Word formation part of speech

D. Suffixes

-able – sense of being

-er – agent

-ful – characterized by

-fy – make, become, cause to be

-ism – action or practice, state or condition

-less – lack of

-ly – -like

-ology – study, science

-ship – condition, character, skill

-y – characterized by, inclination, condition

E. Grammatical Form Retaining Derivation

verb to verb: appear → disappear

noun to noun: friend → friendship

adjective to adjective: practical → impractical

F. Grammatical Form Changing Derivation

verb to noun: preserve → preservation

verb to adjective: bore → boring

noun to verb: code → codify

noun to adjective: nature → natural

adjective to noun: ugly → ugliness

adjective to verb: sweet → sweeten

adjective to adverb: quick → quickly

EXERCISES

This exercise focuses on people and their jobs using
the most common suffixes.

Use the word in bold to form the noun which refers to
the person who does that job.

1. A person who
acts for a living is called an ………. .

2. A ………………….. is someone who earns money from
writing music.

3. She didn’t become famous as a …………………… until
her 17th novel was published.

4. In Part 5 of the FCE Exam your speaking ability will be assessed by the …………………….
.

5. At the end of the interview the ……………….. asked if he could be
shown around the company.

6. An ……………………. is someone who will be
able to go through your accounts
and work out how much money you have.

7. ……………….. to the castle are expected to come
during visiting times only.

in-          im-         il-            un-         -less      dis-        ir-

1 When he became a teenager he wanted to be more …………………….(DEPENDENT)
from his parents.

2 It was really (HONEST)………………… of you to take that
money without asking.

3 If you hadn’t been so…………………………….. (CARE) with that
book you’d still have it now.

4 My broken leg means I’ll be…………………………….. (ABLE) to
go on holiday with you.

5 In many countries it is………………………… (LEGAL) to smoke
cigarettes under the age of 16.

6 He waited …………………….(PATIENTLY) for the train to
arrive at the station.

7 The teacher told me it was……………………. (RESPONSIBLE) of
me to set off the fire alarm.

This exercise looks at some common suffixes used in
creating verbs.      -en             -ify                 -ize

1. He told her that he (SYMPATHY) ……………………..
with her problem but couldn’t do anything to help.

2. My belt feels a bit tight after that huge lunch. I
think I’ll have to (LOOSE) …………………….. it a little.

3. She was severely (WEAK) ………………………
by the long illness she had.

4. There are many different ways to (CLASS) ………………………….
areas of English Grammar.

5. If you’re really sorry for what you said you won’t
mind (APOLOGY)…………………………..  

6. There’s no need to (CRITIC) ………………………
my work. I’m trying as hard as I can.

7. The pain in his back (LESS) ……………………
as soon as he took the medication.

8. Everybody was (HORROR) …………………… by
the news of the earthquake.

Forming adjectives and adverbs

1. Be sure to contact him if you need advice. He’s a
very (HELP) …………………….. person.

2. It was a really (ENJOY) …………………….
party. Thanks for inviting me.

3. He has just taken out a (MONTH) ……………….
subscription to the magazine.

4. She smiled (HAPPY) …………………… when
they offered her the new job.

5. (HOPE) …………………….. we’ll have enough
money saved to get married next year.

6. In order for the medicine to work (EFFECT) ………………………
you must take the correct amount

7. Although our teacher is very strict in class, she
is (FRIEND) …………………… than you would expect.

8. What a beautiful vase! That’s the (LOVE) ……………………….
present I’ve ever had.

This exercise looks at forming nouns from verbs, nouns
and adjectives by using suffixes.

1. My teacher says there has been a big (IMPROVE)
…………………. in my English lately.

2. The recipe says you only need to add two (SPOON)
…………………….. of salt.

3. Why did you do that? I thought you had more
(INTELLIGENT) ……………………. than that.

4. The singer gave a brilliant (PERFORM) ……………………….
on stage yesterday.

5. Have you seen her magazine (COLLECT) …………………?
She must have over 200 editions.

6. On hearing the news, everyone was overcome with a
feeling of (SAD) ……………………. .

7. When you take the FCE Speaking paper you will be
given marks for your (ACCURATE) ……………………. and also on how
fluent you are.

