An
interesting pattern revealing the influence of
extra-linguisticfactors on word-formation and vocabulary development
are such compounds as camp-in,
ride-in, teach-in, work-in and
the like. “The Barn-hart Dictionary of New English” treats the
second element as a combining form of the adverb in
and
connects the original appearance of this morpho-semantic pattern with
the civil-rights movement of the 60s. It was used to nominate such
public demonstrations of protest as riding in segregated buses
(ride-in),
praying
in segregated churches (kneel-in),
bathing
in segregated swimming pools (swim-in).
The
pattern is structurally similar to an older type of compounds, such
as breakdown,
feedback or
lockout
but
differs from them semantically including as its semantic invariant
the meaning of public protest.
Somewhat
later the word teach-in
appeared.
The name was used for long meetings, seminars or sessions held at
universities for the purpose of expressing criticism on important
political issues and discussing them. Then any form of seminar
patterned on the university teach-ins
was
also called by this term. And similar terms were coined for other
cases of staging public protest. E. g. lie-in
and
die-in
when
blocking traffic.
The
third stage in the development of this pattern proved to be an
extension to any kind of gathering of hippies, flower children and
other groups of young people: laugh-ins,
love-ins, sing-ins. A
still further generalisation of meaning may be observed in the
compound call-in
and
its American version phone-in
‘period
of time on radio or television programme during which questions,
statements, etc. from the public are broadcast’, big
sitdown planned for September 17
(«Daily
Worker»), where sitdown
stands
for sitdown
demonstration.
133
St.
Ullmann follows M. Bréal
in emphasising the social causes for these. Professional and other
communities with a specialised ‘sphere of common interests are the
ideal setting for ellipsis. Open
on for
open
fire on, and
put
to sea for
put
ship to sea are
of wartime and navy origin, and bill
for
bill
of exchange comes
from business circles; in a newspaper office daily
paper and
weekly
paper were
quite naturally shortened to daily
and
weekly.1
It
is clear from the above examples that unlike other types of
shortening, ellipsis always results in a change of lexico-grammatical
meaning, and therefore the new word belongs to a different part of
speech. Various other processes are often interwoven with ellipsis.
For instance: finals
for
final
examinations is
a case of ellipsis combined with substantivation of the first
element, whereas prelims
for
preliminary
examinations results
from ellipsis, substantivation and clipping. Other examples of the
same complex type are
perm :
: permanent
wave; pop :
: popular
music;2
prom :
:
promenade
concert, i.e.
‘a concert at which at least part of the audience is
not
seated and can walk about’; pub
:
:
public
house ‘an
inn or tavern’; taxi
:
: taxicab,
itself
formed from taximeter-cab.
Inside
this group a subgroup with prefixed derivatives as first elements of
prototype phrases can be distinguished, e. g. coed
‘a
girl student at a coeducational institution’, prefab
‘a
prefabricated house or structure’ (to
prefabricate means
‘to manufacture component parts of buildings prior to their
assembly on a site’).
Curtailed
words arise in various types of colloquial speech and have for the
most part a pronounced stylistic colouring as long as their
connection with the prototype is alive, so that they remain synonyms.
E. g.: They
present the tops in pops. When
the connection with the prototype is lost, the curtailed word may
become stylistically neutral, e. g. brig,
cab, cello, pram. Stylistically
coloured shortened words may belong to any variety of colloquial
style. They are especially numerous in various branches of slang:
school slang, service slang, sport slang, newspaper slang, etc.
Familiar colloquial style gives such examples as bobby,
cabbie, mac, maxi, mini, movies. Nursery
words are often clipped: gran,
granny; hanky from
handkerchief;
ma from
mama;
nightie from
nightdress;
pinnie from
pinafore.
Stylistic
peculiarity often goes hand in hand with emotional colouring as is
revealed in the above diminutives. School and college slang, on the
other hand, reveal some sort of reckless if not ironical attitude to
the things named: caf
from
cafeteria
‘self-service
restaurant’, digs
from
diggings
‘lodgings’,
ec,
eco from
economics,
home ecs, lab, maths, prelims, prep, prof, trig, undergrad, vac,
varsity. Service
slang is very rich in clipped words, some of them penetrate the
familiar colloquial style. A few examples are: demob
v
from demobilise;
civvy n
from civilian,
op n
from operator;
non-com n
from non-combatant;
corp n
from corporal;
sarge n
from
sergeant.
1
See:
Ullmann
St. The
Principles of Semantics, p.p. 116,
239.
2 Often
used in such combinations as pop
art, pop singer, pop song.
140
The
only type of clippings that belong to bookish style are the poetical
contractions such as e’en,
e’er, ne’er, o’er.
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.
