методология / haritonchik / харитончик книга по словообразованию

This category will be examined in what follows and most of the items composing it will be included under Principle I. All types of bound and free grammatical morphemes are considered controversial and are included among the data investigated here. The central issue of chapter 2 will be whether grammatical morphemes are covered by this principle. Whether the phonological representation may be null is an issue which still emerges from time to time, so it will also be examined in chapter 2.

II. Prototypical major class lexical items constitute synchronically open classes.

The lexical stock of the prototypical major lexical classes may be expanded synchronically by lexical derivation and a wide variety of logical, nongrammatical means described as LEXICAL STOCK EXPANSION by Beard: borrowing, loan translation, onomatopoeia, blending, backformation, clipping, acronymization, and the like. Whether the lexicon also contains some closed classes is an issue at stake in the remainder of this book. The point of Principle II is that the closed status of classes like prepositions and auxiliaries may not be ignored, which brings into question their assignment to the lexicon. In order to mix the two types of classes, one must first prove that nothing of significance motivates the distinction, that is, the differences between grammatical relations and semantic classes.

III. Prototypical major class items belong to one and only one lexical class (category).

Principle III means that each uncontroversial major class item belongs to a single, discrete lexical class. A major class item may be a noun, verb, or adjective but not both a noun and verb. Items like love, therefore, which have both a verbal and a nominal sense, are either accidental homonyms, or one is a principled derivate of the other. The assumption here is that the lexical categories are distinct and mutually exclusive, overlapping nowhere, but that they are related to each other by rules whose nature is an empirical question. Notice that this principle does not speak to the issue of SQUISHES, that is, MIXED CATEGORIES. The category to which a major class item belongs may in fact be a mixed category, which derives

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its properties from two other, pure categories. However, if a major item belongs to a mixed or pure category, it belongs to that one category alone unless it is shifted to another by derivation. The reason that this principle is desirable, aside from the rigor it imparts to the model, is that it motivates derivation rules. Without Principle III there is no explanation of why languages have derivation rules, especially transposition (chapter 8), whose unique purpose is to convert members of one class to another.

IV. The operations of an autonomous module have no access to operations internal to any other module.

This is the principle of modularity as presented by Chomsky and Fodor. If we assume that objects and operations of various grammatical subcomponents are distinct, we assume that they interact in only one way: the output of one set may be the input of another set. The operations of one distinct module or component cannot interact in any way with those of another. Hence, if the evidence shows the conditions on morphological rules to be compatible with those of syntax, the two grammatical components cannot be independent. However, if the conditions on their operations are incompatible, we must conclude that the two constitute discrete components, either one of which may operate only on the input or output of the other.

An important implication of Principle IV is that the outputs of various modules will reflect the nature of that module. In terms of the lexicon and syntax, this means that should the lexicon and syntax contain similar categories or operations, lexical output will nonetheless differ from syntactic output over the same categories and operations. Moreover, the differences will reflect the different natures of the modules involved: lexical output will always be words, while syntactic output will always be phrases, whatever similarities the two modules might otherwise share.

V. The parameters of morphology are universal.

This is the principle of Universal Grammar (UG), revised by Chomsky to make clear the claim that the components of grammars of various languages are

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not necessarily identical but simply share a universal set of parameters. These parameters exhibit a limited range of settings which may vary from language to language. Assuming this claim as axiomatic commits the remainder of this book to a search for a set of categories and operations available to all languages. The possibility that the grammatical categories of English represent a different set of parameters from those of, say, Mohawk, will not be entertained, even though it is an equally reasonable a priori assumption. Principle V is thus little more than a stipulation at this point, an attempt to restrict the enormous range of theoretical possibilities to an addressable set.

1.5. Conclusion

This book is a work of lexicology and morphology at the edge of syntax rather than at the edge of phonology. Because work on allomorphy since the Generative Revolution has been conducted at the expense of methodical examination of morphological categories, we have a much clearer picture of the interface of morphology and phonology than we have of the lexicon-morphology and syntax-morphology interfaces. For this reason, the present work will concentrate on categories and the abstract operations of derivation rather than on allomorphy. Within these areas, this book will recommend some rather bold changes in syntactic and lexical theories. The benefit of taking these radical demands seriously is a more complete, more integrated overall theory of language.

COMPREHENSION CHECK

1.What are the reasons that morphology has almost vanished from the agenda of linguistic inquiry in the past few decades?

2.Describe the scientific achievements of linguists in ancient times.

3.Name the main directions of morphological studies in the 16th–19th centuries.

4.Cite Baudouin de Courtenay‟s definition of the morpheme and compare it to the ones used today.

5.What are the essential features of L. Bloomfield‟s treatment of morphology.

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6.State the difference between the “bottom-up” and “top-down” approach to morphology.

7.Dwell on the essence of Lexeme-Morpheme Hypothesis. What are the main points of Level-Ordered Morphology?

8.Interpret the hypothesis known as the Split Morphology Hypothesis.

