Shortening as a type of word formation

Word-building
processes involve not only qualitative but also quantitative changes.
Thus, derivation and compounding represent addition, as affixes and
free stems, respectively, are added to the underlying form.
Shortening, on the other hand, may be represented as significant
subtraction, in which part of the original word is taken away.

Shortening
is the process and the result of forming a word out of the initial
elements of a word combination. Shortening consists in the reduction
of a word to one of its parts whether this part has previously been a
morpheme. Shortening may be regarded as a type of root creation
because the resulting new morphemes are capable of being used as free
forms and combine with bound forms. They can take functional
suffixes, e.g. (sing) bike – (pl.) bikes. Most of the shortened
words produce verbs, e.g. to phone, they also serve as basis for
further word-formation by derivation or composition: fancy n –
fanciful adj – fancifully adv – fancy-ball n – fancy-dress n,
etc.

The
correlation of the curtailed word with its prototype may be the
following:

1.
The shortened form may be regarded as a variant or a synonym
differing from the full form quantitatively, stylistically and
sometimes emotionally, the prototype being stylistically and
emotionally neutral, e.g. doc- doctor

2.
The connection between the shortened form and the prototype can be
established only etymologically. The denotative or lexico-garmmatical
meaning or both, may have changed so much that the clipping becomes a
separate word. Consequently a pair of etymological doublets comes
into being: chap – chapman, fan – fantastic, fancy – fantasy,
miss – mistress. A speaker who calls himself a football fan would
probably be offended at being called a fanatic. A fanatic is
understood to have unreasonable and exaggerated beliefs and opinions
that make him socially dangerous.

Various
classifications of shortened words have been offered. The general
accepted one is that based on the position of the clipped part.
According to whether it is the final, initial or middle part of the
word that is cut off we distinguish final
clipping, initial clipping and medial clipping.

Final
clipping: ad — advertisement, coke – coca-cola, ed – editor, lab
– laboratory

Initial-clipped:
fend – defend, story – history, tend – attend. Cases like cello
– violoncello and phone – telephone

Final
and initial clipping may be combined and result in shortened words
with the middle part of the prototype retained, e.g. flu-influenza,
frig-refrigerator, tec-detective.

Curtailed
words with the middle part of the word left out are few, e.g.
maths-mathematics, specs-spectacles, fancy-fantasy, ma’am-madam.

Among
shortened words there is a specific group that has attracted special
attention of several authors and was given several different names:
blends,
blendings, fusions or portmanteau words.
The last term is due to Lewis Carrol, who made a special technique of
using blends coined by himself, such as mimsy adj <
miserable+flimsy, galumph v < gallop+triumph. The process of
formation is also called telescoping
because the words seem to slide into one another like sections of a
telescope.

Other
examples of blendings
are smog < smoke+fog, brunch <breakfast+lunch, transceiver <
transmitter+receiver, telecast < television broadcast, motel <
motorists’ hotel, slanguage < slang+language.

Abbreviation
is a process of shortening the result of which is a word made up of
the initial letters or syllables of the components of a word-group or
a compound word. Graphical
abbreviation
is the result of shortening of a word or a word-group only in written
speech (Sun., Tue., Feb., Oct., Dec.; USA, Mr., Mrs., Dr)

Anacronym
is an acronym which is longer perceived by speakers as a shortening:
very few people remember what each letter stands for, e.g. laser
(light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation), radar
(radio detecting and ranging), scuba (self-contained underwater
breathing apparatus), yuppie (young urban professional).

Substantivation
– turning into nouns, e.g. female (n) from female (adj), relative
(n) from relative (adj), criminal (n) from criminal (adj), etc.

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Shoterning

Sergeichuk SL

Shortening is the process and the result of forming a word out of the initial elements (letters, morphemes) of a word combination

Shortening

To make a new word from a syllable (or two) of the original words. The latter may lose it’s beginning (telephone – phone, defence — fence), it’s ending (holidays – hols, advertisement- ad), or both the beginning and the ending (influenza – flu, refrigerator — fridge)

To make a new word from the initial letters of a word group:

U.N.O – United Nation Organization, B.B.C. and et c.

Types of Shortening

clipping

acronyms

blending

abbreviation

C l i p p i n g

is a type of word-building shortening of spoken words

m e d i a l clipping (or s y n c o p e , from Greek «syncope» a cutting up), e.g., fancy (fantasy), ma’am (madam) .

f i n a l clipping (or a p o c o p e , from Greek «apokoptein» — cut off), e.g., cap (captain), gym (gymnasium, gymnastics) , lab (laboratory), ed (editor ) ;

i n i t i a l clipping (or a p h e s i s , i.e. a p h e r e s i s , from Greek «aphairesis» — a taking away ), e.g., cap (captain), phone (telephone), story (history), chute (parachute ) ;

may be combined and result in the curtailed words with the middle part of the prototype retained, e.g., flu (influenza), frig (refrigerator), tec (detective )

structure of the prototype

shortened words correlated with w o r d s , e.g ., cabbie (cabman), nightie (nightdress), teeny (teenager) ;

shortened words correlated with p h r a s e s , e.g. , finals (final examinations), perm (permanent wave), pop (popular music), pub (public house), taxi (taximeter-cab ).

The process of formation is also called t e l e s c o p i n g , because the words seem to slide into one another like sections of a telescope . E.g., brunch (breakfast + lunch), smog (smoke + fog), smaze (smoke + haze), slimnastics (slim + gymnastics ) .

B l e n d i n g is a type of compounding by means of merging parts of words into new one word .

coining a new word from the initial elements of one word and the final elements of another, e.g. , drunch (drink + lunch), skort (skirt + short ) ;

combining the initial elements of one word with a notional word, e.g., mobus (motors + bus), legislady (legislative lady) .

coining a new word by combining one notional word arid the final element of another word, e.g., manglish (man + English), radiotrician (radio + electrician );

A b b r e v i a t i o n is a type of shortening when words are formed from the initial letters of each part of a phrasal term. Abbreviations are pronounced as a series of letters, i.e. the alphabetical reading of the letters is retained. E.g., B.B.C. (The British Broadcasting Corporation), M.P. (Member of Parliament), P.M. (Prime Minister), T.V. (Television), Y.C.L. (The Young Communist League ).

A specific type of abbreviations having no parallel in Ukrainian is represented by Latin abbreviations, which are not read as Latin words but substituted by their English equivalents , e.g., a.m. (ante meridium) – in the morning; p.m. (post meridiem) – in the afternoon;

Definition

Exampels

A c r o n y m s (from Greek «acros» end + «onym» name) are abbreviated words formed from the initial letters of word-combination; the abbreviated written form lends itself to be read as though, it were an ordinary English word and sounds like an English word.

  NATO   /neitou/ — The North Atlantic Treaty Organization,  UNO  /ju:nou/ — United Nations Organization,  SALT   /solt/ — Strategic Arms Limitation Talks,  radar  – radio detecting and ranging;  laser   – light amplification stimulated emission radio;  maser  – microwave amplification stimulated emission radio.

Christian names in acronyms:

Fred  – fast reading electric device;

Oscar  – orbiting satellite;

Eva   – electronic velocity analyzer.

Minor types of word-formation Lecture 9.

§1. Shortening / clipping — significant subtraction, in which part of the original word or word group is taken away. — the reduction of a word to one of its parts (whether or not this part has previously been a morpheme), as a result of which the new form acquires some linguistic value of its own. demo from demonstration fridge from refrigerator vac from vacuum cleaner

Causes of shortening «the strain of modern life» the demands of rhythm loan word assimilation Need for stylistic/emotional colouring

Characteristics of the new word No phonetic changes, but may be spelling changes dub (double), mike (microphone), trank (tranquilizer) Give rise to new words vacuum cleaner → a vac → to vac fancy n (from fantasy), fancy v, fancier n, fanciful a, fancifully adv, fancifulness n, fancy-ball n, fancy-dress n, fancy-work (a word-family) Belongs to the same part of speech as the prototype. Usually follows the syllabic principle of word division, pep (sl.) ‘vigour’, ‘spirit’ from pepper, or plane from aeroplane exceptions: prep (school sl.) ‘homework’ from preparation Have pronounced stylistic colouring as long as their connection with the prototype is alive, so that they remain synonyms hanky from handkerchief; ma from mama; nightie from nightdress (nursery slang)

Typical English patterns Most shortened words are nouns Verbs are rarely shortened, but for to rev from to revolve and to tab from to tabulate to phone, to taxi, to vac, to vet are not curtailed, but converted words Shortened adjectives are very few and mostly reveal a combined effect of shortening and suffixation comfy (comfortable), dilly (delightful), imposs (impossible), mizzy (miserable)

The correlation of a curtailed word with its prototype The curtailed form is a variant or a synonym differing from the full form quantitatively, stylistically and sometimes emotionally doc (doctor), exam (examination), Becky (Rebecca), Frisco (San Francisco), Japs (the Japanese). can substitute their prototypes render one of the possible meanings of the prototype (are monosemantic) to dub (from double) ‘to make another sound recording in a cinema film in a different language’. The curtailed form is a separate word, the denotative or lexico-grammatical meaning of it being very different fan (from a fanatic); fancy (fantasy); miss (mistress). develop semantic structures of their own

Types of shortening According to the clipped part: final clipping (or apocope) ad, advert (advertisement); coke (coca-cola); ed (editor); fab (fabulous) initial clipping (or aphesis) creates separate lexical units with a meaning very different from that of the prototype cute a, n (Am) (acute); to mend (amend); a story (history); to tend (attend). Final and initial clipping may be combined (only the middle part remains). flu (influenza); frig or fridge (refrigerator); tec (detective) medial clipping (or syncope) maths (mathematics), specs (spectacles)

§ 2. Ellipsis is the omission of a word or words considered essential for grammatical completeness but not for the conveyance of the intended lexical meaning (shortening of phrases chiefly set expressions). sitdown (sitdown demonstration) daily (daily newspaper) finals (final examinations) perm (permanent wave) pop (popular music)

§ 3. Blending / telescoping Blends (fusions, portmanteau words) are words that combine two words and include the letters or sounds they have in common as a connecting element. They have the first constituent represented by a stem whose final part may be missing, and the second constituent — by a stem of which the initial part is missing.

br unch eakfast l + = brunch Bit (the fundamental unit of information) short for binary digit bloodalyzer and breathalyzer for apparatuses making blood and breath tests slimnastics (blend of slim and gymnastics)

Types of blends Additive blends transformable into a phrase consisting of the respective complete stems combined by the conjunction and: smoke + fog = smog ‘a mixture of smoke and fog’. French + English = Frenglish slang + language = slanguage Restrictive blends transformable into an attributive phrase where the first element serves as modifier of the second medicare ← medical care; positron ← positive electron; telecast ← television broadcast motel ← motorists’ hotel

§ 4. Abbreviation and acronymy words formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts of a phrasal term

Types of orthoepic correlation between written and spoken forms 1) Acronym is a written form which reads as an ordinary English word UNO [‘junou] — United Nations Organization NATO — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization SALT — Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. laser — light amplification by stimulated emission radiation

2) Initial abbreviation with the alphabetical reading, i.e. pronounced as a series of letters. B.B.C. [‘bi:’bi:’si:] — the British Broadcasting Corporation M.P. [’em’pi:] — Member of Parliament P.M. — Prime Minister S.O.S. [‘es’ou’es] — Save Our Souls, a wireless Morse code-signal of extreme distress

3) Shortened form of a written word or phrase used in a text in place of the whole for economy of space and effort. In oral speech the unabbreviated words are pronounced bldg for building, govt for government, wd for word ltd for limited, B.A. for Bachelor of Arts, N.Y. for New York State some with alteration oz (ounce); Xmas (Christmas) doubling of initial letters shows plural forms pp/p.p. (pages)

4) Latin abbreviations which sometimes are not read as Latin words but substituted by their English equivalents. a.m. (Lat ante meridiem) — in the morning; cf. (Lat conferre) — compare; e.g. (Lat exempli gratia) — for example; ib(id) (Lat ibidem) — in the same place; i.e. (Lat id est) — that is Actual letters are also read in the cases: a.m. [‘ei’em], e.g., i.e., p.m.

