Morphological Analysis of Noun Compounds in English Legal Terminology

Abstract

Compounds are the result of the tendency in languages for concise, clear and meaningful expression. They are an essential part of English legal language. In this paper the morphological analysis of noun compounds in English legal register was made on the basis of the word class to which the constituents of the compounds belong. In two-constituent noun compounds, one of the constituents is a noun and the other may be a noun, verb, an adjective, present or past participle or a particle, so the noun compounds in legal register may be divided into the following groups: 1. noun + noun, 2. genitive + noun, 3. adjective + noun 4. gerund + noun 5. past participle + noun, 6. infinitive + noun 7. noun + adjective, 8. noun + gerund 9. noun + participle, 10.noun + prepositional phrase. According to our research the most frequent compounds in legal English terminology are noun + noun compounds and the least productive are the groups : adjective + noun and preposition + noun. Noun compounds and compounds in general are an important part of word formation, both in general as well as in legal English and they should be presented in legal textbooks and inserted in all legal dictionaries.