Re: Hyphenation and compound words

Hi
Am Sonntag, 11. April 2004 22:43 schrieb Lars Aronsson:
> Maybe the key to compund words is in the hyphen.
>
> Languages with many compound words also frequently use a special form
> of hyphenation.  In English, one example of this case would be "wooden
> and brick buildings", which in German is written "Holz- und
> Backsteingebäude". Note that this hyphen has nothing to do with line
> breaks.  This kind of hyphen most often appears before "and" or "or",
> or (in lists) before the comma (Holz-, Backstein- und Stahlgebäude).
> (There are a few more cases, e.g. "wooden rather than brick
> buildings", where "rather than" takes the place of "and".)
>
> In compound words where a glue letter is used, the glue letter appears
> before the hyphen.  In compound words where a special form of the
> first word is used, this special form appears before the hyphen even
> though it would not be allowed as a word by it self.
>
> In Swedish, a typicaly nound (such as "girl") has eight different
> forms:
>
>   flicka       - singular, nominative, indefinite   =     girl
>   flickan      - singular, nominative, definite     = the girl
>   flickas      - singular, genitive, indefinite     =     girl's
>   flickans     - singular, genitive, definite       = the girl's
>   flickor      - plural, nominative, indefinite     =     girls
>   flickorna    - plural, nominative, definite       = the girls
>   flickors     - plural, genitive, indefinie        =     girls'
>   flickornas   - plural, genitive, definite         = the girls'
>
> Added to this, however, is the form used in compound words: flick-
> e.g. flick-cykel (girl's bicycle), flick-aktig (girl-ish).  A shop can
> advertise new models of "flick- och pojkcyklar" (girls' and boys'
> bicycles).
>
> To cover Swedish (and Danish and Norwegian, and probably German), it
> would be sufficient to distinguish the hyphenated form (flick-) as a
> legal word of its own and the only legal prefix for compound words.
All the above definitly does not hold for german 
eg.
Dampfschiff ->steam engine boat
  Dampf -> steam 
  Schiff -> ship

Both words Dampf and Schiff are regular and valid german words. A speciallity 
for german is that new compund Nouns and other words may be created ( 
invented if not allready existing ) by simply combining two other words. 
There is no such global gramtical rule for glue letters special forms and so. 
in german. I do not rember any at least not in austrian variant, slangs and 
dialects.
cu 
Christoph (JEH)