Introductory remarks

In pervading almost all text-types, English nominal compounds fill a great lexical gap in referring and naming, especially in fairly new disciplines such as computer science (e.g., word processor; word processing application), telecommunications (e.g., radio positioning; radio position finding), acoustics (e.g., sound power; sound pressure level), electronics (e.g., valence bond; valence bond method), mechanics (e.g., friction clutch; gear lever) to name only a few. Therefore, we believe that any translation project which does not make provisions to cope with such compounds is likely to be substantially impaired. If it is true that our dealing with compounds has been motivated by their frequent occurrence in referring and naming, our major reason for considering them is their being a productive lexical composition process capable of generating from simple lexemes an infinite number of complex lexemes. In so doing, compounding widens the range of combinatorial possibilities for simple lexemes, creating new meanings not possible through derivation, which "involves an operation on a single lexeme"(Matthews,1991: 84). Suc