COMPOUNDING AS WORD FORMATION PROCESS IN ENGLISH CONTRASTIVE WITH ALBANIAN

The aim of this study was to scrutinize the formation of words according to the compounding process, by considering the similarities and differences between two languages. This contrastive research is focused on compounding as a word formation process from two different language perspectives: English and Albanian. We all know that words are meaningful units that have a function in spoken and written language. Related to the language usage, each human being have a mental lexicon which is “a person’s internalized knowledge of the properties of words” (Al-Dala`ien, Mudhsh, & Al-Takhayinh, 2015, p.1). But we also have a set of word formation rules which allows us to create new words and understand them. Compounding is the most usable word formation process after affixation in the perspective of Albanian and English language. When contrasting the compounding between two languages, there are visibly more similarities than differences. As a word formation process, compound words in written form are similarly structures, despite the combination of grammar functions. In written form two of the language have closed and hyphenated forms, whereas open form is the contrast part of the Albanian compounding compared with the English one. Also the numbers of hyphenated compound word in English are visibly higher than in Albanian language. Finally, mentioning the stress of the compound words, in English there are cases when the stress may occur at the beginning, middle, or at the end of the compound word, based on the combination of grammatical structures. However, in Albanian language stress of compound words occurs usually at the end. In a nutshell, this study reflects the similarities and differences of compounding as word formation process including structure, spelling, and stress, spoken, and written forms from the English and Albanian language perspectives.Keywords: word formation, compounding, English compound words, Albanian compound words, types of compound words, spelling, stress