THEORETICAL AND STATISTICAL JUXTAPOSITION OF WORD COMPOUNDING – ONE OF THE MOST PROLIFIC WORD FORMATION TECHNIQUES IN ENGLISH AND ALBANIAN

Abstract

Linguistic intelligence refers to the ability to understand and use a language effectively.  However, have you ever asked yourself how do languages evolve? Languages evolve and develop through different forms, where one of the most crucial roles in this process is played by word formation. Word formation is a never-ending process that keeps languages and people alive. It can be viewed diachronically or synchronically, as it enables learners of a language to encode or decode new words, thus becoming independent users of a certain language. While there are several word formation techniques, compounding and derivation are considered as the most prolific. Our paper will explore compounding in English and Albanian. The study will yield statistical data about compounding considering different parts of speech. Two dictionaries have collected the data: Dictionary of Contemporary Albanian Language (1980) and Student’s Oxford Dictionary. Both dictionaries have almost the same number of words (40000), thus statistical comparison is possible. Albanian and English are different languages of the same family, Indo-European. Albanian is synthetic-analytical, while English is analytic with several properties of synthetic retained, as old English was fusional.