Bottle-opener / beer-drinker ...

Question

Are they exocentric compounds or endocentric compounds? Thank U!

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

Here are the definitions. I think you can figure out bottle-opener and beer-drinker from these:

An endocentric compound consists of a head, i.e. the categorical part that contains the basic meaning of the whole compound, and modifiers, which restrict this meaning. For example, the English compound doghouse, where house is the head and dog is the modifier, is understood as a house intended for a dog. Endocentric compounds tend to be of the same part of speech (word class) as their head, as in the case of doghouse.

Exocentric compounds do not have a head, and their meaning often cannot be transparently guessed from their constituent parts. For example, the English compound white-collar is neither a kind of collar nor a white thing. In an exocentric compound, the word class is determined lexically, disregarding the class of the constituents. For example, a must-have is not a verb but a noun. The meaning of this type of compound can be glossed as "(one) whose B is A", where B is the second element of the compound and A the first. An exocentric compound is one whose nature is expressed by neither of the words: thus a white-collar person is neither white nor a collar (the collar's colour is a metaphor for socioeconomic status). Other English examples include barefoot and Blackbeard.

Anonymous · Answer

Hi,

Both of them are definitely endocentric. 'Bottle-opener' and 'beer-drinker' are compounds which grammatically belong to the same part of the speech as their head word and carry the basic meaning of the head word:

'bottle-opener' - a noun; the head word of the compound - 'opener' - a noun (an opener which removes bottle caps);

'beer-drinker' - a noun; the head word of the compound - 'drinker' - a noun (a drinker who likes to drink beer)

Bottle-opener / beer-drinker ...

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions