It is customary to call words based on more than one root. Such words can refer to different parts of speech, especially often they are nouns and adjectives. In the article, we consider the general rules for spelling complex words.
Read and remember!
The spelling of these grammatical constructions is subject to the following rules:
- Nouns and adjectives are written together, starting with auto, air, air, motorcycle, bicycle, television, radio, photo, film, stereo, multi, phono, electro, micro , mono-, quasi-, macro-, helio-, thermo-, agro-, bio-, zoo-, pseudo-, graph-, meteo-.
- Words are written together, including two or more of these elements: an air station, photo newsreel, and microcinema. However, when skipping the second part of the word, it is necessary to use the so-called hanging hyphen: film, photo and television cameras.
- The nouns and the adjectives formed from them are written together, if with two or more roots they are joined by vowels o and e. For example, pandemonium, mud baths, reinforced concrete, miner, fish pump.
Spelling complex words: remember exceptions
Through a hyphen it is necessary to write the cardinal points: northeast, southwest; name of complex units of measurement: bed-day, ton-kilometer. If the second part of the word is represented by a proper name, then spelling with a hyphen will be correct. For example, false Dmitry, quasi-Dali.
When a hyphen is not needed
- The spelling of compound words, the first part of which are numerals, should be cohesive: hexagon, three-copeck quatrain, twenty-five-kilometer, three hundred and eighty-millimeter.
- The numeral "one and a half" when entering a compound word has the form of one and a half -. For example, one and a half percent, one and a half year.
- The numerals “two”, “three” in complex constructions, in addition to the two-, three-, can also have the forms two-, three-, three-: two-digit, three-story, double-barrel, trefoil, triangle. In a number of words, along with the two-form, the spelling of two- is permissible. For example, bivalent and divalent, two-shift and two-shift, two-voice and two-voice.
Spelling complex words with some numerals may not be in the form of a genitive. In particular, the numerals "billion", "million", "thousand", "one" in the compound word are included in the nominative case and are associated with another root with vowels of o or e. For example, a million-star, thousand-headed, single-mandate (root alternation). Remember: the word "half" in complex constructions is written separately: a five and a half kilometer road, ten and a half million people.
The spelling of compound words starting in half-, continuous, except for forms where the second part begins with a vowel, with the letter “l” or with a capital letter: half a bottle, half a life, half a point, half a liter, half Paris, half Italy . However, if half is separated by definition from a noun, then the compound word is written separately: half a tablespoon, half free France.
There are many words starting with semi-. All of them are written together: half-turn, peninsula, half-lying, half-closed, half-joking.
Compoundly abbreviated words are written together, starting with deputy, manager, assistant. For example, deputy minister, department head, deputy. However, if such parts are separated by adjectives, the spelling of complex words is taken together: by a local newspaper, a deputy ministerial portfolio.
Spelling Compound Words: Hyphen
- These words are written with a hyphen if they are formed without a connecting vowel and have a single meaning. For example, friends, buddies, sale, sadness, longing. There is another semantic nuance: words such as a factory machine, a hut-reading room, a house museum, a prime minister, a press attache, a good fellow, a hangover, a shoemaker-drunkard.
- Two hyphenated geographical names must be written through a hyphen. For example, Goose-Crystal, Alma-Ata, Rostov-on-Don, Pas de Calais, La Rochelle.
Remember! The spelling of adjectives is accepted as one if one of the parts is not used separately. For example, omnivorous, fleeting, hollow-headed. But if the adjectives used clarification of semantic shades, they are written through a hyphen: salted-sour, pale pink.
We hope that our article helped you understand such a difficult and rather controversial section of the grammar of the Russian language as the spelling of complex words.