5) abbreviations for famous persons’ names and surnames George Bernard Shaw is often alluded to as G.B.S. [‘d3i:’bi:’es] Herbert George Wells as H.G 6) the first element is a letter and the second a complete word. A-bomb (atomic bomb), V-sign 7) popular (or jocular) etymology Jeep ‘a small military motor vehicle’ comes from g.p. [‘d3i:’pi:l (the initials of general purpose). Okay, OK may be an illiterate misinterpretation of the initials in all correct

§ 5. Sound interchange an opposition in which words or word forms are differentiated due to an alternation in the phonemic composition of the root. the root vowel change food – to feed root consonant change to speak — speech life – to live full – to fill; whole – to heal; knot – to knit; tale – to tell to bear — burden; to bite — a bit; to ride – a road; to believe – a belief

§ 6. Distinctive stress In English homographic, mostly disyllabic nouns and verbs of Romanic origin follow one pattern: ′conduct (“behaviour”) to con′duct (“to lead or guide (in a formal way)” accent, impact, compound, conflict, contest, contract, contrast, convict, digest, import, increase, insult, object (subject, project), perfume, permit, present, produce, progress, protest, rebel, record, survey.

Verbs retained this stress as many native disyllabic verbs were also stressed in this way: be′come, be’lieve for’bid, for’get, for’give. The native nouns are mostly forestressed and in the process of assimilation many loan nouns came to be stressed on the first syllable. Same pattern is valid for adjectives and verbs: ‘absent – to ab’sent; ‘frequent — to fre’quent; ‘perfect – to per’fect; ‘abstract – to ab’stract.

It is NOT a regular pattern! Forestressed verbs and nouns: comment, exile, figure, quarrel, focus, process, program Verbs and nouns with the stress on the second syllable both: accord, account, advance, amount, approach, attack, attempt, concern, defeat, distress, escape, exclaim, research

§ 7. Sound imitation (onomatopoeia or echoism) is the naming of an action or thing by a more or less exact reproduction of a sound associated with it. babble, blob, bubble, flush, gurgle, gush, splash These words don’t reflect the real sounds directly, because the same sounds are represented differently in different languages They are very expressive and sometimes it is difficult to tell a noun from an interjection.

Mostly they name sounds or movements in verb category, but verbs easily turn into nouns: bang, boom, bump, hum, rustle, smack Semantically: sounds produced by human beings in the process of communication or in expressing their feelings: babble, chatter, giggle, grunt, grumble, murmur, mutter, titter, whine, whisper sounds produced by animals, birds and insects: buzz, croak, crow, howl, moo, mew, neigh, purr, roar the sound of water bubble or splash the noise of metallic things: clink, tinkle noise of forceful motion: clash, crash, whack, whip, whisk

§ 8. Back-formation the derivation of new words by subtracting a real or supposed affix from existing words through misinterpretation of their structure has only diachronic relevance beggar → to beg, butler → to butle, typewriter → to typewrite pea comes from ME pese ← Lat pisa, but the English speakers thought that sweet peas(e) was a plural and turned the combination peas(e) soup into pea soup cherry from OFr cerise The most productive type of back-formation in present-day English is derivation of verbs from compounds that have either -er or -ing as their last element.

Practical task # 8 1. Match the words and the types of word-formation at work in each case: loss (←lose) to vacuum-clean to hiss radar (radio detection and ranging) hi-tech (style) a granny a docudrama distinctive stress ellipsis Clipping Blending Sound interchange Acronymy Abbreviation Back-formation Sound imitation

2. Is BRUNCH an additive or a restrictive blend? 3.Give a TRUE or False answer Acronyms differ from abbreviations in that they can be read as ordinary words. All borrowed disyllabic verbs, when converted into nouns, shift the stress to the first syllable following a common English pattern. Sound interchange is a currently productive pattern of word-formation. The word “weekly” with the meaning “a weekly newspaper is an abbreviation.

Plan.

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………3

1.    
Theoretical
aspects of shortened words…………………………………………5

1.1  
Shortening
of spoken words……………………………………………………..6

1.2  
Graphical
abbreviations and acronyms………………………………………….8

1.3  
Abbreviations
as the major type of shortenings………………………………..14

1.4  
Minor
types of lexical oppositions……………………………………………..16

2.    
Practical
aspects of using shortened words…………………………………….22

2.1.
Usage of abbreviations in Mass Media………………………………………..23

2.2.
Usage of abbreviations in informational and technical
sphere………………..25

2.3. Usage
of abbreviations in Medicine…………………………………………..29

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………33

References…………………………………………………………………………34

Appendices…………………………………………………………………………36

Introduction.

Shortening of words is one of the
developing branches of lexicology nowadays. Being a developing branch of
linguistics it requires a special attention of teachers to be adequate to their
specialization in English and it reflects the general trend of simplification
of a language.

         The
shortening of the words is one of the main trends in development of Modern
English, especially in its colloquial layer, which, in its turn at high degree
is supported by development of modern informational technologies and
simplification of alive speech.

         Shortening
in communication (especially written) the process or result of representing a
word or group of words by a shorter form of the word or phrase. The problems of
shortened lexical units as specific language phenomena in modern languages
attracted attention of many researchers. These problems are considered to
numerous articles and separate researches of Kazakh, Russian and foreign
authors.

         The spoken and the written forms of the English language
have each their own patterns of shortening, but as there is a constant exchange
between both spheres, it is sometimes difficult to tell where a given
shortening really originated. 

         The
main reason for choosing this topic is that there are many words and word
groups which have their shortened version. Very often those shortened words
occur in various texts, such as technical writing, statistical material, tables
and notes. I decided to look up what abbreviations are commonly used in mass
media, medicine, informational and technical sphere, especially in newspaper
articles and textbooks. The other reason is to figure out when and how
abbreviations are used in written language.

         The
object of the research: is lexical level of English language.

         The
subject of the research: is types and functions of shortenings in English
language.

         The
aim of the research: is
giving general characteristics to shortened lexical units and defining the main
ways, types, causes and functions. 

         The
objectives:

—        
Collect
theoretical material about abbreviations, their functions and meanings.

—        
Study
and analyze the scientific and educational literature.

—        
Analyze the existing categorizations of shortenings.

—        
Define the functions of shortened lexical units.

—        
Perform
practical analysis about the usage of abbreviations in mass media, medicine,
informational and technical sphere.

The hypothesis: if we develop students’ knowledge of shortened words, we can widen
their vocabulary and develop speech in English language.

Methods of research:

·       
Methods of analysis of the information sources and references;

·       
critical study of scientific literature;

·       
description;

·       
comparison;

·       
observation.

Scientific basis
of the research:
In this course paper was involved 37 works of scientists on types and functions
of abbreviations.

Structure of the research: This course paper consists of introduction, two parts, conclusion,
references and appendices.

In the first part theoretical
aspects of types and classifications of shortenings are considered.

In
the second part there are practical aspects of using shortenings in mass
media, medicine,
informational and technical sphere.

The
practical value:
This material can be recommended for widening vocabulary and
development of speech and knowledge of English language.

1.    
Theoretical
aspects of shortened words

Word-building
processes involve not only qualitative but also quantitative changes. Thus,
derivation and compounding represent addition, as affixes and free stems,
respectively, are added to the underlying form.

Shortening, on the other hand, may be
represented as significant subtraction, in which part of the original word is
taken away.

The spoken and the written forms of the
English language have each their own patterns of shortening, but as there is a
constant exchange between both spheres, it is sometimes difficult to tell where
a given shortening really originated. [1]

 Most shortened forms of words are not
acceptable in a formal writing. There are two main types of shortened words:
contractions and abbreviations.

            There
are two types of contractions: grammatical contractions and single word
contractions.

1.
Grammatical contractions join together two words to make a single word.

Examples: it’s
(it is, it has); don’t (do not); can’t (cannot); you’ll (you will); should’ve
(should have); would’ve (would have); we’re (we are); aren’t (are not);
isn’t (is not), shan’t (shall not); let’s (let us); who’s (who is, who
has); they’re; (they are); doesn’t (does not)

2.
Single word contractions are the shortened form of words that begin and
end with the same letters as the original word, and do NOT have a full-stop.
Generally speaking, you should avoid using these in your writing unless they
are commonly used in a particular field of study (discipline) or used in a
reference list or in-text citation.

Examples: govt (government);
dept (department), Cwth (Commonwealth), Qld (Queensland) [2]

Contractions are regarded as informal
language and should not be used in assignment or essay writing—these words
should be written in full in writing. [1] (Appendix 2)

An
abbreviation is a shortened form of a word that does not end in the same
letter as the original word. Generally, full-stops are used. Unless the word is
used in reference list or is an accepted form for in-text references, it is
important to follow the rules for formal writing and write the term in full.

1. Days and months: They
should be written in full in text, but used in the correct standard
abbreviation for longer months when it is used in reference list

Examples: Jan.,
Feb., Mar., Apr., May, June, July, Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec.

2. Compass points: They
should be written in full in text and hyphenated compound forms—do not
capitalise unless you use the abbreviated form in diagrams or illustrations.

Examples: north,
south, east, west, south-western, south-easterly winds

3. Geographical
features: Always write the full name of geographical features in your
written text—do not use abbreviations as you would do on a map or diagram.

Examples:
Sydney Harbour, North Island, Snowy Mountains, Brisbane
River, Cape York. [2]

The
shortening of words also stands apart from the above two-fold division of
word-formation. It cannot be regarded as part of either word-derivation or
word-composition for the simple reason that neither derivational base nor the
derivational affix can be singled out from the shortened word. [3]

Shortening
consists in substituting a part for a whole. Shortening comprises essentially
different ways of word creation. It involves:

1.     Transformation
of a word-group into a word;

2.     A
change of the word-structure resulting in a new-lexical item, i.e. clipping.
[4]

Shortening may be represented as
significant subtraction, in which part of the original word or word group is
taken away. Shortening consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts,
as a result of which the new form receives some linguistic value of its own.
[5]

Transformations of word-groups into words
involve different types of lexical shortening : ellipsis or substantivization,
initial letter or syllable abbreviations, blendings, etc. [4]

1.1.         
Shortening
of spoken word.

As a type of word-building shortening of
spoken words, also called clipping or curtailment, is recorded in the English
language as far back the 15th century. It has grown more and more productive
ever since. This growth becomes especially marked in many European languages in
the 20th century, and it is a matter of common knowledge that this development
is particularly intense in English.

