4. The theory of phoneme

The theory of phoneme was first expounded by Baudouin de Courtenay, professor of the Kazan University in the 1880s. In his treatise “On the Comparative Study of the Grammar of Slavonic Languages” he clearly defined the difference between a phoneme and a speech sound. He treated a phoneme as a semantically differentiating unit, and a speech sound as an anthropophonic unit of speech, not connected with any meaning. This differentiation proved to be highly fruitful and made it possible to establish mutual relations between the sound and the phoneme. Baudouin de Courtenay went on developing the theory of phoneme in his “Versuch einer Theorie der Phonetischen Alternationen” (1917) and other works.

One should not underestimate the importance of Baudouin de Courtenay’s theory. He was the first in the history of the development of linguistics to elaborate the theory of the phoneme, to consider human speech sounds from the viewpoint of their functions and thus, created the teaching of the grammatical part of phonetics.

The theory of the phoneme was further developed by L.V. Shcherba. He studied the theory in his «PyccKHe raacHtie b KanecTBeHHOM u mmHecTBeHHOM 0TH0meHHH» published in 1912. In this book he defined the phoneme as the smallest general phonetic unit of a given language which can be associated with sense notions and can differentiate words.

In 1955 in his book devoted to phonetics of the French language, L.V. Shcherba wrote that in the spoken language a much greater number of various sounds are pronounced than we usually think and these sounds in every given language unite to form a system of a comparatively small number of sound types capable of differentiating words and their forms, that is, capable of serving the purposes of human intercourse. Such sounds he called phonemes.

Developing the theory of the phoneme L.V. Shcherba comes to the conclusion of the social nature of the phoneme as a speech sound used by people in their intercourse.

The teaching about the sense differentiating function of the phoneme is one of the most important parts of the theory of the phoneme.

The main importance of this definition lies in the fact that L.V. Shcherba speaks of the sense-differentiating function of the phoneme, which proved to be a turning point in the understanding of the phoneme.

For a number of years there were two main trends in linguistics concerning the concept of the phoneme. One of them was headed by Leningrad linguists, the followers of L.V. Shcherba (MaTyceBHH M.C., 1951; 3nHgep .H.P., 1960). The second trend comprised the representatives of the so-called Moscow phonological school (^KOB^eB P.O., Ky3He^B n.C., Pe^opMa^HH A.A., CugopoB B.H., ABaHecoB P.H. and others).

The main difference between the schools was in their conception of the phoneme. The followers of L.V. Shcherba proceeded from the word, while Moscow linguists proceeded from the morpheme. These different points of view determined their treatment of the phoneme, their understanding of the phonetic system as a whole.

R.I. Avanesov (1956) pointed out that the two theories were correct and compatible, as they reflect different language facts. Accordingly, he suggested distinguishing two notions - “phoneme” and “phonematic family”.

L.R. Zinder in his General Phonetics (1960) further developed the teaching of the variants of the phoneme, the problem of phonematic structure and other problems, and supported R.I. Avanesov’s notion of the “phonematic family”.

In the 1950s a new theory of the phoneme was suggested by S.K. Shaumyan «^ByxcTyneHnaTaa Teopna $OHeM», 1952.

All these theories developed many complicated questions of the phoneme but the problem has not been solved yet. Many points need strict proof and completion.

The theory of the phoneme was also being treated by many linguists abroad. It was investigated by the scientists of “The Prague Linguistic Circle” (Trubetskoy N.S., 1929; ^koScoh P., Xarae M., 1962). Some foreign linguists (Sapier E., Twaddell W.F.) treated the phoneme apart from its real sound value. As a result the real human speech sounds were replaced by abstract properties of sounds. The phoneme figured as a symbol of a certain quality of the sound.

The English linguist D. Jones fell in another extreme, treating the phoneme as a sound fully disconnected from its sense-differentiating function. D. Jones treated the phoneme as a group of sounds united by similar articulation features. “A phoneme is a group of sounds consisting of an important sound together with other related sounds” wrote D. Jones in his “Phoneme, its Nature and Use” (Jones D. Outline of English Phonetics, 8^th ed.).

Лексикологія:

1. The English wordstock as a system.

The modem English vocabulary falls into two main sets: native words and borrowings.

