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§ 3. Classification of Morphemes

defective segmentability signals a relatively complex character of the morphological system of the language in question, reveals the existence of various heterogeneous layers in its vocabulary.

Morphemes may be classified:

a) from the

semantic point of view,

b) from the structural point of view.

a) Semantically

morphemes fall

into two classes:

r o o t -

m o r p h e m e s

and n o n - r o o t

or a f f i x a t i o n a l

m o r -

p h e m e s . Roots and affixes make two distinct classes of morphemes due to the different roles they play in word-structure.

Roots and affixational morphemes are generally easily distinguished and the difference between them is clearly felt as, e.g., in the words helpless, handy, blackness, Londoner, refill, etc.: the root-morphemes help-, hand-, black-, London-, -fill are understood as the lexical centres of the words, as the basic constituent part of a word without which the word is inconceivable.

T h e r o o t - m o r p h e m e is the lexical nucleus of a ward, it has an individual lexical meaning shared by no other morpheme of the language. Besides it may also possess all other types of meaning proper to morphemes1 except the part-of-speech meaning which is not found in roots. The root-morpheme is isolated as the morpheme common to a set of words making up a word-cluster, for example the morpheme teach-in to teach, teacher, teaching, theor- in theory, theorist, theoretical, etc.

N o n - r o o t m o r p h e m e s include inflectional morphemes or inflections and affixational morphemes or affixes. Inflections carry only grammatical meaning and are thus relevant only for the formation of wordforms, whereas affixes are relevant for building various types of stems — the part of a word that remains unchanged throughout its paradigm. Lexicology is concerned only with affixational morphemes.

A f f i x e s are classified into p r e f i x e s and s u f f i x e s : a prefix precedes the root-morpheme, a suffix follows it. Affixes besides the meaning proper to root-morphemes possess the part-of-speech meaning and a generalised lexical meaning.

b) Structurally morphemes fall into three types: f r e e mor- p h e m e s , b o u n d m o r p h e m e s , s e m i - f r e e ( s e m i - b o u n d ) m o r p h e m e s .

A f r e e m o r p h e m e is defined as one that coincides with the stem 2 or a word-form. A great many root-morphemes are free morphemes, for example, the root-morpheme friend — of the noun friendship is naturally qualified as a free morpheme because it coincides with one of the forms of the noun friend.

A b o u n d m o r p h e m e occurs only as a constituent part of a word. Affixes are, naturally, bound morphemes, for they always make part of a word, e.g. the suffixes -ness, -ship, -ise (-ize), etc., the prefixes un-,

1 See ‘Semasiology’, §§ 13-16, pp. 23-25. 2 See ‘Word-Structure’, § 8, p. 97.

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dis-, de-, etc. (e.g. readiness, comradeship, to activise; unnatural, to displease, to decipher).

Many root-morphemes also belong to the class of bound morphemes which always occur in morphemic sequences, i.e. in combinations with ‘ roots or affixes. All unique roots and pseudo-roots are-bound morphemes.

Such are the root-morphemes theor- in theory, theoretical, etc., barbar-in

barbarism, barbarian, etc., -ceive in conceive, perceive, etc. Semi-bound ( s e m i - f r e e ) m o r p h e m e s 1 are morphemes that

can function in a morphemic sequence both as an affix and as a free morpheme. For example, the morpheme well and half on the one hand occur as free morphemes that coincide with the stem and the word-form in utterances like sleep well, half an hour,” on the other hand they occur as bound morphemes in words like well-known, half-eaten, half-done.

The relationship between the two classifications of morphemes discussed above can be graphically presented in the following diagram:

Speaking of word-structure on the morphemic level two groups of morphemes should be specially mentioned.

To t h e f i r s t g r o u p belong morphemes of Greek and Latin origin often called c o m b i n i n g f o r m s , e.g. telephone, telegraph, phonoscope, microscope, etc. The morphemes tele-, graph-, scope-, mi- cro-, phone- are characterised by a definite lexical meaning and peculiar stylistic reference: tele- means ‘far’, graph- means ‘writing’, scope — ’seeing’, micro- implies smallness, phone- means ’sound.’ Comparing words with tele- as their first constituent, such as telegraph, telephone, telegram one may conclude that tele- is a prefix and graph-, phone-, gram-are root-morphemes. On the other hand, words like phonograph, seismograph, autograph may create the impression that the second morpheme graph is a suffix and the first — a root-morpheme. This undoubtedly would lead to the absurd conclusion that words of this group contain no root-morpheme and are composed of a suffix and a prefix which runs counter to the fundamental principle of word-structure. Therefore, there is only one solution to this problem; these morphemes are all bound rootmorphemes of a special kind and such words belong to words made up of bound roots. The fact that these morphemes do not possess the part-of- speech meaning typical of affixational morphemes evidences their status as roots.2

1The Russian term is относительно связанные (относительно свободные).