Newly shortened words appear continuously;
this is testified by numerous neologisms, such as dub v, a cinema term meaning
‘to make another recording of sound-track in a film in a different language’
(from double); frig or fridge n from refrigerator; mike n from microphone;
tellie, telly or T. V. n from television set; vacun from vacuum cleaner, etc.
[6]

It is interesting in this connection to
compare the morphemes tele – in television and telecast. They are
homonymous but not identical. Tele – in television is derived from Greek tele
“far”, it is a combining from used to coin many special terms denoting
instruments and process which produce or record results at a distance, such as
telecommunication, telemechanics, telepathy, telephone, telescope. Tele – in
telecast does not mean “far”, it is a new development – the shortened variant
of television rendering a special new notion. [1]

Many authors are inclined to overemphasize the role of «the
strain of modern life» as the mainspring of this development. This is,
obviously, only one of the reasons, and the purely linguistic factors should
not be overlooked. Among the major forces are the demands of rhythm, which are
more readily satisfied when the words are monosyllabic.[6]

When dealing with words of long duration,
one will also note that a high percentage of English shortenings are involved
into the process of loan word assimilation. Monosyllabic goes farther in
English than in any other European language, and that is why shortened words
sound more like native ones than their long prototypes. Curtailment may
therefore be regarded as caused, partly at least, by analogical extension, i.e.
modification of form on the basis of analogy with existing and widely used
patterns. Thus, the three homonyms resulting from abbreviation of three
different words, van ‘a large covered vehicle’, ‘a railway carriage’, the short
for caravan (by aphesis1); van ‘the front of an army’, the short of vanguard
which in its turn is a clipping of the French word avant-garde; and van — a
lawn tennis term, the short for advantage, all sound quite like English words.
Cf. ban n and v, can, fan, man, ran (Past Tense of run), tan, etc. [6]

Shortening of spoken words or curtailment consists in the
reduction of a word to one of its parts (whether or not this part has
previously been a morpheme), as a result of which the new form acquires some
linguistic value of its own.

The correlation of a curtailed word with
its prototype is of great interest. Two possible developments should be noted:

1)   
The
curtailed form may be regarded as a variant or a synonym differing from the
full from quantitatively, stylistically and sometimes emotionally, the
prototype being stylistically and emotionally neutral, e.g. doc – from doctor,
exam from examination. Also in proper names: Becky from Rebecca, Frisco from
San Francisco, Japs from Japanese.[7] The missing part cap at all times
be supplied by the listener, so that the connection between the prototype and
the short form is not lost. The relationship between the prototype and the
curtailment belongs in this case to the present-day vocabulary system and forms
a relevant feature for synchronic analysis. Much yet remains to be done in
studying the complex relations between the prototype and the clipping, as it is
not clear when one should consider them two separate synonymous words and when
they are variants of the same word.[9]

2)   
In
the opposite extreme case the connection can be established only
etymologically. Consequently a pair of etymological doublets comes into being ,
e.g. chap – Chapman, fan – fanatic, miss – mistress. Various classifications of
shortened words have been or may be offered. [7] A speaker who
calls himself a football fan would probably be offended at being called a
fanatic. A fanatic is understood to have unreasonable and exaggerated beliefs
and opinions that make him socially dangerous, whereas a fan is only a devotee
of a specified amusement. The relationship between curtailed forms and
prototypes in this second group is irrelevant to the present-day vocabulary
system, and is a matter of historic, i.e.  diachronic study.[9]

The change is not only quantitative: a curtailed word is not
merely a word that has lost its initial, middle or final part. Nor is it
possible to treat shortening as just using a part for the whole, because a
shortened word is always in some way different from its prototype in meaning
and usage. [8]

Shortening may be regarded as a type of root creation because the
resulting new morphemes are capable of being used as free forms and combine
with bound forms. They ran take functional suffixes: «Ref’s Warning
Works Magic» (the title of a newspaper article about a football match
where the referee called both teams together and lectured them on rough play).
Cf. sing. — bike, bod, pl. — bikes, bods, Inf. — to vac, Part.
I — vacking, Past Indefinite tense and Part. II — vacked. Most of
these by conversion produce verbs: to phone, to vac, to vet, etc., in
which the semantic relationship with the prototype remains quite clear. They
also serve as basis for further word-formation by derivation or composition: fancy
n (from fantasy), fancy v, fancier n, fanciful a, fancifully
adv, fancifulness n, fancy-ball n, fancy-dress n, fancy-work
n, etc.; or fantasmo ‘supremely fantastic’ from fantastic+-mo on
the analogy with supremo ‘a chief. [9]

In both types the clipped forms (doc, exam, chap, fan, etc.) exist
in the language alongside their respective prototypes. The difference, how-
ever, is that whereas words belonging to the first group can be replaced by
their prototypes and show in this way a certain degree of inter-changeability,
the doublets are never equivalent lexically as there are no contexts where the
prototype can replace the shortened word without a change of meaning.

The curtailed words belonging to this type are mostly monosemantic
as, for example, lab, exam, fan. Also they are often homonymous: compare
van and vac as treated above, also gym for gymnastics and
gym for gymnasium, or vet for veteran and veterinary.
[6]

The second extreme group, the etymological doublets, may develop
semantic structures of their own. Very complex semantic cases like fancy with
its many meanings and high valency are nevertheless rare.

It has been specified in the definition of the process that the
clipped part is not always a complete morpheme, so that the division is only
occasionally correlated with the division into immediate constituents. For
instance, in phone for telephone and photo for photograph
the remaining parts are complete morphemes occurring in other words. On the
other hand in ec or eco (from economics) or trannie
(transistor) the morphological structure of the prototype is disregarded.
All linguists agree that most often it is either the first or the stressed part
of the word that remains to represent the whole. An interesting and convincing
explanation for this is offered by M.M. Segal, who quotes the results of
several experimental investigations dealing with informativeness of parts of
words. These experiments carried out by psychologists have proved very
definitely that the initial components of words are imprinted in the mind and
memory more readily than the final parts. The signalling value of the first
stressed syllable, especially when it is at the same time the root syllable, is
naturally much higher than that of the unstressed final syllables with their
reduced vowel sounds. [9]

1.2.         
Graphical
abbreviations and acronyms

         In
Modern English many new abbreviations, acronyms, initials, blends are formed
because the tempo of life is increasing and it becomes necessary to give more
and more information in the shortest possible time. [10]

    Because of the ever closer connection
between the oral and the written forms of the language it is sometimes
difficult to differentiate clippings formed in oral speech from graphical
abbreviations. The more so as the latter often pass into oral speech and become
widely used in conversation. [9]

         There
are also linguistic causes of abbreviating words and word-groups, such as the
demand of rhythm, which is satisfied in English by monosyllabic words. When
borrowings from other languages are assimilated in English they are shortened.
Here we have modification of form on the basis of analogy, e.g. the Latin
borrowing fanaticus is shortened to fan on the analogy with
native words: man, pan, tan, etc.

         There
are two main types of shortenings: graphical and lexical. [10]

         Graphical
abbreviations are the result of shortening of words and word-groups only in
written speech while orally the corresponding full forms are used. They are
used for the economy of space and and effort in writing.

         The
oldest group of graphical abbreviations in English is of Latin origin. In
Russian this type of abbreviation is not typical. In these abbreviations in the
spelling Latin words are shortened, while orally the corresponding English
equivalents are pronounced in the full form [12], e.g. – for example (Latin
exampli gratia), a.m. – in the morning (ante meridiem), No – number (numero),
p.a. – a year (per annum), i.e. – that is (idest).[11] in some cases initial
letters are pronounced, e.g. a.m. [ei’em], p.m. [pi:’em] etc.  In
such cases they can be treated as lexical initial abbreviations. [12]

         The
term abbreviation may be also used for a shortened form of a written word or
phrase used in a text in place of the whole. Abbreviation is achieved by
omission of letters form one or more parts of the whole, as for instance abbr
for abbreviation, bldg for building, govt for government, cdr for commander,
doz or dz for dozen, ltd for limited, B. A. for Bachelor of Arts, N. Y. for New
York State. Sometimes the part or parts retained show some alteration, thus oz
denotes ounce and Xmas denotes Christmas. Doubling of initial letters shows
plural forms as for instance pp for pages, ll for lines or cc for chapters.
These are in fact not separate words but only graphic signs or symbols
representing them. consequently no orthoepic correlation exists in such cases
and the unabbreviated word is pronounced: ll [lainz], pp [‘peidgiz]. [6]

         There
are also graphical abbreviations of native origin where in the spelling we have
abbreviations of word or word-groups of the corresponding English equivalents
in the full form. We have several semantic groups of them:

1)    Days of the week,
e.g. Mon – Monday, Tue – Tuesday etc;

2)    Names of months,
e.g. Apr – April, Aug – August, Sep – September;

3)    Names of counties
in UK, Yorks – Yorkshire, Berks – Berkshire etc;

4)    Names of states in
USA, e.g. Ala – Alabama, Alas – Alaska, Calif – California etc;

5)    Names of address,
e.g. Mr, Mrs, Ms, DR etc;

6)    Military ranks,
e.g. capt – captain, col – colonel, sgt – sergeant etc;

7)    Scientific
degrees, e.g. BA Bachelor of Arts, DM – Doctor of Medicine.

    Units of time,
length, weight, e.g. f./ft – foot/feet, sec. – second, in. – inch, mg. –
milligram etc.

