station security’is an example of stone wall combination

I. It cannot be a free word combination, because ‘station’ is a noun and ‘security’ is a noun. The usual way of connecting two nouns in an English sentence is either the possessive case or various prepositions. So ‘station security’ can be considered a compound. However, it answers only two of the four criteria of compounds:

1) semantic criterion (its referent is ONE notion)

2) morphological and syntactic criterion (‘station’ doesn’t have its own gram.

paradigm, it can’t be modified ‘station new security’, it performs one syntactic

function - direct obj)

it is spelled with a break, and it is pronounced with the main stress on the second element

II. If we accept that the first element of the stone wall combination is an adjective formed through conversion from a noun then we can claim the whole combination to be a free-word group. It can be true since

- ‘station’ denotes some quality of the noun ‘security’

- ‘station’ isn’t used in the possessive case though it’s meaning is ‘belonging to’ and adjectives in English have no possessive case;

However, the first element of this combination is unlike adjectives in three ways:

- It doesn’t form degrees of comparison *‘This security is stationer than that one’

- It doesn’t occur in the predicate position, * ‘This security is station’

- It can’t occur before –ly, * ‘stationely’

III. It is a non-stable attributive word combination

• Conversion

To help – help

risk – to risk

to hurry – a hurry

to tramp – a tramp

to study – a study

official (adj) – official (nn) - substantivation

• Minor ways

murmur – sound imitation

relie f -relie v e – sound interchange

body – (can be ‘bod’) – clipping

scenery – scene – backformation

emergency (can be a part of ‘ER’ = emergency room – abbreviation (initialism)

human (can be a part of ‘humagro’ = human growth hormone – blending)

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