9.Speak of the answers to the fundamental questions of morphology within the linguistic schools you know.

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Eugenius M. Uhlenbeck*

PRODUCTIVITY AND CREATIVITY

Some remarks on the dynamic aspects of language

The conception of language as one single closed system shared by all members of a monolingual society and consequently completely present in and completely mastered by each adult individually is now generally recognized as being inadequate. Such a conception is too static, too monolithic and too simple. Too static, because it is unable to explain why a language has the flexibility to adapt itself to and to cope with the ever-changing communicative and cognitive needs of society and its members. Too monolithic, because it does not take into account that a language is a delicate mechanism in which systematic and obligatory features of phonology and grammar interact with essentially non-obligatory semantic and grammatical devices which permit the user of language to engage in a productive and creative activity without jeopardizing successful communication. Finally, this conception is too simple, in at least two respects. First of all it presents a simplified account of the way language actually functions by suggesting that it can function independent ly of extra-lingual knowledge, that is knowledge which speaker and hearer have of the speech situation, of each other, and more generally of the world and the society in which they live.

Secondly, this conception operates with the simple view that in society the position of each individual member towards his language is basically the same, whereas in fact it displays a variety determined by social factors and by individual differences in linguistic skills.

It is the aim of this short paper to take a closer look at the dynamic nature of language by examining the productive and creative devices available to a native speaker.

* Uhlenbeck E.M. Productivity and Creativity // Logos Semantikos: Studia Linguistica in honorem Eugenio Coseriu. Berlin; N.Y.; Madrid, 1981. Vol.3. Semantik. P.165–167.

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Since KARCEVSKY‟S Système du verbe russe and, even earlier since the Neo-grammarians, the concept of productivity has been recognized as being indispensable in the study of morphology. In all morphological research, diachronically or synchronically motivated, it is considered to be of prime importance to determine what is productive and what is not. Productive categories are characterized by natural expansion: new words can be and are being made by the speaker largely without any awareness that a new, previously nonexistent item is being pr oduced, while the hearer for his part unhesitatingly accepts and understands it, again without any feeling of strangeness or newness. Although morphologically productive processes may be of a quite different nature (transpositional processes: dark (adj.) – darkness

(noun), non-transpositional processes: Dutch ui, onion – uitje, small onion (both nouns), compounding and various mixed processes) one may say that the main function of these processes is to give the user of language the means to expand the lexicon without unduly burdening his memory. This is not to say that all speech communities and all individual users of language will show the same readiness to apply these processes in actual speech: some communities and some individuals are more conservative than others and prefer to cling to those items which already have a well-established position within language, only rarely daring to make use of the morphological potential of their native language.

One might consider people who are able to exploit the morphological potential of their language to be creative speakers, but the term «creati vity» can better be reserved for those cases in which a speaker makes new words on the basis of improductive formations. This is known to happen occasionally. It is true that not all such new words are made on purpose. Sometimes they are made out of ignorance and are simply errors. However, in most cases, new words of this type are consciously made with the intention to create some sort of special effect. Poets, writers and in general all people who have a strongly developed linguistic awareness, and who might be called players of language games (not in

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the Wittgensteinian sense, of course), such as journalists, writers of commercials or advertisements, entertainers, cabaret artists and even sometimes linguists, are especially creative in this respect.

A good example recently produced by a linguist is the word iffyness, the result of a double process of transposition: first of a noun formed on the basis of the adjective iffy, itself based on the conjunction if which, like all other conjunctions, but unlike nouns, normally does not allow such a transpositional formation of the type leaf: leafy; silk: silky; room: roomy; bush: bushy; nut: nutty.

In contrast to words which are the result of the application of productive processes, words such as iffyness pose an interpretive problem to the hearer or to the reader. The speaker or writer presents some sort of challenge to his speech-partner. The special effects he aims at may be quite diverse. He may want to be facetious, or it may be that the newly coined word has an archaic flavor which is felt to be especially apt under certain circumstances or in a certain line in a poem. In the Binnick-case the author was clearly in need of a noun for a property of certain English verbs for which no term had yet been proposed. It seems reasonable to assume that both types of word-formation occur in speech everywhere. The normal expansion follows a number of easily identifiable and in principle exhaustively describable patterns, but the other type, which is the result of conscious reflection by the native speaker on his language, is erratic, creative and therefore essentially unpredictable.

COMPREHENSION CHECK

1.Analyze E. Uhlenbeck‟s criticism of the conception of language as one single closed system shared by all members of a monolingual society and express your view on it.

2.What is the basis for differentiating productive and creative processes of making new words?

3.Which of the two processes do you observe in the formation of the word zillion.

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Howard Jackson*

ANALYZING ENGLISH

Derivational Morphology

Besides inflexions there is one further aspect of modern English word structure: derivational morphology. This branch of morphology aims to describe the formal relationships between lexical items and the ways in which new lexical items may be created from the stock of those existing. These relationships or processes are of three kinds: affixation (both prefixation and suffixation), compounding and conversion.

