The word length is formed by

B2 First: use of English part 3 (word formation with height and length)

The word formation part of the B2 First use of English exam sometimes includes the noun or verb form of adjectives such as short, wide and dark. Here is a list of some of the more common adjectives and their forms.

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Practice 1: word formation (use of English part 3)

Write the correct form of the word in brackets to complete these sentences.

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Practice 2: more word formation

Write the correct form of the word in brackets to complete these sentences.

Length can be defined as the measurement or extent of something from end to end. In other words, it is the larger of the two or the highest of three dimensions of objects. For example, a rectangle has its dimensions as the breadth and length. Also, the length can be defined as a quantity with dimension distance in the International System of Quantities.

What is the Unit of Length?

As defined in the previous section, the length is the measure of something. The base unit for length in the International System of Units (SI) system, is the meter and it is abbreviated as m. This can be done when the length is expressed using suitable units, such as the length of a table is 2 meters or 200 cm, the length of a string is 15 meters, and so on. Thus, the units of measurement help in understanding the given parameters in numeral format.

Units of Length Conversion

In the metric system, length or distance is expressed in terms of kilometers (km), meters (m), decimeter (dm), centimeters (cm), millimeters (mm). It is possible to convert units from km to m or from m to cm or from cm to mm and so on.

For measuring large lengths the unit kilometer is used as the unit of length. The relationship between different units of length is given below:

Units for the Measurement of Length

10 millimeters (mm)     —1 centimeter (cm)

10 centimeters     —-1 decimeter (d)

10 decimeters               — 1 meter (m)

10 meters               ——1 dekameter (da)

10 dekameter     —1 hectometer (h)

10 hectometers            —1 kilometers (km)

The conversion of units from one unit to another unit is essential while solving many problems to understand the various parameters. Below are a few conversions which are basic and will help in problem-solving.

Length Conversion Table

Metric System and Customary System

With the assortment of various units, the metric system seems quite a logical system as compared to the known customary system, and converting units in the metric system is much simpler than converting them in the customary system.

The United States is the last remaining nation, which is still to adopt the concept of the metric system. However, it is an easy task to convert units in metric to the customary system by using the given conversion.

1 meter/metre (m) = 39.4 inches = 1.09 yards;

1 yard = 0.92 m

1 centimeter (cm) = 0.39 inches;

1 inch = 2.54 cm

What is the Difference Between Length and Height?

You can go through the below comparison chart which helps you to differentiate the dimensions such as length and height and understand it in a better way.

Measurements of Length

Measurements of length and distance are done in various ways. Did you know that you can use the average human body as a means to measure? For example, the foot is around 25 – 30 cm. This particular unit of measurement is still in use nowadays. We also use units like yards and inches which are still in use but they are not the standard units of length measurements.

What Is Distance?

The distance can be defined as the product of time and speed and it can be represented as follows:

Where,

• d is equal to the distance travelled in m

• t is equal to the time taken to cover the distance in s

• s is equal to the speed in m/s (metre per second)

Metric Units of Distance

The most commonly used units of measurement of length are as follows:

• Millimetre

• Centimetre

• Metre

• Kilometre

Word length is determined by how many smaller units a word consists of. It is possible to define the word length according to the number of letters , sounds , phonemes , morphs , syllables or mores . Another way is to measure the time it takes a speaker to pronounce a word; is then obtained as a word length of the word duration . However, before one can edit word length or word duration , it must be determined what exactly a word should be, a problem that is by no means trivial.

Shortest words — longest words

One question that has met with widespread interest is the longest or shortest word, either in a particular language or in general. In most cases, words are listed with the number of letters they consist of. The differently directed question about the shortest word is very easy to answer, as a word cannot be shorter than a letter , sound or phoneme . Examples are the Latin imperative “ī” (= go ), the Polish preposition “w”, the Spanish words “y” (= and ) and “o” (= or ) or the German interjection “o”, as in O du dear Augustine ; so there is not just one such shortest word.

The situation is different with the question of the longest word, to which one can contribute some observations and considerations, but which ultimately cannot be answered. A few references to German may demonstrate this:

Jean Paul (1820) already dealt with the phenomenon of long words and invented a particularly long one himself: word tapeworm stick abortion textbook stamp cost replacement calculation , a word with 67 letters.

On the occasion of a corresponding price offer by the Society for German Language , the “ Real Estate Traffic Permit Responsibility Transfer Ordinance ” was quoted, a word consisting of 67 letters. This is an official legal formulation (GrundVZÜV, repealed from 2003, 2007). The beef labeling monitoring task transfer law in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (RkReÜAÜG, repealed from 1999, 2013), which consists of 63 letters, is also officially documented. The Duden distinguishes between such word structures, which occur more frequently in text corpora , mostly from legal and administrative language, “individual, creative instantaneous formations” that usually only occur once, such as “ tax relief advisory preliminary talks coalition round agreements ” (68 letters) or “ actor support flight booking statistic management guest performance organization specialist ” (85 Letters) The corpus linguist Rainer Perkuhn from the Institute for German Language calls a record-breaking: » Psychological self-experience family constellation body tantra personality development seminars «. In the Guinness Book of Records » Danube Steamship Electricity Main Plant Construction Subordinate Company » is named. The words do not form the upper limit for word length in German, as you can always add another one without violating the German word formation rules; for example, “foundation” can be added to “Donaudampfschifffahrtselizitätshauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft”. The resulting word may not be used, but it is possible. This shows that one has to distinguish between the longest words found and the longest possible words.

The list of very long words can be surpassed if you add the technical terminology of chemistry / medicine. The “ Red List ” includes the designation “(6 R , 7 R ) -7 — [( Z ) -2- (2-Amino-1,3-thiazol-4-yl) -2- (methoxyimino) acetamido] -3- (6-hydroxy-2-methyl-5-oxo-2,5-dihydro-1,2,4-triazin-3-ylsulfanylmethyl) -8-oxo-5-thia-1-azabicyclo [4.2 .0] oct-2-en-2-carboxylic acid «for an antibiotic (abbreviation» Ceftriaxone «). This word is not an isolated case, because due to the almost infinite number of compounds in organic chemistry, the IUPAC has introduced a systematic nomenclature that allows any size (newly synthesized) molecules to be named exactly and internationally identified because — especially pharmaceutical — Substances are often led under different synonyms.

In order to correctly assess the mentioned (and other possible) examples, one must remember that German is a language in which long compound words can easily be formed; But there are certainly languages ​​that are at least as good as German when it comes to the possibilities of forming long words, e.g. B. Polysynthetic Languages .

