Minor types of word-building process

In English language we define two main ways of making new words: internal and external. Internal way means updating of language vocabulary due to its internal potential. It is a productive way of word manufacturing. Internal way includes conversion, affixation, compression, abbreviation, desaffixation. External way means loanwords.

The main types of word building include inflection and derivation. Typically inflection contributes a morpheme that is required in order to ensure that the word has a form that is appropriate for the grammatical context in which it is used (tall-taller). Whereas inflection is driven by the requirement to form a word with the appropriate form in a particular grammatical context, derivation is motivated by the desire to create new lexical items using preexisting morphemes and words. When you need a new word, you do not usually need to make it up from scratch. It is possible to create new lexical items by recycling preexisting material. This is derivation. It takes one of these forms: affixation, conversion, stress placement or compounding.

Conversion is a way of word-formation without affix use as a result of which is formed categorically different word conterminous in some forms with initial word (the story was filmed).

Affixation is a way of new words formation by addition of word-formation affixes to the word stem (superwar, smarty, cuty, environmentalist).

Desaffixation is a way of word-formation at which words are formed by rejection of a suffix or an element externally similar to a suffix (beggar - to beg, legislator - to legislate, burglar - to burgle).

Abbreviation means formation of new words by reduction (truncation of word stem). As a result new words are formed with the incomplete, truncated word stem (or stems), called abbreviations (sis - sister, prof - professor, sec - second, dif - difference).

Compression is the formation of compound words on the basis of word-combinations and sentences by decreasing the level of components of an initial word-combination or the sentence (do it your self - on the do-it-your-self principle; stay slim - a stay-slim diet; cat and dog - a cat and dog life).

Apart from listed ways of word building English grammar also includes minor types of word building. Minor types of word building mean non-productive means of word formation in present-day English. They include reduplication, clipping, blending, sound interchange, distinctive stress, back-formation and others.

CLIPPING

Clipping as one of minor types of word building consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts, e.g.:

Mathematics – maths Laboratory – lab Captain – cap Gymnastics - gym

BLENDING

This type of word building is blending part of two words to form one word (merging into one word), e.g.

Smoke + fog = smog Breakfast + lunch = brunch Smoke + haze = smaze Hurry + bustle = hustle Shine + glimmer = shimmer

BACK-FORMATION

It is possible to illustrate this type of word building using an example of words beg - beggar. The word beggar was formed from the verb to beg, and on the contrary: the word borrowed from the French language beggard was formed under influence and by analogy to nouns with a suffix -er. The second syllable of the noun beggar was apprehended as a suffix, and the verb was formed by rejection of this suffix.

In etymology, back-formation refers to the process of creating a new lexeme (less precisely, a new “word”) by removing actual or supposed affixes. The resulting neologism is called a back-formation. Back-formations are shortened words created from longer words, thus back-formations may be viewed as a sub-type of clipping.

There is a lot of different example of back formation in English language:

ablute from ablution aesthete from aesthetic air-condition from air conditioning alm from alms

arch (“to practice archery”) from archery ttrit from attrition auto-destruct from auto-destruction (auto-destroy) automate from automation

bicep from biceps (non-standard) biograph from biography blockbust from blockbuster book-keep from book-keeping

cavitate from cavitation cherry from Old French cerise choate from inchoate choreograph from choreography

claustrophobe from claustrophobia darkle from darkling decadent from decadence deconstruct from deconstruction

dedifferentiate from dedifferentiation emote from emotion enthuse from enthusiasm ept from inept

escalate from escalator eutrophicate from eutrophication extrapose from extraposition.

REDUPLICATION

Sapir observed that nothing is more natural than the prevalence of reduplication - the repetition of the base of a word in part or in its entirety. He observed that, though rare, reduplication is found in English, e.g.:

pooh-pooh goody-goody wishy-washy sing-song roly-poly harum-scarum

Later on, Thun showed that reduplication is less marginal than is commonly assumed. He listed and examined about 2,000 reduplicative words in standard English and in various dialects. Reduplicatives (compound words formed by reduplication) are different. The most significant property of these words is that word-formation is driven by phonological factors.

There are two main types of reduplicatives: rhyme motivated compounds and ablaut motivated compounds. Rhyme here means what it means in poetry: the vowels and any consonant(s) that appear after it in the last syllable are identical, while ablaut means a change in the root vowel. Usually ablaut signals a change in grammatical function, e.g. the o e alternation in long (adj.) vs. length (noun) marks a difference in word-class. These labels for the two categories of reduplicative compounds highlight the fact that the repetition of the bases in compounds of this kind involves copying the rhyme in so-called rhyme motivated compounds, and coping the consonants and altering the vowel in ablaut motivated compounds.

Some rhyming compounds are formed by joining bases which are both pre-existing words as in Black-Jack and brain-drain. Probably more common, however, are rhyming compounds where one (or both) bases is not an independent word, as in:

Rhyme motivated compounds: nitwit helter-skelter namby-pamby titbit hobnob higgledy-piggledy nitty-gritty teeny-weeny hurly-burly

Finally, there are ablaut motivated compounds in which one or both bases may not be an independent word:

Ablaut motivated compounds: tip-top riff-raff ding-dong shilly-shally tick-tock tittle-tattle wibble-wobble dingle-dangle

ping-pong dilly-dally flip-flop mish-mash

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Antonyms in English.

We use the term antonyms to indicate words of the same category of parts of speech which have contrasting meanings, such as hot — cold, light — dark, happiness — sorrow, to accept — to reject, up — down. If synonyms form whole, often numerous, groups, antonyms are usually believed to appear in pairs. Yet, this is not quite true in real-ity. For instance, the adjective cold may be said to have warm for its second antonym, and sorrow may be very well contrasted with gaiety. On the other hand, a polysemantic word may have an antonym (or several antonyms) for each of its meanings. So, the adjective dull has the antonyms interesting, amusing, entertaining for its meaning of "deficient in interest", clever, bright, capable for its meaning of "deficient in intellect", and active for the meaning of "deficient in activity", etc. Antonymy is not evenly distributed among the categories of parts of speech. Most antonyms are adjectives which is only natural because qualitative characteristics are easily compared and contrasted: high — low, wide — narrow, strong — weak, old — young, friendly — hostile. Verbs take second place, so far as antonymy is concerned. Yet, verbal pairs of antonyms are fewer in number. Here are some of them: to lose — to find, to live — to die, to open — to close, to weep — to laugh. Nouns are not rich in antonyms, but even so some examples can be given: friend — enemy, joy — grief, good — evil, heaven — earth, love — hatred. Antonymic adverbs can be subdivided into two groups: a) adverbs derived from adjectives: warmly — coldly, merrily — sadly, loudly — softly; b) adverbs proper: now — then, here — there, ever — never, up — down, in — out.