Word formation (словообразование)
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:
Affixationis the formation of new words by means of suffixes and prefixes to stems\basis.
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 formationa 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 10th 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 15th 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 15th cent., but continued up to the 17th 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. Nis 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 ofH 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.
| child girl happiness | Infant maid bliss | Kid | |
| neutral | elevated | colloquial | |
| To die | To kick the bucket | ||
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 –euphemismused 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.:
| clever | bright | brainy | intelligent | Dever-clever |
| neutral | Only speaking about younger people by older people | Is not used by the higher educated people | Positive connotation | Stylistically remarked |
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(toplease-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 DAexpress contradictory notions, one of then excludes the other active – inactive. The AAexpress contrary notion: ugly – plain – good-looking – pretty – beautiful
Antonimyis 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 properhot-warm – tapped – cold & complementary antonymsonly 2 words negative and assertion not male - female.
There’s also one type of semantic opposition conversiveswords denote one reference as viewed from different points of view that of the subject & that of the object. Bye – sell, give - receive
Conversnessis 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 wholeis 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 termPhraseologyis 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?