Native words belong to the original English worcf-stock and are known from the earliest Old English manuscripts. It is customary to subdivide native words into those of the ^do-^ropean^tock and those of the common Ger­manic origin. The formernaw cogmttfesmthe vocabularies of all or most Indo- European languages, whereas the latter have cognates only in Germanic lan­guages, but not in Romance* ^laronic or other languages of the Indo-European family. Several linguists areiticttnialo the opinion that there exist specifically English words which have no cognates in other languages and constitute the English proper element of the vocabulary.

Up to 70 per cent of the English vocabulary are borrowings from various foreign languages, mainly Latin, French, and Scandinavian.

  -- English vocabulary as a system, the main peculiarities of English word-stock, the origin of English words, neologisms and archaisms

   1.1 English vocabulary as a system

   Modern English Lexicology aims at giving a systematic description of the word-stock of Modern English. It treats the following basic problems:

  -- Basic problems

  -- Semasiology;

  -- Word-Structure;

  -- Word-Formation;

  -- Etymology of the English Word-Stock;

  -- Word-Groups and Phraseological Units;

  -- Variants, dialects of the E. Language;

  -- English Lexicography.

  

   System is a set of competing possibilities in language, together with the rules for choosing them.

   Structuralism recognized that a language is best viewed as a system of elements, with each element being chiefly defined by its place within the system, by the way it is related to other elements.

   Language systems:

  -- speech

  -- syntactic

  -- lexical

  -- morphological

  -- phonetical

   Modern approaches to the problem of study of a language system are characterised by two different levels of study: syntagmatic and paradigmatic.

   Paradigmatic relations are the relation between set of linguistic items, which in some sense, constitute choices, so that only one of them may be present at a time in a given position. On the paradigmatic level, the word is studied in its relationships with other words in the vocabulary system.

   So, a word may be studied in comparison with other words of similar meaning (e. g. work, n. -- labour, n.; to refuse, v. -- to reject v. -- to decline, v.), of opposite meaning (e. g. busy, adj. -- idle, adj.; to accept, v, -- to reject, v.), of different stylistic characteristics (e. g. man, n. -- chap, n. -- bloke, n. -- guy, n.).

   Consequently, the main problems of paradigmatic studies of vocabulary are:

  -- synonymy

  -- hyponymy

  -- antonymy

  -- functional styles

  

  

  

   Syntagmatic relations

   On the syntagmatic level, the semantic structure of the word is analysed in its linear relationships with neighbouring words in connected speech. In other words, the semantic characteristics of the word are observed, described and studied on the basis of its typical contexts, in speech:

  -- phrases

  -- collocations

   Some collocations are totally predictable, such as spick with span, others are much less so: letter collocates with a wide range of lexemes, such as alphabet and spelling, and (in another sense) box, post, and write.

   Collocations differ greatly between languages, and provide a major difficulty in mastering foreign languages. In English, we 'face' problems and 'interpret' dreams; but in modern Hebrew, we have to 'stand in front of problems and 'solve' dreams.

   The more fixed a collocation is, the more we think of it as an 'idiom' - a pattern to be learned as a whole, and not as the 'sum of its parts'.

   Combination of paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations in lexical system determines vocabulary as a system.

  

   1.2 The main peculiarities of English word-stock

   There are a lot of variants of the English language:

   English as a native language

  -- Australia

  -- Canada

  -- the Commonwealth Caribbean

  -- Ireland

  -- New Zealand

  -- the United Kingdom

  -- United States of America (also commonly known as the Anglosphere)

   English as a second language

  -- India

  -- Sri Lanka

  -- Pakistan and South Africa

  

   Basic Engish is a simplified version of English for easy international use.

   Basic English (total of 850 words):

   Special English is a simplified version of English used by the Voice of America. It uses the vocabulary of only 1500 words.

   1.3 The origin of English words

   A very large number of words have been incorporated into the vocabulary of English from other languages. Such words are often called loan-words and the process by which they are brought into the language, is calledborrowing.

   Borrowings may be classified:

  -- according to the time of borrowing

  -- according to the language from which the word was borrowed

  -- according to the degree of assimilation

  -- according to the aspect which is borrowed.

   In everyday speech, the majority of words will normally be Germanic. If a speaker wishes to make a forceful point in an argument in a very blunt way, Germanic words will usually be chosen.

   A majority of Latinate words (or at least a majority of content words) will normally be used in more formal speech and writing, such as a courtroom or an encyclopedia article.

   English easily accepts technical terms into common use. The vocabulary is vast. English has a well-defined centre but no discernible circumference (= no visible limits).