23
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 3
CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDS OF WORD-COMPOSITION AS A WAY OF
WORD-FORMATION IN ENGLISH 6
1.1 The means of word-formation in English language 6
1.2 The concept and the essence word-composition 14
CHAPTER 2. STRUCTURAL-SEMANTIC AND FUNCTIONAL FEATURES OF COMPOUND WORDS 19
2.1 The analysis of semantic features of compound words 19
2.2 The analysis of functional features of compound words 24
CHAPTER 3. ANALYTICAL BASES OF USE OF WORD-COMPOSITION 36
3.1 Practical examples of compound words in modern English 36
3.2 New tendencies of use of word-composition as a way of word-formation in
English 38
CONCLUSION 41
LITERATURE 44
APPENDIXES 46
Appendix 1 46
Appendix 2 49
Appendix 3 52
Appendix 4 54
INTRODUCTION
In linguistics, word formation is the creation of a new word. Word formation is sometimes contrasted with semantic
change, which is a change in a
single word’s meaning. The line between word formation and semantic
change is sometimes a bit
blurry; what one person views as a new use of an old word, another person might
view as a new word derived from an old one and identical to it in form. Word
formation can also be contrasted with the formation of idiomatic expressions, though sometimes words can form from
multi-word phrases.
The
subject-matter of the Course Paper is to investigate the
word – composition in the English system of word – formation.
The
topicality of the problem results from the necessity to devote
to description of theoretical bases of allocation of word-composition as way of
word-formation in modern English language.
The
novelty of the problem arises from the necessity to define the
role of word-composition way which is, along with abbreviations, stays one of
the most productive for last decades..
The
main aim of the Course Paper is to summarize and systemize
different methods of word — composition in English.
The
aim
of the course Paper presupposes the solutions of the following tasks:
·
To
expand and update the definition of the term “word — composition”
·
to
define the role of word-composition
According the tasks of the Course
Paper its structure is arranged in the following way:
Introduction,
the Main Part, Conclusion, Resume, Literature, test of Reference Material, List
of Electronic References.
In
the Introduction we provide the explanation of the theme choice, state the
topicality of it, establish the main aim, and the practical tasks of the Paper.
In
the main part we analyze
the character features of the modern classification of word – composition in
the English system of word – formation.
In conclusion we
generalize the results achieved.
CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDS OF WORD-COMPOSITION AS A
WAY OF WORD-FORMATION IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
1.1 The means of word-composition in English language The chapter is devoted to
description of theoretical bases of allocation of word-composition as way of
word-formation in modern English language. We try to define the role of
word-composition way which is, along with abbreviations, stays one of the most
productive for last decades. The main way of enrichment of lexicon of any
language is word-formation. All innovations in branches of human knowledge are
fixed in new words and expressions.
The
word-formation system of language is in constant development, as it reflects
evolution of the language. At different stages of language development ways of
word-formation become more or less productive. However there are also ways of
the word-formation which stay productive for a very long time. One of such
methods is word-composition.
Word-composition is a very ancient way of word-formation, and it
serves as powerful tool of the replenishment of language and its grammatical
system perfection for hundred years.
Many researches are devoted composition studying. So, the
considerable contribution to studying of this problem was brought by V.Guz’s,
G.Marchand’s, S.Ulman’s researches, and also the studies of I.V.Arnold,
N.V.Kosarev, E.S.Kubrjakov, O.D.Meshkova, V.J.Ryazanov, A.I.Smirnitsky,
M.D.Stepanova, M.V.Tsareva. That is the problem is widely studied both in domestic,
and in foreign practice.
However it should be noticed that the majority of word-composition studies
concern 70-80 years of the last century, and during last 20 years no serious
researches appeared.
Besides,
the analysis of researches reveals considerable confrontation in opinions of
different authors both in questions of defying the concept of word-formation,
and in approaches of classification of its kinds. There
are different
opinions in concerning quantity of ways of word-formation.
These divergences speak that various ways change the activity and
become more or less productive in a definite period. Anyhow, it is conventional
that modern English has different ways of word-formation: Affixation, suffixation, shortening, prefixation, conversion and
composition or compound. Compounding or word-composition is
one of the productive types of word-formation in Modern English. Composition
like all other ways of deriving words has its own peculiarities as to the means used, the nature of
bases and their distribution, as to the range of application, the scope of
semantic classes and the factors conducive to productivity. Compounding or
word composition is one of the productive types of
word-formation in Modern English. Composition like all other ways of deriving
words has its own peculiarities as to the means used , the nature of bases
and their distribution , as to the range of application , the scope of
semantic classes and the factors conducive to productivity. Compounds are
made up of two ICs which are both derivational bases. Compound words are
inseparable vocabulary units. They are formally and semantically dependent on
the constituent bases and the semantic relations between them which mirror the
relations between the motivating units. The ICs of compound words represent
bases of all three structural types.
1.