The
reading of some graphical abbreviations depends on the context, e.g. m can be
read as: male, married, masculine, metre, mile, million, minute; l.p. can be
read as long-playing, low pressure. [10]

Abbreviations may be nearly as old as writing itself; they allow a writer to save time, space, and effort.The cost of materials like parchment, paper, and ink was another major impetus to shorten words andphrases. Even with the invention of the printing press, cost remained important, and printers looked forways to save space without diluting the message. Many abbreviations have become standard, includingabbreviations for days of the week ( Mon., Tues. ) and months of the year ( Jan., Feb. ); common Latinterms ( lb., e.g. ); units of time and measurement ( min., ft. ); titles of individuals ( Mrs., Rev. ); and titles ornames of organizations ( NCAA, UNESCO ), government bodies ( SCOTUS, EPA ), and states and cities ( Pa.,NYC ).[13]

 The usual practice in American English is to use a period to end any abbreviation that stands for a singleword: for example, assoc.  or assn.  for association ), whereas in British English the period is typically omittedif the abbreviation includes the last letter of the word. For example, in British writing the word association might be abbreviated as either assoc.  or assn  (without the period); likewise, Fr.  is an abbreviation forFrance,  while Fr  (no period) is the abbreviation for Father  (as the title for a priest). [13]

Initial abbreviations are the bordering
case between graphical and lexical abbreviations. When they appear in the
language, as a rule, to denote some new offices they are closer to graphical
abbreviations because orally full forms are used, e.g. JV – joint venture. When
they are used for some duration of time they acquire the shortened form of
pronouncing and become closer to lexical abbreviations, e.g. BBC is, as a rule,
pronounced in the shortened form [bi:bi:si:]. [10]

There are three types of initialisms in
English:

1)   
Initialisms
with alphabetical reading, such as UK (United Kingdom), BUP (British United
Press), CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament), PWA (a person with AIDS) etc;

2)   
Initialisms
which are read as if they are words, e.g. UNESCO (United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization), OPEC (Organization Of PetroLeum
Exporting Countries), HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) etc;

3)   
Initialisms
which coincide with English words in their sound form. Such initialisms are
called acronyms, e.g. CLASS (Computer-based Laboratory for Automated School
System), NOW (National Organization of Women), AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome) etc. [10]

Some
initialisms can form new words in which they act as root morphemes by different
ways of word-building:

1)   
Affixation,
e.g. AWOLism (Absent WithOut Leave), ex-rafer (Royal Air Force), ex-POW
(Prisoner Of War), AIDSophobia etc;

2)   
Conversion,
e.g. to raf (Royal Air Force), to fly IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) etc;

3)   
Composition,
e.g. STOLport (Short Take-Off and Landing), USAFman (United States Air Force)
etc;

4)   
There
are also compound-shortened words where the first component is an initial
abbreviation with the alphabetical reading and the second one is a complete
word, e.g. A-bomb, U-pronunciation, V-day etc. In some cases the first
component is a complete word and the second component is an initial
abbreviation with the alphabetical pronunciation, e.g. three-D (three
dimensions) [10]

Abbreviation of words consists
in clipping a part of a word. As a result we get a new lexical unit where
either the lexical meaning or the style is different form the full form of the
word. In such cases as »fantasy» and «fancy», «fence» and «defence» we have
different lexical meanings. In such cases as «laboratory» and «lab» we have
different styles.

Abbreviation does not change
the part-of-speech meaning, as we have it in the case of conversion or
affixation, it produces words belonging to the same part of speech as the
primary word, e.g. prof is a noun and professor is also a noun. Mostly nouns
undergo abbreviation, but we can also meet abbreviation of verbs, such as to
rev from to revolve, to tab from to tabulate etc. But mostly abbreviated forms
of verbs are formed by means of conversion from abbreviated nouns, e.g. to
taxi, to vac etc. Adjectives can be abbreviated but they are mostly used in
school slang and are combined with suffixation, e.g. comfy, dilly, mizzy etc.
[14]

 [15]

Lexical abbreviations are
classified according to the part of the word which is clipped. Mostly the end
of the word is clipped, because the beginning of the word in most cases is the
root and expresses the lexical of the word. This type of abbreviation called apocope.
[10] Here we can mention a group of words ending in «o», such as disco
(discotheque), expo (exposition), intro (introduction) and many others. On the
analogy with these words there developed in Modern English a number of words
where «o» is added as a kind of a suffix to the shortened form of the word,
e.g. combo (combination) — небольшой эстрадный
ансамбль, Afro (African) —прическа под африканца etc.
In other cases the beginning of the word is clipped. In such cases we have
apheresis e.g. chute (parachute), varsity (university), copter (helicopter),
thuse (enthuse) etc. Sometimes the middle of the word is clipped, e.g. mart
(market), fanzine (fan magazine) maths (mathematics). Such abbreviations are
called syncope. Sometimes we have a combination of apocope with apheresis,when
the beginning and the end of the word are clipped, e.g. tec (detective), van
(avanguard)

Sometimes shortening
influences the spelling of the word, e.g. «c» can be substituted by «k» before
«e» to preserve pronunciation, e.g. mike (microphone), Coke (coca-cola) etc.
The same rule is observed in the following cases: fax( facsimile), teck
(technical college), trank (tranquilizer) etc. The final consonants in the
shortened forms are substituded by letters characteristic of native English
words. [14]

An acronym is
an abbreviation formed
from the initial components in a phrase or a word. These components may be
individual letters (as in laser)
or parts of words (as in Benelux and Ameslan).
There is no universal agreement on the precise definition of various names for
such abbreviations nor on written usage. In English and most other languages,
such abbreviations historically had limited use, but they became much more common
in the 20th century. Acronyms are a type of word formation process,
and they are viewed as a subtype of blending.
[16]

There is a difference between acronyms and
abbreviations. An acronym is usually formed by taking the first initials of a
phrase or compounded-word and using those initials to form a word that stands
for something. Thus NATO, which we pronounce NATOH, is an acronym for North
Atlantic Treaty Organization, and LASER (which we pronounce «lazer»),
is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. FBI,
then, is not really an acronym for the Federal Bureau of Investigation; it is
an abbreviation. AIDS is an acronym; HIV is an abbreviation. URL is an
abbreviation for Uniform Resource Locator (World Wide Web address), but many
people pronounce it as «Earl,» making it a true acronym, and others
insist on pronouncing it as three separate letters, «U * R * L,» thus
making it an abbreviation. The jury is still out. [17]

Whilst an abbreviation is the shortened form of
any initial, syllable or parts of a phrase or words, an initialism (or less commonly, alphabetism) refers to an
abbreviation formed from, and used simply as, a string of initials.[18] Although the term acronym is widely used to refer
to any abbreviation formed from initial letters, some dictionaries define acronym to mean «a
word» in its original sense, while some others include
additional senses attributing to acronym the same meaning as that
of initialism. The distinction, when
made, hinges on whether the abbreviation is pronounced as a word, or as a
string of letters. In such cases, examples found in dictionaries include NATO /ˈneɪtoʊ/, scuba /ˈskuːbə/, and radar /ˈreɪdɑr/ for acronyms, and FBI /ˌɛfˌbiːˈaɪ/ and HTML /ˌeɪtʃˌtiːˌɛmˈɛl/ for initialisms. In the rest of this
article, this distinction is not made. [19]

During World War I and later the custom
became very popular not only in English-speaking countries, but in other parts
of the world as well, to call countries, governmental, social, military,
industrial and trade organizations and officials not by their full titles but
by initial abbreviations derived from writing: the USSR, the U. N., the U. N.
O. Such words formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the
successive parts or major parts of a compound term are called acronyms. [9] Two
possible types of orthoepic correlation between written and spoken forms should
be noted:

1. If the abbreviated written form can be
read as though it were an ordinary English word it will be read like one. Many
examples are furnished by political and technical vocabulary. U. N. E. S. C.
O., also Unesco [ju:’neskou] — United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization’, U. N. O., also Una [‘ju:nou] — United Nations
Organization; U. N. R. R. A., also Unrra [an’ra:] — United Nations Relief and
Rehabilitation Administration, etc. A few recent technical terms may also be
mentioned to illustrate this type such as jato, laser, maser and a more than
twenty years old radar. JATO or jato means’ jet-assisted take-off. Laser stands
for light amplification by stimulated emission radiation; maser for micro-wave
amplification and stimulated emission radiation; l radar for radio detection
and ranging denotes a system for ascertaining direction and ranging of
aircraft, ships, coasts and other objects by means of the electro-magnetic
waves which they reflect. One more military term might be added: sten fgun) as
the name for a light weight machine gun derived from the initials of the
inventors’ surnames, Shepherd and Turpin + -en for England. Words belonging to
this group are often isolated from the prototypes. [20]

2. The opposite subgroup consists of
initial abbreviations with the alphabetic reading retained. They also retain
correlation with prototypes. The examples are well-known: B. B. C.
[‘bi:’bi:’si:] — the British Broadcasting Corporation; G. I. [‘djii’aij — for
Government Issue, a widely spread metonymical name for American soldiers on the
items of whose uniforms these letters are stamped. The last abbreviation was
originally an Americanism but has been firmly established in British English as
well. M. P. [’em ‘pi:] is mostly used as an initial abbreviation for Member of
Parliament, also military police, whereas P. M. stands for Prime Minister.
These abbreviations are freely used in colloquial speech as seen from the
following extract, in which C. P. Snow describes the House of Commons gossip:
They were swapping promises to speak for one another: one was bragging how two
senior Ministers were «in the bag» to speak for him. Rigger was safe,
someone said, he’d give a hand. «What has the P. M. got in mind for Roger
when we come back?» The familiar colloquial quality of the context is very
definitely marked by the set expressions: in the bag, give a hand, get in mind,
etc. [20]

1.3.         
Abbreviations
as the major type of shortenings

         Abbreviations
are freely used in colloquial speech as seen from the following extract, in
which C.P Snow describes the House of Commons gossip: They were swapping
promises to speak for one another: one was bragging how two senior Ministers
were «in the bag» to speak for him. Roger was safe, someone said,
he’d give a hand. «What has the P.M. got in mind for Roger when we come
back?» The familiar colloquial quality of the context is very
definitely marked by the set expressions: in the bag, give a hand, get in
mind, etc.
[9]

         An
interesting feature of present-day English is the use of initial abbreviations
for famous persons’ names and surnames. Thus, George Bernard Shaw is often
alluded to as  G.B.S. [‘dзi:’bi:’es],
Herbert George Wells as H.G. The
usage is clear from the following example: “Oh, yes … where
was I?” “With H.G.’s Martians,” I told
him. [20]

         Journalistic
abbreviations are often occasioned by a desire to economise head-line space, as
seen from the following example “ CND
Calls Lobby to Stop MLF” («Daily
Worker»). This means that a mass lobby of Parliament against the NATO
multilateral nuclear force (MLF) is
being called by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

These regular developments are in
some cases combined with occasional jocular or accidental distortions. The
National Economic Development Council is facetiously termed Neddy.
Elementary education is colloquially
referred to as the
three R’s —
reading, (w)riting and ‘rithmetic. Some kind of witty folk etymology is at play
when the abbreviation C.B. for construction
battalions in
the navy is re-spelt into sea
bees. The
two well-known Americanisms jeep and okay may
be mentioned in this connection. Jeep meaning
‘a small military motor vehicle’ comes from g.p. [‘dзi:’pi:]
(the initials of general
purpose). Okay, OK may
be an illiterate misinterpretation of the initials in all
correct. Various
other historic anecdotes have been also offered by way of explanation of the
latter. [20]

T. McArthur (1998) states that
abbreviation is a shortened version of written word or phrase used to replace
original and save space. There are three types of abbreviations: letter-based,
syllable-based and hybrid. All may have symbolical or lexical function:
symbolic abbreviations serve as formulas (c.c. – cubic centimeters; Fe – iron
from Latin ferrum); lexical abbreviations are generally word-like, some less so
because they are spoken as letter sequences, as with BBC, some more so because
they are spoken as words and often cannot be usefully distinguished from them,
as with NATO, radar. Syllabic abbreviations are not common. They use initial
syllables from multiple words. [21]

Symbolic abbreviations. T. McArthur
(1998) stated that abbreviations that serve as symbols are usually pronounced
as letter sequences or as their full originating words, as with c.c.
(pronounced as ‘cee-cee’ or ‘cubic centimeters’). In some instances, where
abbreviations start with vowel, the use of a and an indicates whether a writer
is thinking them as letters or words: a MP ‘a Member of Parliament’; an MP ‘an
em-pee’. [21]

Lexical abbreviations. Abbreviations
that serve as words fall into three types that shade into a fourth less
clear-cut type:

1.
Initialism. A letter group that cannot be pronounced as a word, and must
therefore be spoken as letters: BBC spoken as ‘bee-bee-cee’.

