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Lecture 3.
Word-building: affixation, conversion, composition, abbreviation.
THE WORD-BUILDING SYSTEM OF ENGLISH
1.
Word-derivation
2.
Affixation
3.
Conversion
4.
Word-composition
5.
Shortening
6.
Blending
7.
Acronymy
8.
Sound interchange
9.
Sound imitation
10. Distinctive stress
11. Back-formation
Word-formation is a branch of Lexicology which studies the process of building new
words, derivative structures and patterns of existing words. Two principle types of wordformation are distinguished: word-derivation and word-composition. It is evident that wordformation proper can deal only with words which can be analyzed both structurally and
semantically. Simple words are closely connected with word-formation because they serve as the
foundation of derived and compound words. Therefore, words like writer, displease, sugar free,
etc. make the subject matter of study in word-formation, but words like to write, to please, atom,
free are irrelevant to it.
WORD-FORMATION
WORD-DERIVATION
AFFIXATION
WORD-COMPOSITION
CONVERSION
1. Word-derivation.
Speaking about word-derivation we deal with the derivational structure of words which
basic elementary units are derivational bases, derivational affixes and derivational patterns.
A derivational base is the part of the word which establishes connection with the lexical
unit that motivates the derivative and determines its individual lexical meaning describing the
difference between words in one and the same derivative set. For example, the individual lexical
meaning of the words singer, writer, teacher which denote active doers of the action is signaled by
the lexical meaning of the derivational bases: sing-, write-, teach-.
Structurally derivational bases fall into 3 classes:
1. Bases that coincide with morphological stems of different degrees оf complexity, i.e.,
with words functioning independently in modern English e.g., dutiful, day-dreamer. Bases are
functionally and semantically distinct from morphological stems. Functionally the morphological
stem is a part of the word which is the starting point for its forms: heart – hearts; it is the part
which presents the entire grammatical paradigm. The stem remains unchanged throughout all
word-forms; it keeps them together preserving the identity of the word. A derivational base is the
starting point for different words (heart – heartless – hearty) and its derivational potential
outlines the type and scope of existing words and new creations. Semantically the stem stands for
the whole semantic structure of the word; it represents all its lexical meanings. A base represents,
as a rule, only one meaning of the source word.
2. Bases that coincide with word-forms, e.g., unsmiling, unknown. The base is usually
represented by verbal forms: the present and the past participles.
3. Bases that coincide with word-groups of different degrees of stability, e.g., blue-eyed,
empty-handed. Bases of this class allow a rather limited range of collocability, they are most
active with derivational affixes in the class of adjectives and nouns (long-fingered, blue-eyed).
Derivational affixes are Immediate Constituents of derived words in all parts of speech.
Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding derivational affixes to
different types of bases. Affixation is subdivided into suffixation and prefixation. In Modern
English suffixation is mostly characteristic of nouns and adjectives coining, while prefixation is
mostly typical of verb formation.
A derivational pattern is a regular meaningful arrangement, a structure that imposes
rigid rules on the order and the nature of the derivational base and affixes that may be brought
together to make up a word. Derivational patterns are studied with the help of distributional
analysis at different levels. Patterns are usually represented in a generalized way in terms of
conventional symbols: small letters v, n, a, d which stand for the bases coinciding with the stems
of the respective parts of speech: verbs, etc. Derivational patterns may represent derivative
structure at different levels of generalization:
- at the level of structural types. The patterns of this type are known as structural
formulas, all words may be classified into 4 classes: suffixal derivatives (friendship) n + -sf →
N, prefixal derivatives (rewrite), conversions (a cut, to parrot) v → N, compound words (musiclover).
- at the level of structural patterns. Structural patterns specify the base classes and
individual affixes thus indicating the lexical-grammatical and lexical classes of derivatives
within certain structural classes of words. The suffixes refer derivatives to specific parts of
speech and lexical subsets. V + -er = N (a semantic set of active agents, denoting both animate
and inanimate objects - reader, singer); n + -er = N (agents denoting residents or occupations Londoner, gardener). We distinguish a structural semantic derivationa1 pattern.
- at the level of structural-semantic patterns. Derivational patterns may specify semantic
features of bases and individual meaning of affixes: N + -y = A (nominal bases denoting living
beings are collocated with the suffix meaning "resemblance" - birdy, catty; but nominal bases
denoting material, parts of the body attract another meaning "considerable amount" - grassy,
leggy).
The basic ways of forming new words in word-derivation are affixation and conversion.
Affixation is the formation of a new word with the help of affixes (heartless, overdo).
Conversion is the formation of a new word by bringing a stem of this word into a different
paradigm (a fall from to fall).
2. Affixation
Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding derivational affixes
to different types of bases. Affixation includes suffixation and prefixation. Distinction between
suffixal and prefixal derivates is made according to the last stage of derivation, for example,
from the point of view of derivational analysis the word unreasonable – un + (reason- + -able) is
qualified as a prefixal derivate, while the word discouragement – (dis- + -courage) + -ment is
defined as a suffixal derivative.
Suffixation is the formation of words with the help of suffixes. Suffixes usually modify
the lexical meaning of the base and transfer words to a different part of speech.
Suffixes can be classified into different types in accordance with different principles.
According to the lexico-grammatical character suffixes may be: deverbal suffixes, e.d.,
those added to the verbal base (agreement); denominal (endless); deadjectival (widen,
brightness).
According to the part of speech formed suffixes fall into several groups: noun-forming
suffixes (assistance), adjective-forming suffixes (unbearable), numeral-forming suffixes
(fourteen), verb-forming suffixes (facilitate), adverb-forming suffixes (quickly, likewise).
Semantically suffixes may be monosemantic, e.g. the suffix –ess has only one meaning
“female” – goddess, heiress; polysemantic, e.g. the suffix –hood has two meanings “condition or
quality” falsehood and “collection or group” brotherhood.
According to their generalizing denotational meaning suffixes may fall into several
