[…] another process , whereby there comes into being for the uses of expression material which is only in a certain sense new, but which nevertheless furnishes notable enrichment to speech, and in more than one department; a process that the general history of language shows to be more important than any other. It is the composition of words, the putting two independent elements together to form a single designation.
- Whitney (1875), a pag.120-121

[…] suffixes of derivation and inflection are made out of independent words, which, first entering into union with other words by the ordinary process of composition, then gradually lose their independent character, and finally come to be, in a more or less mutilated and disguised form, mere subordinate elements, or indicators of relation, in more elaborate structures.
- Whitney (1875), a pag.124

[…] the deadening of the native processes of composition and derivation and inflection, caused in part by the same great historical event [Norman invasion], made the language more incapable of meeting out of its own resources any great call for new expression.
- Whitney (1875), a pag.118

It was in the simple practice of composition that we found […] the germ of synthetic form-making […].
- Whitney (1875), a pag.197