2.
Acronym. A letter group that can be, and is, pronounced as a word: NATO spoken
as ‘Naytoe’.

3.
Clipping. A part of a word standing for the whole: pro for professional, phone
for telephone.

4.
Blend. A word made from two or more other words, by fusion (brunch from
breakfast and lunch) or by putting together syllabic elements from other words.
[22]

Also T. McArthur states that there are at
least five variations and hybrids of these basic types:

1.
both initialisms and acronyms: VAT (Value Added Tax) is referred to as both
‘vat’ and ‘vee-ay-tee’.

2.
Forms that look like one type but behave like another: WHO (World Health
Organization) is ‘double-you-aitch-oh’, not ‘hoo’.

3.
Part-initialism: CD-ROM (compact disc readonly memory) is pronounced
‘cee-dee-rom’.

4.
Combinations of letter groups and clippings: ARPAnet (Advanced Research
Projects Agency computer network).

5.
Initialisms adapted as acronyms: GLCMs (ground-launched cruise missiles) are
called Glickems. [21]

         W.A.
Sabin gives additional advices. When using an abbreviation, do not follow it
with a word that is part of the abbreviation: a collection of CDs (not: CD
disks), forgot my PIN (not: PIN number). [23]

Some abbreviations are always acceptable,
even in the most formal contexts: those that precede or follow personal names
(Mr., Ms., dr., Ph.D.); those that are part of an organization’s legal name
(Co., Inc., Ltd.); those used in expressions of time (a.m., p.m., CST, A.D.,
B.C.). Organizations with long names are now commonly identified by their
initials in all but the most formal writing (NAACP, SEC). Days of week, names
of the moths, geographical names, and units of measure should be abbreviated
only on business forms, in expedient documents, and in tables, lists, and
narrow columns of text. When an abbreviation is only one or two keystrokes
shorter than the full word (Pt. for Part), do not bother to abbreviate except
to achieve consistency in a context where similar are being abbreviated. When
using abbreviation that may not be familiar to the reader, spell out the full
term along with the abbreviation when it is first used. [23]

According to W. A. Sabin, in business
writing, abbreviations are appropriate in expedient documents (business forms,
catalogs, routine e-mail messages, memos, and letters between business
officers), where the emphasis is on communicating data in the briefest form. In
other kinds of writing, where a more formal style is appropriate, use
abbreviations sparingly. Organizations with long names are commonly identified
by their initials in all but the most formal writing. Respect the preference of
individuals and of companies that use a person’s initials in their company name
(Harry S Truman, JCPenney, TJ.Maxx). When a company uses a geographical
abbreviation in its corporate name or in the name of a product, respect the
company’s style (U.S.A. but USA Today; U.S. but US WEST Communication). A few
common business abbreviations are frequently typed in lower-case (with periods)
when they occur within sentences but are typed in all-caps (without periods)
when they appear on business forms (cif. or CIF; c.o.d. or COD; e.o.m. or EOM
etc.). [23]

            Analysis includes a few
communication texts, one contract form and one job advertisement. All texts
were taken from J. Dugger and internet database. The analysis has shown that
abbreviations are not common phenomenon in formal texts. However, abbreviations
are more often used in informal correspondence letters. Considering analyzed
sample texts, the most common abbreviations were: ASAP – as soon as possible;
B2B – Business-to-business; CEO – Chief Executive Officer; CIF – Cost,
Insurance and Freight; Dr. – doctor, district; GDP – Gross Domestic Product;
Mr., Ltd. – limited; MBA – Master of Business administration; No. – number;
p.m. and a.m.; P.O. – Post Office; P&L – Profit and Loss; PLC –Public Limited
Company; TQM – Total Quality Manager; VA – Value added. Abbreviated names and
weekdays also occurred very often. [24]

1.4.         
Minor
types of lexical oppositions

         Sound interchange
is the way of word building when some sounds are changed to form a new word. It
is non-productive in Modern English; it was productive in Old English and can
be met in other Indo-European languages. [10]

         Sound interchange is the
formation of a word due to an alteration in the phonemic composition of its
root. [25]

The interchange of sounds is a term
denoting change in the phonematic structure of the morpheme in the process of
word changing and word-building. The interchange of sounds takes place
according to definite strict standards for each phoneme in each given language.
[26]

The causes of
sound interchange can be different. It can be the result of Ancient Ablaut
which cannot be explained by the phonetic laws during the period of the
language development known to scientists., e.g. to strike — stroke, to sing —
song etc. It can be also the result of Ancient Umlaut or vowel mutation which
is the result of palatalizing the root vowel because of the front vowel in the
syllable coming after the root (regressive assimilation), e.g. hot — to heat
(hotian), blood — to bleed (blodian) etc. [9]

By the historical interchange of
sounds we mean a case when the change is not determined by the position of the
sound in the word, but appeared as a result of the laws which acted in the
language at some definite periods of its development. It is closely connected
with historical assimilation. Historical interchange of sounds is also
explained by the phonetical structure of the language but has grammatical

significance.
[26]

            The process is not
active in the language at present, and oppositions survive in the vocabulary
only as remnants of previous stages. Synchronically sound interchange should
not be considered as a method of word-building at all, but rather as a basis
for contrasting words belonging to the same word-family and different parts of
speech or different lexico-grammatical groups. [20]

Cases of historical interchange of sounds
in English can be found among the three forms of irregular verbs, the degrees
of comparison of adjectives, different parts of speech originated from one
root, the archaic forms of the plural of nouns and other grammatical phenomena.
For example:

The three forms of the irregular verbs:

do [du:] – did [dId] – done [dAn] (vowel
gradation [u:] – [I] – [A] takes place);

fly [flaI] – flew [flu:] – flown [floun]
(vowel gradation [aI] – [u:] – [ou] takes place).

The degrees of comparison of adjectives:

little [litl] – less [les] – least [li:st]
([i] interchanges with [e], [i:]);

much [mAtS] – more [mo:] – most [moust]
([A] interchanges with [o:], [ou]).

The plural of nouns:

man [mxn] – men [men] (vowel gradation [x]
– [e] takes place);

goose [gu:s] – geese [gi:s] (vowel
gradation [u:] – [i:] takes place).

The interchange of sounds is also observed
when different parts of speech are originated from one root:

convert [kon’vE:t] – conversion
[kon’vE:Sn];

intend [In’tend] – intention [In’tenSn] –
intent [In’tent]. [26]

         The
causes of sound interchange are twofold and one
should learn to differentiate them from the historical point of view. Some of
them are due to ablaut or vowel gradation characteristic of Indo-European
languages and consisting in a change from one to another vowel accompanying a
change of stress. The phenomenon is best known as a series of relations between
vowels by which the stems of strong verbs are differentiated in grammar (drink
– drank – drunk and the like). However, it is also of great importance in
lexicology because ablaut furnishes distinctive features for differentiating
words. [20]

By the living interchange of sounds we
mean a case when the change is determined by the position of the sound in the
word. It is closely connected with living assimilation. The living interchange
of sounds is mainly explained by the phonetical structure of the given
language. [26]

The other group of
cases is due to an assimilation process conditioned by the phonemic
environment. One of these is vowel mutation, otherwise called umlaut, a feature
characteristic of German Languages, and consisting in a partial assimilation to
a succeeding sound, as for example the fronting or raising of a back vowel or a
low vowel caused by an [i] or [j] originally standing in the following syllable
but now either altered or lost. This accounts for such oppositions as full
(adj), fill (v); whole (adj), heal (v); knot (n), knit (v), tale (n), tell (v).
[10]

The consonant
interchange was also caused by phonetic surroundings. Thus, the oppositions
speak (v), speech (n), bake (v), batch (n) or wake (v), watch (n) are due to
the fact that the palatal OE [k] very early became [tS] but was retained in
verbs because of the position before the consonants [s] and [Ө]
in the second and third persons singular. [9]

Distinctive stress is the
formation of a word by means of the shift of the stress in the source word,
cf., ‘increase (n) – in’crease (v), ‘absent (adj) – ab’sent (v). [25]

Some otherwise homographic, mostly
disyllabic nouns and verbs of Romanic origin have a distinctive stress pattern.
Thus, ‘conduct n ‘behaviour’ is forestressed, whereas con’duct v
‘to lead or guide (in a formal way)’ has a stress on the second syllable. Other
examples are: accent, affix, asphalt, compact (impact),¹
compound, compress (impress), conflict, contest, contract (extract), contrast,
convict, digest, essay, export (import, transport), increase, insult, object
(subject, project), perfume, permit, present, produce, progress, protest,
rebel, record, survey, torment, transfer. Examples of words of more than
two syllables are very few: ‘attribute n : : a’ttribute v. [9]

Historically this is probably explained by
the fact that these words were borrowed from French where the original stress
was on the last syllable. Thus, ac’cent comes through French from Latin ac’centus.
Verbs retained this stress all the more easily as many native disyllabic
verbs were also stressed in this way: be come, be’lieve, for’bid, for’get,
for’give. The native nouns, however, were forestressed, and in the process
of assimilation many loan nouns came to be stressed on the first syllable.

A similar phenomenon is observed in some
homographic pairs of adjectives and verbs, e.g. ‘absent a : : ab’sent
v; ‘frequent a : : fre’quent v; ‘perfect a : : per’fect
v; ‘abstract a : : ab’stract v. Other patterns with
difference in stress are also possible, such as arithmetic [э’riθ-mэtik]
n : : arithmetical) [эпθ’metik(эl)].

This stress distinction is, however,
neither productive nor regular. There are many denominal verbs that are
forestressed and thus homonymous with the corresponding nouns. For example,
both the noun and the verb comment are forestressed, and so are the
following words: exile, figure, preface, quarrel, focus, process, program,
triumph, rivet and others. [20]

There is a large group of disyllabic loan
words that retain the stress on the second syllable both in verbs and nouns: accord,
account, advance, amount, approach, attack, attempt, concern, defeat, distress,
escape, exclaim, research, etc. [9]

A separate group is formed by compounds
where the corresponding combination of words has double stress and the compound
noun is forestressed so that the stress acquires a word-building force: ‘black
‘board : : ‘blackboard and ‘draw’back : : ‘drawback.

It is worth noting that stress alone,
unaccompanied by any other differentiating factor, does not seem to provide a
very effective means of distinguishing words. And this is, probably, the reason
why oppositions of this kind are neither regular nor productive. [20]

Sound imitation ( or onomatopoeia)
is the naming of an action or a thing by a more or less exact reproduction of
the sound associated with it, cf.: cock-a-doodle-do (English) – ку—ка—ре—ку (Russian).
Semantically, according ti the source sound, many onomatopoeic words
fall into a few very definite groups:

1)    Words
denoting sounds produced by human beings in the process of communication or
expressing their feelings, e.g. chatter, babble;

2)    Words denoting
sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, e.g. moo, croak, buzz;

3)    Words imitating the
sound of water, the noise of metallic things, a forceful motion, movements,
e.g. splash, clink, whip, swing. [25]

The great majority of motivated words in
present-day language are motivated by reference to other words in the language,
to the morphemes that go to compose them and to their arrangement. Therefore,
even if one hears the noun wage-earner for the first time, one
understands it, knowing the meaning of the words wage and earn and
the structural pattern noun stem + verbal stem+ —er as in bread-winner,
skyscraper, strike-breaker. [27]

Sound imitating or onomatopoeic words are
on the contrary motivated with reference to extra-linguistic reality, they are
echoes of natural sounds (e. g. lullaby, twang, whiz.) Sound imitation
(onomatopoeia or echoism) is consequently the naming of an action or thing by a
more or less exact reproduction of a sound associated with it. For instance
words naming sounds and movement of water: babble, blob, bubble, flush,
gurgle, gush, splash, etc. [20]

The term onomatopoeia is from Greek onoma
‘name, word’ and poiein ‘to make → ‘the making of words (in
imitation of sounds)’.

