Historical Changes of Compounds

Old English was rich in compound words: word-composition was a highly productive type of word-formation throughout the whole history of the language. Some compounds preserve their type till the present-day English; others have undergone considerable phonetic and semantic changes and turned into simplexes or root words. This process is called simplification. Sometimes such compounds are altered beyond recognition: daisy < OE dæges eage ‘day’s eye’, woman < OE wifman ‘woman (female) person’, husband < late OE husbonda < ON husbondi ‘master of house’ (OE hus – Mod E house, bonda < OE buan ‘to dwell’).

Simplification is closely related to demotivation. When a compound word undergoes simplification it becomes non-motivated, so that we cannot deduce the meaning of the former compound word from its morphemic composition and structural pattern. This is the case with such words as lady < OE hlæfdige (hlaf ‘loaf’, dig ‘to knead’) – ‘the person who kneads dough for bread’, lord < OE hlaford < hlaf-weard ‘bread keeper’.

There are cases where demotivation is complete, while simplification is still under way. We are inclined to regard breakfast and cupboard as compounds because they look like compounds due to their conservative spelling, whereas they have changed in meaning and pronunciation, e.g. The word breakfast primarily had the meaning ‘to interrupt (break) fasting (going without food)’, whereas at present it means ‘the first meal of the day. Such examples might be regarded as borderline cases, as simplification is not yet completed graphically.

5. Minor Types of Word-Formation

Affixation, conversion and compounding are the major and the most active types of word formation in modern English which are represented by various word-formation patterns. Along with them there are others, the so-called minor types of word formation which enrich the lexicon with new words. They are shortening, back formation and sound imitation.

Shortening. Though shortening does not refer to the major types of word formation, shortened words are very popular and are used actually in all the functional styles. Especially frequent they are in the colloquial register, newspaper, publicistic and scientific styles. There is a tendency to monosyllabism (one syllable words) in the English language. It was Ch. Bally who pointed out that “...the English language tending to monosyllabism turns a zoological garden into a zoo..., popular concerts into pops...” [Балли 1955: 333].

Shortening is reduction of a word to one of its parts as a result of which the new form acquires some linguistic value of its own [Arnold 1973: 83]. Unlike affixation and compounding which are based on addition of certain constituents (affixes or derivational bases), shortening presupposes subtraction of parts of the words so that the word becomes curtailed and as a result shorter than its prototype. Various language units can be shortened: single lexemes (ad < advertisement, phone < telephone, etc.), word cоmbinations (MP < Member of Parliament, zoo < zoological garden, etc.) and sentences (IOU < I owe you, WYSIWYG < What you see is what you get).

There are many classifications of shortened words. The authors of “A Grammar of Contemporary English” subdivide the shortened words into three main types: Clipped words, Blends, Acronyms [Quirk 1972: 1030 - 1031].

Clipping or curtailment is curtailing (cutting off) a part of a polysyllabic word so that the word is reduced to one or rarely to two syllables. Clipped words coexist with their prototypes, i.e. the original words which were clipped (e.g., lab < laboratory), however, they are used independently of the prototypes and even can differ in meaning and the semantic structure from them. For instance, the words exam ‘testing of knowledge or ability (of students, candidates)’ and doc ‘person who has been trained in medical science’ are monosemantic but their prototypes have more than one meanings: examination 1) minute inspection; 2) testing of knowledge or ability (of students, candidates); 3) questioning by a lawyer in a law court and other meanings; doctor 1) person who has received the highest university degree; 2) person who has been trained in medical science; and other meanings. In some cases the meanings of clipped words divert from the meanings of prototypes (сf., bus < omnibus, story < history). Phonetically the clipped part of the word does not change but there might be changes in spelling in some examples: bike < bicycle, mike < microphone, dub < double. The curtailed words are often homonymous: demo for democracy and demonstration, vet for veteran and veterinary, nat for national, native, natural. Clipping might be combined with affixation: granny < clipping of grandmother + -y. It should be noted that the clipped variants are informal words used mostly in colloquial discourse. They are also frequent in newspapers and magazines.

Clipped words are classified according to what part of the word is clipped:

1) Final clipping in which the beginning of the prototype is retained: ad < advertisement, lab < laboratory, lib < liberation, coke < coca-cola, ed < editor, resp < respectively, dif < difference, etc. To this type belong the bulk of clipped words. It can be accounted for by the fact that the beginning of the word is easier recognized, it is more informative as it usually coincides with the root morpheme.