Word lengths in an alphabetical dictionary of German

The question of how many syllables (or: morphs ) words can consist of can also be of interest . Evaluations of dictionaries give an impression of this. The following data were obtained from Menzerath’s analysis of the Viëtor pronunciation dictionary ; the dictionary contains 20453 headwords. The following overview results:

Number of syllables per word	Frequency dictionary	percentage in the dictionary
1	2245	11.00
2	6396	31.27
3	6979	34.12
4th	3640	17.80
5	0920	04.50
6th	0214	01.05
7th	0042	00.21
8th	0011	00.05
9	0006th	00.03

From these values ​​it can be calculated that words in this dictionary have an average of 2.78 syllables. If one takes the values ​​of a frequency dictionary for comparison, the result is a shorter length, since shorter words are generally used more often than longer ones. This is shown in the following list.

Word lengths in a frequency dictionary (frequency dictionary) of German

At the end of the 19th century, under the direction of Friedrich Wilhelm Kaeding , a German-language text corpus of 10,906,235 running words was counted; The following overview was sorted by word length:

Number of syllables per word	Frequency in the text corpus	percentage in the text corpus
1	5,426,326	49.75
2	3,156,448	28.94
3	1,410,494	12.93
4th	646,971	5.93
5	187.738	1.72
6th	54,436	0.50
7th	16,993	0.16
8th	5.038	0.05
9	1.225	0.01
10	461	0.00
11	59	0.00
12	35	0.00
13	8th	0.00
14th	2	0.00
15th	1	0.00

The table is based on data taken from Zipf (1935, reprint 1968, page 23). From them the average word length (measured by the number of syllables per word) can be calculated as 1.83.

The longest words in Viëtor have nine, the longest in Kaeding to 15 syllables. Longer words can only be found in the already mentioned technical language of chemistry / medicine.

Comparison of word lengths in different languages

Fucks gives the mean word length (syllables per word) of literary authors for 11 languages:

language	mean word length of literary works
English	1.4
French	1.6
German	1.7
Esperanto	1.9
Italian	2.0
Greek	2.1
Japanese	2.1
Hungarian	2.2
Russian	2.2
Latin	2.4
Turkish	2.5

In Kaeding’s dictionary of frequencies, the average word length for German was 1.83 syllables per word, while Fucks gave 1.7. The difference is due to the fact that in this case Fucks only cites data on literary texts.

Average word length in different text groups

If you want to characterize a language or styles / texts with regard to their word lengths, the question arises how the word lengths should be determined. Do you examine word length using the keywords in the lexicon or using the words in the text? Which unit do you choose to determine their number per word? Does it matter which lexicon or which type of text you evaluate? To anticipate: You get different average values, depending on how you decide on the questions mentioned.

As an example, some average values ​​for word lengths in German are given, determined by the number of syllables in the word; the data come from Best (2006). The average number of syllables per word in German texts was calculated as follows:

Class of text	Word length limit
lower	upper
Press releases	1.81	2.29
specialist texts	2.04	2.32
spoken language	1.52	1.66
Reading and textbook texts	1.32	1.88
SMS texts	—	1.51
20th century letters	—	1.68
Epic and prose 20th century	—	1.70
Poems by Erich Fried	—	1.60

Explanation: The observed lower and upper average values ​​can be given for the first four text classes. These text classes are interesting because they show how much the values ​​can fluctuate within a text class. In the other cases, only one value can be given at the moment; then the maximum value is identical to the one average value. Further details are given in the cited work, on the one hand on groups of texts within a text class, on the other hand on the development of word length over the centuries.

Of course, the specified values ​​depend on the selection of the evaluated texts. The table gives an idea of ​​how much these averages can fluctuate. A similar picture would result if word length were determined differently than by the number of syllables per word.

Word length distribution and word length in interaction with other linguistic variables

The Quantitative Linguistics has dealt in various ways with the laws of word lengths.

• The law of the distribution of word lengths has been researched best , which states that the frequency with which words of different lengths in texts or in dictionaries of different types follow very specific, theoretically justifiable distributions: The length of words is a function of their frequency; In many languages, including German, this statement can be simplified to: The more common words are, the shorter they are. In some languages ​​such as Finnish or Latin, this statement does not apply from the monosyllabic words onwards, but only from the two- or three-syllable words. For further explanations on word length distributions, a reference to the corresponding special article Law of the distribution of word lengths should suffice.
• In texts or in dictionaries, word lengths are interrelated in a number of ways with other language variables. In Koehler’s control loop, some of these interrelationships are represented in the form of a simple model; they can be integrated into a more complex model.
  • There is an important regularity between the length of the words and the length of the word parts: the longer a word is, that is, the more smaller units (direct constituents ) it consists of, the smaller these constituents themselves are. This is a law of language which is known under the name Menzerath’s Law (also: Menzerath-Altmann Law ). A study of German was based on the hypothesis «The longer the word, the shorter its morph» and, based on the evaluation of an entire dictionary, it was possible to show that this hypothesis is working.
  • If one examines the word length with regard to the number of syllables, one can formulate a corresponding hypothesis: “The longer the word, the shorter its syllables”. An investigation into word lengths in German and Italian supports this hypothesis. This also applies when the word length is related to the duration of the syllables in different speaking styles.
  • There is also a correlation between word length and the frequency with which the words are involved in the formation of compounds: shorter words are much more productive than longer in this regard.
  • Word length also affects the duration of the sounds that make up the words: the longer the words are, the shorter their sounds are spoken. This law of language goes back to the 19th century and is one of the oldest known laws. It is again a specification of Menzerath’s law . Checks of this law using the example of the duration of vowels in Hungarian support the aforementioned legal hypothesis.
  • The interplay of word length and polysemy is also legal: the longer a word, the lower its polysemy, at least in Chinese.
  • There is also a lawful relationship between the age of words and their length: the older words are, the shorter they are on average. Miyayima finds: «Clearly older words are shorter and used more frequently.» Sanada-Yogo comes to the same conclusion.
  • Another relationship exists between the age of words and their polysemy : the older words are, the more different meanings they have on average.

Word length in the language typology

In the attempt to numerically characterize language types using statistics, measures were developed within the framework of the language typology by Greenberg, Altmann & Lehfeldt and many other measures that allow languages to be compared morphologically with one another. Among the morphological properties that were measured for this purpose, there is also a measure of word complexity as one of 10 indices, which establishes a relationship between the number of words in a text and the number of morphemes , the so-called “synthesis index” S = number of morphemes / number of words or vice versa S = number of words / number of morphemes. The synthesis index is a measure of the average word length of the examined languages. Altmann & Lehfeldt also show how the 10 indices can be used to classify the languages ​​and how these indices interact with each other. Wilhelm Fucks demonstrates the connection between entropy and word length using the example of 11 languages .

