Lecture_5_6_WORD-BUILDING_IN_ENGLISH.ppt

Word-formation
process of creating new words from
resources of a particular language
according to certain semantic and
structural patterns existing in the
language

Word-formation
branch of Lexicology
studies the patterns on which the
English language builds words
may be studied synchronically and
diachronically

Main types of word-formation
word-formation
word-derivation word-composition
affixation
conversion
shortening and
abbreviation

Minor types of word-formation
word-formation
sound- and
stress interchange
back
formation
sound
imitation
lexicalizatio
of grammatical

Derivational Pattern
 is a meaningful combination of stems and affixes
 regularly reproduced
 indicates the grammatical part-of-speech meaning
e.g. verbal stem + -ee = noun (‘one who is V-ed’)
examine + -ee = examinee
addressee, employee, divorcee

Affixation
 formation of words by adding derivational
affixes to stems
 one of the most productive ways of word-
building

Types of Affixation
affixation
suffixation prefixation
mixed
affixation

Affixation
Suffixation
 words are formed with the
help of suffixes
 changes a part-of-speech
meaning (e.g. work –
worker)
 transfers a word into a
different semantic group
(e.g. child – childhood)
 is characteristic of noun and
adjective formation
Prefixation
 words are formed with the
help of prefixes
 does not change a part-of-
speech meaning (e.g.
usual – unusual)
 about 25 prefixes form one
part of speech from another
(e.g. head – to behead)
 is characteristic of verb
formation

Mixed Affixation
 formation by both prefixation and suffixation
 semantic structure becomes more limited
 the more affixes added the less polysemantic
the word becomes
e.g. speak – unspeakable
place – irreplaceable

Conversion
 process of creating a new word in a different
part of speech
 with different distributional characteristic
 but without adding any affixes
 so that the basic form of the original and the
basic form of a derived word are
homonymous

Conversion
A new word:
 has a meaning different from the original one
 has a new paradigm peculiar to its new
category as a part of speech
 the morphemic shape of the original word
remains unchanged

Conversion
 face, noun
-s, pl.
-’s, poss. c., sg
-s’, poss. c., pl
 a front part of the
head from the
forehead to the chin
 to face, verb
-s, 3rd
p. sg.
-ed, past ind., past
part.
-ing, pres. part.,
gerund
 to turn the face
towards sb/smth

Reasons for the widespread
development of conversion
 absence of morphological elements which
mark the part of speech of the word
e.g. back (noun) – If you use mirrors you can see the
back of your head
to back – Their houses back onto the river.
back (adverb) – Put the book back on the shelf.
back (adjective) – a back garden, back teeth

Reasons for the widespread
development of conversion
 simplicity of paradigms of English parts of
speech
 a great number of one-syllable words that are
more mobile and flexible

Conversion in Present-Day English
 typical of one-syllable words
 not common to affixed words (e.g. a
commission – to commission)
 the predominant way of verb formation
 verbs are mainly formed from nouns and
rarely from other parts of speech
 highly productive

Conversion in Different Parts of
Speech
 noun verb
e.g. an eye – to eye, a bag – to bag, a room – to room
 verb noun
e.g. to jump – a jump, to do – a do
 adjective verb
e.g. pale – to pale
 adjective noun
e.g. private – a private, blind – the blind

Conversion in Different Parts of
Speech
 form word noun
e.g. He was familiar with ups and downs of life. I
shan’t go into whys and wherefores.
 affix noun
e.g. Freudism, existentialism and all other ‘isms’ of
modern life.
 interjection verb
e.g. pooh – to pooh-pooh

Conversion and Other Types of Word-
Formation
 conversion and composition
e.g. pin-point - to pin point, black-list – to blacklist
 composition, conversion and shortening
e.g. to drive in – a drive-in theater – a drive-in
 conversion and composition in phrases
and sentences
e.g. Old man what-do-you-call-him’s book is on sale.

