Understanding compound nouns in French and English

Understanding compound nouns in French and English

English Compound Patterns

A compound word is made up of more than one base, either simple or derived. English compounds are fairly easy to form and analyze, since they generally consist in two free bases, usually nouns, placed next to each other. No linking vowel or consonant is used, contrary to German, Latin or Greek.

Arbeit-s-kraft from the German nouns Arbeit ‘work’ and Kraft ‘force’

insect-i-cide from the Latin verb cidere ‘to kill’ + insect

Grec-o-American from the Greek elin-o-Amerikan(os)

Nor is there a preposition to link the two bases, as in French:

avion à réaction

boîte de nuit

arc-en-ciel

The meaning of an English compound can usually be paraphrased in French with a [noun + preposition + noun] construction, although the equivalent lexical item may actually be quite different.

Dog house: ‘maison pour chiens’ or niche

house dog: ‘chien de maison’  or chien de compagnie

However, the meaning of English compounds cannot be fully accounted for by such a simple schema. In fact, the apparent simplicity of the compound formation system in English masks the difficulty that most French speakers have when trying to understand and use these words.  Let’s look at some of the compounding processes in French.

French Compound Patterns

The Noun-Preposition-Noun construction is very productive in Modern French.  The three most often used prepositions are de, à and en: une prise de sang, un compagnon de route, un coup de pompe, un avion à réaction, un ménage à trois, un bout-en-train,  une mise-en-scène, un ours en peluche, un arc-en-ciel, etc.  However, this is far from the only way to coin lexical expressions in French.

Michel Mathieu-Colas (1996) lists 25 basic structural patterns, each of which can be divided into several subclasses, to make a total of over 700 types of compounds.  Here is a small sample of the almost unlimited ways to create compounds in French.

Onomatopées: le train-train, du bla-bla, le cha-cha-cha, un bric-à-brac;

Letters, abbreviations and initials: le b.a.-ba, un(e) H.L.M, un P.-D.G., un pH-mètre;

Compounds with prefixes: un demi-litre, un vice-premier ministre, un mi-moyen, le sus-dénommé;

Compounds based on prepositions: un après-midi, un hors-texte, un hors-d’œuvre, un sans-le-sou, l’entre-deux-tours, un sous-marin:

Compounds based on adverbs: la non-directivité, le Très-Haut, le plus-que-parfait, du déjà (-) vu, le bien-être, les économiquement faibles, les tout-petits;

Compounds based on cardinal numbers: les soixante-huitards, (être sur son) trente et un, une deux (-) chevaux, un trois (-) pièces;

Scientific compounds: un oligo-élément, l’anarcho-syndicalisme, un cyclo-cross, un indo-européaniste, un oto-rhino-laryngologiste, une tragi-comédie, la méthyl-éthyl-cétone;

Compounds based on verbs: un tire-bouchon, un couche-tard, un fourre-tout, un pousse-pousse, un faire-part, un cessez-le-feu, du cousu(-)main, un chassé-croisé;

Compounds based on adjectives: un chaud-froid, un haut-de-forme, le prêt-à-porter, le franc-parler, un petit-bourgeois, une tierce personne, un saint-bernard, la grande muette, un mauvais perdant;

Compounds based on an adjective and a noun: un cordon(-)bleu, un trou noir, un cerf-volant, le vert antique, un jean-le-blanc, un mots-croisiste, un poulet prêt à cuire;

Compounds based on a noun and a compound adjective: un signe avant-coureur, la pêche sous-marine, un cheval anglo-normand, l’ester méthyl-salicylique, l’acide para-amino-hippurique;

Compounds based on the combination of two (or more) nouns: une poche(-) revolver, un aller(-) retour, un maître cuisinier, une fille(-) mère, un bain-marie, une reine-claude, le glucose-6-phosphate;

Compounds with various combinations of nouns, determiners, adjectives: un billet demi-tarif, du fromage demi-sel, un ténor haute-contre, un trois-quarts centre, des dommages et intérêts, le ban et l’arrière-ban;

And so on and so forth.  Two guiding principles emerge from a careful examination of these compounding processes:

• The principle of headlessness, or exocentricity;
• The principle of lexical conversion.

“Headlessness/exocentricity” means that in many cases the head word, that is, the word which establishes the hyperonym, or class name, and determines the gender of the compound, is absent from the compound.  This is the case for words like mille feuilles, which is masculine if referring to a kind of cake – un (gâteau à) mille feuilles – but feminine if referring to a plant: une (plante à) mille feuilles.  Many of the compounds cited above are exocentric in this way: un (tenor) haut-contre, un (beurre) demi-sel, un (joueur) trois quarts centre, un (homme) sans le sou, un (outil qui) tire (le) bouchon, and so on.  English compounds on the other hand are almost always endocentric.

“Lexical conversion” means that, contrary to English compounds, which are generally formed through the simple juxtaposition of two words, as in dog-house (N+N) or snow-white (A+A), wherein the right hand word is the head – ‘a house for dogs, white as snow’, etc. – French compounds are formed through the conversion of a syntactic formation into a lexical item.  Here are a few examples to illustrate this principle.

Verb phrases: un tire-bouchon (verb+direct object : ‘quelque chose qui tire un bouchon’); du cousu(-)main (verb+adverbial: ‘quelque chose qui est cousu à la main’); un gagne-petit (verb+adverb: ‘quelqu’un qui gagne un petit salaire’);

Noun phrases: un cordon(-)bleu (noun+adjective: ‘quelqu’un qui porte un cordon bleu’); un petit-bourgeois (adjective+noun: ‘quelqu’un de la classe des petits bourgeois’); des dommages et intérêts (N et N: ‘indémnité due par quelqu’un qui a causé des dommages à autrui’);

Prepositional phrases: un après-midi (preposition+noun: ‘un moment après midi’); un sans-le-sou (preposition+NP: ‘une personne (qui est) sans le sou’);

Adjectival phrases: un chaud-froid (adjective+adjective: ‘un mets qu’on prépare à chaud et qu’on mange froid’), les économiquement faibles (adverb+adjective: ‘les personnes qui sont économiquement faibles’).

Exercise 1

Identify the missing element in the following exocentric French compounds

les bien-pensants; le tout-à-l’égout ; une deux (-) chevaux ; un oto-rhino ; un trompe-l’œil ; le tape-à-l’œil; un faire-part; du cousu (-) main; du blanc sec ; un aller (-) retour ; un tout terrain ; un bas-de-casse ; un corps à corps ; la formule un ; le Sud-Est asiatique ; un air-sol tactique ; un haut de forme ; un américain ; un nouveau-né ; un libre-service

 Exercise 2

Identify the grammatical nature of the constituents in the above examples and their internal distribution.

 Exercise 3

Translate them into English.

The corrections for these exercises, as well as more explanations and exercises, can be found in Chapters 1.2.4 and 3.5 of my Linguistic Handbook of French for Translators and Language Students.