English compounds possess the main features below, despite their various formations.
(1)Orthographically, an English compound can be written as one word with or without a hyphen in between, or as two separate words, e. g. toothpick, kick-off, reading room. How an English compound is written is a matter of convention.
(2)Syntactically, the part of speech of the compound is generally determined by the part of speech of the second element, but there are many exceptions, especially with those compounds ending with a verb or an adverb or a prep¬osition.
(3)Semantically, the meaning of an English compound is often idiomatic, not always being the sum total of the meaning of its components. For example, a green¬house does not mean a house which is green.
(4) Phonetically, the stress of an English compound always falls on the first element,while the second element receives secondary stress. For example, running dog can be pronounced running dog or running dog which mean quite differently. The former means metaphorically a person who follows another person obediently in his wrongdoing, while the latter means a dog which is running.