ANALYSIS OF COMPOUND ADJECTIVES IN THE CONTEXT OF THE MICROSYSTEM “PERSON’S CHARACTER”

Abstract

The article deals with the complex research of compound adjectives used to describe a person’s character and combined into an appropriate lexical microsystem. The special attention is given to the definition of the term “compound word”. Composites are analyzed at phonetical, semantic, morphological and orthographical levels. Dominating words within the researched microsystem are considered as those with the main stress on the second component, which is the semantic centre in the structure of a compound lexical unit. The most common word-building patterns (adjective + noun with the ending -ed, adverb + noun with the ending -ed or Participle II) are studied. A specific group made up of composites with such components as -tempered, -minded, -self and -headed has been analyzed. The variants in writing (as one word or with a hyphen) are considered as well. Compound adjectives used to describe a person’s character may consist of two simple or two derived stems and also have one component with a derived stem expressed by Participle I, Participle II or noun with the ending -ed in their structure. The researched composites are classified into lexical sets and semantic groups. Complex lexical constructions that belong to the microsystem “person’s character” can be endocentric and exocentric by their semantics.