For the comprehensive expression of their concepts, writers make use of various resources. One of these resources is compound adjectives. These adjectives enable writers write vividly, professionally, and concisely. Being a highly productive phenomena, these adjectives indicate human or animal attributes (physical and mental both). This post provides information about the function and formats of compound adjectives in detail.
1. Function and Formats of Adjectives
Adjectives are a significant part of every language. Their common function is to describe the qualities of an object or to complement nouns (Mette, 2019). Adjectives stay in three formats. First, they stay as base adjectives (old, bad, broad, etc.). Second, they are compound adjectives (well-known, time-taking, machine-made, short-lived, long-term, etc.). Third, they stay as derived adjectives (rational, consistent, technical, etc.). (Oostdijk, 2008). When a base word is combined with another base word, a compound adjective comes into being (Quirk et al.,1985). The compound adjectives can be either simple ones or complex (multi-word i.e., more than two words) compounds.
2. Various Compositions of Compound Adjectives
Generally, compound adjectives can be composed in seven ways.
2.1 Adjective/Numeral/Verb (-ed) + Noun
These compound adjectives are composed of a noun that follows an adjective, a numeral or a verb (-ed). For example:
a. A 10-page report about the incident has been prepared.
b. Fresh-fruit juice is my favourite drink.
c. The use of this delayed-feedback limited interface is tiresome.
2.2 Noun Base + Noun Base
Some compound adjectives are composed of two nouns. For example:
a. I am seeking a part-time work to increase my income.
b. They travelled through hilly area despite the snow-storm warning was issued.
2.3 Noun + numeral
A number of compound adjectives are composed of noun + numeral. For example:
a. The year-2025 total national wheat yield was the highest in the history.
2.4 The Second Element (Adverb/Preposition/Verb (-ing))
Some compound adjectives take an adverb, a preposition, or a verb (-ing) as their second component. For example:
a. The broken-apart pieces of a glass penal were swept together.
b. The phase-out schedule of the use of plastic bags has been finalized.
c. The downward-going economy has been stabilized.
2.5 Noun/Numeral/Adverb + Adjective
In this category of constructions, a base adjective is placed as head and some other word class as the first part. In this construction, the adjective can be of base level or derived one. The word class with which the adjective head combines can be a noun, a numeral, or an adverb (Oostdijk, 2008). For example:
a. I take sugar-free tea.
b. Akbar stayed at a five-star hotel.
c. Nadeem is ever-reluctant to go abroad.
2.6 Adjective Base + Adjective Base
Adjectives in this category are constructed by combining two base adjectives. For example:
a. We need to consider socio-economic factors in this investigation.
b. At times, cognitive-affective responses of a patient are enlightening.
c. Bio-medical engineering has brought about big changes in drug production.
d. Blue–green ocean always attracts me a lot.
2.7 Adjective/Noun/Numeral + Verb (-ed)
In these compounds of adjectives, always a noun stays as the head of the compound. This noun head is combined to an adjective, a noun or a numeral. Further, the combination is equipped with the adjectival suffix -ed and thus the resulting word attains an adjectival status (Oostdijk, 2008). For example:
a. A glass-cased device was being used to illuminate the room.
b. The party was held in a three-cornered lawn.
c. The bare-headed visitors were provided with caps.
3. Types of Semantic Relations between Components of Compound Adjectives
It is very important to know the types of semantic relations between the components of compound adjectives. This is important because the writers have to compose these adjectives for the realization of their required meaning for expressing their concepts (Mette, 2019).
3.1 Semantic Relation of Agent and Theme
In some compound adjectives, one of the components plays the role of an instrument or agent and has its effect on the theme, i.e., its partner. For example, “a heat-stricken bird” means a bird that is exhausted by heat and “a thorn-pricked foot” means a foot that is pierced by thorns.
3.2. Semantic Relation of Comparison
In certain cases, the components of compound adjectives have semantic relation of comparison. For example:
a. Country-wide protests can break out if situation is not handled.
b. She wore a sky-blue dress.
3.3. Semantic Relation of Antonymy
The components of a compound adjective can be antonyms, i.e., with opposite meaning. The importance of this compound adjective is that antonyms help condense two opposing ideas for the purpose of conciseness and painting a vivid picture. For example:
a. He sat on a stone and recollected his bitter-sweet experiences.
b. The patient spent a whole day in dead-alive condition.
3.4. Equal Sematic Significance of Components
There are some compound adjectives whose components carry equal semantic significance in the construction as coordinate compound modifiers. These adjectives are used to paint a highly tailored picture of the objects or concepts in focus. For example:
a. There is no individual in the world whose life is not full of bitter-sweet experiences.
b. Indo-Pakistan relations have always been tense.