2) Initial clipping means retaining of the final part of the prototype. Here belong the words phone < telephone, copter < helicopter, cello < violoncello, roo < kangaroo, chute < parachute, which have the same meaning as their prototypes, and the words more firmly established as separate lexical units which developed the meanings different from their prototypes: cute ‘sharp-witted, (U.S.) attractive’ < acute ‘keen, sharp, quick’, fend ‘ward off, repel’ < defend ‘keep safe, protect’, story ‘account of an incident’ < history ‘continuous record of events’, tend ‘watch over’ < attend ‘give care and thought to’, sport ‘amusement, fun’ < disport (arch. relaxation, pastime’, bus < omnibus ‘former name for a bus’. Cases of initial clipping are less numerous than final clipping.

Initial and final clipping may be combined so that only the middle part of the word is retained which is also a rare case as in the words: flu < influenza, tec < detective, frig/fridge < refrigerator.

3) Medial clipping is curtailing middle parts of the words: fancy < fantasy, ma'am < madame, maths < mathematics, specs < spectacles. There are many examples of medial clipping when only the first and the last letters are left: bk < book, ft < foot, rm < room, pd < paid, etc. Some examples of words curtailed in the middle are used only in writing: Mr < Mister, Mrs < Mistress, Ms < Miss & Mistress, Rd < Road. Cases of medial clipping are also few.

Acronyms (graphical abbreviations, initial abbreviations) are shortened words formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts of a complex lexical unit

To acronyms primarily refer the cases of shortening of word соmbinations, phrases: BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation, CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), VIP (very important person), JFK (John Fitzgerald Kennedy) and many others. Abbreviations of simple and compound words (mkt – market, fwd – forward, km – kilometre, TV – television, MS – manuscript, TB – tuberculosis, ET or Et – extraterrestrial), sentences (IOU - I owe you, WYSIWYG < What you see is what you get) are limited in number.

According to the ways the acronyms are pronounced they are subdivided into two subgroups:

1) The acronyms which can be read as though they were ordinary English words according to the norms of the English language: UNO [`junou] – United Nations Organization, UNESCO [ju`neskou] – United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, NATO [`neitou], UFO [`jufou] – unidentified flying object, SALT [so:lt] – Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.

2) The acronyms with alphabetic reading: CОD [`si:`ou`di:] – cash on delivery, EEC [`i:`i:`si:] – European Economic Community, SOS [`es`ou`es] – save our souls.

Besides, there are distinguished the so-called initial-syllable abbreviations combining the features of acronyms and clippings: nylon (New York + London), and the words where the first component is one letter and the second one is a root word, combining features of an acronym and a compound word: V-day (Victory day), A-bomb (atomic bomb), H-bag (holiday bag), T-shirt (tennis shirt), etc.

Although acronyms function along with their prototypes, they are considered to be not the variants of words or phrases but full-fledged lexical units. Abbreviations receive the plural and Possessive cаse inflections: MPs disagree with the Prime-minister, The POW's (Prisoner of War) release from captivity. Doubling is a peculiar way of expressing plural in acronyms: pp – pages, cc – chapters, ll – lines. They can serve as derivational bases for affixal derivatives: exMP, MPess, radarman; undergo conversion: Why don’t you come up and P.G. with me? P.G. is an acronym for paying guest; be a part of a compound word as in the above examples: V-day, H-bomb, etc. Some of the acronyms lost their motivation and are perceived as non-derived simple words: radar – radio detection and ranging, laser – light amplification by stimulating emission of radiation.

Like in a case of clipping there are also homonymous acronyms: DJ 1) dinner jacket, 2) disc jockey; MP 1) Member of Parliament, 2) Military Police; COD 1) Cash on Delivery, 2) Concise Oxford Dictionary; g.f. 1) girl friend, 2) grandfather.

Many acronyms in English are abbreviations of Latin words and phrases: a.m. < ante meridiem (before noon), p.m. < post meridiem (in the afternoon), cf. < conferre (compare), e.g. < exempli gratia (for example), i.e. < id est (that is), op cit < opere citato (in the work mentioned) and others.

Acronyms are rather frequently used in modern English. Despite the fact that abbreviation is a minor type of word-formation, it is an active and productive type in modern English and other languages because abbreviation is one of the means of economy of linguistic expression, making utterances compact and concise. Acronyms are used in colloquial discourse, widely used in newspaper, scientific styles. Many acronyms stand for the names of countries, organizations, institutions, ranks and titles, personal names, scientific terms, etc.