2See ‘Semasiology’, §§ 15, 16, p. 24, 25.

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T h e s e c o n d g r o u p embraces morphemes occupying a kind of intermediate position, morphemes that are changing their class membership.

The root-morpheme man- found in numerous words like postman ['poustmэn], fisherman [fi∫эmэn], gentleman ['d3entlmэn] in comparison with the same root used in the words man-made ['mænmeid] and manservant ['mæn,sэ:vэnt] is, as is well-known, pronounced, differently, the [æ] of the root-morpheme becomes [э] and sometimes disappears altogether. The phonetic reduction of the root vowel is obviously due to the decreasing semantic value of the morpheme and some linguists argue that in words like cabman, gentleman, chairman it is now felt as denoting an agent rather than a male adult, becoming synonymous with the agent suffix -er. However, we still recognise the identity of [man] in postman, cabman and [mæn] in man-made, man-servant. Abrasion has not yet completely disassociated the two, and we can hardly regard [man] as having completely lost the status of a root-morpheme. Besides it is impossible to say she is an Englishman (or a gentleman) and the lexical opposition of man and woman is still felt in most of these compounds (cf. though Madam Chairman in cases when a woman chairs a sitting and even all women are tradesmen). It follows from all this that the morpheme -man as the last component may be qualified as semi-free.

§ 4. Procedure of Morphemic

The procedure generally employed for the

stituent

Analysis purposes of segmenting words into the con-

morphemes is the

method of I m m e d i a t e and U l t i -

m a t e

C o n s t i t u e n t s . This method is based on a binary principle,

i.e. each stage of the procedure involves two components the word immediately breaks into. At each stage these two components are referred to as the Immediate Constituents (ICs). Each IC at the next stage of analysis is in turn broken into two smaller meaningful elements. The analysis is completed when we arrive at constituents incapable of further division, i.e. morphemes. In terms of the method employed these are referred to as the Ultimate Constituents (UCs). For example the noun friendliness is first segmented into the IC friendly recurring in the adjectives friendlylooking and friendly and the -ness found in a countless number of nouns, such as happiness, darkness, unselfishness, etc. The IC -ness is at the same time a UC of the noun, as it cannot be broken into any smaller elements possessing both sound-form and meaning. The IC friendly is next broken into the ICs friend-and -ly recurring in friendship, unfriendly, etc. on the one hand, and wifely, brotherly, etc., on the other. Needless to say that the ICs friend-and -ly are both UCs of the word under analysis.

The procedure of segmenting a word into its Ultimate Constituent morphemes, may be conveniently presented with the help of a box-like diagram

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§ 5. Morphemic Types of Words

In the diagram showing the segmentation of the noun friendliness the lower layer contains the ICs resulting from the first cut, the upper one those from the second, the shaded boxes representing the ICs which are at the same time the UCs of the noun.

The morphemic analysis according to the IC and UC may be carried out on the basis of two principles: the so-called r o o t p r i n c i p l e and the a f f i x p r i n c i p l e . According to the affix principle the segmentation of the word into its constituent morphemes is based on the identification of an affixational morpheme within a set of words; for example, the identification of the suffixational morpheme -less leads to the segmentation of words like useless, hopeless, merciless, etc., into the suffixational morpheme -less and the root-morphemes within a word-cluster; the identification of the root-morpheme agreein the words agreeable, agreement, disagree makes it possible to split these words into the root - agree- and the affixational morphemes -able, -ment, dis-. As a rule, the application of one of these principles is sufficient for the morphemic segmentation of words.

According to the number of morphemes words are classified into monomorphic and polymorphic. M o n o m o r p h i с or root-words consist of only one

root-morpheme, e.g. small, dog, make, give, etc. All p о l у m о r p h i с words according to the number of root-morphemes are classified into two subgroups: m o n o r a d i c a l (or one-root words) and p o l y r a d i -

c a l words,

i.e.

words

which consist

of two

or

more roots.