The
bases built on stems may be of different degree
2. Of complexity as,
e.g., week-end,
office-management, postage-stamp, aircraft-carrier, fancy-dress-maker, etc. However, this complexity of
structure of bases is not typical of the bulk of Modern English compounds. In this connection
care should be taken not to confuse compound words with polymorphic words of
secondary derivation, i.e. derivatives built according to an affixal
pattern but on a compound stem for its base such as, e.g., school-mastership ([n+n]+suf), ex—housewife (prf+[n+n]),to weekend, to
spotlight ([n+n]+conversion).
CHAPTER 2. STRUCTURAL-SEMANTIC AND FUNCTIONAL
FEATURES OF COMPOUND WORDS
2.1 Structural
features
Compound words like all
other inseparable vocabulary units take shape in a definite system of
grammatical forms, syntactic and semantic features. Compounds, on the one hand,
are generally clearly distinguished from and often opposed to free word-groups,
on the other hand they lie astride the border-line between words and
word-groups and display close ties and correlation with the system of free
word-groups. The structural inseparability of compound words
finds expression in the unity of their specific
distributional pattern and specific
stress
and spelling pattern.
Structurally compound
words are characterized by the specific order and arrangement in which bases
follow one another. The order in which the two bases are placed within a
compound is rigidly fixed in
Modern English and it is the second IC that makes the head-member of the word,
i.e. its structural and semantic centre. The head-member is of basic importance
as it preconditions both the lexico-grammatical and semantic features of the
first component. It is of interest to note that the difference between stems
(that serve as bases in compound words) and word-forms they coincide with is most
obvious in some compounds, especially in compound adjectives. Adjectives
like long, wide,
rich are
characterized by grammatical forms of degrees of comparison longer, wider, richer. The
corresponding stems functioning as bases in compound words lack grammatical
independence and forms proper to the words and retain only the part-of-speech
meaning; thus compound adjectives with adjectival stems for their second
components, e. g. age-long, oil-rich, inch-wide, do not form degrees of comparison as the compound
adjective oil-rich does not form
them the way the word rich does, but conforms to the general rule of
polysyllabic adjectives and has analytical forms of degrees of comparison. The
same difference between words and stems is not so noticeable in compound nouns
with the noun-stem for the second component.
Phonetically compounds
are also marked by a specific structure of their own. No phonemic changes of
bases occur in composition but the compound word acquires a new stress pattern,
different from the stress in the motivating words, for example words key and hole or hot and house each possess
their own stress but when the stems of these words are brought together to make
up a new compound word, ‘keyhole — ‘a hole in a lock into which a key fits’, or ‘hothouse — ‘a heated
building for growing delicate plants’, the latter is given a different stress
pattern — a unity stress on the first component in our case. Compound words
have three stress patterns: a high or unity stress on the first component as
in ‘honeymoon,
‘doorway, etc. a double stress, with a primary stress on the first
component and a weaker, secondary stress on the second component, e. g. ‘blood-ֻvessel, ‘mad-ֻdoctor, ‘washing-ֻmachine,
etc. It is not infrequent, however, for both ICs to have level stress as in,
for instance, ‘arm-‘chair,
‘icy-‘cold, ‘grass-‘green, etc.
Graphically most
compounds have two types of spelling — they are spelt either solidly or with a
hyphen. Both types of spelling when accompanied by structural and phonetic
peculiarities serve as a sufficient indication of inseparability of compound
words in contradistinction to phrases. It is true that hyphenated spelling by
itself may be sometimes misleading, as it may be used in word-groups to
emphasize their phraseological character as in e. g. daughter-in-law, man-of-war,
brother-in-arms or in longer combinations of words to indicate
the semantic unity of a string of words used attributively as, e.g., I-know-what-you’re-going-to-say
expression, we-are-in-the-know jargon, the young-must-be-right attitude. The two types of
spelling typical of compounds, however, are not rigidly observed and there are
numerous fluctuations between solid or hyphenated spelling on the one hand and
spelling with a break between the components on the other, especially in
nominal compounds of then+n type. The spelling of these compounds varies
from author to author and from dictionary to dictionary. For example, the
words war-path,
war-time, money-lender are spelt both with a hyphen and solidly; blood-poisoning, money-order,
wave-length, war-ship— with a hyphen and with a break; underfoot, insofar, underhand—solidly
and with a break25.
It is noteworthy that new compounds of this type tend to solid or hyphenated
spelling. This inconsistency of spelling in compounds, often accompanied by a
level stress pattern (equally typical of word-groups) makes the problem of
distinguishing between compound words (of the n + n type in particular) and word-groups
especially difficult.
In
this connection it should be stressed that Modern English nouns (in the Common
Case, Sg.) as has been universally recognized possess an attributive function
in which they are regularly used to form numerous nominal phrases as, e.
g. peace years,
stone steps, government office, etc. Such variable nominal phrases are semantically
fully derivable from the meanings of the two nouns and are based on the
homogeneous attributive semantic relations unlike compound words. This system
of nominal phrases exists side by side with the specific and numerous classes
of nominal compounds which as a rule carry an additional semantic component
not found in phrases.