It would, however, be wrong to think that
onomatopoeic words reflect the real sounds directly, irrespective of the laws
of the language, because the same sounds are represented differently in
different languages. Onomatopoeic words adopt the phonetic features of English
and fall into the combinations peculiar to it. This becomes obvious when one
compares onomatopoeic words crow and twitter and the words flow
and glitter with which they are rhymed in the following poem:

The cock is crowing,

The stream is flowing.

The small birds twitter,

The lake does glitter,

The green fields sleep in the sun

(Wordsworth). [20]

The majority of onomatopoeic words serve
to name sounds or movements. Most of them are verbs easily turned into nouns: bang,
boom, bump, hum, rustle, smack, thud, etc.

They are very expressive and sometimes it
is difficult to tell a noun from an interjection. Consider the following: Thum
— crash! “Six o’clock, Nurse,” — crash] as the door shut again.
Whoever it was had given me the shock of my life (M. Dickens).

Sound-imitative words form a considerable
part of interjections. Сf . bang! hush! pooh! [27]

Semantically, according to the source of
sound, onomatopoeic words fall into a few very definite groups. Many verbs
denote sounds produced by human beings in the process of communication or in
expressing their feelings: babble, chatter, giggle, grunt, grumble, murmur,
mutter, titter, whine, whisper and many more. Then there are sounds
produced by animals, birds and insects, e.g. buzz, cackle, croak, crow,
hiss, honk, howl, moo, mew, neigh, purr, roar and others. Some birds are
named after the sound they make, these are the crow, the cuckoo, the
whippoor-will and a few others. Besides the verbs imitating the sound of
water such as bubble or splash, there are others imitating the
noise of metallic things: clink, tinkle, or forceful motion: clash,
crash, whack, whip, whisk, etc. [20]

The combining possibilities of
onomatopoeic words are limited by usage. Thus, a contented cat purrs, while
a similarly sounding verb whirr is used about wings. A gun bangs and
a bow twangs. [27]

R. Southey’s poem “How Does the Water Come
Down at Lodore” is a classical example of the stylistic possibilities offered
by onomatopoeia: the words in it sound an echo of what the poet sees and
describes.

Here it comes sparkling,

And there it flies darkling …

Eddying and whisking,

Spouting and frisking, …

And whizzing and hissing, …

And rattling and battling, …

And guggling and struggling, …

And bubbling and troubling and
doubling,

And rushing and flushing and
brushing and gushing,

And flapping and rapping and
clapping and slapping …

And thumping and pumping and
bumping and jumping,

And dashing and flashing and
splashing and clashing …

And at once and all o’er, with a
mighty uproar,

And this way the water comes down
at Lodore.
[20]

Once being coined, onomatopoeic words lend
themselves easily to further word-building and to semantic development. They
readily develop figurative meanings. Croak, for instance, means ‘to make
a deep harsh sound’. In its direct meaning the verb is used about frogs or
ravens. Metaphorically it may be used about a hoarse human voice. A further
transfer makes the verb synonymous to such expressions as ‘to protest dismally’,
‘to grumble dourly’, ‘to predict evil’. [27]

Back-formation (also
called reversion) is a term borrowed from diachronic linguistics. It
denotes the derivation of new words by subtracting a real or supposed affix
from existing words through misinterpretation of their structure. [20]

Back-formation is the formation of a new
word by subtracring a real or supposed suffix from the existing word. The
process is based on analogy. [25]

Back-formation is the way of word-building
when a word is formed by dropping the final morpheme to form a new word. It is
opposite to suffixation, that is why it is called back-formation. At first it
appeared in the language as a result of misunderstanding the structure of a
borrowed word. Prof. V. Yartseva explains this mistake by the influence of the
whole system of the language on separate words. [10]

The process is based on analogy. The words
beggar, butler, cobbler, or typewriter look very much like agent
nouns with the suffix -er/-or, such as actor or painter. Their
last syllable is therefore taken for a suffix and subtracted from the word
leaving what is understood as a verbal stem. In this way the verb butle ‘to
act or serve as a butler’ is derived by subtraction of -er from
a supposedly verbal stem in the noun butler. Butler (ME buteler,
boteler from OFr bouteillier ‘bottle bearer’) has widened its
meaning. Originally it meant ‘the man-servant having charge of the wine’. It
means at present ‘the chief servant of a rich household who is in charge of
other servants, receives guests and directs the serving of meals’. [27]

These examples are sufficient to show how
structural changes taking place in back-formation became possible because of
semantic changes that preceded them. In the above cases these changes were favoured
by contextual environment. The change of meaning resulted in demotivation, and
this paved the way for phonic changes, i.e. assimilation, loss of sound and the
like, which in their turn led to morphemic alternations that became meaningful.
Semantic changes often influence the morphological structure by modifying the
relations between stems and derivational affixes. Structural changes, in their
turn, depend on the combined effect of demotivation and analogy conditioned by
a higher frequency of occurrence of the pattern that serves as model. Provided
all other conditions are equal, words following less frequent structural
patterns are readily subjected to changes on the analogy of more frequent
patterns. [9]

The very high frequency of the pattern verb
stem+-er (or its equivalents) is a matter of common knowledge.
Nothing more natural therefore than the prominent part this pattern plays in
back-formation. Alongside the examples already cited above are burgle
v<burglar n; cobble v<cobbler n; sculpt v<sculptor n.
This phenomenon is conveniently explained on the basis of proportional lexical
oppositions. If

teacher
₌ painter ₌ butler teach paint x

                    x

then x = butle, and to butle must
mean ‘to act as butler’.

The
process of back-formation has only diachronic relevance. For synchronic
approach butler : : butle is equivalent to painter : : paint,
so that the present-day speaker may not feel any difference between these
relationships. The fact that butle is derived from butler through
misinterpretation is synchronically of no importance. Some modern examples of
back-formation are lase v — a verb used about the functioning of the
apparatus called laser (see p. 143), escalate from escalator on
the analogy of elevate — elevator. Cf. also the verbs aggress,
automate, enthuse, obsolesce and reminisce. [20]

Back-formation
may be also based on the analogy of inflectional forms as testified by the
singular nouns pea and cherry. Pea (the plural of which is peas
and also pease) is from ME pese<OE pise, peose<Lat pisa, pl.
of pesum. The ending -s being the most frequent mark of the
plural in English, English speakers thought that sweet peas(e) was a
plural and turned the combination peas(e) soup into pea soup. Cherry is
from OFr cerise, and the -se was dropped for exactly the same
reason.

The
most productive type of back-formation in present-day English is derivation of
verbs (see p. 126) from compounds that have either -er or -ing as
their last element. The type will be clear from the following examples: thought-read
v<thought-reader n<thought-reading n; air-condition v<air-conditioner
n < air-conditioning n; turbo-supercharge v < turbo-supercharger
n. Other examples of back-formations from compounds are the verbs baby-sit,
beachcomb, house-break, house-clean, house-keep, red-bait, tape-record and
many others. [20]

The semantic relationship between the prototype and the derivative
is regular. Baby-sit, for example, means to act or become employed as a
baby-sitter’, that is to take care of children for short periods of time while
the parents are away from home. Similarly, beachcomb is ‘to live or act
as a beachcomber’; the noun is a slightly ironical word de-noting a disreputable former sailor who searches along
the shore for flotsam and refuse or spends his time loafing in sea-ports.
Housekeep conies in a similar way from housekeeper and housekeeping.

There may be cases of homonymy in the group,
namely: house-break is a verb derived by back-formation from house-breaker
and house-break­ing meaning respectively ‘burglar’ and ‘burglary’. House-break
is also a back-formation from house-broken
and means ‘to accustom an animal or
a baby to indoor habits and civilized behaviour.

In concluding this paragraph it must be
emphasized that back-formation is another manifestation of the fact that a
language consti­tutes a more or less harmonious and balanced system the
components of which stand in reciprocal connection and tend to achieve an even
greater equilibrium of the whole. [27]

2.     Practical part of
the research

In order to
confirm theoretical positions of our research work we have made a practical
research of using abbreviations. We have chosen some examples from newspapers,
textbooks and have defined their types and full forms.

The type of
shortened words was defined according to classifications of I.V.Arnold. We use
“Oxford English Dictionary of Abbreviations” in order to find the full form of
the shortened words.

We have analyzed
65 different shortened words in newspapers, informational, technical and
medical textbooks.

2.1.         
Usage
of abbreviations in Mass Media.

         All
types of shortened words are widely used in Mass Media. We used popular
American and British press to find the examples of shortenings. The newspapers
that I used are: “The New York Times”, “Daily News”, “The Wall Street Journal”,
“USA Today”, “The Times”, “Financial Times”, “Daily Mail” and etc. We have analyzed
20 shortened words.

1.An extract from the article “House Approves Bill That Allows
Policy Renewals” published
in November, 15 2013 by “The New York Times”: “…Representative
Nick
J. Rahall II, Democrat of West Virginia, who voted for the
legislation, said that the White House deserved an “F-minus” for
its botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act…”

The
type of the shortened word:

1.    
Nick J. Rahall II – an abbreviation of proper names.

2.    
F-minus — compound-shortened word.

 

2.Another
extract from the article called “Obama Proposal Worries Insurers and Regulators” of the same
newspaper: “…The entire underlying premise of the A.C.A. —
balancing costs of the young, old, sick and healthy — has been left adrift with
this announcement…”

The
type of the shortened word: A.C.A. – acronym.

Full
form of the shortened word: American Correctional Association.

 

3. The article “Spending Worries Weigh on Japan’s Rebound” of “The Wall Street Journal” published
the 13^th November, 2013: “…Ms. Nonoguchi is spending more on
gasoline to visit her mother in a nursing home and her family’s food costs have
increased…”

The type of the shortened word: graphical abbreviation of a name
of address.

Full form of the shortened word: Miss.

 

4.»…There’s a lot of talk about the potential
benefits of ‘Abenomics…”

The type of the shortened word: grammatical contraction

Full form of the shortened word: there
is

 

5. “…Thursday’s GDP figures show that a slowdown in
exports and personal consumption may have put the brakes on the economy’s fast
growth…”

The type of the shortened word: initial abbreviation

Full form of the shortened word: Gas
Detection Panel.

 

6. An extract from the article “Runners
get a shock as coyote joins them for race” of the British newspaper “Daily
Mail”: “Runners in a 5 km cross
country race in Arizona had a shock when a coyote joined them on part of the
route last weekend…” 

The type of the shortened word: an
abbreviation of units of length.