M o n o r a d i c a l

words

fall into two

subtypes:

1)

r a d i c a l -

s u f f i x a l

words, i.e. words that consist of one root-morpheme and

one or more suffixal morphemes, e.g. acceptable, acceptability, blackish, etc.; 2 ) r a d i c a l - p r e f i x a l words, i.e. words that consist of one root-morpheme and a prefixal morpheme, e.g. outdo, rearrange, unbutton, etc. and 3) p r e f i x o - r a d i c a l - s u f f i x a l , i.e. words which consist of one root, a prefixal and suffixal morphemes, e.g. disagreeable, misinterpretation, etc.

P o l y r a d i c a l words fall into two types: 1) p o l y r a d i c a l words which consist of two or more roots with no affixational morphemes, e.g. book-stand, eye-ball, lamp-shade, etc. and 2) words which cont a i n a t l e a s t t w o r o o t s a n d o n e o r m o r e a f f i x a -

t i o n a l

m o r p h e m e s , e.g. safety-pin,

wedding-pie, class-

consciousness, light-mindedness, pen-holder, etc.

 

§ 6. Derivative Structure The analysis of the morphemic composition

 

of words defines the

ultimate meaningful

constituents (UCs), their typical sequence and arrangement, but it does not reveal the hierarchy of morphemes making up the word, neither does it reveal the way a word is constructed, nor how a new word of similar structure should be understood. The morphemic analysis does not aim at finding out the nature and arrangement of ICs which underlie the structural and the semantic type of the word, e.g. words unmanly and discouragement morphemically are referred to the same type as both are segmented into three UCs representing one root, one prefixational and one suffixational morpheme. However the arrangement and the nature

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of ICs and hence the relationship of morphemes in these words is different

— in unmanly the prefixational morpheme makes one of the ICs, the other IC is represented by a sequence of the root and the suffixational morpheme and thus the meaning of the word is derived from the relations between the ICs un- and manly- (‘not manly’), whereas discouragement rests on the relations of the IC discourage- made up by the combination of the. prefixational and the root-morphemes and the suffixational morpheme -ment for its second IC (’smth that discourages’). Hence we may infer that these three-morpheme words should be referred to different derivational types: unmanly to a prefixational and discouragement to a suffixational derivative.

The nature, type and arrangement of the ICs of the word is known as its d e r i v a t i v e s t r u c t u r e . Though the derivative structure of the word is closely connected with its morphemic or morphological structure and often coincides with it, it differs from it in principle.

§ 7. Derivative Relations According

to the derivative structure all

words fall into

two

big

classes: sim-

p l e x e s or s i m p l e , non-derived

words

and

c o m p l e x e s or

d e r i v a t i v e s . S i m p l e x e s

are words

which

derivationally

cannot’ be segmented into ICs. The morphological stem of simple words, i.e. the part of the word which takes on the system of grammatical inflections is semantically non-motivated l and independent of other words, e.g. hand, come, blue, etc. Morphemically it may be monomorphic in which case its stem coincides with the free root-morpheme as in, e.g., hand, come, blue, etc. or polymorphic in which case it is a sequence of bound morphemes as in, e.g., anxious, theory, public, etc.

D e r i v a t i v e s are words which depend on some other simpler lexical items that motivate them structurally and semantically, i.e. the meaning and the structure of the derivative is understood through the comparison with the meaning and the structure of the source word. Hence derivatives are secondary, motivated units, made up as a rule of two ICs, i.e. binary units, e.g. words like friendliness, unwifely, school-masterish, etc. are made up of the ICs friendly + -ness, un- + wifely, schoolmas- ter+-ish. The ICs are brought together according to specific rules of order and arrangement preconditioned by the system of the language. It follows that all derivatives are marked by the fixed order of their ICs.

The basic elementary units of the derivative structure of words are:

d e r i v a t i o n a l

b a s e s , d e r i v a t i o n a l a f f i x e s

and

d e r i v a t i o n a l

p a t t e r n s which differ from the units

of the

morphemic structure of words (different types of morphemes). The relations between words with a common root but of different derivative structure are known as d e r i v a t i v e r e l a t i o n s . The derivative and derivative relations make the subject of study at t h e d e r i v a t i o n al l e v e l of a n a l y s i s ; it aims at establishing correlations between different types of words, the structural and semantic patterns

1 See ‘Semasiology’, § 17, p. 25. 96

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§ 8. Derivational Bases

words are built on, the study also enables one to understand how new words appear in the language.