8. She has the (ABLE) …………………… to pass
the exam first time round providing she works hard.

1 He tried to fix his machine but it was (POSSIBLE)
………. impossible  /   inpossible

2 You don’t need to wear a suit to the party. You can
look (FORMAL) ………. if you wish.

Informal   
/          imformal

3 She won the bicycle race (EASY) ………. .

Easyly  /    easily

4 The weather forecast says it’s going to be (RAIN)
………. today. Rainy   /      rainny

5 The body was discovered (LIE) ………. on the
floor. Lieing  /    lying

6 He told her that he was (TRUE) ………. in love
with her.             Truely   /     truly

7 She was filled with (HAPPY) ………. when she
heard the good news.      Happiness   / happyness

8 He was the (BIG) ………. in the class.

   Biggest 
/  bigest

It’s
a process of creating new words from material available in the
language after a certain structural and semantic formulas and
pattern, forming words by combining root & affix morphemes.

2 Types of word formation:

1)
Compounding (словосложение)

2)
Word – derivation

Within
the types further distinction may be made between the ways of forming
words. The basic way of forming words is word-derivation affixation
and conversion apart from this shortening and a number of minor ways
of formal words such as back-forming, blending, sound imitation are
traditionally referred to formation.

Different types of word
formation:

Affixation
is
the formation of new words by means of suffixes and prefixes to
stemsbasis.

Affixes may be grouped

1) according to their
linguistic origin. We distinguish affixes of Germanic origin (full,
less), of Romanic origin (ion), of Greek origin (ise, izm);

2) according to the parts of
speech. We distinguish noun forming, adj. forming and verb forming
affixes;

3)
according to semantic functions. They may denote persons, quality,
negation. Many suffixes originated from separate words: hood
originated for the noun hood, which meant state or condition; full –
полный
(adj. In O.E) now it is suffix. Suffixes may change the part of
speech: critic (al).

All
suffixes are divided into lexical
and grammatical.

Lexical
suffixes build new word. Productive
affixes. For
ex: read-readable, happy-happiness, act-actor.

Grammatical
suffixes change the grammatical form of a word. Often used to create
neologisms and nonce-words (I
don’t like Sunday evenings: I feel so mondayish).

For ex: finish-finished, say-says, rose-roses.

Some
productive suffixes:

Noun
forming – er,
ing, is, ist, ance

Adj
– forming – y,
ish, ed, able, less

Adv
– forming – ly

Verb – forming — Ize, /ise,
ate

Prefixies
—
Un, die, re

Conversion
(zero derivation) it is one of the major ways of enriching EV &
referrers to the numerous cases of phonetic identity of word forms of
2 words belonging to different part of speech.. The new word has a
meaning which differs from that of original one though it can ><
be associated with it. nurse
(noun) to nurse – to feed

A certain stem is used for the
formation of a categorically different word without a derivative
element being added.

Bag
– to bag, Back – to back , Bottle – to bottle This
specific pattern is very productive in English

The
most popular types are noun →verb or verb→noun To
take off – a take off

Conversion
can be total
or partial.
Partial: the then
president (тогдашний).
An adverb is used as an adjective, only in this particular context.
Total: work
– to work

Conversion
may be the result of shading of English endings. The historical
changes may be briefly outlined as follows: in O.E. a verb and a noun
of the same root were distinguished by their endings. For ex: the
verb ‘to love’ had a form (Old Eng.) ‘lufian’. This verb had
personal conjunctions. The noun ‘love’ had the form ‘lufu’
with different case endings. But in the course of time, the personal
and case endings were lost. There are numerous pairs of words (e. g.
love, n. — to love, v.; work, n. — to work, v.; drink, n. — to
drink, v., etc.) which did, not occur due to conversion but coincided
as a result of certain historical processes (dropping of endings,
simplification of stems) when before that they had different forms
(e. g. O. E. lufu, n. — lufian, v.).

