[PW] What type of word is "inasmuch"?

[fundisl at weirton.lib.wv.us]

> Gang:
>  
> Is there a more descriptive term other than conjunction, idiom,
prepositional phrase, and
compound word, that classifies a word made up of several words, such as
"inasmuch", and
"insomuch".

I looked in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th
edition, online at http://www.bartleby.com/61

"Inasmuch" and "insomuch" themselves don't even appear in the AHD4, oddly
enough. They do appear as "Inasmuch as", "insomuch as," and "insomuch
that", all of which phrases are defined as conjunctions.

"Insofar" does have a separate entry -- it's an adverb, but "insofar as" is
a conjunction.

(See http://www.bartleby.com/61/s138.html which is the entry index page
with "insofar" and "insomuch as".)

As for compound words: "compound word" also does not have a separate entry
in the AHD4, but it is listed as one of the meanings of "compound" as a noun:

2. Linguistics A word that consists either of two or more elements that are
independent words, such as loudspeaker, baby-sit, or high school, or of
specially modified combining forms of words, such as Greek philosophia,
from philo-, “loving,” and sophia, “wisdom.”


So, according to the dictionary, the classification of the type of word
that's formed by combining independent words is a *compound word*.
Therefore, I think the answer to your question as phrased, "Is there a more
descriptive term other than conjunction, idiom, prepositional phrase, and
compound word, that classifies a word made up of several words," is "no."

Furthermore, "conjunction, idiom, prepositional phrase, and compound words"
are separate things. "Conjunction" and "prepositional phrase" refer to how
the word is used in the sentence, "compound word" refers to how the word
came to be, and "idiom" has to do with how easy it is for someone
unfamiliar with the word to understand its use. 

Thus, some words could be several if not all of those. For example,
"insofar as" can be, as we have already seen, both a conjunction and a
compound word, and insofar as "insofar" is a preposition, it's also at
least part of prepositional phrase (as long as it has an object, as in the
clause "'insofar' is a preposition" earlier in this sentence). I don't
think it qualifies as an idiom ("A speech form or an expression of a given
language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood
from the individual meanings of its elements"), though, since it seems
pretty clear-cut to me, but other compound words might fall into that category.


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