Full form of the shortened word:
kilometer

7.
The newspaper “The Times” published the 17^th of November, 2013, the
title of the article is “New homes cost £1m each”: “…About £1.3bn of taxpayers’ money has been paid to
local authorities through the scheme, according to the National Audit Office…”

The type of the shortened word: graphical
abbreviations

Full form of the
shortened word: m – million; bn — billion.

8. “… have not used the money to
build a single home and some have used the grants for other things, according
to a FOI request by the Labour party…”

The type of the shortened word: acronym.

Full form of the
shortened word: Freedom of
Information.

9.
The American newspaper “Daily News” 17^th of November published an
article “NYCHA spends $9 million a year on
private law firms doing same work as in-house attorneys”.

The type of the shortened word: initialism

Full form of the
shortened word: New York City
Housing Authority.

10. “…Japan hopes the 55-year-old
daughter of late President John F. Kennedy will work closely with Barack
Obama to tackle some urgent U.S.-Japan matters, analysts said…”from the
article “Caroline Kennedy arrives in Tokyo to take up State Department post” of
“Daily News” published the 15th November, 2013. U.S. – an acronym which mean United
States.

The type of
the shortened word:

John F. Kennedy — an abbreviation
of proper names;

U.S. – an acronym which mean United
States.

Full form of the
shortened word: U.S. – United
States.

11. The newspaper “USA Today”
published the 17th November, 2013, the article “Auburn defeats Georgia on
miracle play 43-38”: “…AUBURN, Ala. —
They never believed this was supposed to end in torment, even as the 20-point
lead vanished, even as hope to put together…”

The type of the shortened word: a graphical abbreviation of a name of a state in USA.

Full
form of the shortened word: Alabama.

12. “…It takes a thousand little
things falling exactly into place for No. 9 Auburn to pull off this kind
of season…”

The type of the shortened word: a graphical abbreviation.

Full form of the
shortened word: number.

13.
An extract from article “Van Damme’s Volvo video: the Art of Going Viral” from
“USA Today”: “…Volvo scored big with this ad,
but in reality, most marketers don’t come close to garnering this type of
digital attention…”

The type of the shortened word: an
abbreviation achieved by omission of letters.

Full form of the
shortened word: advertisement.

14. “…Everybody wants their ads to
go viral,» says Ted Marzilli, CEO of consumer perception research
firm BrandIndex…”

The type of the shortened word: an acronym.

Full form of the
shortened word: Chief Executive Officer.

 

15. “…Mixing
regret and some I-told-you-so attitude, Ryan said he and GOP presidential
nominee Mitt Romney «didn’t quite deliver» during their
bid for the White House last year…” This is an extract from the article “Paul Ryan to Iowans: Next time ‘be
a little more skeptical” from “USA Today” published 17^th November,
2013.

The type of the shortened word:

GOP – an acronym.

didn’t — a grammatical contraction

Full
form of the shortened word:

GOP – US Republican political party — Grand Old Party;

didn’t — did not.

 

 

2.2.         
Usage of abbreviations in
informational and technical sphere.

XXI century is considered to be the
century of informational and technical sciences. As these sciences are in the
process of development, a lot of short and long terms are appearing every day.
Some of them are very popular nowadays and known for every person, others are
used only by people of these professional spheres. Here are 25 examples of
abbreviations used in informational and technical textbooks.

1.“…These disciplines now sometimes
go by other names in different cultures and university department names –
system sciences, organization studies, IT, management, IS and especially nowadays, simply informatics…” [29, p3]

The type of the shortened word: initial abbreviations.

Full
form of the shortened word:

IT – Informational Technologies;

IS – Information Services.

 

2. “…They also use CDs, data stored in computers or disks, software and procedure manuals…”
[29, p13]

The type of the shortened word: an acronym

Full
form of the shortened word: compact disc.

 

3. “…For instance, even though the
human voice can range up to 20kHz in frequency, telephone
transmissions retain only up to about 5kHz…”[30]

The type of the shortened word: graphical abbreviation of weight.

Full
form of the shortened word: kilohertz.

 

4.“…by Mark Twain, is in uncompressed form
at 391 Kbytes and compressed form at 172 Kbytes; the compressed
file is around 44% of the original…” [30]

The type of the shortened word: a compound-shortened word.

Full form of the
shortened word: kilobyte.

5. “…Claude E. Shannon published “A
Mathematical Theory of Communication”, in which he presented the concept of
entropy, which gives a quantitative measure of the compression that is
possible…” [30]

The type of the shortened word:  a shortening a
proper name.

6.
“… Physical information, such as your gender , age, photo, signature,
fingerprints, scars or DNA also help to uniquely identify you for the
information purposes of immigration, police, access to building and the like…”
[29]

The type of the shortened word: an acronym.

Full form of the
shortened word: Deoxyribonucleic Acid.

7.
“…Programming languages such as Pascal, COBOL, and Fortran were
developed for business and scientific applications…Today, the most commonly
used computers are desktop PCs, and data is generally stored on hard
drives or USB drives…” [31]

The type of the shortened word:

1)    COBOL – an acronym.

2)   
PCs
– an acronym.

3)    USB – an acronym.

Full form of the
shortened word:

1)COBOL – Common
Business-Oriented Language.

2)PCs – Personal
Computer in plural form.

3)USB — Universal Serial Bus.

8.
“…Web sites are often built with HTML, XML, CSS, ASP.NET, Java and
JavaScript…” [31]

The type of the shortened word: acronyms.

Full form of the
shortened word:

1)   
HTML
– HypterText Markup Language.

2)   
XML
– extensible Markup Language.

3)   
CSS
– Cascading Style Sheets.

4)   
ASP.NET:
ASP – Active Server Pages; NET – abbreviated form of the word Internet.

9. “…There is a
different strategy, known as RAID, that has gained popularity because it
needs only one additional disk beyond the primary data disks, and it can
tolerate failure of any one disk…” [30]

The type of the shortened word: an acronym.

Full form of the
shortened word:

RAID — Redundant Array of Independent Disks or Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks.

     10. “Such an environmental
perspective was used, for example, in the second assessment report of the IPCC…”
[32]

The type of the shortened word: an initial abbreviation.

Full form of the
shortened word: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate changes.

     11. “… Most DVDs have a
storage capacity of around nine gigabytes, 9GB – is enough to hold a
complete movie or thousands of pages of written words…”

The type of the shortened word: initial
abbreviations.

Full
form of the shortened word:

1)    DVD — Digital
Versatile Disc in plural form.

2)   
GB – gigabyte.

12. “…The major kinds of
digital processors are: CISC, RISC, DSP, and hybrid…” [33]

The type of the shortened word:

1)    CISC – an acronym.

2)    RISC — an acronym.

3)    DSP — an initial abbreviation.

Full
form of the shortened word:

1)CISC — Complex
Instruction Set Computer.

2)RISC — Reduced
Instruction Set Computer.

3)DSP — Digital
Signal Processing.

13. “… Why would a tape say 15 cm
when the length is actually 12 cm?” [29]

The type of the shortened word: a graphical abbreviation of
length.

Full
form of the shortened word: centimeter

14. “…ROM is typically used to
store things that will never change for the life of the computer, such as low
level portions of an operating system…” [34]

The type of the shortened word: an acronym.

Full form of the
shortened word: Read Only Memory.

15. “… The most famous example of a
command line interface is the UNIX shell…” [33]

The type of the shortened word: an acronym.

Full form of the
shortened word: Uniplexed Information
and Computing System.

16. “FORTRAN was so innovative not
only because it was the first high-level language, but also because of its
compiler, which is credited as giving rise to the branch of computer science
now known as compiler theory…” [34]

The type of the shortened word: a composition abbreviation.

Full form of the shortened
word:
FORmula TRANslation.

17. “…It grew out of an earlier language
called SIMPLE, written in 1958 by Richard K. Bennett…” [31]

The type of the shortened word: an acronym.

Full form of the
shortened word: Simulation of Industrial Management Problems with
Lots of Equations.

18. “…BASIC was designed as a
teaching language in 1963 by John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz of
Dartmouth College…” [34] BASIC  — an acronym,

The type of the shortened word: an acronym.

Full form of the
shortened word: Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.

19. “…Eiffel is a computer language in the
public domain. Its evolution is controlled by NICE, but it is open to
any interested party…”

The type of the shortened word: an acronym.

Full form of the
shortened word: Nonprofit International Consortium for Eiffel.

20. “…If a programming language is popular
enough, some international group or committee will create an official standard
version of a programming language. The largest of these groups are ANSI
and ISO...” [34]

The type of the shortened word: acronyms.

Full form of the
shortened word:

1)   
ANSI
— American
National Standards Institute

2)    ISO — International
Organization for Standardization

2.3.         
Usage
of abbreviations in Medicine.

We
have analyzed 20 examples of shortened words and defined their type and full
form.

         1. The extract
from the section about “Acute
Abdomen and Surgical Gastroenterology”:  “…Barium causes severe caking
and peritonitis and should never be given to a patient with suspected GI tract
perforation…”

The type of the shortened word: an initialism.

Full
form of the shortened word: GastroIntestinal.

2.
“Back pain with shock suggests ruptured AAA,
particularly if there is a tender, pulsatile mass. Shock and vaginal bleeding
in a pregnant woman suggest ruptured ectopic pregnancy.”

The type of the shortened word: an initial
abbreviation.

Full
form of the shortened word: Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm.

 

 3. “However,
moderate doses of IV analgesics do not mask peritoneal
signs and, by diminishing anxiety and discomfort, often make examination
easier…” [35] 

The type of the shortened word: an acronym.

Full
form of the shortened word: intravenous.

 

4. From the section about the “Biology of Infectious Disease”: “FUO
is body temperature ≥ 38.0° C rectally
that does not result from transient and self-limited illness, rapidly fatal
illness, or disorders with clear-cut localizing symptoms or signs or with
abnormalities on common tests such as chest x-ray,
urinalysis, or blood cultures…” There are several types of abbreviations in
this extract:

The type of the shortened word:

1)    FUO
–an initial abbreviation.

2)    C – a
graphical abbreviation.

3)     X –
ray — compound-shortened
word.

Full
form of the shortened word:

1) FUO – Fever of Unknown Origin.

2) C – means Celsius.

3) X – ray — X – radiation.

 

5.
“…Common connective tissue disorders include SLE, RA,
giant cell arteritis, vasculitis, and juvenile RA of
adults…”

The type of the shortened word:
initial abbreviations.

Full
form of the shortened word:

1)    SLE —
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.

2)    RA —
Rheumatoid Arthritis.

 

6.
“Past medical history should
include disorders known to cause fever, such as cancer, TB,
connective tissue disorders… Clinicians should note disorders or factors that
predispose to infection, such as immunocompromise (eg, due to disorders such as
HIV
infection, cancer…” [35]

The type of the shortened word:
initial abbreviations.

Full
form of the shortened word:

1)    TB —  tuberculosis.

2)    HIV —
Human Immunodeficiency
Virus.