It
is also important to stress that these two classes of vocabulary units —
compound words and free phrases — are not only opposed but also stand in close
correlative relations to each other.
2.2
Semantic features
Semantically compound
words are generally motivated units. The meaning of the compound is first of
all derived from the combined lexical meanings of its components. The semantic
peculiarity of the derivational bases and the semantic difference between the
base and the stem on which the latter is built is most obvious in compound
words. Compound words with a common second or first component can serve as
illustrations. The stem of the word board is polysemantic and its multiple meanings serve as
different derivational bases, each with its own selective range for the
semantic features of the other component, each forming a separate set of
compound words, based on specific derivative relations. Thus the base board meaning ‘a flat
piece of wood square or oblong’ makes a set of compounds chess-board, notice-board,
key-board, diving-board, foot-board, sign-board; compounds paste-board, cardboard are built on the
base meaning ‘thick, stiff paper’; the base board– meaning ‘an authorized body of men’, forms
compounds school-board,
board-room. The
same can be observed in words built on the polysemantic stem of the word foot. For example,
the base foot– in foot-print, foot-pump,
foothold, foot-bath, foot-wear has the meaning of ‘the terminal
part of the leg’, in foot-note, foot-lights, foot-stone the base foot– has the
meaning of ‘the lower part’, and in foot-high, foot-wide, footrule — ‘measure of
length’. It is obvious from the above-given examples that the meanings of the
bases of compound words are interdependent and that the choice of each is
delimited as in variable word-groups by the nature of the other IC of the word.
It thus may well be said that the combination of bases serves as a kind of
minimal inner context distinguishing the particular individual lexical meaning
of each component. In this connection we should also remember the significance
of the differential meaning found in both components which becomes especially
obvious in a set of compounds containing identical bases.
CLASSIFICATION
OF WORD — COMPOSITION
Compound
words can be described from different points of view and consequently may be
classified according to different principles. They may be viewed from the point
of view:
·
of
general relationship and degree of semantic independence of components;
·
of
the parts of speech compound words represent;
·
of
the means of composition used to link the two ICs together;
·
of
the type of ICs that are brought together to form a compound;
·
of
the correlative relations with the system of free word-groups.
From the point of view of degree of semantic independence there are two types
of relationship between the ICs of compound words that are generally
recognized in linguistic literature: the relations of coordination and
subordination, and accordingly compound words fall into two classes: coordinative compounds (often
termed copulative or additive) and subordinative (often termed determinative).
In coordinative compounds
the two ICs are semantically equally important as in fighter-bomber, oak-tree,
girl-friend, Anglo-American. The constituent bases belong to the
same class and той often to the same
semantic group. Coordinative compounds make up a comparatively small group of
words. Coordinative compounds fall into three groups:
1.
Reduplicative compounds
which are made up by the repetition of the same base as in goody-goody, fifty-fifty,
hush-hush, pooh-pooh. They are all only partially motivated.
2.
Compounds
formed by joining the phonically variated rhythmic twin forms which either
alliterate with the same initial consonant but vary the vowels as in chit-chat, zigzag, sing-song, or
rhyme by varying the initial consonants as in clap-trap, a walky-talky, helter-skelter. This subgroup
stands very much apart. It is very often referred to pseudo-compounds and
considered by some linguists irrelevant to productive word-formation owing to
the doubtful morphemic status of their components. The constituent members of
compound words of this subgroup are in most cases unique, carry very vague or
no lexical meaning of their own, are not found as stems of independently
functioning words. They are motivated mainly through the rhythmic doubling of
fanciful sound-clusters.
3.
Coordinative compounds of both subgroups
(a, b) are mostly restricted to the colloquial layer, are marked by a heavy
emotive charge and possess a very small degree of productivity.
The bases of additive compounds such as a queen-bee, an actor-manager,
unlike the compound words of the first two subgroups, are built on stems of the
independently functioning words of the same part of speech. These bases often
semantically stand in the genus-species relations. They denote a person or an
object that is two things at the same time. A secretary-stenographer is thus a person who is
both a stenographer and a secretary, a bed-sitting-room (a bed-sitter) is both a bed-room and a sitting-room at
the same time. Among additive compounds there is a specific subgroup of
compound adjectives one of ICs of which is a bound root-morpheme. This group is
limited to the names of nationalities such as Sino-Japanese, Anglo-Saxon, Afro-Asian, etc.
Additive compounds of this group are
mostly fully motivated but have a very limited degree of productivity.