Development of word length

Word lengths are indicators of the development of language, both the development of the individual’s ability to speak and the development of the language.

• Development of language acquisition by individuals: It can be shown that school-age children make systematic progress in linguistic terms, which is also reflected in the progressive increase in word length in their utterances. This development follows the same law as that of the language itself, the Piotrowski law , which can therefore also be understood as the language acquisition law .
• Development in language: The average word length also changes with the change in a language. For German it can be shown that word lengths initially decrease up to around the time of early New High German and then increase again. This process also follows the Piotrowski law. The following table shows the development of word length, measured by the number of syllables per word, in German epic and prose from the 8th to the 20th century as a reversible process:

t	year- hundred	Syllables per word
observed	calculated
2.5	8-11	1.72	1.72
4.5	12.	1.66	1.63
5.5	13.	1.49	1.53
6.5	14th	1.49	1.46
7.5	15th	1.45	1.45
8.5	16.	1.51	1.53
9.5	17th	1.66	1.63
10.5	18th	1.69	1.70
11.5	19th	1.71	1.72
12.5	20th	1.70	1.73

(Explanation: t is the period of time numbered consecutively for the calculation according to centuries; the first period of time for the 8th to 11th centuries was taken to be the middle of the 10th century with t = 2.5. Piotrowski’s law is adapted to the observed data in the form for the reversible language change, one obtains the calculated values ​​given. Adaptation of the model results in a coefficient of determination of C = 0.94, where C is considered good if it is greater than / equal to 0.80 For explanations, please refer to the literature given.)

The development from the 8th to the 11th century deserved a separate study, for which additional data would be required. The general trend of a decrease and, from the 16th century onwards, an increase in word length was also established for German poems from around 1000 to 1970 (with generally shorter word lengths). In German letters there was an increase in word length between the 16th and 18th centuries, which then decreased again. Even if more data would be desirable everywhere, there are indications that on the one hand there is a general trend for the German language, which can have different effects in different text classes.

Readability

When determining the difficulty of a text for the reader, legibility plays an important role. This means the linguistic (grammatical and lexical) properties of a text. Legibility is part of what makes text understandable. For a long time now, scientific efforts have been focused on the question of whether the legibility of a text can be measured. A wide range of readability indices have been developed in which the word length is very often integrated as an essential aspect. In Best (2006) a reason was developed for why such simple criteria as word and sentence length can be valid properties of texts to say something about their legibility.

Consequences for language practice were drawn from the findings of the legibility research. Thus, Wolf Schneider given for avoiding unnecessarily long words Notes. A numerical characterization of texts as “very easy”, “easy”, “simple”, “normal”, “demanding”, “difficult” or “very difficult” was developed by Mihm; An overview for German texts with a comparison to English can be found at Groeben.

Stylistic aspects

There are a number of stylistic aspects of word length, both linguistically and literarily and psychologically.

One aspect concerns the design of proper names. One finds in Jean Paul the reference that he found «insignificant people monosyllabic: Wutz, Stuss baptized», which distinguishes them from «bad or apparently unimportant». Sigmund Freud explains: “It is well known that with monosyllabic family names there is a particular tendency to include the first name.” Wilfried Seibicke shows a clear tendency to give girls a longer (one-part) first name than boys. The tendency towards the use of more than just one first name points in the same direction, which is around 10% higher for girls.

Wilhelm Fucks , who advocates quantitative literary studies , regards word and sentence lengths as style characteristics, that is, as numerically recorded style characteristics that can be used to distinguish the style of groups of authors.

See also

• Law of distribution of word lengths
• Claus length
• Colon length
• Morph length
• Phrase length
• Record length
• Syllable length
• Synthetic language structure
• Subset
• Verse length

literature

• Karl-Heinz Best : Quantitative Linguistics. An approximation . 3rd, heavily revised and supplemented edition. Peust & Gutschmidt, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-933043-17-4 . Pages 129–132 of the book contain a brief overview of the relationships between word lengths and other linguistic quantities.

Web links

• The longest words in Duden: http://www.duden.de/sprachwissen/sprachratgeber/die-laengsten-woerter-im-duden ( Memento from August 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) , accessed on February 1, 2016.
• Average length of a word in Duden: http://www.duden.de/sprachwissen/sprachratgeber/medium-laenge-eines-deutschen-wortes ( memento from October 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) , accessed on February 1, 2016.
• Who has the longest word? , Accessed August 6, 2011.
• Unusual words: http://www.gfds.de/publikationen/der-sprachdienst/aufloesungen-aelterer-preisrechner/wortungetueme/ ( Memento from July 30, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) , accessed on February 1, 2016.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rainer Perkuhn: The longest German word? A fictional conversation with a real background. In: Sprachreport , Volume 26, Issue 2, Mannheim 2010, pp. 2–6. http://pub.ids-mannheim.de/laufend/sprachreport/pdf/sr10-2a.pdf
2. ^ Jean Paul: About the German double words; a grammatical examination in twelve old letters and twelve new postscripts. In: Jean Paul: Complete Works. Division II, Volume 3 , edited by Norbert Miller. Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt 1996 (reprint of the edition by Hanser-Verlag 1963), pages 9-108, example page 67.
3. ↑ resolutions older Price tasks — word monsters — (price task in Issue 1/2008). Society for the German Language (Gfds), archived from the original on March 30, 2015 ; Retrieved April 28, 2016 .
   
4. ↑ http://dipbt.bundestag.de/extrakt/ba/WP16/93/9377.html
5. ↑ Steffen Trumpf, dpa : Decision in the Schwerin state parliament: Germany’s longest word has had its day. Spiegel Online , June 3, 2013, accessed June 3, 2013 .
   