3.5. Subordination as a Component of a Compound Adjective
Subordination, as a component of a compound adjective, plays the role of modifying or limiting the other component. Thus, a subordinating (i.e., main/secondary) relation emerges between the components of a compound adjective.
a. I desire to stay in this brightly-lit room.
b. The fair-haired lady close to the door is the today’s guest.
4. Syntactic Function Based Classification of Compound Adjectives
Compound adjectives in terms of their syntactic function can be put in a number of classes. This classification helps the writers understand both function and structural building blocks which enables them write vividly, concisely, and professionally (Mette, 2019). The details of these classes are as follows:
4.1 Adjunct + Adjective/Verb
a. This is an ever-ready solution.
b. Shaheen has been offered a fully-funded visit to Australia.
4. 2 Adjunct + Verb (-ing/-ed)
a. The new education policy has far-reaching consequences for the social progress.
b. The deeply-rooted beliefs cannot be changed.
4. 3 Subject + Verb
a. They used sun-dried bricks for the construction of their house.
b. The government-provided subsidymade the needy a bit relaxed.
4. 4 Subject – Complement
a. Being a headstrong manager, he rejected all the proposed measures.
b. A stress-free work environment enhanced the workers’ commitment.
4. 5 Verb – Object
a. We celebrated our delayed aim achievement.
b. Their delayed success achievement was not productive.
4. 6 Appositional
a. His sober-sad behaviour made him fell into a state of neglect.
b. Akram’s proud-haughty attitude became the cause of his isolation.
4. 7 Instrumental
When a compound adjective serves as instrumental, it stays in three patterns. For example:
4. 7. 1 Noun – adjective
a. The war has come to an end but the citizens are still in shell-shock condition.
b. He travels by bus because of his train-averse feelings.
4. 7. 2 Noun – verb (-ed)
a. The construction of this building is a time-bound project.
b. Birthday celebration is a long-established tradition.
4. 7. 3 Noun – verb (ing)
a. Relationship-building effort should never be discarded.
b. We completed today’s seed-planting activity in the noon.
5. Derivative Compound Adjectives
Some simpler lexical items have structural and semantic nature to be turned into new words. Thus, the components of derivative compound adjectives can be drawn from these lexical items. The adjectives derived can be understood by comparing them with the meaning and structure from their source words.
The components of derived compound adjectives can be either noun + noun or noun + noun + -ed suffix. The component noun can take other suffixes e.g. ‘-ly’, ‘ish’, etc., but compound adjectives with ‘– ed’ suffixes are more frequent. Many of these adjectives are metaphorical and are commonly used in literary texts. In addition, a large group of these adjectives are indicators of human or animal attributes (physical and mental both) (Mette, 2019). For example:
a. Although Shaheen is stiff-necked, many people are fond of him.
b. This is a far-fetched idea.
c. My neighbour has dog-friendly nature.
d. Nasima likes blue-greenish dress.
e. The broad-minded people are mostly prosperous.
In the examples (a) and (b), stiff-necked and far-fetched are examples of metaphorically derived compound adjectives.
6. Hyphenated and Unhyphenated Compound Adjectives
The components of compound adjectives stay together in three ways. They can stay as two separate words with hyphen, as two words without hyphen, or as one word. For example:
a. Hakim purchased brand-new car last year.
b. His job in this district is full time.
c. The citizens need a foolproof security system in the town.
The example (a) shows that when a compound adjective pre-modifies the head noun, it is hyphenated. When it post-modifies the head noun, it is without hyphen as indicated in example (b). However, some compound adjectives (as shown in (c)) stay as one word though they are premodifiers.
6.1 Significance of Hyphen
Putting a hyphen between the components of a compound adjective when it precedes the head noun is necessary to avoid misreading. The presence of a hyphen helps clarify that both the components of the adjective are working as a single modifying unit (Mette, 2019). For example, the phrase ‘a tall-trees caretaker’ implies a person who takes care of tall trees. On the other hand, the “a tall trees caretaker” implies that the care taker is tall.
In sum, the function of compound adjectives is to describe the qualities of objects. In their composition, these adjectives are found in various forms. After presenting the functions and main formats of these adjectives, this post comes to the types of semantic relations which exist between their components. Further, the classification of these adjectives that is based on their syntactic function has been presented. Finally, the construction of derivative compound adjectives along with their hyphenated and unhyphenated forms has been dealt with. The information about compound adjectives presented in this post is though complex, yet it is useful in the production of academic texts.
Works Cited:
- Mette, T. (2019). Compound Adjectives. Emerging Trends in Economics, Culture and Humanities (etECH2019) Conference proceedings.
2. Oostdijk, N.H.J. (2008). Improving the lexical coverage of English compound adjectives. Article in monograph. Proceedings of the 18th Meeting of Computational Linguistics in the Netherlands, pp. 117-130)
3. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartvik, J. (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. New York: Longman.