 

7. The extract
from the section “Myelodysplastic
syndromes: who and when in the course of disease to transplant”:  “The benefits of HSCT
need to be balanced against risks of nonrelapse mortality, GVHD,
and immune dysfunction. Given the lack of prospective clinical trials in this
area, several issues relating to transplantation for MDS remain
unresolved, including: a risk stratification approach to patient selection…”

The type of the shortened word:
initial abbreviations.

Full
form of the shortened word:

1)   
HSCT — Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant.

2)   
nonrelapse
mortality – NRM.

3)   
GVHD — Graft versus Host Disease.

4)   
MDS  — Myelo
Dysplastic Syndrome.

8. “…Exciting areas of
ongoing research that may lead to reductions in posttransplantation relapse
rate include posttransplantation therapies such as DNA methyltransferase
inhibitors, vaccine strategies, and donor lymphocyte infusions to enhance the GVL
effect.” [36]

The type of the shortened word:

1)    DNA – an acronym.

2)    GVL – an initial
abbreviation.

Full
form of the shortened word:

1) DNA — DeoxyriboNucleic
Acid.

2) GVL — gamma
valeroactone.

9. The extract from the section “Digital
signal processing of the ultrasound echoes”: “…The generic architecture of SDR
systems composed of GPP, DSP, FPGA and high frequency
front-end blocks was proposed by…” [37]

The type of the shortened word:
initial abbreviations.

Full
form of the shortened word:

1)   
SDR
– Software Defined Audio.

2)   
GPP
– General Purpose Processor.

3)   
DSP
– Digital Signal Processor.

4)   
FPGA
– Field Programmable Gate Array.

 

 

 

General results of analysis abbreviations in mass
media, medicine, informational and technical sphere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Usage of
shortened words.

 

                                                       Conclusion.

Abbreviation
is shortening of a word or words and its porpoise is to save space. Most common
types of abbreviations are initialisms and acronyms. Initialisms are pronounced
letter by letter and acronyms are pronounced as a word.

There
are a lot of abbreviations with various meanings. The meaning usually depends
on the context.

The
shortening of words also stands apart from the above two-fold division of
word-formation. It cannot be regarded as part of either word-derivation or
word-composition for the simple reason that neither derivational base nor the
derivational affix can be singled out from the shortened word.

Shortening
may be represented as significant subtraction, in which part of the original
word or word group is taken away. Shortening consists in the reduction of a
word to one of its parts, as a result of which the new form receives some
linguistic value of its own.

To reach our aim we have defined the functions of shortened
lexical units; analyzed the existing categorizations and types of the
abbreviations; the types of shortening in the newspapers and textbooks. The
practical part of the investigation which includes very interesting information
for students, self-studied can be recommended for widening vocabulary and
development of speech and knowledge of English language.

On the base of researched work, we come to conclusion that we need
to use the shortening to develop the grammar, its peculiarities, and to widen vocabulary.
The shortenings are very useful in the society. We meet them on
the newspapers, advertisements, all of them are the mass media, medicine,
informational and technical sphere and of course at everyday
communication.

The abbreviation is very wide theme to investigate; it has many
types and tendencies for today. We researched methodical literature, scientific
articles, recent works of methodology scientist; using such methods as
analyzing manuals, textbooks and books, educational magazines, training
appliances, newspapers and of course to find out the latest and the most modern
information we used internet.

In this paper all objectives of research are followed:

—        
Collect
theoretical material about abbreviations, their functions and meanings.

—        
Study
and analyze the scientific and educational literature.

—        
Analyze the existing categorizations of shortenings.

—        
Define the functions of shortened lexical units.

—        
Perform
practical analysis about the usage of abbreviations in mass media, medicine, informational
and technical sphere.

References.

1.     G.
Amandykova, L. Kabysheva “ Lexicology” p 60, 2008

2.     “
Academic Skills Office” research of University of New England, 2011

3.     R.S.
Ginzburg, S.S. Khidekel “A course in Modern English Lexicology” p110, 1979

4.     R.S.
Ginzburg “A course in Modern English Lexicology” p187, 1979

5.     Internet:
http://gendocs.ru/v7721/?cc=12

6.     I.V.
Arnold “ The English Word” p 110-111, 1966

7.     G.
Amandykova “Lexicology of English language”, 2008

8.     Hockett
Ch. A Course in Modern Linguistics. N.Y., p313, 1958.

9.    
Arnold I.V..  “The
English Word” p135, 1986

10.
 E.M. Dubenets
“Lexicology” p 60, 2010

11. Oxford English
Dictionary, 2009

12.
 E.M. Dubenets ‘Modern
English Lexicology: Theory and Practice”, 2002

13.
The American Heritage
“New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy”, Third Edition, 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company

14.
G.B. Antrushina, O.V.
Aphanasieva “English lexicology”, 2008

15. E.V. Babenko “A
Manual of English Lexicology” p39, 2009

16.
Fischer, Roswitha “Lexical
change in present-day English: A corpus-based study of the motivation,
institutionalization, and productivity of creative neologisms”, 1998

17. Jessica Clements, Elizabeth Angeli, Karen
Schiller “The Chicago Manual of Style” 16^th edition, 2013

18.
«Guide to the Third Edition of the
OED». Oxford
English Dictionary. Oxford
University Press. August 19, 2010.

19.
Barnes, Noble “Webster’s
New Universal Unabridged Dictionary”, 2003.

20.
Arnold I.V..  “The
English Word”,
1973.

21. McArthur, Tom.
Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford
University Press 1998.

22. Dictionary of
Abbreviations (Oxford Paperback Reference) Oxford Paperbacks, 1998

23. Sabin, William A.
The Gregg reference manual. Tenth edition. McGraw-Hill Irvin, 2004.

24. Dugger, Jim.
Business letters for busy people. National Press
Publications, Inc. USA 2002.

25. I.V. Zykova “A
practical Course in English Lexicology” p71, 2006

26. Internet:
http://lib.chdu.edu.ua/pdf/pidruchnuku/18/147.pdf

27.
Arnold I.V..  “The
English Word”, p 149, 1959.

28.  The newspapers
“The New York Times”, “Daily News”, “The Wall Street Journal”, “USA Today”,
“The Times”, “Financial Times”, “Daily Mail”, 2013

29. John Gammack,
Valerie Hobbs, Diarmuid Pigott “The Book of Informatics”, 2007

30. Jayadev Misra
“Theory in Programming Practice”, 2012.

31. Jeri Freedman
“Computer Science and Programming”, 2009.

32.  Arnulf
Grübler
“Technology and Global Change, 2003.

33. Chris Woodford
“Digital Technologies”, 2007.

34. “Computer
Programming” 2007.

35.
 Merck
Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy,
Robert S. Porter, Justin
L. Kaplan, 2011.

36.
“Hematology”, American
Society of Hematology, 2012.

37.
 “Ultrasound Imaging”, Masayuki Tanabe, 2011.

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Full form	Contracted	Notes
not	–n’t	Irregular forms: «ain’t», «don’t», «won’t», «shan’t». «n’t» can only be attached to an auxiliary verb which is itself not contracted.
let us	let’s
I am	I’m
are	–’re	we’re /wɪr/ is pronounced differently than were /wɜr/ in some dialects.
is	–’s
does	very informal, as in «What’s he do there every day?»
has
have	–’ve
had	–’d
did	very informal, as in «Where’d she go?»
would
will	–’ll
of	o’–	used mostly in o’clock, where it is mandatory in contemporary use
it	‘t–	Archaic, except in stock uses such as ‘Twas the night before Christmas
them	’em	Perceived as informal, yet old. Actually from hem, which is not the same word as them, a Norse loan.
is not	isn’t, or ain’t	ain’t is contracted from am not and more recently is not; it is generally considered a colloquial contraction.

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In linguistics, clipping, also called truncation or shortening,^[1] is word formation by removing some segments of an existing word to create a synonym.^[2] Clipping differs from abbreviation, which is based on a shortening of the written, rather than the spoken, form of an existing word or phrase. Clipping is also different from back-formation, which proceeds by (pseudo-)morpheme rather than segment, and where the new word may differ in sense and word class from its source.^[3]

Creation[edit]

According to Hans Marchand, clippings are not coined as words belonging to the core lexicon of a language.^[2] They originate as jargon or slang of an in-group, such as schools, army, police, and the medical profession. For example, exam(ination), math(ematics), and lab(oratory) originated in school slang; spec(ulation) and tick(et = credit) in stock-exchange slang; and vet(eran) and cap(tain) in army slang. Clipped forms can pass into common usage when they are widely useful, becoming part of standard English, which most speakers would agree has happened with math/maths, lab, exam, phone (from telephone), fridge (from refrigerator), and various others. When their usefulness is limited to narrower contexts, they remain outside the standard register. Many, such as mani and pedi for manicure and pedicure or mic/mike for microphone, occupy a middle ground in which their appropriate register is a subjective judgment, but succeeding decades tend to see them become more widely used.

Types[edit]

According to Irina Arnold [ru], clipping mainly consists of the following types:^[4]

• Final clipping or apocope
• Initial clipping, apheresis, or procope
• Medial clipping or syncope
• Complex clipping, creating clipped compounds

Final and initial clipping may be combined and result in curtailed words with the middle part of the prototype retained, which usually includes the syllable with primary stress. Examples: fridge (refrigerator), Polly (Apollinaris), rona (coronavirus), shrink (head-shrinker), tec (detective); also flu (which omits the stressed syllable of influenza), jams (retaining the binary noun -s of pajamas/pyjamas) or jammies (adding diminutive -ie).

Final[edit]

In a final clipping, the most common type in English, the beginning of the prototype is retained. The unclipped original may be either a simple or a composite. Examples include ad and advert (advertisement), cable (cablegram), doc (doctor), exam (examination), fax (facsimile), gas (gasoline), gym (gymnastics, gymnasium), memo (memorandum), mutt (muttonhead), pub (public house), pop (popular music), and clit (clitoris).^[5]: 109 An example of apocope in Israeli Hebrew is the word lehit, which derives from להתראות lehitraot, meaning «see you, goodbye».^[5]: 155

Initial[edit]

Initial (or fore) clipping retains the final part of the word. Examples: bot (robot), chute (parachute), roach (cockroach), gator (alligator), phone (telephone), pike (turnpike), varsity (university), net (Internet).

Medial[edit]

Words with the middle part of the word left out are few. They may be further subdivided into two groups: (a) words with a final-clipped stem retaining the functional morpheme: maths (mathematics), specs (spectacles); (b) contractions due to a gradual process of elision under the influence of rhythm and context. Thus, fancy (fantasy), ma’am (madam), and fo’c’sle may be regarded as accelerated forms.

Complex[edit]

Clipped forms are also used in compounds. One part of the original compound most often remains intact. Examples are: cablegram (cable telegram), op art (optical art), org-man (organization man), linocut (linoleum cut). Sometimes both halves of a compound are clipped as in navicert (navigation certificate). In these cases it is difficult to know whether the resultant formation should be treated as a clipping or as a blend, for the border between the two types is not always clear. According to Bauer (1983),^[6] the easiest way to draw the distinction is to say that those forms which retain compound stress are clipped compounds, whereas those that take simple word stress are not. By this criterion bodbiz, Chicom, Comsymp, Intelsat, midcult, pro—am, photo op, sci-fi, and sitcom are all compounds made of clippings.

See also[edit]

References[edit]