6. 
   ↑ The longest words in the Duden corpus Duden, accessed April 28, 2016
   
7. ↑ What is missing May 29, 1997, the daily newspaper — the archive — taz.de . Accessed April 28, 2016
8. ↑ In Shakespeare’s «Richard III.» Rudolf K. Rath breaks his word on October 23, 2002, Neue Zürcher Zeitung , accessed April 28, 2016
9. ^ Rainer Perkuhn: The longest German word? A fictional conversation with a real background. In: Sprachreport , Volume 26, Issue 2, Mannheim 2010, pp. 2–6, example p. 6. http://pub.ids-mannheim.de/laufend/sprachreport/pdf/sr10-2a.pdf
10. ↑ Further examples in: Karl-Heinz Best: Our vocabulary. Language statistical studies. In: Karin. M. Eichhoff-Cyrus, Rudolf Hoberg (Hrsg.): The German language at the turn of the millennium . Mannheim / Leipzig / Vienna / Zurich: Dudenverlag, 2000, pp. 35–52, example p. 42. ISBN 3-411-70601-5 .
11. ↑ [online.rote-liste.de Rote Liste online], accessed on March 27, 2015.
12. ^ Wilhelm Viëtor: German pronunciation dictionary . 3rd revised edition, obtained from Ernst A. Meyer: OR Reisland, Leipzig 1921.
13. ^ Paul Menzerath: The architecture of the German vocabulary . Dümmler, Bonn 1954.
14. ↑ Best 2006, page 42.
15. ^ George Kingsley Zipf : The Psycho-Biology of Language. An Introduction to Dynamic Philology. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1968, page 23. First printed in 1935. Zipf also mentions that Kaeding corrected the sum of the words to 10,910,777 without giving the distribution over the different word lengths. The above calculation has been slightly corrected and supplemented. The same data as with Zipf can be found in: David Crystal: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Campus, Frankfurt / New York 1993, page 87. ISBN 3-593-34824-1 .
16. ^ Wilhelm Fucks: According to all the rules of art. Diagnoses about literature, music, visual arts — the works, their authors and creators. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1968, page 80.
17. ^ Karl-Heinz Best: Word lengths in German . In: Göttinger Contributions to Linguistics 13, 2006, pp. 23–49; only the observed values ​​of the word lengths are given here. All the data compiled in the table are based on texts from the 20th century.
18. ^ Anikó Vettermann, Karl-Heinz Best: Word lengths in Finnish . In: Suomalais-ugrilaisen seuran aikakauskirja / Journal de la Societé Finno-Ougrienne 87, 1997, pp. 249-262.
19. ^ Winfred Röttger: The Distribution of Word Length in Ciceronian Letters. In: Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 3, 1996, pp. 68-72; Andrew Wilson: Word Length Distributions in Classical Latin Verse. In: The Prague Bulletin of Mathematical Linguistics 75, 2001, pp. 69-84.
20. ↑ The preface to: Karl-Heinz Best (Ed.): Frequency distributions in texts provide an overview of studies on German and foreign languages . Peust & Gutschmidt Verlag, Göttingen 2001, pp. V — XVII, especially pp. VIII — XI. ISBN 3-933043-08-5 and Karl-Heinz Best: word length . In: Reinhard Köhler, Gabriel Altmann, & Rajmund G. Piotrowski (eds.): Quantitative Linguistics — Quantitative Linguistics. An international manual . de Gruyter, Berlin / NY 2005, pp. 260-273. ISBN 3-11-015578-8 .
21. ↑ Linguistic Synergetics # An elementary concept
22. ↑ Best 2006, p. 129.
23. ↑ Rainer Gerlach: To review Menzerath’s law . In: Werner Lehfeldt, Udo Strauss (Eds.): Glottometrika 4. Brockmeyer, Bochum 1982, pp. 95-102. ISBN 3-88339-250-2 .
24. 
    ↑ Laila Asleh, Karl-Heinz Best: To review the Menzerath-Altmann law using the example of German (and Italian) words . In: Göttingen Contributions to Linguistics 10/11, 2004/05, 9-19.
    
25. ↑ Christopher Michels: The relationship between word length and compounding activity in English , in: Glottometrics 32, 205, pp. 88–98 (PDF full text )
26. ↑ Eduard Sievers: Fundamentals of phonetic physiology as an introduction to the study of phonetics in the Indo-European languages. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1876. The decisive quote can be found on p. 122; In a more general form, supported by measurements on Spanish, this law was formulated in: Paul Menzerath, Joseph M. de Oleza: Spanish sound duration. An experimental study. de Gruyter, Berlin / Leipzig 1928, p. 70.
27. ^ Karl-Heinz Best: Laws of sound duration. In: Glottotheory 1, 2008, pp. 1-9; especially pp. 5-7.
28. ^ Lu Wang: Word length in Chinese. In: Reinhard Köhler, Gabriel Altmann (eds.): Issues in Quantitative Linguistics 3. Dedicated to Karl-Heinz Best on the occasion of his 70th birthday . Lüdenscheid: RAM-Verlag 2013, pp. 39–53. ISBN 978-3-942303-12-5 .
29. ↑ Tatsuo Miyayima: Relationships in the Length, Age and Frequency of Classical Japanese Words. In: Burghard Rieger (Ed.): Glottometrika 13. Brockmeyer, Bochum 1992, pp. 219–229, quotation: p. 228. ISBN 3-8196-0036-1 .
30. ^ Haruko Sanada-Yogo: Analysis of Japanese Vocabulary by the Theory of Synergetic Linguistics. In: Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 6, No. 3, pp. 239-251, especially pp. 244, 247f.
31. ^ Haruko Sanada-Yogo: Analysis of Japanese Vocabulary by the Theory of Synergetic Linguistics. In: Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 6, No. 3, pp. 239-251, especially pp. 244, 247f.
32. ^ Joseph H. Greenberg: A quantitative approach to the morphological typology of languages . In: International Journal of American Linguistics . Volume 26, 1960, pp. 178-194, “synthetic index” p. 185.
33. ^ Gabriel Altmann and Werner Lehfeldt: Allgemeine Sprachtypologie . Fink, Munich 1973. ISBN 3-7705-0891-2 . “Synthetism” or “Analytism” p. 39.
34. ^ Gabriel Altmann and Werner Lehfeldt: Allgemeine Sprachtypologie . Fink, Munich 1973, p. 41.
35. ^ Gabriel Altmann and Werner Lehfeldt: Allgemeine Sprachtypologie . Fink, Munich 1973, pp. 44f.
36. ^ Wilhelm Fucks: According to all the rules of art. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1968, p. 91.
37. ^ Karl-Heinz Best: Laws of first language acquisition. In: Glottometrics 12, 2006, pages 39-54, especially page 43f. (PDF full text ).
38. ^ Karl-Heinz Best: Word lengths in German . In: Göttinger Contributions to Linguistics 13, 2006, pages 23–49, table on page 31.
39. ^ Gabriel Altmann : The Piotrowski law and its generalizations. In: Karl-Heinz Best , Jörg Kohlhase (Ed.): Exact language change research. Theoretical contributions, statistical analyzes and work reports (= Göttinger Schriften zur Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft. Vol. 2). edition herodot, Göttingen 1983, ISBN 3-88694-024-1 , pages 54-90, on the reversible language change: page 78ff.
40. ^ Karl-Heinz Best: Word lengths in German . In: Göttinger Contributions to Linguistics 13, 2006, pages 23–49, poems, pages 26f.
41. ^ Karl-Heinz Best: Word lengths in German . In: Göttingen Contributions to Linguistics 13, 2006, pages 23–49, letters page 33.
42. ↑ Norbert Groeben: Reader Psychology: Text Understanding, Text Understanding . Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2002, pp. 175-183. ISBN 3-402-04298-3 .
43. ↑ Karl-Heinz Best: Are word and sentence length useful criteria for the legibility of texts? In: Sigurd Wichter, Albert Busch, (Ed.), Knowledge Transfer — Success Control and Feedback from Practice . Lang, Frankfurt / M. u. a. 2006, pp. 21-31. ISBN 3-631-53671-2 .
44. ^ Wolf Schneider: German for life. What the school forgot to teach . Reinbek near Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2004, pp. 40–45. ISBN 3-499-19695-6 .
45. ^ A. Mihm: Statistical language criteria for the suitability of reading books. In: Linguistik und Didaktik 4, 1973, pp. 117–127.
46. ↑ Norbert Groeben: Reader Psychology: Text Understanding, Text Understanding . Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2002, p. 179.
47. ^ Jean Paul: Preschool of Aesthetics. In: Jean Paul: Complete Works. Department I, Volume 5. Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt 1996, p. 270. (= reprint of the Hanser edition; original: 2nd edition 1813.) ISBN 3-86150-152-X .
48. ↑ Sigmund Freud: On the psychopathology of everyday life. Fischer, Frankfurt 1992, p. 37 (first printed in 1904). ISBN 3-596-26079-5 .
49. 
    ↑ Wilfried Seibicke: The personal names in German. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1982, p. 105. ISBN 3-11-007984-4 .
    
