Analyzing breakdown of jukugo


I may just be misunderstanding the etymology of certain words, but I think of
certain jukugo e.g. 「大学生」as being derived from patterns like 「大 **学** の **学**
生」, where there is a kanji-level shiritori, leading to a single occurrence of
overlapping kanji when the two are merged. Is this merely a misconception on
my part, where in fact it is properly treated as 「（学）～生」applied to 「大学」; or is
this actually valid?

* * *

In general, is there a [name for the] phenomenon where jukugo consisting of
several atoms have certain kanji elided (*but not as in the case of 「東京大学＞東大」)
?

Other examples that I would tentatively cite as possible examples of this
unverified pattern would be cases where duplicated/overlapping kanji are
elided, such as:

  * 「新入部員」(new club member) = 「新 _入_ 」+「 _入_ **部** 」+「 **部** 員」 (newly enter + enter a club + club member) 
    * If this is not the case, would it be 「新-」+「入部」+「～員」, or something between the two?

or cases where non-overlapping kanji are elided such as in

  * 「 **入院** 」=「[病] **院** に **入** ること」, as opposed to 「×入病院」?




The simple answer is: The assumption is incorrect. The merger of words does
not happen in the way you described. There are a huge number of patterns for
forming jukugo, some historical, some current and many not very logical, but
the one shown I never encountered.

In the case of 大学生 we know its ethymology.

学生 is the older word, commonly used at least since mmiddle Chinese. 大学生 was
created at the end 19th century in Japan when an equivalent for "universtiy
student" was needed. 大学 on the other hand is a shortening of 大学校 to 大学。Where
学校 is the older word (and used since middle Chinese).

