To the issue of distinguishing criteria of nominative composites from nominative word combinations in the German and English languages
Introduction: the article considers the set of criteria of delimitation of a compound word and word combination in German and English. Materials and Methods: n the course of the work, the authors apply analysis and generalization of scientific literature on the topic of research, processing and interpretation of the information obtained, classification and systematization of the actual material according to certain criteria, a method of comparative analysis that reveals the features of the functioning of the phenomenon under investigation in the languages in question. During the study of the semantic structure of complex words and word combinations, semantic-communicative and logical-semantic analyzes are used. The material of the study was the nominal composites and nominal word combinations of German and English languages, taken from the texts of modern literary works. Results: As a result of the analysis, it was revealed that the main criteria for distinguishing between nominal composites and nominal word combinations are formal-structural criteria, namely: graphic, phonetic, semantic, structural and morphological criteria. Discussions and Conclusions: the acuteness of the problem of delimiting complex words in modern linguistics is relevant. This is due to the structural and typological features of the language. The article reveals the features that allow us to delimit complex words from other entities.