Misleading German Compound Nouns

Abstract

The enormous increase of the number of compounds is one of the main characteristics of the history of the German language of the last five or six centuries. Compound nouns are the most important and most numerous class of compound words. While in the almost 10,000 lines of the Nibelungenlied only 86 compound nouns have been counted, Grimm's Deutsches W*rterbuch (DWB) contains 615 compounds with Kriegand 730 with Land-. Compound nouns, therefore, on account of their frequency, deserve the attention of every student of the German language. Since the meanings of many compounds are a mere combination of the meanings of their parts, they are a help in reading classes and vocabulary building. However, many misleading compounds, especially noun compounds, occur; and the student of German will be able to utilize fully the value of noun compounds only if he systematically studies the difficulties and pitfalls they sometimes present. In the following, we try to offer a short study of misleading compound nouns which we undertake with only practical considerations in mind. I. Sometimes the separation of a compound into its parts causes difficulties. Windeseile is Windes-Eile or Winde-Seile, pl. Sometimes it is doubtful whether a word is a compound or a derivative, although often, in such cases, the gender makes the situation clear, as in Rechenschaft f account (-ability); Rechenschaft m shaft of a rake. Griindung is either Griin-Dung m green-manure or Griind-ung f founding, foundation; Erdriicken is E'rd-Riicken m or Er-d'riicken n. In compounds consisting of more than two parts it may be necessary to indicate by a hyphen which parts belong together: Gummischuhsoten may be Gummi-Schuhsohlen soles made of rubber or Gummischuh-Sohlen soles for rubber-boots. Also letter combinations like sch