50. ^ Konrad Kunze: dtv-Atlas onenology. First and last names in the German-speaking area. 5th, revised and corrected edition. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1998, p. 49. ISBN 3-423-03266-9 .
51. ^ Wilhelm Fucks: According to all the rules of art. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1968, p. 33.

noun

Extra examples

Word forms

noun
singular: length
plural: lengths

Lecture №3. Productive and Non-productive Ways of Word-formation in Modern English

Productivity is the ability to form new words after existing patterns which are readily understood by the speakers of language. The most important and the most productive ways of word-formation are affixation, conversion, word-composition and abbreviation (contraction). In the course of time the productivity of this or that way of word-formation may change. Sound interchange or gradation (blood-to bleed, to abide-abode, to strike-stroke) was a productive way of word building in old English and is important for a diachronic study of the English language. It has lost its productivity in Modern English and no new word can be coined by means of sound gradation. Affixation on the contrary was productive in Old English and is still one of the most productive ways of word building in Modern English.

WORDBUILDING

Word-building is one of the main ways of enriching vocabulary. There are four main ways of word-building in modern English: affixation, composition, conversion, abbreviation. There are also secondary ways of word-building: sound interchange, stress interchange, sound imitation, blends, back formation.

AFFIXATION

Affixation is one of the most productive ways of word-building throughout the history of English. It consists in adding an affix to the stem of a definite part of speech. Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation.

Suffixation

The main function of suffixes in Modern English is to form one part of speech from another, the secondary function is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. (e.g. «educate» is a verb, «educator» is a noun, and music» is a noun, «musical» is also a noun or an adjective). There are different classifications of suffixes :

1. Part-of-speech classification. Suffixes which can form different parts of speech are given here :

a) noun-forming suffixes, such as: —er (criticizer), —dom (officialdom), —ism (ageism),

b) adjective-forming suffixes, such as: —able (breathable), less (symptomless), —ous (prestigious),

c) verb-forming suffixes, such as —ize (computerize) , —ify (minify),

d) adverb-forming suffixes , such as : —ly (singly), —ward (tableward),

e) numeral-forming suffixes, such as —teen (sixteen), —ty (seventy).

2. Semantic classification. Suffixes changing the lexical meaning of the stem can be subdivided into groups, e.g. noun-forming suffixes can denote:

a) the agent of the action, e.g. —er (experimenter), —ist (taxist), -ent (student),

b) nationality, e.g. —ian (Russian), —ese (Japanese), —ish (English),

c) collectivity, e.g. —dom (moviedom), —ry (peasantry, —ship (readership), —ati (literati),

d) diminutiveness, e.g. —ie (horsie), —let (booklet), —ling (gooseling), —ette (kitchenette),

e) quality, e.g. —ness (copelessness), —ity (answerability).

3. Lexico—grammatical character of the stem. Suffixes which can be added to certain groups of stems are subdivided into:

a) suffixes added to verbal stems, such as: —er (commuter), —ing (suffering), — able (flyable), —ment (involvement), —ation (computerization),

b) suffixes added to noun stems, such as: —less (smogless), —ful (roomful), —ism (adventurism), —ster (pollster), —nik (filmnik), —ish (childish),

c) suffixes added to adjective stems, such as: —en (weaken), —ly (pinkly), —ish (longish), —ness (clannishness).

4. Origin of suffixes. Here we can point out the following groups:

a) native (Germanic), such as —er,-ful, —less, —ly.

b) Romanic, such as : —tion, —ment, —able, —eer.

c) Greek, such as : —ist, —ism, -ize.

d) Russian, such as —nik.

5. Productivity. Here we can point out the following groups:

a) productive, such as: —er, —ize, —ly, —ness.

b) semi-productive, such as: —eer, —ette, —ward.

c) non-productive , such as: —ard (drunkard), —th (length).

Suffixes can be polysemantic, such as: —er can form nouns with the following meanings: agent, doer of the action expressed by the stem (speaker), profession, occupation (teacher), a device, a tool (transmitter). While speaking about suffixes we should also mention compound suffixes which are added to the stem at the same time, such as —ably, —ibly, (terribly, reasonably), —ation (adaptation from adapt). There are also disputable cases whether we have a suffix or a root morpheme in the structure of a word, in such cases we call such morphemes semi-suffixes, and words with such suffixes can be classified either as derived words or as compound words, e.g. —gate (Irangate), —burger (cheeseburger), —aholic (workaholic) etc.

Prefixation

Prefixation is the formation of words by means of adding a prefix to the stem. In English it is characteristic for forming verbs. Prefixes are more independent than suffixes. Prefixes can be classified according to the nature of words in which they are used: prefixes used in notional words and prefixes used in functional words. Prefixes used in notional words are proper prefixes which are bound morphemes, e.g. un— (unhappy). Prefixes used in functional words are semi-bound morphemes because they are met in the language as words, e.g. over— (overhead) (cf. over the table). The main function of prefixes in English is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. But the recent research showed that about twenty-five prefixes in Modern English form one part of speech from another (bebutton, interfamily, postcollege etc).

