4. Conversion.

1) hand-handful, 2)hand-to hand. In 1 a new word was formed by aff., in 2 by means of conversion (zero derivation). Conversion is a special type of derivation in which the word-forming means is the paradigm of the word. In our ex. The paradigms of the word are different. So a verb is formed from the noun by conversion. This approach was worked out by professor Смирнитский. It is called morphological approach to conversion.

If you are lucky, you’ll have a good buy. Ther’s another approach to conversion, which is worked out by prof. Арнольд. She treats C. as a morphologo-syntactical way of forming word. The word buy is a noun, formed from the verb to buy and the proof may be found in the syntactical characteristics of the word. If function in the sentence is that as a direct object. Besides it has a descriptive attribute and the article a. All these characteristics are typical for the Eng.noun. Cases of C. are accompanied by syntactic change. For ex. when a verb is made from the noun then may be the following changes: 1)nose-to nise, hammer-to hammer – The noun is the name of a tool and the verb is the name of an action performed by this tool. 2)dog-to dog (следовать по пятам), monkey-to monkey (гримасничать) – the noun is the name of an animal and the verb denotes behavior typical of for that animal. Love-to love – it is no always easy to say which of the pair is the original word and which was made by conversion. For ex. if we look at the pair synchronically in M.E. to love is formed by conversion. Diachronically, these words are not linked by conversion. Their identity is the result of historical development. In O.E. there was a noun “lufu” and a verb “lufian”. Due to the dropping of the ending and other processes we have homonyms today.

C. is productive in M.E. because of the character of the language. Root words are typical for its structure and they easily enter conversion pairs. Russian words have flections so we don’t speak about C. in Rus.

5. Composition.

С – is forming a word by combining two or more stems. So structurally compounds are divided into: 1)natural where the stems are joined together without linking element (простые-сложные): bedroom, shop-window; 2)morphological where the stems are linked by a vowel or a consonant: Anglo-Saxon, statesman; 3)syntactic (компрессивы, образованные телескопией) where stems are linked by preposition or some other form-word(служебное слово). The formal sign is a hyphen (множественный дефис); 4)derivational (сложно-производные) where stems have af.. in there structure: film-goer, blue-eyed; 5)contracted (сложно-сокращенные) where one or both stems are shortened: TV-set, V-day.

6. Compounds. Semantic aspect.

Semantically, that is from the point of meaning C. are divided into idiomatic(с переосмыслением) and non-idiomatic. Non-I are those where the meaning of the word is the sum of the meaning of the compound: writing-table, class-room. I are those where the meaning is transferred(переосмысляется). There’re i.c. where one of the c. changed its meaning but the meaning of the whole word can be guessed: blackbird. There’re also i.c. where the change of the meaning is global and the meaning of the word cannot be guessed from the meaning of the c.: tallboy(комод), wall flower(девушка,к.стоит у стены, не приглаш.танцевать).

So the difference between id. And non-id. C. is based on the degree of semantic cohesion(коухижн) of the elements (степень семантической спаянности компонентов). In non-id. There is no semantic cohesion at all. In id. The degree of s.c. may be different in dif.words. In lings. There’re exist so-called “stone wall” problem. The question is: “Is stone-wall a compound or a word-combination?” The answer to this question depends on how we understand the 1^st component. If we understand stone as a noun the whole unit will be a compound. If it’s an adj., will be a word combination (каменная стена). The accepted point of view is that stone-wall is a non-stable compound which can be changed into a word combination. There’re several criteria which help us to distinguish compounds: 1)semantic criterion – a compound denotes one notion and word combination – two notions: A tallboy is a piece of furniture while a tall boy denotes a young male person who is big. 2)phonetic – in a compound there is one stress. In a word combination there are 2 ones. ‘nobody-‘no ‘body. 3)morphological – in a compound gram.flections added only once: tallboys. In a word comb. there may be several ones: taller boys. 4)syntactical – we can always enlarge a word comb.: a tall and handsome boy.