60 Summary

In this chapter, you’ve learned how to categorize words according to their behaviour, which categories are open to new members, and which categories are not. You’ve also learned that compounding is a very productive means of deriving new words in English by combining two words. While most compounds are endocentric and have a head that determines the meaning and category of the word, for exocentric compounds, the meaning of the compound drifts over time, leaving the compound without a head.