Prefixes can be classified according to different principles:

1. Semantic classification:

a) prefixes of negative meaning, such as: in— (invaluable), non— (nonformals), un— (unfree) etc,

b) prefixes denoting repetition or reversal actions, such as: de— (decolonize), re— (revegetation), dis— (disconnect),

c) prefixes denoting time, space, degree relations, such as: inter— (interplanetary) , hyper— (hypertension), ex— (ex-student), pre— (pre-election), over— (overdrugging) etc.

2. Origin of prefixes:

a) native (Germanic), such as: un-, over-, under— etc.

b) Romanic, such as: in-, de-, ex-, re— etc.

c) Greek, such as: sym-, hyper— etc.

When we analyze such words as adverb, accompany where we can find the root of the word (verb, company) we may treat ad-, ac— as prefixes though they were never used as prefixes to form new words in English and were borrowed from Romanic languages together with words. In such cases we can treat them as derived words. But some scientists treat them as simple words. Another group of words with a disputable structure are such as: contain, retain, detain and conceive, receive, deceive where we can see that re-, de-, con— act as prefixes and —tain, —ceive can be understood as roots. But in English these combinations of sounds have no lexical meaning and are called pseudo-morphemes. Some scientists treat such words as simple words, others as derived ones. There are some prefixes which can be treated as root morphemes by some scientists, e.g. after— in the word afternoon. American lexicographers working on Webster dictionaries treat such words as compound words. British lexicographers treat such words as derived ones.

COMPOSITION

Composition is the way of word building when a word is formed by joining two or more stems to form one word. The structural unity of a compound word depends upon: a) the unity of stress, b) solid or hyphеnated spelling, c) semantic unity, d) unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. These are characteristic features of compound words in all languages. For English compounds some of these factors are not very reliable. As a rule English compounds have one uniting stress (usually on the first component), e.g. hard-cover, best—seller. We can also have a double stress in an English compound, with the main stress on the first component and with a secondary stress on the second component, e.g. blood—vessel. The third pattern of stresses is two level stresses, e.g. snow—white, sky—blue. The third pattern is easily mixed up with word-groups unless they have solid or hyphеnated spelling.

Spelling in English compounds is not very reliable as well because they can have different spelling even in the same text, e.g. war—ship, blood—vessel can be spelt through a hyphen and also with a break, insofar, underfoot can be spelt solidly and with a break. All the more so that there has appeared in Modern English a special type of compound words which are called block compounds, they have one uniting stress but are spelt with a break, e.g. air piracy, cargo module, coin change, penguin suit etc. The semantic unity of a compound word is often very strong. In such cases we have idiomatic compounds where the meaning of the whole is not a sum of meanings of its components, e.g. to ghostwrite, skinhead, brain—drain etc. In nonidiomatic compounds semantic unity is not strong, e. g., airbus, to bloodtransfuse, astrodynamics etc.

English compounds have the unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. They are used in a sentence as one part of it and only one component changes grammatically, e.g. These girls are chatter-boxes. «Chatter-boxes» is a predicative in the sentence and only the second component changes grammatically. There are two characteristic features of English compounds:

a) Both components in an English compound are free stems, that is they can be used as words with a distinctive meaning of their own. The sound pattern will be the same except for the stresses, e.g. «a green-house» and «a green house». Whereas for example in Russian compounds the stems are bound morphemes, as a rule.

b) English compounds have a two-stem pattern, with the exception of compound words which have form-word stems in their structure, e.g. middle-of-the-road, off—the—record, up—and—doing etc. The two-stem pattern distinguishes English compounds from German ones.

WAYS OF FORMING COMPOUND WORDS

Compound words in English can be formed not only by means of composition but also by means of:

a) reduplication, e.g. too—too, and also by means of reduplication combined with sound interchange , e.g. rope-ripe,

b) conversion from word-groups, e.g. to micky—mouse, can—do, makeup etc,

c) back formation from compound nouns or word-groups, e.g. to bloodtransfuse, to fingerprint etc ,

d) analogy, e.g. lie—in (on the analogy with sit-in) and also phone—in, brawn—drain (on the analogy with brain—drain) etc.

CLASSIFICATIONS OF ENGLISH COMPOUNDS

1. According to the parts of speech compounds are subdivided into:

a) nouns, such as: baby-moon, globe-trotter,

b) adjectives, such as : free-for-all, power-happy,

c) verbs, such as : to honey-moon, to baby-sit, to henpeck,

d) adverbs, such as: downdeep, headfirst,

e) prepositions, such as: into, within,

f) numerals, such as : fifty—five.

2. According to the way components are joined together compounds are divided into: a) neutral, which are formed by joining together two stems without any joining morpheme, e.g. ball—point, to windowshop,

b) morphological where components are joined by a linking element: vowels «o» or «i» or the consonant «s», e.g. («astrospace», «handicraft», «sportsman»),

c) syntactical where the components are joined by means of form-word stems, e.g. here-and-now, free-for-all, do-or-die.

3. According to their structure compounds are subdivided into:

a) compound words proper which consist of two stems, e.g. to job-hunt, train-sick, go-go, tip-top,

b) derivational compounds, where besides the stems we have affixes, e.g. ear—minded, hydro-skimmer,

c) compound words consisting of three or more stems, e.g. cornflower—blue, eggshell—thin, singer—songwriter,

d) compound-shortened words, e.g. boatel, VJ—day, motocross, intervision, Eurodollar, Camford.

4. According to the relations between the components compound words are subdivided into:

a) subordinative compounds where one of the components is the semantic and the structural centre and the second component is subordinate; these subordinative relations can be different: with comparative relations, e.g. honey—sweet, eggshell—thin, with limiting relations, e.g. breast—high, knee—deep, with emphatic relations, e.g. dog—cheap, with objective relations, e.g. gold—rich, with cause relations, e.g. love—sick, with space relations, e.g. top—heavy, with time relations, e.g. spring—fresh, with subjective relations, e.g. foot—sore etc

b) coordinative compounds where both components are semantically independent. Here belong such compounds when one person (object) has two functions, e.g. secretary-stenographer, woman-doctor, Oxbridge etc. Such compounds are called additive. This group includes also compounds formed by means of reduplication, e.g. fifty-fifty, no-no, and also compounds formed with the help of rhythmic stems (reduplication combined with sound interchange) e.g. criss-cross, walkie-talkie.

5. According to the order of the components compounds are divided into compounds with direct order, e.g. kill—joy, and compounds with indirect order, e.g. nuclear—free, rope—ripe.