However it must be stressed that though
the distinction between coordinative and subordinative compounds is generally
made, it is open to doubt and there is no hard and fast border-line between
them. On the contrary, the border-line is rather vague. It often happens that
one and the same compound may with equal right be interpreted either way — as a
coordinative or a subordinative compound, e. g. a woman-doctor may be
understood as ‘a woman who is at the same time a doctor’ or there can be traced
a difference of importance between the components and it may be primarily felt
to be ‘a doctor who happens to be a woman’ (also a mother-goose, a clock-tower). In
subordinative compounds the components are neither structurally nor
semantically equal in importance but are based on the domination of the
head-member which is, as a rule, the second IC. The second IC thus is the
semantically and grammatically dominant part of the word, which preconditions
the part-of-speech meaning of the whole compound as in stone-deaf, age-long which
are obviously adjectives, a wrist-watch, road-building, a baby-sitter which
are nouns.
Functionally compounds are viewed as words
of different parts of speech. It is the head-member of the compound, i.e. its
second IC that is indicative of the grammatical and lexical category the
compound word belongs to.
Compound words are found in all parts of
speech, but the bulk of compounds are nouns and adjectives. Each part of
speech is characterized by its set of derivational patterns and their semantic
variants. Compound adverbs, pronouns and connectives are represented by an
insignificant number of words, e. g. somewhere, somebody, inside, upright, otherwise moreover,
elsewhere, by means of, etc. No new compounds are coined on this pattern.
Compound pronouns and adverbs built on the repeating first and second IC
like body, ever,
thing make
closed sets of words
SOME |
+ |
BODY |
ANY |
THING |
|
EVERY |
ONE |
|
NO |
WHERE |
On the whole composition is not productive
either for adverbs, pronouns or for connectives. Verbs are of special
interest. There is a small group of compound verbs made up of the combination
of verbal and adverbial stems that language retains from earlier stages, e.
g. to bypass, to
inlay, to offset. This type according to some authors, is no longer
productive and is rarely found in new compounds. There are many polymorphic
verbs that are represented by morphemic sequences of two root-morphemes,
like to weekend,
to gooseflesh, to spring-clean, but derivationally they are all words of secondary
derivation in which the existing compound nouns only serve as bases for
derivation. They are often termed pseudo-compound verbs. Such polymorphic
verbs are presented by two groups: 1)verbs formed by means of conversion from
the stems of compound nouns as in to spotlight from a spotlight, to sidetrack from a side-track, to
handcuff from handcuffs, to blacklist from a blacklist, to
pinpoint from a pin-point;
2) verbs formed by back-derivation from
the stems of compound nouns, e. g. to baby-sit from a baby-sitter, to playact from play-acting, to
housekeep from house-keeping, to spring-clean from spring-cleaning.
From the point of view of the means by
which the components are joined together, compound words may be classified
into:
Words formed by merely placing one constituent
after another in a definite order which thus is indicative of both
the semantic value and the morphological unity of the compound, e. g. rain-driven, house-dog,
pot-pie (as opposed to dog-house, pie-pot). This means of linking
the components is typical of the majority of Modern English compounds in all
parts of speech.
As to the order of components,
subordinative compounds are often classified as:
Ø asyntactic compounds in which the order of
bases runs counter to the order in which the motivating words can be brought
together under the rules of syntax of the language. For example, in variable
phrases adjectives cannot be modified by preceding adjectives and noun
modifiers are not placed before participles or adjectives, yet this kind of
asyntactic arrangement is typical of compounds, e. g. red-hot, bluish-black,
pale-blue, rain-driven, oil-rich. The asyntactic order is
typical of the majority of Modern English compound words;
Ø syntactic compounds whose components are
placed in the order that resembles the order of words in free phrases arranged
according to the rules of syntax of Modern English. The order of the components
in compounds like blue-bell, mad-doctor, blacklist ( a + n ) reminds one of the order and
arrangement of the corresponding words in phrases a blue bell, a mad doctor, a
black list (
A + N ), the order of compounds of the typedoor-handle, day-time,
spring-lock (
n + n ) resembles the order of words in nominal phrases with
attributive function of the first noun ( N + N ),e. g. spring time, stone steps, peace movement.
Ø Compound words whose ICs are joined
together with a
special linking-element — the linking vowels [ou] and occasionally
[i] and the linking consonant [s/z] — which is indicative of composition as in,
for example, speedometer,
tragicomic, statesman. Compounds of this type can be both nouns and
adjectives, subordinative and additive but are rather few in number since they
are considerably restricted by the nature of their components. The additive
compound adjectives linked with the help of the vowel [ou] are limited to the
names of nationalities and represent a specific group with a bound root for the
first component, e. g. Sino-Japanese, Afro-Asian, Anglo-Saxon.
In subordinative adjectives and nouns the
productive linking element is also [ou] and compound words of the type are most
productive for scientific terms. The main peculiarity of compounds of the type
is that their constituents are non-assimilated bound roots borrowed mainly from
classical languages, e. g. electro-dynamic, filmography, technophobia, videophone,
sociolinguistics, videodisc.