groups: the agent of the action (baker, assistant); collectivity (peasantry); appurtenance
(Victorian, Chinese); diminutiveness (booklet).
Prefixation is the formation of words with the help of prefixes. Two types of prefixes can
be distinguished: 1) those not correlated with any independent word (un-, post-, dis-); 2) those
correlated with functional words (prepositions or preposition-like adverbs: out-, up-, under-).
Diachronically distinction is made between prefixes of native and foreign origin.
Prefixes can be classified according to different principles.
According to the lexico-grammatical character of the base prefixes are usually added to,
they may be: deverbal prefixes, e.d., those added to the verbal base (overdo); denominal
(unbutton); deadjectival (biannual).
According to the part of speech formed prefixes fall into several groups: noun-forming
prefixes (ex-husband), adjective-forming prefixes (unfair), verb-forming prefixes (dethrone),
adverb-forming prefixes (uphill).
Semantically prefixes may be monosemantic, e.g. the prefix –ex has only one meaning
“former” – ex-boxer; polysemantic, e.g. the prefix –dis has four meanings “not” disadvantage
and “removal of” to disbrunch.
According to their generalizing denotational meaning prefixes may fall into several
groups: negative prefixes – un, non, dis, a, in (ungrateful, nonpolitical, disloyal, amoral,
incorrect); reversative prefixes - un, de, dis (untie, decentralize, disconnect); pejorative prefixes
– mis, mal, pseudo (mispronounce, maltreat, pseudo-scientific); prefix of repetition (redo),
locative prefixes – super, sub, inter, trans (superstructure, subway, intercontinental,
transatlantic).
3. Conversion
Conversion is a process which allows us to create additional lexical terms out of those
that already exist, e.g., to saw, to spy, to snoop, to flirt. This process is not limited to one syllable
words, e.g., to bottle, to butter, nor is the process limited to the creation of verbs from nouns, e.g.,
to up the prices. Converted words are extremely colloquial: "I'll microwave the chicken", "Let's
flee our dog", "We will of course quiche and perrier you".
Conversion came into being in the early Middle English period as a result of the leveling
and further loss of endings.
In Modern English conversion is a highly-productive type of word-building. Conversion
is a specifically English type of word formation which is determined by its analytical character,
by its scarcity of inflections and abundance of mono-and-de-syllabic words in different parts of
speech. Conversion is coining new words in a different part of speech and with a different
distribution but without adding any derivative elements, so that the original and the converted
words are homonyms.
Structural Characteristics of Conversion: Mostly monosyllabic words are converted,
e.g., to horn, to box, to eye. In Modern English there is a marked tendency to convert
polysyllabic words of a complex morphological structure, e.g., to e-mail, to X-ray. Most converted
words are verbs which may be formed from different parts of speech from nouns, adjectives,
adverbs, interjections.
Nouns from verbs - a try, a go, a find, a loss
From adjectives - a daily, a periodical
From adverbs - up and down
From conjunctions - but me no buts
From interjection - to encore
Semantic Associations / Relations of Conversion:
The noun is the name of a tool or implement, the verb denotes an action performed by the
tool, e.g., to nail, to pin, to comb, to brush, to pencil;
The noun is the name of an animal, the verb denotes an action or aspect of behavior
considered typical of this animal, e.g., to monkey, to rat, to dog, to fox;
When the noun is the name of a part of a human body, the verb denotes an action
performed by it, e.g., to hand, to nose, to eye;
When the noun is the name of a profession or occupation, the verb denotes the activity
typical of it, e.g., to cook, to maid, to nurse;
When the noun is the name of a place, the verb will denote the process of occupying the
place or by putting something into it, e.g., to room, to house, to cage;
When the word is the name of a container, the verb will denote the act of putting
something within the container, e.g., to can, to pocket, to bottle;
When the word is the name of a meal, the verb means the process of taking it, e.g., to
lunch, to supper, to dine, to wine;
If an adjective is converted into a verb, the verb may have a generalized meaning "to be
in a state", e.g., to yellow;
When nouns are converted from verbs, they denote an act or a process, or the result, e.g.,
a try, a go, a find, a catch.
4. Word-composition
Compound words are words consisting of at least two stems which occur in the language
as free forms.
Most compounds in English have the primary stress on the first syllable. For example,
income tax has the primary stress on the in of income, not on the tax.
Compounds have a rather simple, regular set of properties. First, they are binary in
structure. They always consist of two or more constituent lexemes. A compound which has three
or more constituents must have them in pairs, e.g., washingmachine manufacturer consists of
washingmachine and manufacturer, while washingmachine in turn consists of washing and
machine. Compound words also usually have a head constituent. By a head constituent we mean
one which determines the syntactic properties of the whole lexeme, e.g., the compound lexeme
longboat consists of an adjective, long and a noun, boat. The compound lexeme longboat is a
noun, and it is а noun because boat is a noun, that is, boat is the head constituent of longboat.
Compound words can belong to all the major syntactic categories:
• Nouns: signpost, sunlight, bluebird, redwood, swearword, outhouse;
• Verbs: window shop, stargaze, outlive, undertake;
• Adjectives: ice-cold, hell-bent, undersized;
• Prepositions: into, onto, upon.
From the morphological point of view compound words are classified according to the
structure of immediate constituents:
• Compounds consisting of simple stems - heartache, blackbird;
• Compounds where at least one of the constituents is a derived stem -chainsmoker,
maid-servant, mill-owner, shop-assistant;
• Compounds where one of the constituents is a clipped stem - V-day, A-bomb, Xmas,
H-bag;
• Compounds where one of the constituents is a compound stem - wastes paper basket,
postmaster general.
Compounds are the commonest among nouns and adjectives. Compound verbs are few in
number, as they are mostly the result of conversion, e.g., to blackmail, to honeymoon, to
nickname, to safeguard, to whitewash. The 20th century created some more converted verbs, e.g.,
to weekend, to streamline,, to spotlight. Such converted compounds are particularly common in
colloquial speech of American English. Converted verbs can be also the result of backformation.
Among the earliest coinages are to backbite, to browbeat, to illtreat, to housekeep. The 20th
century gave more examples to hitch-hike, to proof-read, to mass-produce, to vacuumclean.
One more structural characteristic of compound words is classification of compounds
according to the type of composition. According to this principle two groups can be singled out:

words which are formed by a mere juxtaposition without any connecting elements,
e.g., classroom, schoolboy, heartbreak, sunshine;

composition with a vowel or a consonant placed between the two stems. e.g.,
salesman, handicraft.
Semantically compounds may be idiomatic and non-idiomatic. Compound words may be
motivated morphologically and in this case they are non-idiomatic. Sunshine - the meaning here
is a mere meaning of the elements of a compound word (the meaning of each component is
retained). When the compound word is not motivated morphologically, it is idiomatic. In
idiomatic compounds the meaning of each component is either lost or weakened. Idiomatic
compounds have a transferred meaning. Chatterbox - is not a box, it is a person who talks a great
deal without saying anything important; the combination is used only figuratively. The same
metaphorical character is observed in the compound slowcoach - a person who acts and thinks
slowly.
The components of compounds may have different semantic relations. From this point of
view we can roughly classify compounds into endocentric and exocentric. In endocentric
compounds the semantic centre is found within the compound and the first element determines
the other as in the words filmstar, bedroom, writing-table. Here the semantic centres are star,
room, table. These stems serve as a generic name of the object and the determinants film, bed,
writing give some specific, additional information about the objects. In exocentric compound
there is no semantic centre. It is placed outside the word and can be found only in the course of
lexical transformation, e.g., pickpocket - a person who picks pockets of other people, scarecrow an object made to look like a person that a farmer puts in a field to frighten birds.
The Criteria of Compounds
As English compounds consist of free forms, it's difficult to distinguish them from
phrases, because there are no reliable criteria for that. There exist three approaches to distinguish
compounds from corresponding phrases:
Formal unity implies the unity of spelling

