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e, and the signified. Our discussion here will be limited within three major types of relations: metaphorical, analogical and metonymic. 2.1Metaphorical A metaphor makes a comparison between two unlike elements, and this comparison is implied rather than stated. Quite a number of compounds get their names by metaphorical process. For instance, 'rabbit ears' (TV aerials) owes its name to its similarity to the ears of rabbits. Other examples are:' political climate' (political background, situation, etc.), 'chair days' (old age), etc. 2.2 Analogical Analogy is also a comparison which draws a parallel between two unlike things that have several common qualities or points of resemblance. As an active builder in word-formation, it creates new similar or related forms by comparison of an existing old form. George Orwell made a new word in 1984 'newspeak' to denote the evil language policies launched by the government in the novel. Before long a series of '-speak' words have come into being as the analogical development of the old word: 'adspeak', 'computerspeak', 'bureauspeak', 'Clintonspeak', etc. Besides, 'white list' (the list for permitted plays) is derived from 'black list', 'generation gap' from 'missile gap', and 'starquake' from 'earthquake'. 2.3. Metonymic Mtonymy has to do with the substitution of the name of one thing for that of another. As a figure of speech it is widely used because it can express briefly and effectively what would otherwise require a whole clause or sentence. As a source for motivation, it helps coin a lot of new compounds. An oft-listed example is 'redhead' that is substituted for 'a man with red hair ' or 'a bird with red head'. For examples, 'round table' stands for 'round-table meeting' or its participants, and 'greybeard' for old man ('man with grey beard'). To end this part, unlike syntactic motivation that rests upon the syntactic relation inside the compound, semantic motivation relates a process of psychological association outside the word itself. Another point worthy of note is that metaphor, analogy, and metonymy, the most widely used rhetorical devices in literature, are also important cognitive devices in expanding the stock of compounds. These two points can be summed up in the following illustration: old form or sense psychological association (by cognitive devices) new forms 3.Non-motivation or vague motivation 3.0 Despite the numerous examples for motivation, both syntactic and semantic, there is no denying the fact that still a number of compounds are non-motivated or vaguely motivated. For instance, 'grass widow' is not a widow, nor it has something to with grass. To account for the absence of motivation, three factors are to be considered. 3.1 Motivation obscured by foreign borrowings In English there are words termed "neo-classical compounds" which take on the shape of a simple word but are morphologically compounds in their own right. These words have a low degree of transparency just because usually the Latin or Greek components are entirely new to speakers or readers. A comparison is given by Ullmann (1962) between English and Germany, its sister language that retaining more Germanic features, for a set of words. Pick out one pair as an example. The German equivalent for English 'morphology' is 'Formenlehre' ('form' + 'science'), which is quite transparent. This indicates that English, a Germanic language in its origin, lost