Compounds are structurally and phonetically inseparable. Structurally
compounds are characterized by the specific order and arrangement of stems.
The order in which the two stems are placed together within a compound is
strictly fixed in Modern English and it is the second stem which is the struc-
tural and semantic centre of the compound, e.g.: baby-sitter, writing-table.
Phonetically compounds are also marked by a specific structure of their own. No phonetic changes of stems take place in composition, but the compound word gets a new stress pattern, different from the stress in the words with similar stems, e.g.: 'key, 'hole -> 'key-hole. Compounds have three stress patterns:
1. A high or unity stress on the first component: 'doorway, 'drawback,
'blackboard.
2. A double stress: with a primary stress on the first component and a
weaker, secondary stress on the second component: 'blood,vessel, 'washing-
ma,chine.
3. A level stress: 'open-'eyed, 'icy-'cold, 'grass-'green.
Graphically most compounds have two types of spelling: they are written either solidly or with a hyphen. It differs from author to author and from dictionary to dictionary,
e.g.: war-path = warpath;
blood-transfusion = bloodtransfusion
word-group = wordgroup