- •Composition
- •In nonidiomatic compounds semantic unity is not strong, e. G., airbus, to bloodtransfuse, astrodynamics, etc.
- •Ways of forming compound words.
- •Classifications of english compounds
- •1. According to the parts of speech compounds are subdivided into:
- •2. According to the way components are joined together compounds are divided into:
- •3. According to their structure compounds are subdivided into:
- •4. According to the relations between the components compound words are subdivided into:
- •Derivative Compounds:
- •Compound Derivatives:
- •Conversion
- •Verbs can be also converted from adjectives, in such cases they denote the change of the state, e.G. To tame (to become or make tame), to clean, to slim etc.
- •Criteria of semantic derivation
- •In cases of conversion the problem of criteria of semantic derivation arises: which of the converted pair is primary and which is converted from it.
- •1. If the lexical meaning of the root morpheme and the lexico-grammatical meaning of the stem coincide the word is primary,
- •Having only the plural form and having the meaning of collective nouns, such as: sweets, news, empties, finals, greens,
- •Criteria of directionality
Lecture 6.
WORD-FORMATION
Main Types of Word-Formation.
DERIVATION (37 %)
2. COMPOSITION (63 %)
3. CONVERSION
DERIVATION: ... by means of derivational morphemes
prefixation - ! Prefixes usually modify lexical meaning
suffixation - ! Suffixes form new classes
“Randy managed to weave through a maze of one-way-streets, no-left-turns, and no-stopping-zones…” (P. Anderson Wood)
COMPOSITION/COMPOUNDING:
... by means of STEMS.
Composition
OUTLINE
Definitions and the criteria of compounds.
Classifications of compounds.
Word-forming patterns in composition.
The historical development of compounds.
Composition is the way of word building when a word is formed by joining two or more stems to form one word. A sunbeam (a bright sunbeam)
Determinatum – a basic, determining, grammatically most important part (beam); it undergoes inflection: sunbeams.
Determinant –a determined part, serves to differentiate it from other beams (sun) - (H. Marchand).
The structural unity (integrity, indivisibility) of a compound word depends upon :
a) the unity of stress, (L. Bloomfield)
b) solid or hyphenated spelling,
c) semantic unity,
d) unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. (E.Nida)
These are characteristic features of compound words in all languages. For English compounds some of these factors are not very reliable.
1) As a rule English compounds have one uniting stress (usually on the first component), e.g. `hard-cover, ` best-seller.
2) A double stress in an English compound, with the main stress on the first component and with a secondary stress on the second component, e.g. `blood-`vessel.
3)The third pattern(N+A) is: two level stresses, e.g. `snow-`white, `sky-`blue.
The third pattern is easily mixed up with word-groups unless they have solid or hyphenated spelling.
Spelling in English compounds is not very reliable as well because they can have different spelling even in the same text,
e.g. war-ship, blood-vessel can be spelt through a hyphen and also with a break,
insofar, underfoot, headmaster, loudspeaker can be spelt solidly and with a break (textbook, phrase-book, reference book).
In Modern English:
a special type of compound words which are called block compounds, they have one uniting stress but are spelt with a break, e.g.` air piracy, `cargo module,` coin change,` penguin suit etc.
The semantic unity of a compound word is often very strong. (H. Paul, O. Jespersen, E. Kruisinga). In such cases we have idiomatic compounds where the meaning of the whole is not a sum of meanings of its components, e.g. ladybird (an insect), skinhead (a person), bluestocking (a person),
man-of-war (a war-ship) etc.
In nonidiomatic compounds semantic unity is not strong, e. G., airbus, to bloodtransfuse, astrodynamics, etc.
English compounds have the unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. (A. Smirnitsky – formal integrity): a shipwreck but (the) wreck of (a) ship. They are used in a sentence as one part of it and only one component changes grammatically, e.g. These girls are chatter-boxes. «Chatter-boxes» is a predicative in the sentence and only the second component changes grammatically.
There are two characteristic features of English compounds:
a) Both components in an English compound are free stems, i.e. they can be used as words with a distinctive meaning of their own. The sound pattern is the same except for the stresses, e.g. «a` green-house» and «a` green `house». Whereas in Russian compounds the stems are bound morphemes.
b) English compounds have a two-stem pattern, with the exception of compound words which have form-word stems in their structure, e.g. middle-of-the-road, off-the-record, up-and-doing etc.
The two-stem pattern distinguishes English compounds from German ones.