Les composés additionnels

Le corpus de composés additionnels contient dix-neuf unités ¹³⁶ :

audiovisual	lunisolar	physicochemical
aural-oral	manic-depressive	seriocomic
bittersweet	musculoskeletal	shabby-genteel
deaf-blind	obsessive-compulsive	spatiotemporal
deaf-mute	oral-formulaic	teeny-weeny
fluviomarine	pale-dry
happy-clappy	passive-aggressive

Au niveau sémantique, quatre composés au fonctionnement singulier méritent mention. Obsessive-compulsive et manic-depressive sont bisémiques : ils ont une interprétation additionnelle (X and Y) et une autre disjonctive (X or Y) :

‘“Relating to or characterized by recurring obsessions and compulsions especially as symptoms of a neurotic state.” (MWOD)’ ‘“Of or pertaining to a neurosis characterized by persistent intrusion of unwanted thoughts (obsessions) or the performance of actions, as repeated hand-washing, that one is unable to stop (compulsions).” (RHUD)’ ‘“Characterized either by mania or by depression or by alternating mania and depression.” (MWOD)’

Shabby-genteel est, lui, un exemple de composition adversative (X but Y). L’assemblage d’antonymes est rarissime, mais c’est un phénomène attesté en discours, comme dans les deux adjectifs ci-dessous, relevés par Adams (2001:97) :

‘“the ironic cruel-compassionate exposition of the everyday life of the English middle classes”, The Observer, 1968.’ ‘“into this much admired pantheon [...] Krim, eager for the American Experience, muscled his humble-surly way”, The Sunday Times, 1970.’

Teeny-weeny, pour finir, est, lui, un exemple de composition tautologique (X = Y). Ces composés sont typiques du langage modulé (angl. child-directed speech), et sont donc rarement répertoriés. On peut citer à titre illustratif squiggly-wiggly, teeny-tiny et yummy-scrummy :

‘“She’s so squiggly wiggly even when she’s dry that putting her in water makes her the most slippery object I’ve ever had to deal with.” (Google)’ ‘“Do you have students who fall out of their seats or are constantly fiddling with something in their hands? Your squiggly-wiggly students may actually be experiencing a difficulty processing sensory information.” (Google)’ ‘“Posh bars use soda water for making these, but the only important thing is that the bubbles in the water are big and coarse — the teeny-tiny Badoit-style bubbles aren’t refreshing enough — and cheap supermarket fizzy water will do the job admirably.” Victoria Moore, The New Statesman, 27 août 2001.’ ‘“Curiously, the anticipation and pleasure we now find in asparagus and strawberries, fruits of May and June, were once felt for plates of fried whitebait, those translucent, teeny-tiny fish you munch whole.” Bee Wilson, The New Statesman, 14 mai 2001.’ ‘“Home-made soup plus dishes such as Spanish omelette, foccacia with aubergines, moz-zarella, tomatoes and salad, mixed vegetable lasagne, red lentil dal with rice and yoghurt and children's pasta with tomato and basil sauce are offered along with the sort of yummy-scrummy cakes with which vegetarians reward themselves.” Fay Maschler, The Evening Standard, 17 avril 2003.’ ‘“God bless the Good Lord and the abbot and Saint Benedict and my little wife, that yummy-scrummy little sugar-plum.”, The Decameron, de Giovanni Boccaccio (traduit de l’italien par G. Waldman), 1998, Oxford World’s Classics, p. 225.’