Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. English Compounds and their Spelling
  • Cited by 13
      • Show more authors
      • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Select format
    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      25 May 2018
      03 May 2018
      ISBN:
      9781108181877
      9781107197848
      9781316647905
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108181877
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.71kg, 416 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (229 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.59kg, 420 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Grammar and Syntax, English Language and Linguistics: General Interest, Language and Linguistics, History of the English Language
      Series:
      Studies in English Language
    You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org
    Subjects:
    Grammar and Syntax, English Language and Linguistics: General Interest, Language and Linguistics, History of the English Language
    Series:
    Studies in English Language
    Information

    Book description

    Anyone writing texts in English is constantly faced with the unavoidable question whether to use open spelling (drinking fountain), hyphenation (far-off) or solid spelling (airport) for individual compounds. While some compounds commonly occur with alternative spellings, others show a very clear bias for one form. This book tests over 60 hypotheses and explores the patterns underlying the spelling of English compounds from a variety of perspectives. Based on a sample of 600 biconstituent compounds with identical spelling in all reference works in which they occur (200 each with open, hyphenated and solid spelling), this empirical study analyses large amounts of data from corpora and dictionaries and concludes that the spelling of English compounds is not chaotic but actually correlates with a large number of statistically significant variables. An easily applicable decision tree is derived from the data and an innovative multi-dimensional prototype model is suggested to account for the results.

    Reviews

    'The investigation successfully explains why and how English compounds are orthographically represented … The book will therefore prove convenient mainly for researchers with an interest in morphology and the lexicon who appreciate an empirical corpus-based approach to language. These readers will readily recognise the vast majority of concepts and models discussed, and at the same time they will easily become familiarized with the new ones thanks to the clear distribution of contents, evolving from simpler to more complex. All in all, this publication is a valuable resource for anyone who wishes to understand the variables affecting compound spelling and has previous experience in corpus analysis and research.'

    Jesús Fernández-Domínguez Source: LINGUIST List

    Refine List

    Actions for selected content:

    Select all | Deselect all
    • View selected items
    • Export citations
    • Download PDF (zip)
    • Save to Kindle
    • Save to Dropbox
    • Save to Google Drive

    Save Search

    You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

    Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
    Cancel
    ×

    Contents

    Contents
    References

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    Accessibility standard: Unknown

    Why this information is here

    This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

    Accessibility Information

    Accessibility compliance for the HTML of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.