The
two categories of parts of speech especially affected by conversion
are nouns and verbs. Verbs made from nouns are the most numerous
amongst the words produced by conversion: e. g. to
hand, to back, to face, to eye, to mouth, to nose, to dog, to wolf,
to monkey, to can, to coal, to stage, to screen, to room, to floor,
to blackmail, to blacklist, to honeymoon,
and very many others.

Nouns
are frequently made from verbs: do (e. g. This
is the queerest do I»ve ever come across.
Do — event, incident), go (e. g. He
has still plenty of go at his age.
Go — energy), make,
run, find, catch, cut, walk, worry, show, move,
etc. Verbs can also be made from adjectives: to
pale, to yellow, to cool, to grey, to rough
(e. g. We
decided to rough it in the tents as the weather was warm),
etc.

Other
parts of speech are not entirely unsusceptible to conversion as the
following examples show: to
down, to out (as in a newspaper heading Diplomatist Outed from
Budapest), the ups and downs, the ins and outs, like, n, (as in the
like of me and the like of you).

Compounding
& word comparison. Compound
words are made of 2 derivational stems. The types of structure of CW:
neutral,
morphological &syntactic.

In
neutral
compound
the process is released without any linking elements sunflower.
There
are three types of neutral compounds simple compounds went a compound
consist of a simple affixes stems.

Derivate/
derivational compound
— has affixes babysitter.

Contracted
–
has a shorten stems. TV-set

Morphological
C –
few
in number. This type is non productive. Represented by words, where 2
stems are combined by a linking vowel/ consonant Anglo-Saxon,
statesman, craftsmanship.

Syntactic
C
– formed of segments of speech preserving articles, prepositions,
adverbs. Mother-in-law

Reduplication.
New
word are made by stem ether without any phonetic changes Bye-Bye
or variation of a root vowel or consonant ping-pong

Shortening.
There
are 2 ways of producing them:

1.
The word is formed from the syllable of the original word which in
term may loose its beginning –phone,
its ending vac
(vacation) or
both
fridge.

2.
The word is formed from the initial letter of a word group BB,
bf – boyfriend. Acronyms are
shorten words but read as one UNO
[ju:nou]

TYPES OF WF

Sound
imitation – words
are made by imitating different links of sounds that may be produced
by animals, birds…bark
– лаять,
mew – мяукать…some
names of animals, birds & insects are made by SI coo-coo
– кукушка,
crow – ворона.

To
glide, to slip are
supposed to convey the very sound of the smooth easy movement over a
slippery surface.

Back
formation a
verb is produced from a noun by subtraction (вычитание)
bagger
– to bag, babysitter – to babysit

Blending
— Is
blending part of two words to form one word (merging into one word),
combining letters/sounds they have in common as a connecting element.
Smoke
+ fog = smog, Breakfast + lunch = brunch, Smoke + haze = smaze
(дымка)

—
addictive type: they are transformable into a phrase consisting of
two words combined by a conjunction “and” smog
→ smoke & fog

—
blending of restrictive type: transformable into an attributive
phrase, where the first element serves as modifier of a second.
Positron
– positive electron,
Medicare
– medical care

Borrowings.
Contemporary
English is a unique mixture of Germanic & Romanic elements. This
mixing has resulted in the international character of the vocabulary.
In the comparison with other languages English possesses great
richness of vocabulary.

All languages are mixtures to
a greater or lesser extent, but the present day English vocabulary is
unique in this respect.

A brief look on various
historical strata of the English vocabulary:

1) through cultural contacts
with Romans partly already on the continent and all through the
influence of Christianity a very early stratum of Latin-Greek words
entered the language.

Their origin is no longer felt
by the normal speaker today in such word: pound, mint, mustard,
school, dish, chin, cleric, cheese, devil, pepper, street, gospel,
bishop.

The
same can be said about some Scandinavian words (from about the 10^th
century) that today belong to the central core of the vocabulary.

It
means that their frequency is very high. They,
their, them, sky, skin, skill, skirt, ill, dies, take… They
partly supersede the number of OE words OE
heofon – heaven (sky) Niman – take
Steorfan – die

A
more radical change & profound influence on the English
vocabulary occurred on 1066 (Norman Conquest). Until the 15^th
cent., a great number of French words were adopted. They belong to
the areas of court,
church, law, state.