CONVERSION

Conversion is a characteristic feature of the English word-building system. It is also called affixless derivation or zero-suffixation. The term «conversion» first appeared in the book by Henry Sweet «New English Grammar» in 1891. Conversion is treated differently by different scientists, e.g. prof. A.I. Smirntitsky treats conversion as a morphological way of forming words when one part of speech is formed from another part of speech by changing its paradigm, e.g. to form the verb «to dial» from the noun «dial» we change the paradigm of the noun (a dial, dials) for the paradigm of a regular verb (I dial, he dials, dialed, dialing). A. Marchand in his book «The Categories and Types of Present-day English» treats conversion as a morphological-syntactical word-building because we have not only the change of the paradigm, but also the change of the syntactic function, e.g. I need some good paper for my room. (The noun «paper» is an object in the sentence). I paper my room every year. (The verb «paper» is the predicate in the sentence). Conversion is the main way of forming verbs in Modern English. Verbs can be formed from nouns of different semantic groups and have different meanings because of that, e.g.:

a) verbs have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting parts of a human body e.g. to eye, to finger, to elbow, to shoulder etc. They have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting tools, machines, instruments, weapons, e.g. to hammer, to machine-gun, to rifle, to nail,

b) verbs can denote an action characteristic of the living being denoted by the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to crowd, to wolf, to ape,

c) verbs can denote acquisition, addition or deprivation if they are formed from nouns denoting an object, e.g. to fish, to dust, to peel, to paper,

d) verbs can denote an action performed at the place denoted by the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to park, to garage, to bottle, to corner, to pocket,

e) verbs can denote an action performed at the time denoted by the noun from which they have been converted e.g. to winter, to week-end.

Verbs can be also converted from adjectives, in such cases they denote the change of the state, e.g. to tame (to become or make tame), to clean, to slim etc.

Nouns can also be formed by means of conversion from verbs. Converted nouns can denote: a) instant of an action e.g. a jump, a move,

b) process or state e.g. sleep, walk,

c) agent of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a help, a flirt, a scold,

d) object or result of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a burn, a find, a purchase,

e) place of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a drive, a stop, a walk.

Many nouns converted from verbs can be used only in the Singular form and denote momentaneous actions. In such cases we have partial conversion. Such deverbal nouns are often used with such verbs as: to have, to get, to take etc., e.g. to have a try, to give a push, to take a swim.

CRITERIA OF SEMANTIC DERIVATION

In cases of conversion the problem of criteria of semantic derivation arises: which of the converted pair is primary and which is converted from it. The problem was first analized by prof. A.I. Smirnitsky. Later on P.A. Soboleva developed his idea and worked out the following criteria:

1. If the lexical meaning of the root morpheme and the lexico-grammatical meaning of the stem coincide the word is primary, e.g. in cases pen — to pen, father — to father the nouns are names of an object and a living being. Therefore in the nouns «pen» and «father» the lexical meaning of the root and the lexico-grammatical meaning of the stem coincide. The verbs «to pen» and «to father» denote an action, a process therefore the lexico-grammatical meanings of the stems do not coincide with the lexical meanings of the roots. The verbs have a complex semantic structure and they were converted from nouns.

2. If we compare a converted pair with a synonymic word pair which was formed by means of suffixation we can find out which of the pair is primary. This criterion can be applied only to nouns converted from verbs, e.g. «chat» n. and «chat» v. can be compared with «conversation» – «converse».

3. The criterion based on derivational relations is of more universal character. In this case we must take a word-cluster of relative words to which the converted pair belongs. If the root stem of the word-cluster has suffixes added to a noun stem the noun is primary in the converted pair and vica versa, e.g. in the word-cluster: hand n., hand v., handy, handful the derived words have suffixes added to a noun stem, that is why the noun is primary and the verb is converted from it. In the word-cluster: dance n., dance v., dancer, dancing we see that the primary word is a verb and the noun is converted from it.

SUBSTANTIVIZATION OF ADJECTIVES

Some scientists (Yespersen, Kruisinga) refer substantivization of adjectives to conversion. But most scientists disagree with them because in cases of substantivization of adjectives we have quite different changes in the language. Substantivization is the result of ellipsis (syntactical shortening) when a word combination with a semantically strong attribute loses its semantically weak noun (man, person etc), e.g. «a grown-up person» is shortened to «a grown-up». In cases of perfect substantivization the attribute takes the paradigm of a countable noun, e.g. a criminal, criminals, a criminal’s (mistake), criminals’ (mistakes). Such words are used in a sentence in the same function as nouns, e.g. I am fond of musicals. (musical comedies). There are also two types of partly substantivized adjectives: 1) those which have only the plural form and have the meaning of collective nouns, such as: sweets, news, finals, greens; 2) those which have only the singular form and are used with the definite article. They also have the meaning of collective nouns and denote a class, a nationality, a group of people, e.g. the rich, the English, the dead.

«STONE WALL» COMBINATIONS

The problem whether adjectives can be formed by means of conversion from nouns is the subject of many discussions. In Modern English there are a lot of word combinations of the type, e.g. price rise, wage freeze, steel helmet, sand castle etc. If the first component of such units is an adjective converted from a noun, combinations of this type are free word-groups typical of English (adjective + noun). This point of view is proved by O. Yespersen by the following facts:

1. «Stone» denotes some quality of the noun «wall».

2. «Stone» stands before the word it modifies, as adjectives in the function of an attribute do in English.

3. «Stone» is used in the Singular though its meaning in most cases is plural, and adjectives in English have no plural form.

4. There are some cases when the first component is used in the Comparative or the Superlative degree, e.g. the bottomest end of the scale.

5. The first component can have an adverb which characterizes it, and adjectives are characterized by adverbs, e.g. a purely family gathering.

6. The first component can be used in the same syntactical function with a proper adjective to characterize the same noun, e.g. lonely bare stone houses.

7. After the first component the pronoun «one» can be used instead of a noun, e.g. I shall not put on a silk dress, I shall put on a cotton one.

However Henry Sweet and some other scientists say that these criteria are not characteristic of the majority of such units. They consider the first component of such units to be a noun in the function of an attribute because in Modern English almost all parts of speech and even word-groups and sentences can be used in the function of an attribute, e.g. the then president (an adverb), out-of-the-way villages (a word-group), a devil-may-care speed (a sentence). There are different semantic relations between the components of «stone wall» combinations. E.I. Chapnik classified them into the following groups:

1. time relations, e.g. evening paper,

2. space relations, e.g. top floor,

3. relations between the object and the material of which it is made, e.g. steel helmet,

4. cause relations, e.g. war orphan,

5. relations between a part and the whole, e.g. a crew member,

6. relations between the object and an action, e.g. arms production,

7. relations between the agent and an action e.g. government threat, price rise,

8. relations between the object and its designation, e.g. reception hall,

9. the first component denotes the head, organizer of the characterized object, e.g. Clinton government, Forsyte family,

10. the first component denotes the field of activity of the second component, e.g. language teacher, psychiatry doctor,

11. comparative relations, e.g. moon face,

12. qualitative relations, e.g. winter apples.