The constituents of the derivative structure are functional units, i.e. units whose function is to indicate relationship between different classes of words or differently-behaving words of the same class and to signal the formation of new words. It follows that derivational functions are proper to different linguistic units which thus serve as ICs of a derivative. It must be also noted that the difference between classes of words is signalled by both the derivative structure of the word, or to be more exact by the stem it shapes, and by the set of paradigmatic inflections that this structure presupposes. For example, the nominal class of words to which derivatives like historian, teacher, lobbyist are referred is signalled by both the derivative structure, i.e. the unity of their ICs history+-ian, teach+ + -er lobby + -ist shaping the stems of these words — and the nominal set of paradigmatic inflections which these stems precondition, i.e. histori-an(O), historian(s), historian('s), historian(s’). The class of words like enrich, enlarge is likewise signalled by their derivative structure (en- + +rich, en-+large) and the verbal set of paradigmatic inflexions. Hence the paradigmatic systems of different classes of words have, among their functions, the function of distinguishing the formal make-up of word classes. It follows that the paradigmatic system of inflections in cases of meaningful absence of the 1С which determines the class membership of the motivated stem functions as the sole indication of its derived nature.1

A derivational base as a functional unit is defined as the constituent to which a rule of word-formation is applied. It is the part of the word which establishes

connection with the lexical unit that motivates the derivative and determines its individual lexical meaning describing the difference between words in one and the same derivative set, for example the individual lexical meaning of words like singer, rebuilder, whitewasher, etc. which all denote active doers of action, is signalled by the lexical meaning of the derivational bases sing-, rebuild-, whitewash- which establish connection

with the motivating source verb.

 

 

Structurally

derivational bases fall into three

classes:

1) bases that

c o i n c i d e

w i t h m o r p h o l o g i c a l

s t e m s

of different

degrees of complexity, e.g. dutiful, dutifully; day-dream, to day-dream, daydreamer; 2) bases that coincide w i t h w o r d - f o r m s ; e.g. pa- per-bound, unsmiling, unknown; 3) bases that coincide w i t h wordgrоups of different degrees of stability, e ,g. second-rateness, flatwaisted, etc.

1. Bases built on stems of different degree of complexity make the largest ‘and commonest group of components of derivatives of various classes, e.g. un-button, girl-ish; girlish-ness, colour-blind-ness, ex- filmstar, etc. Bases of this class are functionally and semantically distinct

from all kinds of stems. Functionally, the m o r p h o l o g i c a l

s t e m

is the part of the word which is the starting point for its forms, it is the

 

 

 

1 See ‘Word-Formation’, § 16, p. 127, 4 № 2775

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part which semantically presents a unity of lexical and functional meanings thus predicting the entire grammatical paradigm. The stem remains unchanged throughout all word-forms, it keeps them together preserving the identity cf the word. Thus the stems in the above-given words are exfilmstar, unbutton which remain unchanged in all the forms of each word as, e.g., ex-filmstar(O), ex-filmstar(s), ex-filmstar(’s), ex-filmstar(s). Stems are characterised by a phonetic identity with the word-form that habitually represents the word as a whole (the common case singular, the infinitive, etc.).

A d e r i v a t i o n a l b a s e unlike a stem does not predict’ the part of speech of the derivative, it only outlines a possible range and nature of the second IC and it is only the unity of both that determines the lexical-grammatical class of the derivative. A derivational base is the start- ing-point for d i f f e r e n t words and its derivational potential outlines the type and scope of existing words and new creations. The nominal base for example, hand- gives rise to nouns, e.g. hand-rail, hand-bag, shorthand, handful, to adjectives, e.g. handy, or verbs, e.g. to hand. Similarly the base rich- may be one of the ICs of the noun richness, the adjective gold-rich, or the verb to enrich.

Semantically the stem stands for the whole semantic structure of the word, it represents all its lexical meanings. A base, semantically, is also different in that it represents, as a rule, only o n e meaning of the source word or its stem. The derivatives glassful and glassy, e.g., though connected with the stem of the same source word are built on different derivational bases,, as glassful is the result of the application of the wordformation rule to the meaning of the source word ‘drinking vessel or its contents’, whereas glassy — to the meaning ‘hard, transparent, easilybroken substance’. Derivatives fiery, fire-place, to fire, fire-escape, firearm, all have bases built on the stem of the same source noun fire, but the words like fire-escape fire-engine and fire-alarm are semantically motivated by the meaning ‘destructive burning’, the words firearms, ceasefire, (to) fire are motivated by another meaning ’shooting’, whereas the word fiery (as in fiery speech, eyes) is motivated by the meaning ’strong emotion, excited feeling’. The same difference can be exemplified by the words starlet, starry, starlike, starless which are all motivated by the derivational base meaning ‘a heavenly body seen in the night as distant point of light’, as compared to stardom, starlet, to star motivated by the base meaning ‘a person famous as actor, singer’ though both represent the same morphological stem of the word star.

