There is no such global gramtical rule for glue letters special forms and so.
There's no global rule, but there are glue elements in German: "e", "es", "en", "er", "ens", "n", "s" in Germanic words and AFAIK "o" and "al" in words of foreign origin.
For example, "assurance" is "Versicherung" in German and "bank" is "Bank". A coordination of the compounds "Versicherungswesen" und "Bankenwesen" looks like this:
Das Versicherungs- und Bankenwesen the assurance and banking system
You probably have to put all words that take glue elements into the lexikon since there is no global rule. Like Lars pointed out, "Dampfesschiff" is wrong.
But note that inflected words may also be coordinated in German. For example, here's a coordination of the nouns "Bestrafung" und "Beförderung" that both have the suffix "-ung":
Bestraf- und Beförderung punishment and promotion
I think that these cases could be handled with a rule. Both nouns are formed from their verb stems.
BTW, I could work on compounds, glue elements and coordination if there is need. I have to do a student project anyway and I think that there is a chance that one of my professors would accept such a project.
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