ANALYZING ENGLISH COMPOUND WORDS USED IN THE NOVEL
ENTITLED “NEW MOON” BY STEPHENIE MEYER
BASED ON WILLIAM O’GRADY’S THEORY
Helmi Hamidah
amy.ammie@gmail.com
ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS DEPARTMENT
STKIP SILIWANGI BANDUNG
ABSTRACT
The objectives of this research entitled Analyzing English Compound Words Used in the Novel entitled “New
Moon” by Stephenie Meyer Based on William O’Grady’s Theory were to find out the total amount of the
English Compound Words used by the novel writer and to find out the most and the least frequently English
Compound Words used by the novel writer. In this research, the writer used descriptive qualitative method.
The population of this research was all the words having English Compound Words used by the novel writer
and the sample of this research was the three types of English Compound Words (Noun+Noun, Noun+Verb,
and Noun+Adjective) selected using purposive sampling technique. The instrument of the data analysis was the
novel itself. The collected data were identified, classified, analyzed, and interpreted based on O’Grady’s
theory. The results of this research showed that there were 112 English Compound Words used by the novel
writer. They included: 101=90.18% English Noun + Noun Compound Words, 7=6.25% English Adjective +
Noun Compound Words, and 4=3.57% English Verb + Noun Compound Words. Based on the results of the
data analysis above, the most frequently English Compound Words used by the novel writer was the English
Noun + Noun Compound Words and the least frequently English Compound Words used by the novel writer
was the English Verb + Noun Compound Words.
Key Words: Analyzing English compound words
A. BACKGROUND
Morphology is the study of how words are structured
and how they are put together from smaller parts.
Morpheme is the minimal meaningful unit which
may constitute word of part of word. Morpheme
itself is divided into two basic categories, free
morpheme and bound morpheme. In compounding
process, the morphemes are compounded and create a
new form.
English compound word is a combination of lexical
categories (nouns, adjectives, verbs, or preposition)
to create a larger word. The resulting compound
word usually is a noun, a verb, or an adjective. In
these and most other compounds, the rightmost
morpheme determines the category of the entire
word. As an example, greenhouse is a noun because
its rightmost component is a noun, spoon-feed is a
verb because feed also belong to this category. The
morpheme that determines the category of the entire
word is called the head.
Compounds are used to express a wide range of
semantic relationship in English. In most cases, the
rightmost component of the compound identifies the
general class to which the meaning of the entire word
belongs. Thus dog food is a type of food, a cave man
is a type of man, etc. Such compounds are called
endocentric.
In a smaller number of cases, the meaning of the
compound does not follow from the meanings of its
parts in this way. Thus, a greenbottle is not a type of
bottle, but it is a fly of the genus lucilia. Similarly, a
redneck is not a type of neck but it is an ultra
conservative. Such compounds are called exocentric.
That is why the writer tries to analyze a kind of
morphological shift and meaning shift that happened
in compound words by making a research entitled
‘Analyzing English compound words used in the
novel entitled “New Moon” by Stephenie Meyer
based on William O’Grady’s theory (Contemporary
Linguistic, 1997).
The material which is analyzed in this research taken
from the novel “New Moon” written by Stephenie
Meyer. Moreover the writer uses other books and
dictionaries, which are relevant to the theme of this
research. The writer uses the Longman Dictionary of
Contemporary English to find out the meaning of the
words at each corpus.
B. LITERATURE REVIEW
Morphology
Morphology is a sub-discipline of linguistics that
studies word structure. According to O’Grady and
Guzman (1997:132), in Contemporary Linguistic say
that “The system of categories and rules involved in
word formation and interpretation is called
morphology”.
Morphemes
O’Grady and Guzman (1997:133), in Contemporary
Linguistic say that morpheme is “The smallest unit of
language that carries information about meaning or
function”. That definitions almost same with the
definition of morpheme according to Mc Manish et.
al. (1987:117), “A morpheme is the minimal
linguistics unit which has a meaning or grammatical
function”.