solid spelling, e.g., headmaster;

with a hyphen, e.g., head-master;

with a break between two components, e.g., head master.
Different dictionaries and different authors give different spelling variants.
Phonic principal of stress
Many compounds in English have only one primary stress. All compound nouns are
stressed according to this pattern, e.g., ice-cream, ice cream. The rule doesn't hold with
adjectives. Compound adjectives are double-stressed, e.g., easy-going, new-born, sky-blue.
Stress cannot help to distinguish compounds from phrases because word stress may depend on
phrasal stress or upon the syntactic function of a compound.
Semantic unity
Semantic unity means that a compound word expresses one separate notion and phrases
express more than one notion. Notions in their turn can't be measured. That's why it is hard to
say whether one or more notions are expressed. The problem of distinguishing between
compound words and phrases is still open to discussion.
According to the type of bases that form compounds they can be of :
1.
compounds proper – they are formed by joining together bases built on the stems
or on the ford-forms with or without linking element, e.g., door-step;
2.
derivational compounds – by joining affixes to the bases built on the word-groups
or by converting the bases built on the word-groups into the other parts of speech, e.g., longlegged → (long legs) + -ed, a turnkey → (to turn key) + conversion. More examples: do-gooder,
week-ender, first-nighter, house-keeping, baby-sitting, blue-eyed blond-haired, four-storied. The
suffixes refer to both of the stems combined, but not to the final stem only. Such stems as nighter,
gooder, eyed do not exist.
Compound Neologisms
In the last two decades the role of composition in the word-building system of English has
increased. In the 60th and 70th composition was not so productive as affixation. In the 80th
composition exceeded affixation and comprised 29.5 % of the total number of neologisms in
English vocabulary. Among compound neologisms the two-component units prevail. The main
patterns of coining the two-component neologisms are Noun stem + Noun stem = Noun;
Adjective stem + Noun stem = Noun.
There appeared a tendency to coin compound nouns where:
 The first component is a proper noun, e.g., Kirlian photograph - biological field of
humans.
 The first component is a geographical place, e.g., Afro-rock.
 The two components are joined with the help of the linking vowel –o- e.g.,
bacteriophobia, suggestopedia.
 The number of derivational compounds increases. The main productive suffix to coin
such compound is the suffix -er - e.g., baby-boomer, all nighter.
 Many compound words are formed according to the pattern Participle 2 + Adv =
Adjective, e.g., laid-back, spaced-out, switched-off, tapped-out.
 The examples of verbs formed with the help of a post-positive -in -work-in, die-in,
sleep-in, write-in.
Many compounds formed by the word-building pattern Verb + postpositive are numerous
in colloquial speech or slang, e.g., bliss out, fall about/horse around, pig-out.
ATTENTION: Apart from the principle types there are some minor types of modern wordformation, i.d., shortening, blending, acronymy, sound interchange, sound imitation, distinctive
stress, back-formation, and reduplicaton.
5. Shortening
Shortening is the formation of a word by cutting off a part of the word. They can be
coined in two different ways. The first is to cut off the initial/ middle/ final part:
 Aphaeresis – initial part of the word is clipped, e.g., history-story, telephone-phone;
 Syncope – the middle part of the word is clipped, e.g., madam- ma 'am; specs
spectacles
 Apocope – the final part of the word is clipped, e.g., professor-prof, editored, vampirevamp;
 Both initial and final, e.g., influenza-flu, detective-tec.
Polysemantic words are usually clipped in one meaning only, e.g., doc and doctor have
the meaning "one who practices medicine", but doctor is also "the highest degree given by a
university to a scholar or scientist".
Among shortenings there are homonyms, so that one and the same sound and graphical
complex may represent different words, e.g., vac - vacation/vacuum, prep —
preparation/preparatory school, vet — veterinary surgeon/veteran.
6. Blending
Blending is a particular type of shortening which combines the features of both clipping
and composition, e.g., motel (motor + hotel), brunch (breakfast + lunch), smog (smoke + fog),
telethon (television + marathon), modem , (modulator + demodulator), Spanglish (Spanish +
English). There are several structural types of blends:

Initial part of the word + final part of the word, e.g., electrocute (electricity +
execute);

initial part of the word + initial part of the word, e.g., lib-lab (liberal+labour);

Initial part of the word + full word, e.g., paratroops (parachute+troops);

Full word + final part of the word, e.g., slimnastics (slim+gymnastics).
7. Acronymy
Acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of parts of a word or phrase,
commonly the names of institutions and organizations. No full stops are placed between the
letters. All acronyms are divided into two groups. The first group is composed of the acronyms
which are often pronounced as series of letters: EEC (European Economic Community), ID
(identity or identification card), UN (United Nations), VCR (videocassette recorder), FBI
(Federal Bureau of Investigation), LA (Los Angeles), TV (television), PC (personal computer),
GP (General Practitioner), ТВ (tuberculosis). The second group of acronyms is composed by the
words which are pronounced according to the rules of reading in English: UNESCO (United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome), ASH (Action on Smoking and Health). Some of these pronounceable words are
written without capital letters and therefore are no longer recognized as acronyms: laser (light
amplification by stimulated emissions of radiation), radar (radio detection and ranging).
Some abbreviations have become so common and normal as words that people do not think
of them as abbreviations any longer. They are not written in capital letters, e.g., radar (radio
detection and ranging), laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) yuppie,
gruppie, sinbads, dinkies.
Some abbreviations are only written forms but they are pronounced as full words, e.g.,
Mr, Mrs, Dr. Some abbreviations are from Latin. They are used as part of the language etc. - et
cetera, e.g., (for example) — exampli gratia, that is - id est.
Acromymy is widely used in the press, for the names of institutions, organizations,
movements, countries. It is common to colloquial speech, too. Some acronyms turned into
regular words, e.g., jeep -came from the expression general purpose car.
There are a lot of homonyms among acronyms:
MP - Member of Parliament/Military Police/Municipal Police
PC - Personal Computer/Politically correct
8. Sound-interchange
Sound-interchange is the formation of a new word due to an alteration in the phonemic
composition of its root. Sound-interchange falls into two groups: 1) vowel-interchange, e.g., food
– feed; in some cases vowel-interchange is combined with suffixation, e.g., strong – strength; 2)
consonant-interchange e.g., advice – to advise. Consonant-interchange and vowel-interchange
may be combined together, e.g., life – to live.
This type of word-formation is greatly facilitated in Modern English by the vast number
of monosyllabic words. Most words made by reduplication represent informal groups:
colloquialisms and slang, hurdy-gurdy, walkie-talkie, riff-raff, chi-chi girl. In reduplication new
words are coined by doubling a stem, either without any phonetic changes as in bye-bye or with a
variation of the root-vowel or consonant as in ping-pong, chit-chat.
9. Sound imitation or (onomatopoeia)
It is the naming of an action or a thing by more or less exact reproduction of the sound
associated with it, cf.: cock-a-do-doodle-do – ку-ка-ре-ку.
Semantically, according to the source sound, many onomatopoeic words fall into the
following definitive groups: 1) words denoting sounds produced by human beings in the process of
communication or expressing their feelings, e.g., chatter; 2) words denoting sounds produced by
animals, birds, insects, e.g., moo, buzz; 3) words imitating the sounds of water, the noise of metallic
things, movements, e.g., splash, whip, swing.
10. Distinctive stress
Distinctive stress is the formation of a word by means of the shift of the stress in the
source word, e.g., increase – increase.
11. Back-formation
Backformation is coining new words by subtracting a real or supposed suffix, as a result
of misinterpretation of the structure of the existing word. This type of word-formation is not
highly productive in Modern English and it is built on the analogy, e.g., beggar-to beg, cobbler to cobble, blood transfusion — to blood transfuse, babysitter - to baby-sit.

Word Building (word formation)

1. Affixation as a basic
   means of forming words. Types of
   affixes.

2. Conversion.

3. Composition.

4. Other ways of word formation.

Scientists differ in the opinion how many ways of
WB there are in English, but all in all they distinguish: affixation,
composition,
conversion,
abbreviation
(shortening, clipping, acronymy),
back formation (disaffixation),
sound
interchange
and distinctive change,
onomatopoeia
(sound imitation).

Affixation
— the addition of an affix — is a basic means of forming words
in English. It has been productive in all periods of the history of
English.

