Morphological compounds are few in number. This type is non-productive. It is represented by words in which two compounding stems are combined by a linking vowel or consonant, e.g. Anglo-Saxon, handiwork (ручная работа), handicraft (ремесло), spokesman (представитель), statesman (государственный деятель).
In syntactic compounds we find a feature of specifically English word-structure. These words are formed from segments of speech, preserving in their structure numerous traces of syntagmatic relations typical of speech: articles, prepositions, adverbs, as in the nouns lily-of-the-valley (ландыш), Jack-of-all-trades (мастер на все руки), good-for-nothing (негодяй, бездельник), mother-in-law (тёща). Syntactical relations and grammatical patterns current in present-day English can be clearly traced in the structures of such compound nouns as know-all (всезнайка), know-nothing (невeжда), go-between (посредник), whodunit (детектив). The last word (meaning “a detective story”) was obviously coined from the ungrammatical variant of the word-group who (has) done it.
In this group of compounds we find a great number of neologisms, and whodunit is one of them.
The structure of most compounds is transparent and clearly betrays the origin of these words from word-combinations.
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