Hyphenated Compound Word
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A Hyphenated Compound Word is a hyphenated word that is also a written compound word.
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- Example(s):
- “The two-hundred-year-old trees were impressive”.
- “The two hundred-year-old trees were impressive”.
- “sisters-in-law”.
- “pseudo-intellectual”.
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- Counter-Example(s):
- See: Hyphenated Phrase.
References
2015
- (Wikipedia, 2015) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_compound#Types_of_compound_nouns Retrieved:2015-5-29.
- Since English is a mostly analytic language, unlike most other Germanic languages, it creates compounds by concatenating words without case markers. As in other Germanic languages, the compounds may be arbitrarily long. [1] However, this is obscured by the fact that the written representation of long compounds always contains spaces. Short compounds may be written in three different ways, which do not correspond to different pronunciations, however:
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- The hyphenated form in which two or more words are connected by a hyphen. Compounds that contain affixes, such as house-build(er) and single-mind(ed)(ness), as well as adjective-adjective compounds and verb-verb compounds, such as blue-green and freeze-dried, are often hyphenated. Compounds that contain articles, prepositions or conjunctions, such as rent-a-cop, mother-of-pearl and salt-and-pepper, are also often hyphenated.
- Since English is a mostly analytic language, unlike most other Germanic languages, it creates compounds by concatenating words without case markers. As in other Germanic languages, the compounds may be arbitrarily long. [1] However, this is obscured by the fact that the written representation of long compounds always contains spaces. Short compounds may be written in three different ways, which do not correspond to different pronunciations, however:
2009
- (Wikipedia, 2009) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphen#Joining
- Compound modifiers are groups of two or more words that jointly modify the meaning of another word. When a compound modifier, other than a noun–noun or adverb–adjective combination, appears before a term, the compound modifier is generally hyphenated to prevent any possible misunderstanding, such as in American-football player or real-world example. Without the hyphen, there is potential confusion about whether American applies to football or player, or whether the author might perhaps be referring to a "world example" that is "real". Compound modifiers can extend to three or more words, as in ice-cream-flavored candy, and can be adverbial as well as adjectival (spine-tinglingly frightening).
- When the same combination of words follows the term it applies to, hyphens may or may not be required, depending on whether the compound constitutes an adjective or not. For example: American-football player / a player of American football and real-world example / an example from the real world, since the compounds are not adjectives. Instead, time-sensitive documents / the documents are time-sensitive and left-handed catch / he took the catch left-handed, as the compounds are adjectives. [dubious – discuss]
- Hyphens are not normally used in noun–noun compound modifiers, when no confusion is possible; for example: government standards organization and department store manager. [dubious – discuss]
- ↑ Plag, Ingo. ""Word-formation in English"". Cambridge University Press, 2003, p.172. "There is no structural limitation on the recursivity of compounding, but the longer a compound becomes the more difficult it is for the speakers/listeners to process, i.e. produce and understand correctly. Extremely long compounds are therefore disfavored not for structural but for processing reasons."