Linguists distinguish among
three types of affixes. An affix that is attached to the front of its
base is called a prefix,
whereas an affix
that is attached to the end of its base is termed a suffix.
Both types of
affix occur in English. Far less common than prefixes and suffixes
are
infixes
— a type of affix that occurs within a base of a word to express
such
notions as tense, number, or gender. English has no system of
infixes, though many languages make great use of infixes.

Affixation is divided into
suffixation and prefixation. In Modern English, suffixation is
characteristic of noun and adjective formation, while
prefixation is typical of verb formation.

As a rule,
prefixes
modify the
lexical meaning of stems to which they are added.
The prefixal derivative
usually joins the part of speech the unprefixed word belongs to,
e.g. usual / un- usual.

In a suffixal derivative the
suffix does not only
modify the lexical meaning of the stem it is added to,
but the word itself is usually
transferred to another part of speech, e.g. care
(n) / care-less (adj).

Suffixes and prefixes may be classified along different lines. The
logical classification of suffixes is according to:

(a)
their origin: Romanic (e.g. -age, -ment,
-tion), Native (-er,
dom, -ship), Greek (-ism,
-ize), etc.;

1. meaning, e.g. -er denotes the agent of the
   action, -ess denotes
   leminine gender, -ence/ance has
   abstract meaning, -ie and
   -let express
   iliminutiveness, -age, -dom —
   collectivity, -an, -ese, -ian —
   appurtenance, etc.;

2. part of speech they form, e.g. noun suffixes
   -er, -ness, -ment; adjective-forming
   suffixes -ish, -ful, -less, -y;
   verb-suffixes -en,
   -fy, etc.;

3. productivity, i.e. the relative freedom with
   which they can combine
   with bases of the appropriate category, e.g. productive suffixes are
   -er, -ly, -ness, -ie, -let,
   non-productive (-dom,
   -th) and semi-productive (-eer,
   -ward).

Since suffixes determine the part of speech of
words, we classify them
according to parts of speech. The meanings given for the suffixes are
very broad, and often they have little connection with the meaning of
the resulting word.

Some linguists distinguish
between suffixes and semi-suffixes such as —man
(postman);
—burger
(fishburger);
—aholic
(workaholic).
So words with such suffixes can be classified either as affixed words
or compound words.

Some prefixes are treated as
root morphemes because they are met as words: afternoon
– after
school;
overhead
– over
the wall.
American lexicographers treat such words as compound words, while
British lexicographers regard them as affixed words. There are also
semi-prefixes
such as —mini
(mini-plane);
—maxi
(maxi-taxi);
—aero
(aerospace); —eco
(eco menu),
etc.

The main function of prefixes in English is to
change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. However in ME
there are prefixes that form one part of speech from another
(endanger, behead – verbs, asleep –
statives).

Thus, AFFIXATION
is a way of word formation consisting in adding an affix to the stem
of a word: sixteen, friendship,
unkindly, heartless, ex-husband, etc.

Conversion

Before we give the definition of this way of WB, let’s consider the
following examples:

He was knocked out in the first round.

Round the number off to the nearest tenth.

The neighbours gathered round our barbeque.

The moon was bright and round.

People came from all the
country round.

In each sentence round
is used as different part of speech … Lexemes are made without the
addition of an affix. This process is called conversion and dates
back to the MdE period.

CONVERSION is a process that assigns an already existing word
to a new syntactic category. For this reason it is sometimes called
zero-derivation.

Various opinions have been expressed on the nature
and character of conversion.

Prof. Smirnitsky A.I. treats conversion as a
morphological way of forming words, as the formation of a new word
through changes in its paradigm (explain).

Other linguists (H. Marchand,
V.N. Yartseva, I.V. Arnold and others)
treat conversion as a combined morphological and syntactic way of WB,
as it involves both a change of the paradigm and a change of the
syntactic function (distribution) of the word.

There is also purely syntactic approach known as a
functional approach to conversion.

There three most common types of conversion in
English are verbs (from nouns), nouns (from verbs), and verbs (from
adjectives). Less common are nouns (from adjectives, phrases,
affixes) and verbs (from prepositions).
Examples!

Verbs can be converted

from nouns: This
wine is
bottled
in Spain;

from adjectives: I’m
in charge of cleaning
the first floor;

from adverbs: The
train neared
the station;

from
pronouns:
Don’t
what
me, a little nobody;

from conjunctions: Stop
butting!

from interjections: to
blah-blah; to ha-ha; to pooh-pooh, etc.

