1、How to distinguish a compound from a free phrase?i. Semantic features When two or more free morphemes are combined into a compound, a new meaning arise, which is in most cases no longer a simple combination of the meanings of the component elements. E.g. a greenhouse a dark horseii. Orthographic fea
2、tures Most compound words are either hyphenated or completed joined, like day-care, grasshopper. But this is not an exclusive practice, for some compound words are always written separately, like day school, sports car, Sunday bestiii. The stress of a compound usually falls on the first constituent
3、morpheme. Compare: Compound Free noun phrase greenhouse green house blackboard black boardiv. Grammatical features Compound words have their own grammatical features. They have special internal structures, which are normally unacceptable in free phrases, e.g. v. + n. n.: cut-throat, breakwater n. + -ed adj.: homemade, book-learned adj. + -ed adj.: newborn, deep-laidV. Compounds have special morphological features. Their adjectives constituents normally do not take the comparative and superlative forms. For instance, fine arts *finer arts, *finest arts loudspeaker *louder speaker