Virtue, religion,
parliament, justice, noble, beauty, preach, honour…

The
influx of the words was the strongest up to the 15^th
cent., but continued up to the 17^th
cent.

Many French borrowings
retained their original pronunciation & stress

Champagne,
ballet, machine, garage…

Separate, attitude,
constitute, introduce…

Adjectives in English –
arrogant, important, patient

Sometimes with their
derivatives:

Demonstrative –
demonstration

Separate – separation

17-18 cc. due to the
establishing of cultural, trade relations many words were borrowed
from Italian, Spanish, Dutch, French.

Italian:
libretto,
violin, opera

Spanish:
hurricane, tomato, tobacco

Dutch:
yacht,
dog, landscape

French:
bouquet,
buffet

From the point of view of
their etymology formal words are normally of classical Romanic
origin, informal – Anglo-Saxon.

Nowadays many Americanisms
become familiar due to the increase of transatlantic travel & the
influence of broadcast media.

Even
in London (Heathrow airport) “baggage”
instead of “luggage”

The present day English
vocabulary is from being homogeneous.

6.
Neologisms new
word expressions are created for new things irrespective of their
scale of importance. They may be all important and concern some
social relationships (new form/ state)
People’s republic. Or
smth threatening the very existence of humanity nuclear
war
or the thing may be short lived. N
is
a newly coined word, phrase/ a new meaning for an existing word / a
word borrowed from another language.

The
development of science and industry technology: black
hole, internet, supermarket.

The
adaptive lexical system isn’t only adding new units but readjust
the ways & means of word formation radio
detection and ranging – RADAR

The
lex. System may adopt itself by combining several word-building
processes face-out
(noun) – the radioactive dust descending through the air after an
anatomic explosion. This
word was coined by composition/ compounding & conversion.

Teach
–in (n) –a student conference/ series of seminars on some burning
issue of the day, meaning some demonstration on protest. This
pattern is very frequent lis–in
, due-in
means protest demonstration when fluking traffic. Bionies
– the
combination of bio & electron.

Back
formation:
air-condion
– air-conditioner – air-conditioning

Semi-affixes
(могут
быть
как
самостоятельные
слова)
chairman
used
to be not numerous and might be treated as exceptions now, evolving
into separate set.

Some
N abscessed with smth and containing the elements mad
& happy: powermad, moneymad, auto-happy.

Conversion, composition,
semantic change are in constant use when coining N

The
change of meaning rather an introduction of a new additional meaning
may be illustrated by the word NETWORK
– stations for simultaneous broadcast of the same program.

Once
accepted N may become a basis for further word formation. ZIP
– to zip – zipper –
zippy.

The
lex. System is unadaptive system, developing for many centuries and
reflecting the changing needs, servicing only in special context.
Archaism
& historisms.

Archaism
–
once common but are now replaced by synonyms. Mostly they are poetic:
morn
– arch, morning – new word, hapless – arch, unlucky – modern.

Historism
– when
the causes of the word’s disappearance are extralinguistic, eg. The
thing named is no longer used. They are very numerous as names for
social relations, institutions, objects of material culture of the
past, eg. many types of sailing craft belong to the past: caravels,
galleons.A
great many of
H
denotes various types of weapons in historical novels: blunderbuss
— мушкетер,
breastplate. Many
of them are in Voc in some figurative meaning: shiel
– щит,
sword. – меч.

7.
Homonymy.
Different
in meaning, but identical in sound or spelling form

Sources:

1.
The result of split of polysemy capital
– столица,
заглавная
буква

Homonymy
differs from polysemy because there is no semantic bond (связь)
between homonyms; it has been lost & doesn’t exist.

