Word-combination (WC) and their basic types

The word 'syntax' is derived from the Greek 'syntaxis' which literally means 'composition', or 'order'. It is a part of grammar which studies ways of arranging words into phrases and sentences in order to produce speech. We communicate only with the help of sentences and it brings many linguists to a conclusion that syntax is the core, or the heart of grammar and morphology is subordinated to it as it serves the needs of syntax. The main units of the syntactic level of the language are: 1) the word in its syntactic position in the sentence (a part of the sentence); 2) the phrase which is a combination of two or more notional words arranged according to the rules of a particular language; 3) the simple sentence as the minimum unit of communication; 4) the composite sentence which is a combination of two or more clauses based either on coordinate (a compound sentence) or subordinate (a complex sentence) relations; 5) the text as the highest unit of language.

The type ‘noun+noun’ is a most usual type of WC in modern English. The type ‘noun in the common case+noun’ may be used to denote 1 idea as modified by another, in the widest sense (silver watch, army unit). The type ‘noun in the genitive case+noun’ has a more restricted meaning and use. The type ‘adj+noun’ is used to express all possible kinds of things with their properties. The type ‘verb+noun’ may correspond to 2 different types of relation between an action and a thing. There are also types, such as ‘verb+adv’, ‘adv+adj’, ‘adv+adv’, ‘noun+prep_noun’, ‘adj+prep+noun’, verb+prep+noun. WC consisting of 2 components may be enlarged by addition of a third component, and so forth: adj+noun (high houses) may be enlarged by the addition of the adj in front – adj+adj+noun (new high houses). The limit of the possible growth of a WC is hard to define.