   OE words are of Anglo-Saxon origin.

   Words incorporated into English from other languages - loan-words. The process is called borrowing.

   I. Loan words from the point of view of the language they were taken from: cultural expansion, invasions, trade interaction.

   1. Anglo-Saxon words: are of Germanic origin, characteristic - it's used in everyday conversation; the most frequent words of English vocabulary; speaking Anglo-Saxon = speaking simply; they have French synonyms # sweat - perspire; begin - commence; book - volume; climb - ascend; most words have one or two syllables.

   2. The first wave of borrowings:

   a) 1 BC - Roman Empire occupied Europe and Germanic tribes left. Roman brought another everyday lexis: cherry, pear, plum, pepper, kitchen, pot, wine, milk.

   b) 5 AD - Celtic words came into Anglo-Saxon (names of rivers, geographic names, etc.) # Avon, Exe, Esk, Usk.

   c) 7 AD - Christianization of England, Latin was the official language of church. - religious words + education.

   d) 8 - 11 AD - several Scandinavian invasions, Vikings came to England. Characteristic feature: sk. # skim, skip, sky, skill, skirt. In OE - sc turned into sh. Some geographical names: +by - Willaby; another ending of geographic names - thwaite.

   e) 1066 - Norman invasion. They were speaking Northern French dialect of Normandy. Extremely significant; law, government, church, court, commerce; elevated style.

   # child - infant; happiness - felicity; begin - commence; hearty - cordial.

   Gastronomic terms: # to stew, boil, roast, fry

   To form a noun - suffixes: -ance, - ence, - ment, -age, -ess.

   Adjectives+ suffixes: -ous, -able.

   Verbs - prefix: -en #enact, enslave.

   f) Renaissance period - # salvation, baptism.

   15-16^th centuries influence of Latin, Greek - vocabulary of education. # athlete, encyclopedia, climax.

   Most common affix: -urn, -us, -a, -ex, -ix # campus, chorus, diploma, matrix, index.

   Greek - -is, -on: analysis, crisis, phenomenon, neutron.

   NB: Russian origin: I Wave: words connected with trade # rouble, vodka, sterlad; nature: taiga, tundra.

   II. Wave: influence of Russian literature of 19^th century # duma, zemstvo, narodnik

   III. Wave: after the Great October revolution: # komsomol, Bolshevik, sputnik;

   IV. Wave: Perestroyka: # glasnost, nomenklatura.

   German borrowings: (800 words) - after Renaissance - geological terms, names of raw materials, # cobalt; everyday life # iceberg, kindergarten; Luftwaffe, schmuk.

   Holland borrowings: (more than 2000 words) - nautical terms: # deck, riff, dock.

   Italian borrowings: commercial terms: # bank; musical terms.

   Spanish borrowings: (via America) food items: # melon, tomato.

  -- Neologisms and archaisms

   "Yesterday's neologisms, like yesterday's jargon, are often today's essential vocabulary."

   Neologism is a word, term, or phrase which has been recently created ("coined") -- often to apply to new concepts, to synthesize pre-existing concepts, or to make older terminology sound more contemporary. Neologisms are especially useful in identifying inventions, new phenomena, or old ideas which have taken on a new cultural context. The term "e-mail", as used today, is an example of a neologism.

   Neologisms can also refer to an existing word or phrase which has been assigned a new meaning.

   At the present moment English is developing very swiftly and there is so called "neology blowup". R. Berchfield who worked at compiling a four- volume supplement to NED says that averagely 800 neologisms appear every year in Modern English. It has also become a language-giver recently, especially with the development of computerization.

   New words, as a rule, appear in speech of an individual person who wants to express his idea in some original way. This person is called "originater". New lexical units are primarily used by university teachers, newspaper reporters, by those who are connected with mass media.

   Neologisms can develop in three main ways:

  -- a lexical unit existing in the language can change its meaning to denote a new object or phenomenon. In such cases we have semantic neologisms, e.g. the word "umbrella" developed the meanings: "авиационное прикрытие", "политическое прикрытие".

  -- A new lexical unit can develop in the language to denote an object or phenomenon which already has some lexical unit to denote it. In such cases we have transnomination, e.g. the word "slum" was first substituted by the word "ghetto" then by the word-group "inner town".

  -- A new lexical unit can be introduced to denote a new object or phenomenon. In this case we have "a proper neologism", many of them are cases of new terminology.