2.
as the result of leveling of grammar in flections, when different
parts of speech become identical in their forms. Care
(in OE) — caru(n), care (OE) – carian (v)

3.
By conversion
slim – to slim, water – to water

4.
With the help of the same suffix fro the same stem. Reader
– the person who reads/a book for reading.

5.
Accidentally. Native words can coincide in their form beran
– to bear, bera (animal) – to bear

6.
Shortening of different words. Cab
(cabriolet, cabbage, cabin)

Homonyms can be of 3 kinds:

1.
Homonyms proper (the sound & the spelling are identical)
bat – bat
— flying
animal (летучая
мышь)
— cricket bat (бита,
back — part of body, away from the front, go to back

2.
Homophones (the same sound form but different spelling)
flower – flour, sole – soul, rain – reign, bye-by-buy

3.
Homographs (the same spelling)
tear [iə] – tear [εə, lead [i:] – lead [e]

Homonyms in English are very
numerous. Oxford English Dictionary registers 2540 homonyms, of which
89% are monosyllabic words and 9,1% are two-syllable words.

So,
most homonyms are monosyllabic words. The trend towards
monosyllabism, greatly increased by the loss of inflections and
shortening, must have contributed much toward increasing the number
of homonyms in English.

Among the other ways of
creating homonyms the following processes must be mentioned:

From
the viewpoint of their origin homonyms are sometimes divided into
historical and etymological. Historical
homonyms are those which result from the breaking up of polysemy;
then one polysemantic word will split up into two or more separate
words. Etymo1ogiсal
homonyms are words of different origin which come to be alike in
sound or in spelling (and may be both written and pronounced alike).

Borrowed
and native words can coincide in form, thus producing homonyms (as in
the above given examples). In other cases homonyms are a result of
borrowing when several different words become identical in sound or
spelling. E.g. the Latin vitim — «wrong», «an immoral
habit» has given the English vice — вада
«evil conduct»; the Latin vitis -«spiral» has
given the English »vice» — тиски
«apparatus with strong jaws in which things can be hold
tightly»; the Latin vice — «instead of», «in
place of» will be found in vice — president.

8.
Synonymy.

A
synonym – a word of similar or identical meaning to one or more
words in the same language. All languages contain synonyms but in
English they exist in superabundance. There no two absolutely
identical words because connotations, ways of usage, frequency of an
occurrence are different. Senses of synonyms are identical in respect
of central semantic trades (denotational meaning) but differ in
respect of minor semantic trades (connotational). In each group of S
there’s a word with the most general meaning, with can substitute
any word of the group. TO
LOOK AT — to glance – to stare

Classification:

Weather the different in
denotational/ connotational component

1.
Ideographic
synonyms. They
bear the same idea but not identical in their referential content,
different shades of meaning or degree. BEAUTIFUL
– fine, handsome – pretty,
to
ascent – to mount – to climb.

2.
Stylistic
synonyms. Different
in emotive and stylistic sphere.

Eat
— Devour (degradation),
Face
— muzzle
(морда)

Synonymic condensation is
typical of the English language.

It
refers to situations when writers or speakers bring together several
words with one & the same meaning to add more conviction, to
description more vivid. Ex.:
Lord & master, First & foremost, Safe & secure,
Stress & strain, by force & violence

Among
synonyms there’s a special group of words –
euphemism used
to substitute some unpleasant or offensive words. Drunk
– marry

According to interchangability
context S are classified

3.
Total
synonyms
An extremely rare occurrence. Ulman: “a luxury that language
can hardly afford.” M. Breal spoke about a law of distribution in
the language (words should be synonyms, were synonyms in the past
usually acquire different meanings and are no longer
interchangeable). Ex.: fatherland
— motherland

4.
Contextual
synonyms.
Context can emphasize some certain semantic trades & suppress
other semantic trades; words with different meaning can become
synonyms in a certain context. Ex.: tasteless
– dull, Active – curious, Curious – responsive

Synonyms can reflect social
conventions.

Ex.:

5.
Dialectical
synonyms.
Ex.:
lift – elevator, Queue – line, autumn – fall

6.
Relative
some
authors classify group like:
like – love – adore, famous- celebrated – eminentthey
denote different degree of the same notion or different shades of
meanings and can be substituted only in some context.

