Minor types of word-formation: change of stress

PHRASAL VERBS

Phrasal verbs are combinations of a verb and adverb or a verb and preposition (or verb with both adverb and preposition).

Phrasal verbs may be either non-idiomatic or idiomatic. Non-idiomatic phrasal verbs retain their primary local meaning, e.g. come in, come out of, take off, put down, etc. They may also have a kind of perfective colouring, e.g. add up, eat up, drink up, swallow up, rise up, etc.

In idiomatic compounds meanings cannot be derived from their ICs: bring up - воспитывать, bear out - подтверждать etc.

CONVERSION

Conversion is a special type of affixless derivation where a newly-formed word acquires a paradigm and syntactic functions different from those of the original word.

As a matter of fact, all parts of speech can be drawn into the word building process of conversion to a certain extent. Its derivational patterns are varied, the most widespread among them being N —> V(verbs converted from nouns - table – to table), V —> N (nouns converted from verbs: to ring – ring).

ADJECTIVIZATION

Premodification of nouns by nouns is highly frequent in Modern English. Noun-adjuncts (определение) should not be considered as adjectives produced by means of conversion. Nevertheless, some nouns may undergo the process of adjectivization and function as attributes with idiomatic meanings, e.g.: coffee-table (n.) —> coffee-table (adj.) - "Of a large size and richly illustrated”.

PHRASAL NOUNS

Phrasal nouns are built from phrasal verbs as a result of a combined effect of compounding, conversion, and change of stress. They consist of ICs identical to those of the corresponding phrasal verbs, but obtain, as a rule, the single-stress pattern and either solid or hyphenated spelling, e.g.: to break down —> a breakdown (a break-down).

SHORTENING

There exist two main ways of shortening: contraction (clipping) and abbreviation (initial shortening).

Contraction. One should distinguish between four types of contraction:

1)Final clipping (apocope), i.e. omission of the final part of the word, e.g.: doc (< doctor), lab (< laboratory), mag (< magazine), vegs (< vegetables), Al (< Albert), Nick (< Nickolas), Phil (< Philip), etc.

2)Initial clipping (apheresis), i.e. omission of the fore part of the word e.g.: phone (< telephone), plane (< aeroplane), Dora (< Theodora), Fred (< Alfred), etc.

3)Medial clipping (syncope), i.e. omission of the middle part of the word, e.g.: maths (< mathematics), specs (< spectacles), etc.

4)Mixed clipping, where the fore and the final parts of the word are clipped, e.g.: tec (< detective), fridge (< refrigerator), Liz (< Elisabeth), etc.

Contraction may be combined with affixation, i.e. by adding the suffixes -y -ie -o to clippings, e.g.: hanky (< handkerchief), comfy (< comfortable), etc.

ABBREVIATION

Abbreviations (initial shortenings) are words produced by shortening the Ics of phrasal terms up to their initial letters. Abbreviations are subdivided into 5 groups:

1) Acronyms which are read in accordance with the rules of orthoepy as though they were ordinary words, e.g.: UNO /'ju:nou/ (< United Nations Organization), UNESCO/'ju:'neskou/ (< United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization/, NATO /'neitou/ (< North Atlantic Treaty Organization),etc.

2) Alphabetic abbreviations in which letters get their full alphabetic pronunciation and a full stress, e.g.: USA /'ju:es'ei/ (< the United States of America). B.B.C. /'bi:'bi:'si:/ (< the British Broadcasting Corporation)

Alphabetic abbreviations are sometimes used for famous persons' names, e.g.: F.D.R. (< Franklin Delano Roosevelt), G.B.S. (< George Bernard Shaw), etc.

3)Compound abbreviations in which the first IC is a letter (letters) and the second a complete word, e.g. A-bomb (< atomic bomb), L-driver (learner-driver), etc.

One or both ICs of compound abbreviations may be clipped, e.g.: Interpol (< International police), hi-fi (< high fidelity) etc.

4)Graphic abbreviations which are used in texts for economy of space. They are pronounced as the corresponding unabbreviated words, e.g. Mr. (< Mister), m. (< mile), ft. (< foot/feet), v. (< verb), ltd. (< limited), pp. (< pages), Co (< Company), X-mas (< Christmas), etc.

5)Latin abbreviations which sometimes are not read as Latin words but as separate letters or are substituted by their English equivalents, e.g.: i.e. /ai i:/ that is; a.m. /ei 'em/- before midday, in the morning, e.g.-for example. Id.- at the same place, cf.-compare, etc.

BACK-FORMATION (REVERSION)

Back-formation is the derivation of new words (mostly verbs) by means of subtracting a suffix or other element resembling it: butle < butler, combust < combustion, greed < greedy, sculpt < sculptor, etc.

BLENDING

Blending is the formation of new lexical units by means of merging fragments of words into one new word, or combining the elements of one word with anotional word, e.g.: smog (smoke + fog), radiotrician (radio + electrician), drunch (drinks + lunch), cinemagnate (cinema + magnate), etc.

MINOR TYPES OF WORD-FORMATION: CHANGE OF STRESS

Several nouns and verbs of Romanic origin have a distinctive stress pattern. Such nouns, as a rule, are fore stressed, and verbs have a stress on the second syllable, e.g.: 'accent (n.):: ac'cent (v.), 'contest (n.) :: con'test (v.), 'record (n.):: re'cord (v.), 'attribute (n.):: attr’ibute (v.), etc.

The same distinctive stress pattern is observed in some pairs of adjective and verbs, e.g.: 'absent (a.):: ab'sent (v.), 'abstract (a.):: ab'stract (v.), 'frequent (a.):: fre'quent (v.), etc.

SOUND INTERCHANGE (GRADATION)

Words belonging to different parts of speech may be differentiated due to the sound interchange in the root, e.g.: food (n.)::feed (v.), gold (n.):: gild (v.), strong (a.):: strength (n.), etc.

SOUND IMITATION (ONOMATOPOEIA)

Sound-imitative (onomatopoeic) words are made by imitating sounds produced by living beings and inanimate objects, e.g.: babble, bang, buzz, giggle, hiss, moo, purr, rustle, etc.