   Newly created words entering a language tend to pass through several stages:

  -- Unstable - Extremely new, being proposed, or being used only by a small subculture (also known as protologisms).

  -- Diffused - Having reached a significant audience, but not yet having gained widespread acceptance.

  -- Stable - Having gained recognizable and probably lasting acceptance.

  -- Dated - The point where the word has ceased holding novelty and has passed into clichИ, formal linguistic acceptance, or become culturally dated in its use

   Neologisms can be also classified according to the ways they are formed.

  -- phonological neologisms

  -- borrowings,

  -- semantic neologisms

  -- syntactical neologisms (morphological /word-building/ and phraseological /forming word- groups)

   Morphological and syntactical neologisms are usually built on patterns existing in the language, therefore they do not belong to the group of strong neologisms.

   Here also belong:

  -- call-and-recall - вызов на диспансеризацию,

  -- bioastronomy -search for life on other planets,

  -- rat-out - betrayal in danger ,

  -- zero-zero (double zero) - ban of longer and shorter range weapon,

  -- x-rated /about films terribly vulgar and cruel/,

  -- Ameringlish /American

   Formation of neologisms:

  -- affixation

   peacenik

   Bookateria

  -- abbreviation/blending

   lol

  -- word overlapping

   swellegant

  -- compounding

   skinhead

   greenback

  -- forming new words from combinations & sentences

   bold-headish

   6 o'clockish

  -- forming new words according to already existing productive patterns

   fingersmith - карманник

  -- lexicalization

   ism - as an independent word

   teens

  

   Archaisms are the language units that were current at one time but have passed out of use. It can be word, phrase or the use of spelling, letter or syntax. They are substituted by synonyms: # betwixt - between; hapless - unlikely. Some of them remain in a language but are used as stylistic devices to express solemnity. Used in poetry, law, etc.

   Types: - literary (seek to awoke the style of older speech and writing);

   - lexical (the use of words no longer in common use).

   Archaisms are frequently misunderstood, leading to changes in usage. One example is the use of the archaic familiar second person singular pronoun "thou" to refer to God in English Christianity. Although originally a familiar pronoun, it has been misinterpreted as a respectful one by many modern Christians.

   Used by lawyers in written form: # heretofore, hereunto, thereof

   Religious context - # with this ring I thee wed

   Obsolete words (lexical archaism) were once common but now are rare. Obsolete term is the one which is not in an active use any more.

   Lexical archaisms: horse - steed; kill - slay; sorrow - woe.

   Sometimes an archaism can get a new meaning: # fair - original meaning `beautiful'.

   Sometimes roots of words remain and affixes change - # beauteous.

2. Morphological structure of the English word.

 Morphological structure of English words. The most productive word-building types in English

   2.1 Morpheme

   The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of form. Morphemes cannot be segmented into smaller units without losing their constitutive essence, i.e. two-facetedness -- association of a certain meaning with a certain sound-pattern. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words but not independently.

   Morphemes may be classified

  -- from the semantic point of view

  -- from the structural point of view.

   Semantically morphemes fall into two types:

  -- root morphemes

  -- non-root morphemes

   Root-morphemes (or radicals)

   are the lexical nucleus of words. For example, in the words remake, glassful, disorder the root-morphemes -make, glass- and -order are understood as the lexical centres of the words. The root-morpheme is isolated as the morpheme common to a set of words making up a word-cluster, e.g. the morpheme teach- in to teach, teacher, teaching.

   Non-root morphemes

   include inflectional morphemes (or inflections) and affixational morphemes (or affixes). Inflections carry only grammatical meaning and are thus relevant only for the formation of word-forms, whereas affixes are relevant for building various types of stems'

   Structurally morphemes fall into three types:

  -- free morphemes;

  -- bound morphemes;

  -- semi-bound (semi-free) morphemes.

   A free morpheme is defined as one that coincides with the stem or a word-form.

   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 word friend.

   A bound morpheme occurs only as a constituent part of a word.

   Affixes are bound morphemes for they always make part of a word. For example, the suffixes -ness, -ship, -ize in the words darkness, friendship, to activize; the prefixes im-, dis-, de- in the words impolite, to disregard, to demobilize.

   Some root-morphemes also belong to the class of bound morphemes. These are, as a rule, roots which are found in quite a limited number of words and never independently or pseudo-roots, i. e. root-morphemes which have lost most of the properties of "full" roots. Such are the root-morphemes goose- in gooseberry, -ceive in conceive.