It should be mentioned that some acronyms are used in both spoken and written varieties of the language while others are used only in written speech, such as Rd < Road, Mr. < Mister, b. < born, Br. < Brother, E < East, Ger. < Germany and a lot of others.

To blends (portmanteau¹ words) refer words consisting of shortened parts of two derivational bases: the first constituent part of a blend represents a base whose final part is curtailed, the second part of it is made of a base whose initial part is missing. The process of coining such words is called blending or telescoping because words seem to slide into one another like sections in a telescope. The best known example is the word smog which was formed from sm(oke) + (f)og.

I.V.Arnold distinguishes two types of blends:

1) The additive type which is transformable into a phrase consisting of the corresponding stems of derivational bases combined by the conjunction and: smaze < smoke and haze, brunch < breakfast and lunch, mimsy < miserable and flimsy, bisalo < bison and buffalo, transistor < transfer and resist(or), camcorder < camera and recorder, Oxbridge < Oxford and Cambridge.

2) The restrictive type is transformable into an attributive phrase where the first element serves as modifier of the second: motel < motorist’s hotel, bit < binary digit, positron <positive electron, telecast < television broadcast.

There are also blends formed by joining together two initial syllables: Interpol < International police, modem – modulator and demodulator, mod cons < modern conveniences.

Back formation, (back derivation) is the process of coining verbs by curtailing of a real or supposed suffix from corresponding nouns as in the following examples: to beg < beggar, to burgle < burglar, to sculpt < sculptor, to cobble < cobbler, to swindle < swindler. This type of word formation is called back formation in relation to suffixation, because in case of suffixation the suffix is added to the derivational base while in case of back formation it is subtracted. Back derivation is determined by a diachronic analysis (see section 1 of Introduction, the example to beg). In modern English back formation is rather active, e.g.: to televise < television, to lase < laser, to liaise < liaison, to enthuse < enthusiasm, to automate < automation. Productive is back formation from compound words: to typewrite < typewriter, to baby-sit < baby-sitter, to housekeep < housekeeping, to air-condition < air-conditioner, to televise < television, to proof-read < proof-reading, etc. It can be accounted for by the fact that first is created the name for a certain new object like air-conditioner or typewriter and then the verb is coined by back formation.

Sound imitation (onomatopoeia) is naming of an action or thing by a more or less exact reproduction of a sound associated with it. The onomatopoeic words are phonetically motivated. The term ‘sound imitation’ discloses the essence of this type of word-formation. The other term ‘onomatopoeia’ is of Greek origin (onoma ‘name’ poeia ‘creation’).

Onomatopoeic words reproduce many sounds of living and lifeless nature, the sounds accompanying certain processes and actions. First of all, a lot of onomatopoeic verbs are imitations of sounds produced by animals: beasts, birds, insects: buzz, hiss, bark, cackle, croak, crow, quack, grunt, honk, howl, moo, mew (miaou/miaow), purr, neigh, roar, twitter, etc. Some birds got their names by the sounds they produce, e.g. a cuckoo, a crow, humming-bird, whip-poor-will.

Many onomatopoeic words are imitations of the sounds produced by human beings in the process of communication and expressing their states or emotions: whisper, chatter, murmur, mutter, titter, giggle, whine, grumble, babble, sneeze, sniff, snore, etc.

To onomatopoeic words reproducing the sounds of lifeless nature refer the words imitating the sounds of water: bubble, splash, etc.; metallic things: clink, tinkle, clash, etc.; strike: bang, thump, whack, etc.; forceful motion: swish, rattle, crash, etc.

It is of interest to note that words formed by sound imitation in different languages have similarities as well as divergences in their sound form and morphological structure. Сf.: Rus. ку-ка-ре-ку, Engl. cock-a-doodle-do, Fr. cocorico. However, there is hardly any similarity between bark - лаять, howl - выть, twitter - чирикать. One might be misled by phonetic similarity of the words quack and квакать, croak and крякать, The word croak 'квакать' reproduces the sounds produced by a frog, but quack 'крякать' – the sounds produced by a duck. There is actually no difference in sound form and meaning in English and in Russian in the onomatopoeic words reproducing the sounds produced by cats: mew/miaou/miaow - 'мяу' and cows: moo - 'му'.

Obviously, the similarities can be explained by the fact that the sounds of nature are universal and alike everywhere, and the differences occur because every language has its own structure and the laws that influence the transformation of a sound into a word. One should not expect that onomatopoeic words are direct imitations of natural sounds. They are formed according to the laws of the language; its phonetic, morphological, lexical, grammatical subsystems impose their peculiarities on them.