Words
Hornby (2000:1471) through Oxford Advanced
Learner’s Dictionary explains that word is “Sound or
combination of sounds that expresses a meaning and
forms an independent unit of grammar or vocabulary
of a language”
Words Classes
Hornby (2000:1471) through Oxford Advanced
Learner’s Dictionary explains that word is “Sound or
combination of sounds that expresses a meaning and
forms an independent unit of grammar or vocabulary
of a language”.
Quirk and
Greenbaum (1985:19), in
A
Comprehensive Grammar of The English Language
state that the word class in English is divided into:
a) Open classes
b) Closed classes
The open classes are:
1. Nouns
: John, room, answer, etc.
2. Adjectives
: happy, tall, new, etc.
3. Adverbs
: Slowly, happily, carefully,
etc.
4. Verbs
: See, write, read, etc.
The closed classes are:
1. Articles
: The, a and an.
2. Demonstratives
: This (these) and that
(those).
3. Pronouns
: He, she, they, etc.
4.
5.
Prepositions
: Of, at, in, without, etc.
Conjunctions
: And, when, although, but,
etc.
6. Interjection
: Oh, ah, ugh, etc.
From the word classes above, the writer only
explains about nouns, verbs and adjectives, because
those word classes are related to the analysis in this
research paper.
Word Formations
According to Marchand (1992:2), in The Categories
and Types of Present-day English Word Formation,
word formation is “The branch of the science of
language which studies the pattern on which a
language forms new lexical units, i.e words”.
“Human language makes use of a variety of
operations or processes that can modify the structure
of a word, either by adding some element to it or by
making an internal change in order to express a new
meaning or to mark a grammatical contrast (such as
past versus non-past, N versus V, and so on)”
O’Grady and Guzman (1997:138).
Compounding
“The combination of lexical categories (nouns,
adjectives, verbs, or preposition) to create a larger
word” O’Grady and Guzman (1997:143).
The resulting compound word usually is a noun, a
verb, or an adjective. In these and most other
compounds, the rightmost morpheme determines the
category of the entire word. As an example,
greenhouse is a noun because its rightmost
component is a noun, spoon-feed is a verb because
feed also belong to this category. The morpheme that
determines the category of the entire word is called
the head.
a. Properties of Compounds
English orthography is not consistent in representing
compounds since they are sometimes written as
single words, sometimes with an intervening hyphen,
and sometimes as separate words. In terms of
pronunciation, however, there is an important
generalization to be made. In particular, most A-N
compounds are characterized by a more prominent
stress on their first components. In non-compounds,
the second elements are generally stressed.
b. Types of Compounds
Compounds are used to express a wide range of
semantic relationship in English. In most cases, the
rightmost component of the compound identifies the
general class to which the meaning of the entire word
belongs. Thus dog food is a type of food, a cave man
is a type of man, etc. Such compounds are called
endocentric.
In a smaller number of cases, the meaning of the
compound does not follow from the meanings of its
parts in this way. Thus, a greenbottle is not a type of
bottle, but it is a fly of the genus lucilia. Similarly, a
redneck is not a type of neck but it is an ultra
conservative. Such compounds are called exocentric.
According to Williams (1975:123), compounding
is divided into twelve types, they are:
1. N+V
: babysit (N)
2. N+V-ing
: man-eating (Adj)
3. V+N
: pickpocket (N)
4. V+Prep : throw up (V)
5. V+Prep : setback (N)
6. Adj+Adj
: deafmute (N)
7. Adj+V
: roughgrind (V)
8. Adj+Prep
: blackout (V)
9. Adj+Prep
: blackout (N)
10. Adj+V-ing
: easygoing (Adj)
11. Adj+N
: strongarm (V)
12. Adj+N
: redcoat (N)
Semantics
According to O’Grady (1997:268), semantics is “The
study of meaning in human language”.
Moreover, according to Webster’s New Twentieth
Century Dictionary (1979;1219), “Semantics is the
branch of linguistics concerned with the nature, the
structure, and the development and changes of the
meaning of speech forms, or with contextual
meaning.
Yule (1996:4) said that “Semantics is the study of the
relationships between linguistics forms and entities in
the world; that is, how words literally connect to
things”.