A small group of compound nouns may also
be joined with the help of linking consonant [s/z], as in sportsman, landsman,
saleswoman, bridesmaid.This small group of words is restricted by the second
component which is, as a rule, one of the three bases man–, woman–, people–.
The commonest of them is man–.
Compounds may be also classified according
to the nature of the bases and the interconnection with other ways of
word-formation into the so-called compounds proper and derivational compounds.
Compounds
proper are formed by joining together bases
built on the stems or on the word-forms of independently functioning words with
or without the help of special linking element such as doorstep, age-long,
baby-sitter, looking-glass, street-fighting, handiwork, sportsman. Compounds
proper constitute the bulk of English compounds in all parts of speech, they
include both subordinative and coordinative classes, productive and
non-productive patterns.
Derivational
compounds, e. g. long-legged, three-cornered, a
break-down, a pickpocket differ from compounds proper in the nature of bases
and their second IC. The two ICs of the compound long-legged — ‘having long
legs’ — are the suffix –ed meaning ‘having’ and the base built on a free
word-group long
legs whose
member words lose their grammatical independence, and are reduced to a single
component of the word, a derivational base. Any other segmentation of such
words, say into long– and legged– is impossible
because firstly, adjectives like *legged do not exist in Modern English and secondly, because
it would contradict the lexical meaning of these words. The derivational
adjectival suffix –ed converts this newly formed base into a word. It can be
graphically represented as long legs à [ (long–leg) + –ed] à long–legged.
The suffix –ed becomes the grammatically
and semantically dominant component of the word, its head-member. It imparts
its part-of-speech meaning and its lexical meaning thus making an adjective
that may be semantically interpreted as ‘with (or having) what is denoted by
the motivating word-group’. Comparison of the pattern of compounds proper
like baby-sitter,
pen-holder
[ n +
( v + –er ) ] with the pattern of derivational compounds
like long-legged [ (a + n) + –ed ] reveals the
difference: derivational compounds are formed by a derivational means, a suffix
in case if words of the long-legged type, which is applied to a base that each time is
formed anew on a free word-group and is not recurrent in any other type if
words. It follows that strictly speaking words of this type should be treated
as pseudo-compounds or as a special group of derivatives. They are habitually
referred to derivational compounds because of the peculiarity of their
derivational bases which are felt as built by composition, i.e. by bringing
together the stems of the member-words of a phrase which lose their
independence in the process. The word itself, e. g. long-legged, is built by the
application of the suffix, i.e. by derivation and thus may be described as a
suffixal derivative.
Derivational compounds or pseudo-compounds
are all subordinative and fall into two groups according to the type of variable
phrases that serve as their bases and the derivational means used:
Ø derivational
compound adjectives formed
with the help of the highly-productive adjectival suffix –ed applied to bases
built on attributive phrases of the A + N, Num + N, N + N type, e. g. long legs, three corners, doll
face. Accordingly
the derivational adjectives under discussion are built after the patterns [ (a + n ) + –ed], e.
g. long-legged,
flat-chested, broad-minded; [ ( пит + n) + –ed], e. g. two-sided, three-cornered; [ (n + n ) + –ed], e. g. doll-faced, heart-shaped.
Ø derivational
compound nouns formed
mainly by conversion applied to bases built on three types of variable phrases
— verb-adverb phrase, verbal-nominal and attributive phrases.
The commonest type of phrases that serves
as derivational bases for this group of derivational compounds is the V + Adv type
of word-groups as in, for instance, a breakdown, a breakthrough, a castaway, a layout.
Semantically derivational compound nouns form lexical groups typical of
conversion, such as an act or instance of the action, e. g. a holdup — ‘a delay in
traffic’’ from to
hold up — ‘delay, stop by use of force’; a result of the
action, e. g. a
breakdown —
‘a failure in machinery that causes work to stop’ from to break down — ‘become
disabled’; an active agent orrecipient of the action, e. g. cast-offs — ‘clothes that he
owner will not wear again’ from to cast off — ‘throw away as unwanted’; a show-off —
‘a person who shows off’ from to show off — ‘make a display of one’s abilities
in order to impress people’. Derivational compounds of this group are spelt
generally solidly or with a hyphen and often retain a level stress.
Semantically they are motivated by transparent derivative relations with the
motivating base built on the so-called phrasal verb and are typical of the
colloquial layer of vocabulary. This type of derivational compound nouns is
highly productive due to the productivity of conversion.
The semantic subgroup of derivational
compound nouns denoting agents calls for special mention. There is a group of
such substantives built on an attributive and verbal-nominal type of phrases.