Antonymy.
Words
belonging to the same part of speech identical in speech expressing
contrary or contradictory notion.

Комиссаров
В.Н.
classify them into absolute/
root (late/early)they
have different roots
,
derivational (to
please-to
displease) the
same root but different affixes. In most cases “-“ prefixes from
antonyms an,
dis, non.
Sometimes they are formed by suffixes full
& less.
But they do not always substitute each other selfless
– selfish, successful – unsuccessful .the
same with “-“ prefixes
to appoint – to disappoint.

The
difference is not only in structure but in semantic. The DA
express
contradictory notions, one of then excludes the other active
– inactive. The
AA
express
contrary notion: ugly
–
plain – good-looking – pretty –
beautiful

Antonimy
is
distinguished from complementarily
by being based on different logical relationshipd for pairs of
antonyms like
good – bad, big – small.
He
is good (not bad). He is not good (doesn’t imply he is bad).
The negation (отрицание)
of one term doesn’t implies the assertion of the other.

John
Lines suggests proper
hot-warm
– tapped – cold &
complementary antonyms only
2 words negative and assertion not
male — female.

There’s
also one type of semantic opposition conversives
words
denote one reference as viewed from different points of view that of
the subject & that of the object.
Bye
– sell, give — receive

Conversness
is
minor image relations of functions husband
– wife, pupil – teacher, above – below, before — after

9.
Phraseology.
Phrasiological units/ idioms – motivated word group. They are
reproduced as readymade units. Express a singe notion, used in
sentence as one part of it.

Idiomaticy
—
PU when the meaning of the whole
is
not deducible from the sum of the meanings of the parts. Stability
of PU implies that it exist as a readymade linguistic unit, which
doesn’t allow of any variability of its lexical component of gr.
Structure.

In
ling. literature the term
Phraseology is
used for the expressions where the meaning of one element is depended
on the other. Vinogradov: “irrespective of structure and properties
of the units”. Smernitsky: “it denotes only such set expressions
which do not possess expressiveness or emotional coloring”. Arnold:
“it says that only denotes such set expressions that are
imaginative, expressive and emotional”. Ammosova call them fixed
context units – we
can’t substitute an element without changing the meaning of the
whole. Ahmanova insists on the semantic intearity of such phrases:
“prevailing over the structural separates of their element”.
Kuning lays stress on the structural separatness of the elements in
the PU on the change of meaning in the whole as compared with its
elements taken separately with its elements and on a certain minimum
stability.

Phraseology
(Webster’s
dictionary) mode of expression peculiarities of diction. That is
choice and arrangement of words and phrases characteristic of some
author.there are difficult terms. Idioms word equivalents & these
difficult units or terminology reflects certain differences in the
main criteria used to distinguish.

The
features: 1.
lack of semantic motivation 2. Lexical & grammatical stability

Semantic
classification:2
criteria: 1). The degree of semantic isolation 2). The degree of
disinformation

1.
Opaque in meaning (трудный
для
понимания)
the meaning of the individual words can’t be summed together to
produce the meaning of the whole.to
kick the bucket = to die It
contains no clue to the idiomatic meaning of this expression.The
degree of semantic isolation is the highest.

The 3 typesof PU:

1.
Phraseological fusions. The degree of motivation is very low. one
component preserves its direct meaning Ex.:
to pass the buck = to pass responsibility – свалить
ответственность,

2.
Phraseological unities. Clearly motivated. Transparent both
components in their direct meaning but the combination acquires
figurative sense to
see the light = to understand, old salt — морской
волк

3.
Phraseological combinations. There is a component used in its
direct meaning. There are lots of idioms (proverbs, saying). To
be good at smth.:
Curiosity
killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back
Idioms institutionalized formulas of politeness:How
do you do?Good-bye (God be with you) How about a drink?

Structural classification
of PU

Prof. A.I. Smirnitsky worked
out structural classification of phraseological units, comparing them
with words. He points out one-top units which he compares with
derived words because derived words have only one root morpheme. He
points out two-top units which he compares with compound words
because in compound words we usually have two root morphemes.