There are also nouns formed from pronouns (the
impossible she),
adverbs (ups
and downs),
prepositions (a between),
conjunctions (Forget your ifs),
and articles (If ifs
and ans
were pots and pans!) or even from
affixes (How much I hate all those
isms!).
As a matter of fact, any part of speech can be formed from any part
of speech by conversion.

Opinions differ on the possibility of creating
adjectives from nouns through conversion (the so-called “stone-wall”
complexes – дать
задание).
We shall consider the indisputable cases, i.e. deverbal substantives
(nouns converted from verbs) and denominal verbs (verbs converted
from nouns).

There are different semantic groups of converted
words that are characterized by different semantic relations.

1. Verbs converted from nouns (denominal verbs) may
   denote: instrumental use of the object (); action characteristic of
   the object (to vacate);
   acquisition (); deprivation of the object ().

2. Nouns converted from verbs (deverbal substantives) may denote:
   instance of an action (); agent of an action (); place of an action
   (); result of an action ().

Conversion is a very productive way of forming words in English.

COMPOSITION
(the combination of two or more existing words to create a new word)
is one of the most common and important word-building processes in
English. Sometimes it is called compounding.

A compound is a unit of
vocabulary that consists of more than one lexical stem ().
With very few exceptions, it is a noun, a verb or an adjective. In
most compounds the rightmost morpheme determines the category of the
entire word ().

There is a certain problem of distinguishing between compounds and
word combinations.

Compounds in English can be written differently:
as single words, with a hyphen and as separate words.

In terms of pronunciation, however, there is an
important generalization to be made. Adjective-noun compounds are
characterized by a more prominent stress on their first component:
ice cream
(замороженные сливки)
– ice cream
(мороженное); or a
tall boy (высокий
мальчик) – a
tall-boy (бельевой
шкаф).

Tense and plural markers cannot typically be
attached to the 1^st
element, although they can be added to the compound as a whole
(exceptions passers-by
parks supervisor).

So, several criteria should be taken into account:

solid spelling
–nickname; underdog, whitewash;

stress –
`blue collar – `blue `collar; `green
house – `green `house;

connecting elements
– handicraft, speedometer,
spokesperson;

impossibility for members of a compound to
be modified – a
blackbird (дрозд);
a very black bird
(очень черная
птица);

semantic unity (compounds
always express a single idea) – baby-sit,
home town, sweetheart.

The last criterion is regarded to be the most reliable of all.

There are different classifications of compounds.

According to their part of speech
characteristic, compounds are
subdivided into nouns (globe-trotter,
waterfall), verbs (to
honeymoon, to outgrow), adjectives
(free-for-all, hard-working),
adverbs (downstairs, lip-deep),
prepositions (within, into)
and numerals (thirty-seven).

According to the way components are joined
together, compounds are subdivided into
neutral (formed by juxtaposition) (sunflower,
tallboy, bestseller), morphological
(joined by a linking element) (handicraft,
Franko-Prussian, microchip) and
syntactical (joined by means of form-word stems) (whodunit,
face-to-face, lily-of-the-valley).

According to their structure,
compounds are subdivided into compounds proper (earthquake,
to window-shop, sky-blue),
compound-derived (affixed) words (blue-eyed,
video-player, absent-mindedness),
compound words consisting of 3 or more stems (with 1 constituent as a
compound stem) (mother-in-law,
good-for-nothing, wastepaper basket),
compound-shortened words (h-bag, V-day).

According to the degree of semantic
independence of components, compounds
are subdivided into

a) subordinative compounds
(with 1 component as a semantic centre) – love-sick,
nanny-goat, silverware;
добавить
в
схему!!!

b) coordinative compounds (with both semantically
equal components) – Anglo-Saxon,
walkie-talkie, go-go.

According to the order of components (immediate
constituents), compounds are subdivided
into syntactic (direct order) (to
frontpage, giver-away, fair-haired) and
asyntactic (indirect order) (to
book-hunt, blood-thirsty, theatre-goer).

According to the meaning of the whole,
compounds are subdivided into idiomatic (night-cap,
butterfingers) and non-idiomatic
(homeland, swimming-pool, speedometer).

To idiomatic compounds we
can refer a group of compounds called bahuvrihi
(the term comes from
India). They
denote an object after its striking feature: blue-bell
(колокольчик);
cut-throat
(головорез);
Brown
Berets
(спецподразделение
армии
США);
skinhead,
etc.

Thus, composition
is the way of word-building consisting in joining 2 or more stems to
form one word: football, sky-blue,
off-the-record, touch-me-not. It should
be noted that such words can be written solidly (underfoot),
with a hyphen (war-ship)
or a break (in so far).

