ABSTRACT
Sometimes we have the opposite movement, from word-units to looser combinations. The cohesion between the two elements of English compound substantives is looser than it was formerly (and than it is in German and Danish). While G. steinmauer and Dan. stenmur are in every respect one word, E. stone wall and similar combinations are now rather to be considered two, stone being an adjunct and wall a primary. This is shown not only by the equal (or varying) stress, but also in other ways: by coordination with adjectives: his personal and party interests I among the evening and weekly papers I a Yorkshire young lady; by the use of one: five gold watches, and seven silver ones; by the use of adverbs: a purely family gathering; by isolation: any position, whether State or nationalj things that a.re dead, second-hand, and pointless. Some of these first elements have in this way become 80 completely adjectival, that they can take the superlative ending -est (chiefest, choicest), and adverbs can be formed from them (ch efly, choicely), see MEG II, eh. XIII (above, 62 note). In Shakespeare's" so new a fashioned robe" we see how another type of compound (new}ashioned) is also felt as loosely coherent.