Traditional and Occasional Conversion
Traditional Conversion
 the use of a word is
recorded in the dictionary
e.g. to cook, to look, find, aim,
etc.
Occasional Conversion
 the use of a word is not
registered by the dictionary
 occurs momentarily, through
the immediate need of the
situation, brings out the
meaning more vividly
e.g. If anybody oranges me
again tonight, I’ll knock his
face off!

Shortening
 a way of word-formation when part of the
original word or word group is taken away

Shortening
A new word:
 belongs to the same part of speech as a the
original word (e.g. demo – demonstration)
 has the same lexical meaning as the original
word
 capable of being used as a free form
 can take functional affixes (e.g. a bike -
bikes)
 mostly monosemantic

Shortening
A new word:
 may serve as basis for further word-formation
by derivation and composition
e.g. fancy (noun) fantasy (shortening)
fancy (noun) to fancy (conversion)
fancy (noun) fancier, fanciful (derivation)
fancy (noun) fancy-ball, fancy-dress (composition)

Shortening
A new word:
 differs from the original word stylistically or
emotionally, characteristic of colloquial speech
e.g. Becky Rebecca (diminutive)
Japs the Japanese
exam examination (college slang)
hanky handkerchief (nursery word)
o’er over (bookish, poetic style)

Shortening in Different Parts of Speech
 nouns e.g. prof professor
 verbs e.g. to rev to revolve
 adjectives (very few) e.g. dilly
delightful (jargonism)
 interjection e.g. Shun! attention

Types of Shortening
 final clipping (apocope) - a word is
shortened at the end
e.g. ed editor, ref referee
 initial clipping (apheresis) – a word is
shortened at the beginning
e.g. phone telephone,
chute parachute

Types of Shortening
 medial clipping (syncope) – some syllables
or sounds are omitted from the middle of a
word
e.g. maths mathematics
specs spectacles
fancy fantasy

Types of Shortening
 a word is clipped both at the end and at the
beginning
e.g. flu influenza
tec detective
fridge refridgerator

Abbreviation (graphical shortening)
 shortening of word or word-groups in written
speech
 in speech the corresponding full forms are
used
e.g. lb - pound
e.g. – for example
i.e. – that is
Dr. – Doctor
Oct. - October

Composition
 is the way of word-building when a word is
formed by joining two or more stems to form
one word
 one of the most productive ways of word-
building in Modern English

Compound Words
 consist of at least two stems which occur in
the language as free forms
e.g. a brother-in-law, airbus, snow-white

Criteria for Distinguishing between a
Compound and a Word-combination
Compound Word
 graphic criterion: solid
or hyphenated spelling
e.g. sunbeam, war-
ship
 semantic criterion:
conveys one concept
e.g. a green-house
Word-Combination
 graphic criterion:
spelling with a break
e.g. a tall boy
 semantic criterion:
conveys more than one
concept
e.g. a green house

Compound Word
 phonetic criterion: a
single uniting stress
e.g. a ´greenhouse
Word-Combination
 phonetic criterion:
each word in a group
has a stress
e.g. a ´green ´house

Compound Word
 morphological and
syntactic criteria:
- only one component
changes grammatically
e.g. a tallboy –
tallboys, a passer-by
– passers-by
Word-Combination
syntactic criteria:
- each constituent is
independent and open
to grammatical changes
e.g. a tall boy – They
were the tallest boys
in their form.