Translation
Richard et. al defines in his book Longman
Dictionary of Applied Linguistics (1985:229) that
translation is “The process of changing speech or
writing from one language (the source language) into
another (the target language), or the target-language
version that results from his process”.
According to Webster’s New Twentieth Century
Dictionary (1979:1939) said translation is “the result
of translating, especially a translated version of a
literary work”.
“Translation is the process of changing something
that is written or spoken into another language”.
O’Grady (1997:1382).
The writer used qualitative research method in
writing this research paper since the data collected is
in the form of words rather than numbers and it is
more corcerned with process. The research also tends
to analyze the data inductively and “meaning” is of
essential to the qualitative approach, finally the writer
will report the result by means of detailed
descriptions. The data were taken from the novel
“New Moon” by Stephenie Meyer. The writer also
took the data from some books and dictionaries.
Here are the aspects that become the writer’s research
paper references:
1. The research subjects are all the texts in the
novel entitled “New Moon” by Stephenie
Meyer.
2. The instruments of the research are:
a. Noun + noun compound words in the novel
entitled “New Moon” by Stephenie Meyer.
b. Adjective + noun compound words in the
novel entitled “New Moon” by Stephenie
Meyer.
c. Verb + noun compound words in the novel
entitled “New Moon” by Stephenie Meyer.
3. Data Collected
The data are collected by :
a. Reading the whole text of the novel entitled
“New Moon” by Stephenie Meyer.
b. Identifying the English compound words that
found in the novel entitled “New Moon” by
Stephenie Meyer.
c. Classifying the English compound words that
found in the novel entitled “New Moon” by
Stephenie Meyer.
d. Describing the process of the English words
were compounded in the novel entitled “New
Moon” by Stephenie Meyer.
e. Finding the lexical meanings of the English
compound words in the novel entitled “New
Moon” by Stephenie Meyer.
4. Data Analyzing
The collected data of the research analyzed using
O’Grady’s theory.
C. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, the writer analyzed the general
illustration about the research methodology and the
object of the research that became material of this
research paper. The data of the research were taken
from the novel entitled “New Moon” by Stephenie
Meyer based on William O’Grady’s theory. This
research paper was analyzed by morphological and
semantic aspects. The focus of the research is to
analyze the English compound words, in this case,
the noun + noun compounds, adjective + noun
compounds and verb + noun compounds in English.
D. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
In this section, the writer will explain the data finding
that she got about English compound words used in the
novel entitled “New Moon” by Stephenie Meyer.
No.
1
2
3
Type of English
Compound Words
Noun + noun
Adjective + noun
Verb + noun
Total
Total
Percentage
101
7
4
112
90,18%
6,25%
3,57%
100%
Data finding of English Compound Words
From the table above, we can see that the words
which formed by the English Noun + noun are 101
data and it has 90,18% from the total finding. The
English adjective + noun are 7 data and it has 6,25%
from the total finding and the words which formed by
the English verb + noun are 4 data and it has 3,57%
from the total finding. From the explanation above, it
can be concluded that the English Noun + noun is the
most frequently used. The English adjective + noun
is also more commonly used and the least frequently
used is the English verb + noun.
E. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
Conclusions
In this chapter the writer would like to describe the
conclusions based on the analysis in the previous
chapters. And, the conclusions are :
1. In these and most other compounds, the
rightmost morpheme determines the category of
the entire word and it is called the head. Usually,
the rightmost morpheme that is compounded is a
noun.
2. By compounding two different words become
one unit, there could be a new meaningful word
which different from their own roots.
3. The resulting compound word usually is a noun,
a verb, or an adjective.
Suggestions
Finally, the writer arrives at the last part of this essay.
He is going to give his suggestions based on the
analysis that she had already finished. They are:
1. To make a good analysis of compounding in
English, we must know and comprehend about
the definition of morphology and the aspects
related.
2. If we want to make a compounding research start
with finding the roots and their class of word.
3. To find the suitable meaning of the words, pay
attention to the context of the sentence where the
words are.
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