Recommended Literature:

1. Арнольд И.В. Лексикология современного английского языка.= The English Word [Текст]: Учеб. для ин-тов и фак. иностр. яз. 3-е изд., перераб. и доп. / И.В. Арнольд. – М.: Высшая школа,1986. – p.108 – 133.

2. Гинзбург, Р.З. Лексикология английского языка [Текст]: Учебн для ин-тов и фак. иностр. яз. / Р.З. Гинзбург, С.С. Хидекель, Г.Ю. Князева и др.– М.: Высшая школа, 1979. – p. 140 – 159.

3. Антрушина Г.Б. Лексикология английского языка = English Lexicology [Текст]: Учеб. для студ. пед. ин-тов по спец. №.2103 «Иностр. яз.» /Г.Б. Антрушина, О.В. Афанасьева, Н.Н. Морозова – 3-е изд. стереотип. – М.: Дрофа, 2001 – с. 66 – 79.

4. Арбекова Т.И. Лексикология английского языка (практический курс) [Текст]: Учебное пособие для студентов 2-3 курсов институтов и факультетов иностранных языков./ Т.И. Арбекова. – М.: Высшая школа, 1977. – с.21 – 27.

5. Мешков О.Д. Семантические аспекты словосложения английского языка [Текст]. / О.Д. Мешков – М.: Наука, 1986. – с.125 – 130.

6. Смирницкий А.И. Лексикология английского языка [Текст] / А.И. Смирницкий М. Изд-во МГУ им. М.В.Ломоносова, 1998 . – с. 114 – 137.

Lecture 12. Shortened Words and Minor Types of Lexical Oppositions

1. Shortening of Spoken Words and its Causes

2. Blending.

3. Graphical Abbreviations. Achronyms.

4. Minor Types of Lexical Oppositions.

5. Back-Formation.

Shortening is comparatively new way of word-building. Nowadays it has achieved a high degree of productivity, especially in American English. Shortening is produced in two different ways. The first is to make a new word from a syllable of the original word. It may lose its beginning, its ending, or both the beginning and ending. Curtailed words with the middle part of the word left out are equally few. They serve as basis for further word-building by derivation or composition. The second way of shortening is to make a new word from the initial letters of a word-group. Both types of shortening are characteristic of informal speech in general and uncultivated speech particularly.

Shortening produces new words in the same part of speech. The bulk of curtailed words is constituted by nouns. It is typical of curtailed words to render only one of the secondary meanings of a polysemantic word.. Curtailed words arise in various types of colloquial speech and have for the most part a pronounced stylistic colouring as long as their connection with the prototype is alive, so they remain synonyms. Stylistically coloured shortened words may belong to any variety of colloquial style. They are especially numerous in various branches of colloquial style.

Blending is the formation of a new word by combining parts of two words.. Blends may be of two types. Additive type that may be transformed into a phrase consisting of a complete stems combined by the conjunction. Restrictive type can be transformed into a phrase the first element of which serves as a modifier for the second.

Achronymy is the formation of a word from the initial letters of a word combination. There are two types of achronyms: they are read as ordinary English words and with alphabetically reading. Graphical Abbreviations are used for famous person’s names and surnames. An acronym, in which the first element is a letter and the second is a complete word, may be called as a specifically English word pattern.

Words coined by sound imitation are made by naming different kinds of sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, human beings and inanimate objects. Sounds produced by the same kind of animal are frequently represented by quite different sound groups in different languages.

Sound interchange may be defined as an opposition in which words or word forms are differentiated due to an alternation in the phonemic composition of the root. The change may affect the root vowel and a root consonant.

Distinctive stress is the formation of a word by means of the shift of the stressing the source word.

Back-formation is a term borrowed from diachronic linguistics. It denotes the derivation of new words by subtracting a real or supposed affix from existing words through misinterpretation of their structure. The most productive type of back-formation in present-day English is derivation of verb from some compounds. The semantic relationship between the prototype and the derivative is regular.