Compound Word
syntactic criteria:
- no word can be
inserted between the
components
Word-Combination
syntactic criteria:
- other words may be
inserted between the
constituent parts
e.g. a tall handsome boy

Classifications of Compounds
 according to the parts of speech
 according to the joining element
 according to the structure of compounds
 according to the degree of semantic
independence
 according to the order of components
 according to the motivation of the meaning of
compounds

Classification of compounds
according to the part of speech
 nouns and adjectives e.g. baby-sitter, power-
hungry (энергоемкий)
 adverbs and prepositions e.g. indoors,
within, outside
 verbs (formed by means of conversion or
backformation) e.g. to handcuff hand-
cuffs,
to babysit baby-sitter

Classification according to the joining
element
 neutral compounds are formed by joining
two stems together without any joining
morpheme e.g. classroom, dancing-hall
 syntactical compounds – components are
joined by means of form-word stems e.g.
here-and-now, free-for-all

Classification according to the joining
element
 morphological compounds – components
are joined by a linking element:
- vowel “o”, “I” e.g. speedometer, handicraft
- consonant “s” e.g. sportsman

Classification according to the
structure of compounds
 compound words proper – formed by
juxtaposition of two stems without any linking
element e.g. top-notch (первоклассный), tip-
top
 compound-affixed words –
e.g. honeymooner

structure of compounds
 compound words consisting of three or more
stems - e.g. eggshell-thin, cornflower-blue
 compound-shortened words – e.g. V-day,
landsat

Classification according to the degree
of semantic independence
Subordinative
Compound
 is a compound whose
components are neither
structurally nor
semantically equal in
importance, and one of
them dominates the other
e.g. color-blind, evergreen
Coordinative
Compound
components are
structurally and
semantically
independent and
constitutes two
structural and semantic
centers
e.g. actor-manager

Classification according to the order of
components
Syntactic Compound
 is a compound that
conforms to
grammatical patterns
current in the language
e.g. northwest, for-free,
maybe, killjoy,
seashore
Asyntactic Compound
 is a compound that
does not conform to
grammatical patterns
current in the language
e.g. to babysit (to sit with
a baby), rope-like (like
a rope)

motivation of the meaning of
compounds
Idiomatic Compound
meaning is not deducible
from the meaning of its
components
e.g. wallflower – Noun, a
person, esp. a woman, who
is not invited to dance at a
party
fifty-fifty – Adv., being equally
likely and unlikely
butter-fingers – noun, a
clumsy person
Non-idiomatic Compound
meaning is deducible from
the meaning of its
components
e.g. mother-in-law, day-long

Ways of forming compound words
 reduplication – e.g. too-too, hush-hush
 partial conversion from word-groups
e.g. can-do (исполнительный и энергичный)
can do
 backformation from compound nouns and word-
groups e.g. to baby-sit baby-sitter
 vowel interchange (ablaut compounds) e.g. chit-
chat (сплетни), tip-top, riff-raff (сброд)
 rhyme compounds – e.g. willy-nilly (волей-неволей),
hoity-toity(надменный)

Peculiarities of English Compounds
 all components of compound words are free
forms, can be used independently with a
distinct meaning of their own
e.g. motherland, day-off, everybody
 usually are two-stem compounds
 attributive compounds e.g. last-minute
changes, four-year course

Sound Interchange
 way of forming new words with the help of
change of sounds within a word

Types of Sound Interchange
 vowel change – e.g. full – to fill, blood – to
bleed
 consonant interchange – e.g. to speak-
speech, advice – to advise
 the combination of vowel and consonant
change – e.g. life – to live, strong -
strength

Stress Interchange
 e.g. ´import - to im´port, ´suspect – to sus
´pect

Lexicalization of Grammatical Form
 way of creating new words with the help of
suffix “s”
e.g. glass – glasses, custom – customs,
colour - colours

Backformation
 way of creating new words by subtracting a
real or supposed suffix from the original word
e.g. to beg beggar, to edit
editor,
to burgle burgler

Sound Imitation (Onomatopoeia)
 way of forming new words by imitating
different kinds of sounds that may be
produced by animals, birds, insects, human
being and inanimate objects e.g. buzz,
croak, moo, mew, purr, roar
e.g. clink, whip, splash, bubble
e.g. giggle, mutter, babble

Lecture_5_6_WORD-BUILDING_IN_ENGLISH.ppt

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