ABBREVIATION

In the process of communication words and word-groups can be shortened. The causes of shortening can be linguistic and extra-linguistic. By extra-linguistic causes changes in the life of people are meant. 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. 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.

Graphical abbreviations

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 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, e.g. for example (Latin exampli gratia), a.m. – in the morning (ante meridiem), No – number (numero), p.a. – a year (per annum), d – penny (dinarius), lb – pound (libra), i. e. – that is (id est) etc.

Some graphical abbreviations of Latin origin have different English equivalents in different contexts, e.g. p.m. can be pronounced «in the afternoon» (post meridiem) and «after death» (post mortem). There are also graphical abbreviations of native origin, where in the spelling we have abbreviations of words and word-groups of the corresponding English equivalents in the full form. We have several semantic groups of them: a) days of the week, e.g. Mon – Monday, Tue – Tuesday etc

b) names of months, e.g. Apr – April, Aug – August etc.

c) names of counties in UK, e.g. Yorks – Yorkshire, Berks – Berkshire etc

d) names of states in USA, e.g. Ala – Alabama, Alas – Alaska etc.

e) names of address, e.g. Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr. etc.

f) military ranks, e.g. capt. – captain, col. – colonel, sgt – sergeant etc.

g) scientific degrees, e.g. B.A. – Bachelor of Arts, D.M. – Doctor of Medicine. (Sometimes in scientific degrees we have abbreviations of Latin origin, e.g., M.B. – Medicinae Baccalaurus).

h) 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.

Initial abbreviations

Initialisms 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. J.V. – 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. In some cases the translation of initialisms is next to impossible without using special dictionaries. Initialisms are denoted in different ways. Very often they are expressed in the way they are pronounced in the language of their origin, e.g. ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, United States) is given in Russian as АНЗУС, SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) was for a long time used in Russian as СОЛТ, now a translation variant is used (ОСВ – Договор об ограничении стратегических вооружений). This type of initialisms borrowed into other languages is preferable, e.g. UFO – НЛО, CП – JV etc. There are three types of initialisms in English:

a) initialisms with alphabetical reading, such as UK, BUP, CND etc

b) initialisms which are read as if they are words, e.g. UNESCO, UNO, NATO etc.

c) initialisms which coincide with English words in their sound form, such initialisms are called acronyms, e.g. CLASS (Computor-based Laboratory for Automated School System). Some scientists unite groups b) and c) into one group which they call acronyms. Some initialisms can form new words in which they act as root morphemes by different ways of wordbuilding:

a) affixation, e.g. AVALism, ex- POW, AIDSophobia etc.

b) conversion, e.g. to raff, to fly IFR (Instrument Flight Rules),

c) composition, e.g. STOLport, USAFman etc.

d) 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 -Ds (Three dimensions) – стереофильм.

Abbreviations of words

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 etc. As a rule pronouns, numerals, interjections. conjunctions are not abbreviated. The exceptions are: fif (fifteen), teen-ager, in one’s teens (apheresis from numerals from 13 to 19). 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 meaning of the word. This type of abbreviation is called apocope. Here we can mention a group of words ending in «o», such as disco (dicotheque), 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 (vanguard) etc. 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.

NON-PRODUCTIVE WAYS OF WORDBUILDING

SOUND INTERCHANGE

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. 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. In many cases we have vowel and consonant interchange. In nouns we have voiceless consonants and in verbs we have corresponding voiced consonants because in Old English these consonants in nouns were at the end of the word and in verbs in the intervocalic position, e.g. bath – to bathe, life – to live, breath – to breathe etc.

STRESS INTERCHANGE

Stress interchange can be mostly met in verbs and nouns of Romanic origin: nouns have the stress on the first syllable and verbs on the last syllable, e.g. `accent — to ac`cent. This phenomenon is explained in the following way: French verbs and nouns had different structure when they were borrowed into English, verbs had one syllable more than the corresponding nouns. When these borrowings were assimilated in English the stress in them was shifted to the previous syllable (the second from the end). Later on the last unstressed syllable in verbs borrowed from French was dropped (the same as in native verbs) and after that the stress in verbs was on the last syllable while in nouns it was on the first syllable. As a result of it we have such pairs in English as: to af«fix -`affix, to con`flict- `conflict, to ex`port -`export, to ex`tract — `extract etc. As a result of stress interchange we have also vowel interchange in such words because vowels are pronounced differently in stressed and unstressed positions.

SOUND IMITATION

It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by imitating different sounds. There are some semantic groups of words formed by means of sound imitation:

a) sounds produced by human beings, such as : to whisper, to giggle, to mumble, to sneeze, to whistle etc.

b) sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, such as: to hiss, to buzz, to bark, to moo, to twitter etc.

c) sounds produced by nature and objects, such as: to splash, to rustle, to clatter, to bubble, to ding-dong, to tinkle etc.

The corresponding nouns are formed by means of conversion, e.g. clang (of a bell), chatter (of children) etc.

BLENDS

Blends are words formed from a word-group or two synonyms. In blends two ways of word-building are combined: abbreviation and composition. To form a blend we clip the end of the first component (apocope) and the beginning of the second component (apheresis) . As a result we have a compound- shortened word. One of the first blends in English was the word «smog» from two synonyms: smoke and fog which means smoke mixed with fog. From the first component the beginning is taken, from the second one the end, «o» is common for both of them. Blends formed from two synonyms are: slanguage, to hustle, gasohol etc. Mostly blends are formed from a word-group, such as: acromania (acronym mania), cinemaddict (cinema adict), chunnel (channel, canal), dramedy (drama comedy), detectifiction (detective fiction), faction (fact fiction) (fiction based on real facts), informecial (information commercial), Medicare (medical care), magalog (magazine catalogue) slimnastics (slimming gymnastics), sociolite (social elite), slanguist (slang linguist) etc.

BACK FORMATION

It 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. Yartseva explains this mistake by the influence of the whole system of the language on separate words. E.g. it is typical of English to form nouns denoting the agent of the action by adding the suffix -er to a verb stem (speak- speaker). So when the French word «beggar» was borrowed into English the final syllable «ar» was pronounced in the same way as the English —er and Englishmen formed the verb «to beg» by dropping the end of the noun. Other examples of back formation are: to accreditate (from accreditation), to bach (from bachelor), to collocate (from collocation), to enthuse (from enthusiasm), to compute (from computer), to emote (from emotion), to televise (from television) etc.

As we can notice in cases of back formation the part-of-speech meaning of the primary word is changed, verbs are formed from nouns.

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