§ 9. Semi-Affixes

There is a specific group of morphemes whose derivational function does not allow one to refer them unhesitatingly either to the derivational affixes or bases. In words like half-done, half-broken, half-eaten and ill-fed, ill-housed, ill-dressed the ICs half- and ill- are given in linguistic literature different interpretations: they are described both as bases and as derivational prefixes. The comparison of these ICs with the phonetically identical stems in independent words ill and half as used in such phrases as to speak ill of smb, half an hour ago makes it obvious that in words like ill-fed, ill-mannered, half-done the ICs ill- and half- are losing both their semantic and structural identity with the stems of the independent words.

§10. Derivational Patterns

Neither bases nor affixes alone can predict all the structural and semantic properties of words the ICs of which they may be. It is the combination of bases and affixes that makes up derivatives of different structural and semantic classes. Both bases and affixes due to the distributional meaning they possess show a high degree of consistency in their selection and are collocated according to a set of rules known as derivational patterns. A derivational pattern is a regular meaningful arrangement, a structure that imposes rigid rules on the order and the nature of the derivational bases and affixes that may be brought together. A pattern is a generalisation, a scheme indicative of the type of ICs, their order and arrangement which signals the part of speech, the structural and semantic peculiarities common to all the individual words for which the pattern holds true. Patterns of derivative structures are usually represented in a generalised way in terms of conventional symbols: small letters v, n, a, d, пит stand for the bases which coincide with the stems of the respective parts of speech: verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, numerals; v_ed, v_ing stand for the bases which are the past and present participles respectively. In words of the long-fingered or sit-inner type the derivational bases are represented by bracketed symbols of the parts of speech making up the corresponding collocations, for example (a+n)+ -ed, (v+d) + er.

§ 11. Derivational Types of Words

According to their derivational structure words fall into two large classes: simple, non-derived words or simplexes and derivatives or complexes. Complexes are classified according to the type of the underlying derivational pattern into: derived and compound words. Derived words fall into affixational words, which in their turn must be classified into suffixal and prefixal derivatives, and conversions. Each derivational type of words is unequally represented in different parts of speech.

Comparing the role each of these structural type of words plays in the language we can easily perceive that the clue to the correct understanding of their comparative value lies in a careful consideration of: 1) the importance of each type in the existing word-stock and 2) their frequency value in actual speech.

We cannot fail to see that simple words occupy a predominant place in English. According to recent frequency counts, about 60% of the total number of nouns and 62% of the total number of adjectives in current use are simple words. Of the total number of adjectives and nouns, derived words comprise about 38% and 37% respectively while compound words comprise an insignificant 2% in nouns and 0.2% in adjectives. Thus it is the simple, non-derived words that constitute the foundation and the backbone of the vocabulary and that are of paramount importance in speech. Simple words also serve as basic parent forms motivating all types of derived and compound words. At the same time it should be pointed out that new words that appear in the vocabulary are mostly words of derived and compound structure.