Material unit 4

This fourth lliurament, we'll see what compound nouns are. In 2nd Batxillerat this might help you to enrich your vocabulary by creating new words or understand them.

A compound noun is a noun that is made up of two or more words. Most compound nouns in English are formed by nouns modified by other nouns or adjectives.

For example:

The words tooth and paste are each nouns in their own right, but if you join them together they form a new word - toothpaste.

The word black is an adjective and board is a noun, but if you join them together they form a new word - blackboard.

In both these example the first word modifies or describes the second word, telling us what kind of object or person it is, or what its purpose is. And the second part  identifies the object or person in question.

Compound nouns can also be formed using the following combinations of words:-

The two parts may be written in a number of ways:-

1. Sometimes the two words are joined together.         Example: tooth + paste = toothpaste | bed + room = bedroom

2. Sometimes they are joined using a hyphen.         Example: check-in

3. Sometimes they appear as two separate words.         Example: full moon

Note that there are three main ways of expressing compound nouns:

Usually only one way is possible. We would not say for instance: a film of feature or a feature's film. We would not say: goat milk or milk of a goat. We would not say: the hill's bottom or the hill bottom.

If you want to learn more about compound nouns, I recommend you to visit:

http://www.learnenglish.de/basics/compoundwords.html