Stems that serve as this class of bases may themselves be different morphemically and derivationally thus forming derivational bases of different degrees of complexity which affects the range and scope of their collocability and their derivational capacity. Derivationally the stems may be:

a) s i m p l e , which consist of only one, semantically nonmotivated constituent. The most characteristic feature of simple stems in Modern English is the phonetic and graphic identity with the root-morpheme and the word-form that habitually represents the word as a whole.

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As has been mentioned elsewherel simple stems may be both monomorphic units and morphemic sequences made up of bound and pseudomorphemes, hence morphemically segmentable stems in such words as pocket, motion, retain, horrible, etc. should be regarded as derivationally simple.

b)d e r i v e d stems are semantically and structurally motivated, and are the results of the application of word-formation rules; it follows that they are as a rule binary, i.e. made up of two ICs, and polymorphic, e.g. the derived stem of the word girlish is understood on the basis of derivative relations between girl and girlish; the derived stem of a greater complexity girlishness is based on the derivative relations between girlish and girlishness. This is also seen in to weekend, to daydream which are

derived from the nouns week-end and day-dream and are motivated by the derivative relations between the noun and the verb.2

Derived stems, however, are not necessarily polymorphic.

It especially concerns derivatives with a zero IC, i.e. meaningful absence of the derivational means in which case the distinction between the stem of the source word and the motivated stem of the derivative is sig-

nalled by the difference in paradigmatic sets of inflections which they take.3

For example, the stem of the verb (to) parrot, though it consists of one overt constituent and is a one-morpheme word, should be considered derived as it is felt by a native speaker as structurally and semantically dependent on the simple stem of the noun parrot and because it conveys a

r e g u l a r relationship between these two classes of words — verbs and nouns 4. The same is true of the stems in such words as (to) winter, a cut, a drive, etc.

c)c o m p o u n d stems are always binary and semantically motivated, but unlike the derived stems both ICs of compound stems are stems themselves. The derivative structure and morphemic composition of each IC may be of different degree of complexity, for example, the compound stem of the noun match-box consists of two simple stems, the stem of the noun letter-writer — of one simple and one derived stem, and the stem aircraft-carrier — of a compound and derived stem.

The structural complexity of the derivational bases built on derived and compound stems is a heavy constraint imposed on the collocability and semantic freedom of these bases and consequently on their derivative potential. Compare, for example, the derivational capacity of the simple stem girl, which can give rise to girly, girlish, girlless, girl-friend, and the limited capacity of girlish which gives only girlishness and girlishly.

2.The second class of derivational bases is made up of word-forms. It is obvious that word-forms functioning as parts of the word lose all syntactic properties they possess in independent use. This class of bases is confined to verbal word-forms — the present and the past participles — which regularly function as ICs of non-simple adjectives, adverbs and nouns. The collocability of this class of derivational bases is confined to

1See ‘Word-Structure’, § 7, p. 96.

2See ‘Word-Formation’, §§ 16,'p. 127.

3See ‘Word-Structure’, § 7, p. 96.

4See ‘Word-Formation’, § 18, p. 131.

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just a few derivational affixes such as the prefix un-, the suffix -ly, in e.g. unnamed, unknown, unwrapped, etc., smilingly, knowingly, etc. The derivational bases in question may be also collocated with other bases which coincide only with nominal and adjectival stems, e.g. mockingbird, dancing-girl, ice-bound, time-consuming, ocean-going, easy-going, etc.

3. The third class of derivational bases is made up of word-groups. Free word-groups make up the greater part of this class of bases. Like word-forms, word-groups serving as derivational bases lose their morphological and syntactic properties proper to them as self-contained lexical units. Bases of this class also allow of a rather limited range of collocability, they are most active with derivational affixes in the class of adjectives and nouns, e.g. in words like blue-eyed, long-fingered, old-worldish, dogooder, second-rateness, etc.

Thus, we may conclude that each class of bases, though it makes use of one of the structural units of vocabulary, is distinct from it and differs from it both in form and meaning. The greater the degree of structural complexity of the base the more limited its derivative potential.