Among
one-top units he
points out three structural types;

a)
units of the type «to give up» (verb + postposition type), e.g. to
art up, to back up, to drop out, to nose out, to buy into, to
sandwich in etc.;

b)
units of the type «to be tired» . Some of these units remind the
Passive Voice in their structure but they have different prepositions
with them, while in the Passive Voice we can have only prepositions
«by» or «with», e.g. to
be tired of, to be interested in, to be surprised at etc.
There are also units in this type which remind free word-groups of
the type «to be young», e.g. to be akin to, to be aware of etc.
The difference between them is that the adjective «young» can be
used as an attribute and as a predicative in a sentence, while the
nominal component in such units can act only as a predicative. In
these units the verb is the grammar centre and the second component
is the semantic centre;

c)
Prepositional- nominal phraseological units. These units are
equivalents of unchangeable words: prepositions, conjunctions,
adverbs, that is why they have no grammar centre, their semantic
centre is the nominal part, e.g.
On the doorstep (quite near), on the nose (exactly), in the course
of, on the stroke of, in time, on the point of
etc. In the course of time such units can become words, e.g.
tomorrow,
instead etc.

Among
two-top units
A.I. Smirnitsky points out the following structural types:

a) attributive-nominal such
as: a month of Sundays, grey matter, a millstone round one’s neck
and many others. Units of this type are noun equivalents and can be
partly or perfectly idiomatic. In partly idiomatic units (phrasisms)
sometimes the first component is idiomatic, e.g. high road, in other
cases the second component is idiomatic, e.g. first night. In many
cases both components are idiomatic, e.g. red tape, blind alley, bed
of nail, shot in the arm and many others.

b) verb-nominal phraseological
units, e.g. to read between the lines , to speak BBC, to sweep under
the carpet etc. The grammar centre of such units is the verb, the
semantic centre in many cases is the nominal component, e.g. to fall
in love. In some units the verb is both the grammar and the semantic
centre, e.g. not to know the ropes. These units can be perfectly
idiomatic as well, e.g. to burn one’s boats,to vote with one’s
feet, to take to the cleaners’ etc.

Very close to such units are
word-groups of the type to have a glance, to have a smoke. These
units are not idiomatic and are treated in grammar as a special
syntactical combination, a kind of aspect.

c) phraseological repetitions,
such as : now or never, part and parcel , country and western etc.
Such units can be built on antonyms, e.g. ups and downs , back and
forth; often they are formed by means of alliteration, e.g cakes and
ale, as busy as a bee. Components in repetitions are joined by means
of conjunctions. These units are equivalents of adverbs or adjectives
and have no grammar centre. They can also be partly or perfectly
idiomatic, e.g. cool as a cucumber (partly), bread and butter
(perfectly).

Phraseological units the same
as compound words can have more than two tops (stems in compound
words), e.g. to take a back seat, a peg to hang a thing on, lock,
stock and barrel, to be a shaddow of one’s own self, at one’s own
sweet will.

Syntactical classification
of PU

Phraseological
units can be classified as parts of speech. This classification was
suggested by I.V. Arnold. Here we have the following groups:

a) noun phraseologisms
denoting an object, a person, a living being, e.g. bullet train,
latchkey child, redbrick university, Green Berets,

b) verb phraseologisms
denoting an action, a state, a feeling, e.g. to break the log-jam, to
get on somebody’s coattails, to be on the beam, to nose out , to
make headlines,

c) adjective phraseologisms
denoting a quality, e.g. loose as a goose, dull as lead ,

d) adverb phraseological
units, such as : with a bump, in the soup, like a dream , like a dog
with two tails,

e) preposition phraseological
units, e.g. in the course of, on the stroke of ,

f) interjection phraseological
units, e.g. «Catch me!», «Well, I never!» etc.

In I.V.Arnold’s
classification there are also sentence equivalents, proverbs, sayings
and quatations, e.g. «The sky is the limit», «What makes him
tick», » I am easy». Proverbs are usually metaphorical, e.g. «Too
many cooks spoil the broth», while sayings are as a rule
non-metaphorical, e.g. «Where there is a will there is a way».