There is an interesting group of compounds called
pseudo compounds.
They are composed of meaningless root morphemes but when put together
present an idea: chit-chat –
cплетни; helter-skelter
– как попало;
razzle-dazzle
– кутерьма.

Affixation, compounding and conversion are regarded as the three
major types of WB. Apart from these a number of other ways of forming
words are referred to WF, such as:

• Back-formation or
  disaffixation
  (baby-sitter
  — to baby-sit). Back-formation
  is a process that creates a new word by removing a real or supposed
  affix from another word in the language. Resurrect
  was originally
  formed in this way from resurrection,
  enthuse from
  enthusiasm,
  donate from
  donation, orient or
  orientate from
  orientation, and
  self-destruct
  from self-destruction. Words
  that end in -or or -erhave proven susceptible
  to back-formation in English. Because hundreds of such words
  are the result of affixation (runner,
  walker, singer, etc.),
  any word with
  this shape is likely to be perceived as a verb + er
  combination.
  The words
  editor,
  peddler, and
  swindler
  were
  misanalyzed. The result was the
  creation of the verbs edit, peddle, and
  swindle. Back-formation
  continues to produce new words in modern English, for instance, the
  form
  attrit
  was
  formed from attrition,
  the
  verb lase
  from
  laser,
  liposuct from liposuction;

Sound-interchange (speak
— speech, blood — bleed), and
sound
imitation (walkie-talkie,
brag rags, to giggle);

Distinctive change (‘conduct
—
to
con ‘duct, ‘increase —
to
in ‘crease, ‘subject — to
subject);

Blending: these
are words that are created from parts of two already existing
items, usually the first part of one and the final part of the other:
brunch
from
breakfast
and
lunch,
smog
from
smoke
and
fog,
spam from
spiced
and
ham,
chunnel (for
the underwater link between Britain and
the continent) from channel and
tunnel,
and infomercial
from information
and commercial.

Blends (fusions,
telescopic words) are words formed from a word group or two synonyms:
bit ← binary digit; chunnel ←
channel + tunnel; slanguage ← slang + language.

Some blends have become so integrated into the
standard vocabulary of English that speakers are unaware of their
status, for example, motel from motor
and hotel,
bit (in computer jargon)
from binary
and
digit,
modem from
modulator
and
demodulator.
Sometimes a word is formed by a
process that is on the borderline between compounding and blending.
It combines all of one word with part of another, e.g. workaholic,
medicare, Eurotunnel, slanguage, guesstimate

According to other opinion,
in blends two ways of word-building are combined: abbreviation and
composition. It means putting together shortened words: Adidas
← Adi + Dassler; acromania ← acronym + mania, shimmer ← shine +
glimmer.

Ellipsis represents
a way of word formation consisting in omission of the second element
of a word combination: a
documentary ← a documentary film.

Clipping is a process that shortens a polysyllabic
word by deleting one or more syllables: prof
for professor, burger fox hamburger. The
word zoo, for
instance, was formed from zoological
gar­den; fax was formed from
facsimile (meaning
«exact copy or reproduction»). Some of the most common
products of clipping are names — Liz,
Bob, Sue, and so on. Many clipped forms
have been accepted in general usage: bike,
phone, specs, fancy, doc, ad, auto, lab, sub, deli, condo;

Acronymy NATO,
NASA, WAC, UNESCO. Acronyms
are formed by taking the initial
letters of the words in a phrase and pronouncing them as a word. This
type of word formation is especially common in names of organizations
and in terminology. NASA stands
for National Aeronautics
and Space Administration, NA
TO —
North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
NOAA —
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admini­stration. AIDS
stands for acquired immune deficiency
syndrome. Such commonly used words as radar
(from radio detecting and ranging), and
laser (light
amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) originated as
acronyms;

Onomatopoeia i.e.
formations of words from sounds that resemble those
associated with the object or action to be named, or that seem
suggestive of its qualities. Examples of such onomatopoeic words in
English include hiss, buzz, meow,
cock-a-doodle-doo, and cuckoo.

KEY TERMS:
paradigm, composition, derivation,
conversion, blending, clipping back-formation, productivity

Антрушина Г.Б., Афанасьева О.В., Морозова
Н.Н. Лексикология английского языка. –
М.: Дрофа, 1999 – стр.

Дубенец Э.М.
Modern English Lexicology. Theory and Practice. – М.
Глосса-Пресс,
2002 – стр.

Елисеева В.В. Лексикология английского
языка.