Affixation involves the addition of a bound morpheme to a root morpheme. In English, suffixation usually changes the class of a word, while prefixation nearly always maintains it. The following are examples of affixation: internal–ize

(creating a verb from an adjective), quick–ness (making a noun from an adjective), walk–er (making a noun from a verb), friend–ly (making an adjective from a noun), slow–ly (making an adverb from an adjective), anti–coagulant (which remains a noun). Here also a morpheme may have a number of allomorphs, but not such complex patterns arise as with some inflexional morphemes. For example, the

„negative‟ prefix has the phonologically conditioned allomorphs /im-/, /in-/, /iŋ-/ (/im-/ before root initial bilabial consonants, /iŋ-/ before initial velar consonants, and /in-/ elsewhere), and the morphologically conditioned allomorph un-, which has a similar range of phonological variants, ie /Λm-/ before bilabials, /Λn-/ before velars, and /Λn-/ before other sounds, e.g. unpleasant, unkind, untouched.

The process of compounding involves the combination of more than one root e.g. star–gaze, witch–hunt, stop–light, waste–paper–basket, baby–sit. In writing, these roots are either joined together or attached by means of a hyphen. The relations between the parts of a compound may be of various kinds; illustrated here are: noun + verb, noun + noun, verb + noun, adjective + noun + noun, noun

* Jackson H. Analyzing English. An Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics. Oxford, N.Y.; Toronto; Paris; Frankfurt: Pergamon Press Ltd, 1980. P. 109–119.

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+ verb. And the resultant meanings are attained in a variety of ways; the examples have the following meaning relations: „gaze at stars‟, „hunt for a witch‟, „light to indicate stopping‟, „basket for containing paper that is waste‟, „sit in and care for a baby while its parents are out‟. Like other roots, compound roots may be subject to inflexion or further derivation by means of affixation e.g. stargazer, babysitter, stoplights.

Conversion involves no addition of new material to a lexical item but merely a change in word class. For example, the lexical item net may be both a noun and a verb; it seems likely that the object „net‟, and so the noun, was the initial form and that the verb has been derived from it, ie by conversion. Similarly the lexical item catch is both verb and noun, but it seems likely that the verb is the primary form and the noun derived by conversion. Further examples are: skin (verb derived from noun), push (noun derived from verb), invoice (verb derived from noun), win (noun derived from verb). It is not always beyond doubt what the process of conversion is, e.g. in the case of plan which is both noun and verb.

This last type of process raises an interesting question of derivational morphology: are we dealing here with a synchronic or with diachronic (i.e. historical) matter? How these words came to be added to the language is a matter of history, and thus of little consequence to a description of how the language system operates at the present time, but there are two ways in which derivational morphology is of relevance to a synchronic study of the modern language. Firstly, it is clear that some words are related to others in form, differing only in the addition of some morpheme, and these relations are the proper study of synchronic linguistics. Secondly, many of the derivational processes that have brought new words into the language in the past are still productive, i.e. they continue to be used in creating new words at the present time. For example, the prefix anti- is still being added freely to all kinds of roots, as anti-Common Market, antipornography. <…>

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„Grammar‟ of words

„The fills basined the apply out of the squeeze‟. It is clear that a word may not combine freely with just any other word or words: there are constraints on the

„grammar‟ or combinability of words. Some constraints arise from the general grammatical or syntactic system of the language, from the rules for phrase, clause and sentence structure. Other constraints arise from the nature of the word itself and its particular place and function in the language as a whole. The first kind of constraint can be illustrated by the fact that adjectives usually precede nouns in noun phrases, or that subject noun phrases usually precede verb phrases in the structure of declarative clauses. Constraints of the second kind fall into two categories. On the one hand there are constraints which are purely syntactic, arising from the classification and subclassification of the word. On the other hand there are constraints which are more of a semantic nature, „collocational‟ restraints.

We will now look at these categories of constraint in more detail.

Syntactic constraints

As may be seen by looking at dictionary entries, the word class label of a word (noun, verb, preposition, etc) is a designation of the syntactic operation of a word. So, the label „noun‟ indicates in a fairly specific way where in syntactic structure a word with that label may operate, i.e. as head of a noun phrase, as a modifier immediately before the head in a noun phrase. The label „adjective‟ indicates that the word so labelled may operate as head of an adjective phrase, or as modifier after a determiner and before a noun modifier in a noun phrase. But in general these broad word class labels are not in themselves sufficient to specify all the constraints operating for individual items in the class: they refer to the class as a whole. Not all nouns, for example, may operate as noun modifiers. There is therefore a need to subclassify, particularly in the open classes.

In the case of nouns, then, a subclassification needs to be made into those that may function as modifiers in noun phrases and those that may not. Again in the case of nouns, a number of compatibilities with determiners need to be accounted for. This will entail a subclassification into count nouns and mass nouns,

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