These nouns are semantically only partially motivated and are marked by a heavy
emotive charge or lack of motivation and often belong to terms as, for
example, a
kill-joy, a wet-blanket — ‘one who kills enjoyment’; a turnkey —
‘keeper of the keys in prison’; a sweet-tooth — ‘a person who likes sweet
food’; a
red-breast — ‘a bird called the robin’. The analysis of these
nouns easily proves that they can only be understood as the result of
conversion for their second ICs cannot be understood as their structural or
semantic centres, these compounds belong to a grammatical and lexical groups
different from those their components do. These compounds are all animate
nouns whereas their second ICs belong to inanimate objects. The meaning of the
active agent is not found in either of the components but is imparted as a
result of conversion applied to the word-group which is thus turned into a
derivational base.
These compound nouns are often referred to
in linguistic literature as «bahuvrihi» compounds or exocentric compounds, i.e.
words whose semantic head is outside the combination. It seems more correct to
refer them to the same group of derivational or pseudo-compounds as the above
cited groups.
This small group of derivational nouns is
of a restricted productivity, its heavy constraint lies in its idiomaticity and
hence its stylistic and emotive colouring.
The linguistic analysis of extensive language
data proves that there exists a regular correlation between the system of free
phrases and all types of subordinative (and additive) compounds26. Correlation
embraces both the structure and the meaning of compound words, it underlies the
entire system of productive present-day English composition conditioning the
derivational patterns and lexical types of compounds.
Compounds are words produced by combining
two or more stems which occur in the language as free forms. They may be classified
proceeding from different criteria:
according to the parts of speech to which
they belong;
according to the means of composition used
to link their ICs together;
according to the structure of their ICs;
according to their semantic characteristics.
3.1 Correlation
types of compounds
The
description of compound words through the correlation with variable word-groups
makes it possible to classify them into four major classes: adjectival-nominal,
verbal-nominal, nominal and verb – adverb compounds.
I. A d j e c t i v a l — n o m i n a l
comprise four subgroups of compound
adjectives, three of them are proper
compounds and one derivational.
All four subgroups are productive and
semantically as a rule motivated.
The main constraint on the productivity in
all the four subgroups is
the lexical-semantic types of the
head-members and the lexical valency of
the head of the correlated word-groups.
Adjectival-nominal compound adjectives
have the following patterns:
1) the polysemantic n+a
pattern
that gives rise to two types:
a) compound adjectives based on semantic
relations of resemblance
with adjectival bases denoting most
frequently colours, size, shape, etc. for
the second IC. The type is correlative
with phrases of comparative type as
A +as + N,
e.g.
snow-white,
skin-deep, age-long, etc.
b) compound adjectives based on a variety
of adverbial relations. The
type is correlative with one of the most
productive adjectival phrases of
the A +
prp
+
N
type
and consequently semantically varied, cf. colourblind,
road-weary, care-free, etc.
2) the monosemantic pattern n+ven
based
mainly on the instrumental, locative and temporal relations between the ICs
which are:
conditioned by the lexical meaning and
valency of the verb, e.g. stateowned,
home-made. The type is highly
productive. Correlative relations
are established with word-groups of the Ven+
with/by
+
N
type.
3) the monosemantic пит
+
п pattern
which gives rise to a small and
peculiar group of adjectives, which are
used only attributively, e.g. (a) twoday
(beard), (a) seven-day
(week),
etc. The type correlates with attributive
phrases with a numeral for their first
member.
4) a highly productive monosemantic
pattern of derivational compound
adjectives based on semantic relations of
possession conveyed by the suffix
-ed. The basic variant is [(a+n)+ -ed],
e.g.
low-ceilinged,
long- legged.
The pattern has two more variants: [(пит
+
n)
+
-ed),
l(n+n)+ -ed], e.g.
one-sided, bell-shaped, doll-faced. The
type correlates accordingly with
phrases with (having) + A+N,
with
(having) + Num +
N,
with
+
N + N
or with +
N + of + N.
The system of productive types of compound
adjectives is summarised
in Table 1. (Appendix)
II. V e r b a l — n o m i n a l compounds
may be described through one derivational structure n+nv,
i.e.
a combination of a noun-base (in most
cases simple) with a deverbal, suffixal
noun-base. The structure includes
four patterns differing in the character
of the deverbal noun- stem and accordingly
in the semantic subgroups of compound
nouns. All the patterns
correlate in the final analysis with V+N
and
V+prp+N
type
which depends
on the lexical nature of the verb:
1) [n+(v+-er)],
e.g.
bottle-opener,
stage-manager, peace-fighter. The
pattern is monosemantic and is based on
agentive relations that can be interpreted
‘one/that/who does smth’.
2) [n+(v+
-ing)],
e.g.
stage-managing,
rocket-flying. The pattern is
monosemantic and may be interpreted as
‘the act of doing smth’. The pattern
has some constraints on its productivity
which largely depends on the
lexical and etymological character of the
verb.
