Reduplication

In reduplication new words are made by doubling a stem, either without any phonetic changes as in bye-bye (coll, for good-bye) or with a variation of the root-vowel or consonant as in ping-pong, chit-chat (this second type is called gradational reduplication).

This type of word-building is greatly facilitated in Modern English by the vast number of monosyllables. Stylistically speaking, most words made by reduplication represent informal groups: colloquialisms and slang. E. g. walkie-talkie ("a portable radio"), riff-raff ("the worthless or disreputable element of society"; "the dregs of society"), chi-chi (sl. for chic as in a chi-chi girl).

In a modern novel an angry father accuses his teenager son of doing nothing but dilly-dallying all over the town.

(dilly-dallying — wasting time, doing nothing, loitering)

Another example of a word made by reduplication may be found in the following quotation from The Importance of Being Earnest by O. Wilde:

Lady Bracknell. I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shilly-shallying with the question is absurd.

(shilly-shallying — irresolution, indecision)

Back-Formation (Reversion)

The earliest examples of this type of word-building are the verb to beg that was made from the French borrowing beggar, to burgle from burglar, to cobble from cobbler. In all these cases the verb was made from the noun by subtracting what was mistakenly associated with the English suffix -er. The pattern of the type to work — worker was firmly established in the subconscious of English-speaking people at the time when these formations appeared, and it was taken for granted that any noun denoting profession or occupation is certain to have a corresponding verb of the same root. So, in the case of the verbs to beg, to burgle, to cobble the process was reversed: instead of a noun made from a verb by affixation (as in painter from to paint), a verb was produced from a noun by subtraction. That is why this type of word-building received the name of back-formation or reversion.

Later examples of back-formation are to butle from butler, to baby-sit from baby-sitter, to force-land from forced landing, to blood-transfuse from blood-transfuing sorry for everybody who isn't a girl and who can't come here, I am sure the college you attended when you were a boy couldn't have been so nice.

My room is up in a tower. There are three other girls on the same floor of the tower — a Senior who wears spectacles and is always asking us please to be a little more quiet, and two Freshmen named Sallie McBride and Julia Rutledge Pendleton. Sallie has red hair and a turn-up nose and is quite friendly; Julia comes from one of the first families in New York and hasn't noticed me yet. They room together and the Senior and I have singles.

Usually Freshmen can't get singles; they are very few, but I got one without even asking. I suppose the register didn't think it would be right to ask a properly brought up girl to room with a foundling. You see there are advantages.

(From Daddy-Long-Legs by J. Webster)

22.American English

English is the national language of England proper, the USA, Australia and some provinces of Canada. It was also at different times imposed on the inhabitants of the former and present British colonies and protectorates as well as other Britain- and US-dominated territories, where the population has always stuck to its own mother tongue. British English, American English and Australian English are variants of the same language, because they serve all spheres of verbal communication. Their structural peculiarities, especially morphology, syntax and word-formation, as well as their word-stock and phonetic system are essentially the same. American and Australian standards are slight modifications of the norms accepted in the British Isles. The status of Canadian English has not yet been established.

When speaking about the territorial differences of the English language philologists and lexicographers usually note the fact that different variants of English use different words for the same objects. Thus in describing the lexical differences between the British and American variants they provide long lists of word pairs like

BE AE

flat apartment

underground subway

lorry truck

pavement sidewalk

post mail

tin-opener can-opener

government administration

leader editorial

teaching staff faculty

From such lists one may infer that the words in the left column are the equivalents of those given in the right column and used on the other side of the Atlantic. But the matter is not as simple as that.

These pairs present quite different cases.

It is only in some rare cases like tin-opener — can-opener or fishmonger — fish-dealer that the members of such pairs are semantically equivalent.

In pairs like government — administration, leader — editorial only one lexical semantic variant of one of the members is locally-marked. Thus in the first pair the lexical semantic variant of administration — ‘the executive officials of a government’ is an Americanism, in the second pair the word leader in the meaning of ‘leading article in a newspaper’ is a Briticism. / The terms Americanisms, Australianisms, and the like met with in literature and dictionaries are also often used to denote lexical units that originated in the USA, Australia, etc. These are homonymous terms, therefore in dealing with linguistic literature the reader must be constantly alert to keep them separate. /

In some cases a notion may have two synonymous designations used on both sides of the Atlantic ocean, but one of them is more frequent in Britain, the other — in the USA. Thus in the pairs post — mail, timetable — shedule, notice — bulletin the first word is more frequent in Britain, the second — in America. So the difference “here lies only in word-frequency.

Most locally-marked lexical units belong to partial Briticisms, Americanisms, etc., that is they are typical of this or that variant only in one or some of their meanings. Within the semantic structure of such words one may often find meanings belonging to general English, Americanisms and Briticisms, e.g., in the word pavement, the meaning ’street or road covered with stone, asphalt, concrete, etc’ is an Americanism, the meaning ‘paved path for pedestrians at the side of the road’ is a Briticism (the corresponding American expression is sidewalk), the other two meanings ‘the covering of the floor made of flat blocks of wood, stone, etc’ and ’soil’ (geol.) are general English. Very often the meanings that belong to general English are common and neutral, central, direct, while the Americanisms are colloquial, marginal and figurative, e.g. shoulder — general English — ‘the joint connecting the arm or forelimb with the body’, Americanism — ‘either edge of a road or highway’.

There are also some full Briticisms, Americanisms, etc., i.e. lexical units specific to the British, American, etc. variant in all their meanings. For example, the words fortnight, pillar-box are full Briticisms, campus, mailboy are full Americanisms, outback, backblocks are full Australianisms.

These may be subdivided into lexical units denoting some realia that have no counterparts elsewhere (such as the Americanism junior high school) and those denoting phenomena observable in other English-speaking countries but expressed there in a different way (e.g. campus is defined in British dictionaries as ‘grounds of a school or college’).

Lexical peculiarities in different parts of the English-speaking world are not only those in vocabulary, to be disposed of in an alphabetical list, they also concern the very fashion of using words. For instance, the grammatical valency of the verb to push is much narrower in AuE, than in BE and AE (e.g. in this variant it is not used in the patterns VVen, NVen, NVing, NprpVing. Some patterns of the verb are typical only of one variant (e.g. NVen and NprpVinf — of BE, NV and NVing — of AE). There are also some features of dissimilarity in the word’s lexical valency, e.g. a specifically British peculiarity observed in newspaper style is the ability of the verb to be used in combination with nouns denoting price or quality (to push up prices, rents, etc.).

As to word-formation in different variants, the word-building means employed are the same and most of them are equally productive. The difference lies only in the varying degree of productivity of some of them in this or that variant. As compared with the British variant, for example, in the American variant the affixes -ette, -ее, super-, as in kitchenette, draftee, super-market, are used more extensively; the same is true of conversion and blending (as in walk-out — ‘workers’ strike’ from (to) walk out; (to) major — ’specialise in a subject or field of study’ from the adjective major; motel from motor + hotel, etc.). In the Australian variant the suffixes -ie/-y and -ее, as well as abbreviations are more productive than in BE.

Thus, the lexical distinctions between different variants of English are intricate and varied, but they do not make a system. For the most part they are partial divergences in the semantic structure and usage of some words.

The main lexical differences between the variants are caused by the lack of equivalent lexical units in one of them, divergences in the semantic structures of polysemantic words and peculiarities of usage of some words on different territories.

23. Lexical meaning vs. grammatical meaning.