15, Classification of morphemes.

Morphology is a branch of linguistics that studies morphemes – the smallest meaningful non-segmentable parts of words. Lexicology studies only part of the morphemes – derivational morphemes – stem building or word building lexical units, as in reasonable, unreasonable , but not as in smiled, smiles, is smiling.

Derivationally all the words in a language are subdivided into simple (not derived) – simplexes, and derived – complexes, or derivatives. The majority of the word stock in any language is made up of derived words.

The most common source lexeme for a derived word in English is nouns. Adjectives and verbs are quite active in deriving new words, too. The least likely sources are adverbs and the lexemes of minor word classes like article and pronouns.

There are three major types of word-formation:

• zero derivation (conversion)

• affixation

• composition (compounding)

There are also some minor types:

• back-formation

• shortening

• blending

• extension of proper names

• word formation

• semantic changes

• borrowing

16.Affixation as a way of word-formation.

affixation: prefixation and suffixation – is a formation of new words by adding derivative affixes to derivational bases.

According to the number of words they create all affixes may be classifed into productive, as un-, re-, -er, -ish and non-productive – demi-, -ard, -hood.

From the point of view of their current participation in word-formation processes the derivational affixes are devided into activaand non-active, or dead affixes (for- - forgive, forbid, forget, -d – dead, seed, -t – gift).

Prefixation

The number of prefixes in modern English is estimated to be from 50 to 80. The number of prefixes is aproximate because the status of some of them is still not clear.

From the functional point of view they may be classified as convertive and non-convertive. Convertive – convert or convey a word into another part of speech (to encourage, to behead), non-convertive – only change or modify the lexical meaning without changing its part-of-speech meaning.

Prefixes can be used to form new words of all parts of speech and according to the part-of-speech meaning the words belongs to, they may be classified into noun-forming (ex-husband), adjective-forming (international), verb-forming (reconsider).

Most prefixation takes and has always taken place in English verbs, attaching new meanings to them or forming new verbs from from other parts of speech (to enrich, to enable, to reread).

Deverbal –(Pref+v) – dis-, re-, under-, over-, de-, fore-, mis.

Deadverbal (pref+adj) – a-, an-, anti-, be-, extra-, re-, in-, post-, pre-.

Denominal (pref+n) – anti-, non-, pre-, post-, sub-, dis-, a-, hemi-.

But there is no strict borderline between them.

Prefixes are used to add the following seven major types of meaning to the derivational base:

• negation, reversal, contrary (unemployment, incorrect, disloyal)

• sequence and order in time (pre-war, foresee)

• different space location (intercontinental)

• repetition (rewrite, reread)

• quantity and intensity (bilingual)

• pejoration (abnormal)

• amelioration (super-reliable)

Suffixation

There are different classifications of derivational suffixes:

Etymologically:

• native (-ed, -fast, -fold, -er, -ful, -less, -like)

• borrowed (-able/ -ible, ist, -ism)

According to the part-of-speech meaning:

• denominal (-dom, -ess, -ian, -less)

• deverbal (-ee, -er, -ing, -able)

• deadjectival (-ly, -ish, -ise)

17. Suffixation. Classification of suffixes.

Suffixation

There are different classifications of derivational suffixes:

Etymologically:

• native (-ed, -fast, -fold, -er, -ful, -less, -like)

• borrowed (-able/ -ible, ist, -ism)

According to the part-of-speech meaning:

• denominal (-dom, -ess, -ian, -less)

• deverbal (-ee, -er, -ing, -able)

• deadjectival (-ly, -ish, -ise)

18 Prefixation. Classification of prefixes.

The number of prefixes in modern English is estimated to be from 50 to 80. The number of prefixes is aproximate because the status of some of them is still not clear.

From the functional point of view they may be classified as convertive and non-convertive. Convertive – convert or convey a word into another part of speech (to encourage, to behead), non-convertive – only change or modify the lexical meaning without changing its part-of-speech meaning.

Prefixes can be used to form new words of all parts of speech and according to the part-of-speech meaning the words belongs to, they may be classified into noun-forming (ex-husband), adjective-forming (international), verb-forming (reconsider).

Most prefixation takes and has always taken place in English verbs, attaching new meanings to them or forming new verbs from from other parts of speech (to enrich, to enable, to reread).

Deverbal –(Pref+v) – dis-, re-, under-, over-, de-, fore-, mis.

Deadverbal (pref+adj) – a-, an-, anti-, be-, extra-, re-, in-, post-, pre-.

Denominal (pref+n) – anti-, non-, pre-, post-, sub-, dis-, a-, hemi-.

But there is no strict borderline between them.

Prefixes are used to add the following seven major types of meaning to the derivational base:

• negation, reversal, contrary (unemployment, incorrect, disloyal)

• sequence and order in time (pre-war, foresee)

• different space location (intercontinental)

• repetition (rewrite, reread)

• quantity and intensity (bilingual)

• pejoration (abnormal)

• amelioration (super-reliable)

19.Composition. Structure of compounds. Parts of speech. Means of composition. Types of bases. Semi-affixes.

Compounding (composition) – two words put together and given a single main stress (one of the main criteria of compounding is stress!!)

pattern: adj+ noun=noun

noun+noun=noun

3 variations of writing in com: stone wall/stone-wall/stonewall

for e : `mad doctor and `mad `doctor// `black bird and `black `bird

Derivational bases in compounds may have different degrees of complexity: one or each of them may be simple as in snowman, derived as in shoemakerer, or even compound as in water+boatman.

In many cases lexical meaning of a compound may be derived from the combined lexical meaning of its components and structural meaning of its distributional pattern.

Usually the second derivational base is more important and determines lexical, grammatical and part-of-speech meaning of the whole compound: hall-mark, half-baked.

Compounds that have the same elements but differ in their distribution are different in lexical meaning, too (ring finger and finger ring; piano-player and player piano).

Having discussed the difficulties of distinguishing compounds from phrases, we turn to the problem of telling compounds from derivatives.

The problem of distinguishing a compound from a derivative is actually equivalent to distinguishing a stem from an affix. In most cases the task is simple enough: the immediate constituents of a compound are free forms, likely to occur in the same phonic character as independent words, whereas a combination containing bound forms as its immediate constituents, is a derivative.

There are, however, some borderline cases that do not fit in, and so present difficulties. Some elements of the English vocabulary occurring as independent nouns, such as man, berry, land, have been very frequent as second elements of words for a long time. They seem to have acquired valency similar to that of affixes. They are unstressed, and the vowel sound has been reduced to [mэn], although the reduction is not quite regular: for instance, when the concept “man” is clearly present in the word, there is no reduction. As to land, the pronunciation [lænd] occurs only in ethnic names Scotland, Finland and the like, but not in homeland or fatherland. As these elements seem to come somewhere in between the stems and affixes, the term semi-affix has been offered to designate them. Though not universally accepted, it can be kept for convenience’s sake.

As man is by far the most frequent of semi-affixes it seems worth while to dwell upon it at some length. Its combining activity is very great. In addition to seaman, airman and spaceman one might compile a very long list: chairman, clergyman, countryman, fireman, fisherman, gentleman, horseman, policeman, postman, workman, yes-man (one that agrees with everything that is said to him) and many others. It is interesting to note that seaman and workman go back to the Old English period, but the model is still as productive as ever, which is testified by the neologism spaceman.

The second element, -man is considerably generalised semantically and approaches in meaning a mere suffix of the doer like -er. The fading of the lexical meaning is especially evident when the words containing this element are used about women, as in the following: The chairman, Miss Ellen McGullough, a member of the TUC, said ... ("Daily Worker").