3) [n+(v+ -tion/ment)], e.g.
office-management,
price-reduction. The
pattern is a variant of the above-mentioned
pattern (No 2). It has a heavy
constraint which is embedded in the
lexical and etymological character of
the verb that does not permit
collocability with the suffix -ing or deverbal
nouns.
4) [n+(v +
conversion)],
e.g.
wage-cut,
dog-bite, hand-shake, the pattern
is based on semantic relations of result,
instance, agent, etc.
III. N o m i n a l c o m p o u n d s are
all nouns with the most
polysemantic and highly-productive
derivational pattern n+n; both bases
re generally simple stems, e.g. windmill,
horse-race, pencil-case. The
pattern conveys a variety of semantic
relations, the most frequent are the
relations of purpose, partitive, local and
temporal relations. The pattern
correlates with nominal word-groups of the
N+prp+N
type.
IV. V e r b — a d v e r b compounds are
all derivational nouns, highly
productive and built with the help of
conversion according to the pattern l(v + adv) + conversion].
The
pattern correlates with free phrases
V + Adv
and
with all phrasal verbs of different degree of stability. The pattern
is polysemantic and reflects the manifold
semantic relations typical of
conversion pairs.
The system of productive types of compound
nouns is summarized in
Table
2. (Appendix)
ANALYTICAL BASES
OF USE OF WORD-COMPOSITION 36
3.1 Practical examples of compound words.
Here are the
practical examples of compound words in “Theater” of W. Somerset Maugham.
Business – like [n+(v
+
conversion)],
is
based on semantic relations of result, – довольно по
деловому
(ch.1 p 3)
well – known
(ch
1 p
4) [a+v]
– хорошо известный
ink – stand (ch 1 p 4) [n+v] —
чернильница
heavily – painted lips (ch 1 p 5)
[a+v+ed] ярко- накрашенные губы
dressing – table (ch 1 p 
[n+ ing + n] –
туалетный
столик
eyebrow — (ch 1 p [n+ n] – бровь
satinwood — (ch 1 p [n+ n] –
атласное дерево
CONCLUSION
1. Compound words are made up of two ICs,
both of which are derivational bases.
2. The structural and semantic centre of
acompound, i.e. its head-member, is its second IC, which preconditions the part
of speech the compound belongs to and its lexical class.
3. Phonetically compound words are marked
by three stress patterns
— a unity stress, a double stress and a
level stress. The first two are the
commonest stress patterns in compounds.
4. Graphically as a rule compounds are
marked by two types of spelling
— solid spelling and hyphenated spelling.
Some types of compound
words are characterised by fluctuations
between hyphenated spelling and
spelling with a space between the components.
5. Derivational patterns in compound words
may be mono- and
polysemantic, in which case they are based
on different semantic relations
between the components.
6. The meaning of compound words is
derived from the combined
lexical meanings of the components and the
meaning of the derivational
pattern.
7. Compound words may be described from
different points of view:
a) According to the degree of semantic
independence of components
compounds are classified into coordinative
and subordinative. The bulk of
present-day English compounds are
subordinative.
b) According to different parts of speech.
Composition is typical in
Modern English mostly of nouns and
adjectives.
c) According to the means by which
components are joined together
they are classified into compounds formed
with the help of a linking element
and without. As to the order of ICs it may
be asyntactic and syntactic.
d) According to the type of bases
compounds are classified into compounds
proper and derivational compounds.
e) According to the structural semantic
correlation with free phrases
compounds are subdivided into
adjectival-nominal compound adjectives,
verbal-nominal, verb-adverb and nominal
compound nouns.
8. Structural and semantic correlation is
understood as a regular interdependence
between compound words and variable
phrases. A potential
possibility of certain types of phrases
presupposes a possibility of compound
words
conditioning their structure and semantic type.
APPENDIX
TABLE 1. Productive Types of
Compound Adjectives
|
Free |
Compound |
|||
|
Compounds |
Derivational Compounds |
Pattern |
Semantic |
|
|
1) (a). as white |
snow-white |
— |
n |
relations |
|
(b). in tired care-free, |
oil-rich, power-greedy, pleasuretired |
— |
— |
various adverbial relations |
|
2.c bound |
snow-covered duty-bound |
n |
instrumental (or agentive relations |
|
|
3. two days |
(a) two-day (beard) (b) seven-year (plan) |
— |
num |
quantitative |
|
wi t h ( h a v i |
long-legged |
[(a |
possessive |
APENDIX 2.
TABLE 2. Productive Types of Compound Nouns
|
Free |
Compound |
||
|
Compounds Proper |
Derivational Compounds |
Pattern |
|
|
Verbal prices prices shake |
1) price-reducing price-reduction hand-shake |
— |
— -ing)] ment)] |
|
Nominal ashes a run woman sword |
1) neck house 5) 6) |
— |
— [n’ + |
|
Verb to away |
a break-down a castaway a runaway |
[(v + |