ABSTRACT
A compound is a word whose elements are also words. English has a large number of compounds of many types. Verbal-nexus compounds are compounds like taxi-driver, taxi-driving. A distinction is drawn between compounds which denote people, compounds which denote animals and compounds which denote machines or things, but the pattern applies equally to all three types without distinction. In endocentric noun compounds there are two nouns side-by-side. The compound as a whole denotes a subtype of the righthand noun. Where the stress is concerned, the safest way to predict is to assume that a new compound will have the same stress as another compound with the same head noun. In general terms it is safe to invent new endocentric compound nouns. Compounds can also be found where the word-class of the compound is not the same as the word-class of the head of the compound.
