Old English Compounding

Composition is one of the processes of word formation in the Old English period. A compound is joining two or more words to express a meaning in a certain way. The strategies of English word compounding are primarily inherited from its origin Proto Indo-European language. In compound words, the last or final element is what express the general meaning and dictate the part of speech as well as the gender. In modern English, the nucleus of the noun phrase compound is usually placed at the end of the compound, which is the same in the Old English Period.

In nominal compounds, a noun is add to either another noun, an adjective or an adverb. A noun+ noun compound is one of the compounds that existed in the Old English period. An example is (lar

The first element of the French compound was a word stem followed by a noun that carries the object of the action. Therefore, Old English had a noun and adjective compounds with a verb and an adverb (Bradley.H). As mentioned earlier, the proto language as well as other languages helped creating the Old English compounding method of word formation. Some compounds included word-stem and others were called “ improper compounds”. A compound is to be labeled “ improper” if it consists of words that are in regular syntactical relation which are considered one word. An example of improper compounds in Modern English would me “ man of war” and “ father in law “(Bradley.H). The distinction between proper and improper compounds was important in the Old English Period. However, compounds usually go through and experience phonetic change since they are weird when it comes to actual use. Therefore, an alteration needed to happen in order for the compound words to meet the needs of its speakers. This phonetic change is of importance because it allows the etymological interpretation of a word to take place. Thus, the Old English words “ husbonda” a compound of “ hus” which means house and “ bonda” is pronounced as “ husband “ in Modern English not husbonda. Other examples of compounds that went through phonetic changes are “ holy day” as holiday, “Christ’mass” as Christmas and “ day’s eyes” as daisy in Modern English. The phonetic change that compounds go through is noticeable in places names. Stanton, a city in California was to be pronounced as “ Stonetown” which is Old English compound of “Stan” meaning stone and still used and “ tun” as town if the phonetic change did not occur. Moreover, compounds were replaced by words from Latin and French in Middle English, as they were considered insufficient. The Old English words scopcræft “poetry” and læcecræft ”medicine” along with many other words were