‘How come a teacher teaches, but a doctor doesn’t doct? Why can’t I say ‘My aunt is a cooker’?! What do you mean ‘increase is a noun?’… Word formation has never been easy for students. No clear logic behind it, complicated patterns, loads of irregularities — you name it. However, this part of language just cannot be ignored, both for the sake of accuracy and fluency.

Teenagers need to be good at word formation more than anyone else.  In addition to fluency and accuracy, they have one more thing to think about — exams. Not only Cambridge exams include tasks that focus on word formation, but also the Russian State Exam and 9th-grade exam do. So, what can we do to help our students out?

Noticing

Noticing is the first step to success. When you come across a word with a distinctive prefix or suffix, stop for a couple of questions.

Development:

• What part of speech is that?
• How do you know?
• What other words ending in -ment can you name?

Team A and Team B, you have 2 minutes. Let’s check how many -ment words you can remember.

You might want to give teens some extra time to google for 5 more words with the same pattern to add to the list. They can tell about their choice in pairs. You might find this source useful.

This way, teenagers will get a better idea of parts of speech and some, though few, general rules behind word formation.

Generalising

General understanding of word class is, of course, crucial to learning a language. Introduce your teens to parts of speech despite all the possible complaints that they are having enough of that at Russian language classes. Generalising gives some basis and confidence.

When you teach the concepts of word formation, it also makes sense to start with those affixes whose meaning will be generally clear for students. Teach common patterns first, like:

re- means ‘again, back’. Repeat, redo, renovate.

il- means ‘not’ and generally stands before ‘l’. Illegal, illogical.

There is a wide variety of lists of prefixes and suffixes which can be used as reference materials or self-study guides. You might find some at Cambridge Dictionary website or just choose the one you find suitable for your learners.

Practice

Categorizing

To start with, why don’t you do a categorization task? Collect the vocabulary from a coursebook unit and write or print it on little cards. Stick the cards around the classroom. On the whiteboard, write the names of the parts of speech. Set the time limit for your students to walk around and collect the words under the proper headings. It will raise teens’ awareness of the parts of speech and give them a chance to get up from their chairs, which is also beneficial.

One more alternative for this task is a grabbing game when you have the word cards on the table and tell your students ‘Grab all adjectives!’. A person with the most number of correct cards wins the round.

Tables

Word formation is a skill that, ideally, should be practised throughout the whole course or year. One more little task for your teens to do is filling the tables which can look like this:

You prepare them beforehand and can draw students’ attention to any target vocabulary you need. The number of words in a card also depends on your needs. It can be done at the beginning of a lesson, as part of the homework, individually or in pairs.

Call my Bluff

Let’s check if your teens can fool each other! Ask them to write examples of real word formation and make up two or three wrong alternatives, e.g.for example “performance”, “performation” and “performent”. Then they read the words out to another group which should spot the real word.

While you practise high-level exams like FCE or CAE,  students can work in groups and fill the gaps with a mix of the right and wrong answers. After that, ask them to exchange the papers with another group and think which options are right and which should be corrected.

Jenga

Have you ever played Jenga in class? Jenga is a board game in which players take turns removing one block at a time from a tower. Each block removed is then placed on top of the tower, creating a taller and more unstable structure. It can be a great addition to your revision class or just a final 15-minute touch of a regular lesson.

With a pencil, write one word on each wooden brick. The students’ task will be not just to have fun but also to make as many words as they can from the one written on the brick. If they get one with ‘appear’, they can go like ‘appearance’ and ‘disappear’. You can develop your own system of extra points for every extra word or well-made example.

Pass the ball

This kids game can be easily used in a teenage class. Name an affix and ask students to pass the ball naming words that go with it. If you say ‘-ful’, the round might look like ‘helpful – tactful – careful – beautiful’ etc. Change the affix after each round.

Teaching teenagers parts of speech and word formation skills is not easy but useful for a number of reasons. It raises students’ awareness of how the language works and helps build vocabulary faster. What’s more, it improves fluency as teens get more confidence using words in sentences. It can even be good fun. Try it out!

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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