs, the ordinal numbers, the diminutives, and even the compound words, are alike matters of derivation. In the wide sense of the term the word _fathers_, from _father_, is equally in a state of derivation with the word _strength_ from _strong_.

In the use of the word, even in its limited sense, there is considerable laxity and uncertainty.