§ 9. Derivational Affixes Derivational affixes are ICs of numerous derivatives in all parts of speech. Derivational

affixes differ from affixational morphemes in their function within the word, in their distribution and in their meaning. Derivational affixes possess two basic functions: 1) that of s t e m - b u i l d i n g which is common to all affixational morphemes: derivational and non-derivational. It is the function of shaping a morphemic sequence, or a word-form or a phrase into the part of the word capable of taking a set of grammatical inflections and is conditioned by the part-of-speech meaning these morphemes possess; 1 2) that of w o r d - b u i l d i n g which is the function of repatterning a derivational base and building a lexical unit of a structural and semantic type different from the one represented by the source unit. The repatterning results in either transferring it into the stem of another part of speech or transferring it into another subset within the same

part of speech. For example, the d e r i v a t i o n a l

s u f f i x -ness

applied to bases of different classes shapes d e r i v e d

stems thus mak-

ing new words. In kindliness, girlishness, etc. it repatterns the adjectival stems kindly-, girlish-, in second-rate-ness, allatonceness it turns the phrases second rate, all at once into stems and consequently forms new nouns. In most cases derivational affixes perform b o t h functions simultaneously shaping derived stems and marking the relationship between different classes of lexical items. However, certain derivational affixes may in individual sets of words perform only one function that of stembuilding. The derivational suffix -ic for example performs both functions in words like historic, economic, classic as it is applied to bases history-, economy-, class- and forms stems of words of a different part of speech. But the same suffix -ic in public, comic, music performs only its stembuilding function shaping in this case a s i m p l e

1 See ‘Semasiology’, § 17, p. 25, 100

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stem.1 The same is true of the suffix -ous in such words as joyous, courageous, famous as compared with anxious, conscious, curious. Stembuilding is the common function shared by both derivational and nonderivational morphemes, but with the non-derivational morphemes it is the

only structural function. Besides, the non-derivational affixes

shape

o n l y simple stems, for example, the morpheme -id in stupid,

rapid,

acid, humid; the morpheme -ish in publish, distinguish, languish. It follows that non-derivational morphemes are not applied to stems, but only to root-morphemes or morpheme sequences.

Semantically derivational affixes are characterised by a unity of part-of- speech meaning, lexical meaning and other types of morphemic meanings2 unlike non-derivational morphemes which, as a rule, lack the lexical type of meaning. It is true that the part-of-speech meaning is proper in different degrees to the derivational suffixes and prefixes. It stands out clearly in derivational suffixes but it is less evident in prefixes; some prefixes lack it altogether, in others it is very vague and in this case it finds expression in the fact that these prefixes tend to function in either nominal or verbal parts of speech. Prefixes like en-, un-, de-, out-, be-, unmistakably possess the part-of-speech meaning and function as verb classifiers when they make an independent IC of the derivative, e.g. deice, unhook, enslave; derivational prefixes a-, un-possess the adjectival part-of-speech meaning, e.g. unhesitating, unknown, unkind, etc., amoral, asynthetic, asymmetric, etc. In prefixes со-, under-, mis- this type of meaning is vague but they tend to be active in one part of speech only:’ со- in nominal parts of speech (i.e. nouns and adjectives), e.g. copilot, co-star, co-president; mis- and under- are largely verbal prefixes, e.g. underwork, underdo, underfeed, etc. The prefix over-evidently lacks the part-of-speech meaning and is freely used both for verbs and adjectives, the same may be said about non-, pre-, post-. The lexical meaning in derivational affixes also has its peculiarities and may be viewed at different levels.3

1) T h e l e x i c a l (denotational) m e a n i n g of a g e n e r ic t y p e proper mostly not to an individual affix but to a set of affixes, forming a semantic subset such as, for example, the meaning of resemblance found in suffixes -ish, -like, -y, -ly (spiderish, spiderlike, spidery); the causative meaning proper to the prefix en- (enslave, enrich), the suffixes –ise (-ize), -(i)fy (brutalise, formalise, beautify, simplify, etc.); the meaning of absence conveyed by the prefix un- and the suffix - less; the meaning of abstract quality conveyed by the suffixes -ness, -ity, etc.

2) On the other hand derivational affixes possess another type of lexical meaning — an i n d i v i d u a l m e a n i n g shared by no other affix and thus distinguishing this particular affix from all other members, of the same semantic group. For example, suffixes -ish, -like, -y all have the meaning of resemblance, but -like conveys an overall resemblance,

1See ‘Word-Structure’, § 8, p. 97.

2See ‘Semasiology’, §§ 13-16, pp. 23-25.

3See also ‘Methods . . . , § § 3, 4, p. 245, 246.

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