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

   Morphemes can be:

   1. Inflectional - vary or inflect the forms of words in order to express grammatical feature. # tense and number - boy - boys.

   Features: - generally don't change basic meaning or part of speech;

   - generally express grammatically required features or indicate relations between different words in the sentence. # Lee loves Kim.

   - generally are productive typically combine freely with all members of some large class of morphemes with quite a predictable effect on usage and meaning;

   - occur outside any derivational morphemes.

   - suffixes only

   2. Derivational - make new words from old ones.

   Features: - change the part of speech or the basic meaning of a word

   - not required by syntactic relations outside the word # unkind

   - often not productive i.e. they can be selective about what they will combine with and also have erratic effect on the meaning # -hood + brother/ child - brotherhood; childhood

   - typically occur between the stem any inflectional affixes: # neighborhoods

   - in English it is prefixes or suffixes.

   Types of meaning in morphemes

   In morphemes different types of meaning can be singled out depending on the semantic class morphemes belong to.

   Root-morphemes possess

  -- lexical

  -- differential

  -- distributional meaning.

   Affixational morphemes have

  -- lexical

  -- part-of-speech

  -- differential

  -- distributional types of meaning

   Lexical meaning of morphemes may be analysed into denotational and connotational components. The denotational meaning in affixes is more generalized than in root-morphemes, e.g. -er carries the meaning the doer of the action: reader, teacher, singer. All endearing and diminutive suffixes bear a heavy emotive charge: -ie (girlie, dearie); -ette (kitchenette). Many stylistically marked affixes are bookish or scientific: a- (amoral); -oid (rhomboid).

   All suffixes and some prefixes possess grammatical (part-of-speech) meaning: -ness (emptiness) carries the nominal meaning of thigness. Root-morphemes do not possess any grammatical meaning: in the root-morpheme man- (manly) there is no grammatical meaning of case and number observed in the word man.

   Grammatical and lexical meaning in suffixes are blended: -er (teacher) carries the meaning thingness (noun) and the doer of the action.

   In all polymorphemic words their constituent morphemes possess two more types of meaning: differential and distributional. Differential meaning distinguishes a word from all others containig identical morphemes: in the word teacher the root teach- differentiates it from other words beginning in teach (teaching). Distributional meaning is the meaning of the order and arrangement of the constituent morphemes: ring-finger, singer. A different arrangement of the same morphemes will change the meaning of the word or make the word meaningless: finger-ring, er-singer.

   Morphemic types of words

   Monomorphic or root-words consist of only one root-morpheme (small, dog, make). Polymorphic words according to the number of root-morphemes are classified into: a) monoradical (one-root morpheme) and b)polyradical (words consisting of two or more roots).

   Monoradical words fall into three subtypes:

   radical-suffixal words, i.e. words consisting of one root-morpheme and one or more suffixal morphemes (e.g. acceptable, acceptability);

   radical-prefixal words, i.e. words consisting of one root-morpheme and a prefixal morpheme (e.g. outdo, unbutton);

   prefixo-radical-suffixal words, i.e. words which consist of one root, prefixal and suffixal morphemes (e.g. disagreeable, misinterpre­tation)

   Polyradical words fall into two subtypes:

   polyradical words which consist of two or more roots with no affixational morphemes (e.g. book-stand, lamp-shade);

   polyradical words which contain at least two roots and one or more affixational morphemes (e.g. safety-pin, light-mindedness, pen-hold­er).

   2.2 The most productive word-building types in English

   Word-building is one of the main ways of enriching vocabulary. There are 8 ways of word-building in Modern English:

  -- conversion,

  -- composition,

  -- affixation

  -- shortening.

  -- sound-interchange,

  -- stress interchange,

  -- sound imitation,

  -- blends,

  -- back formation (disaffixation).

   The most productive are composition (compounding), affixation and conversion.

   2.2.1 Conversion

   Conversion is one of the principal ways of forming words in Modern English. It is highly productive in replenishing the English word-stock with new words. Conversion can be defined as the derivation of a new word without any over marking. In order to find cases of conversion we have to look for pairs of words that are derivationally related and are completely identical in their phonetic realization.

  

   This immense productivity of conversion is encouraged by features in its modern stage: - analytical structure; - simplicity of paradigms; - abundance of one-syllabic words (flexibility and mobility); - convenient way of enriching the vocabulary with new words. The productivity finds its reflection in speech; abundance of nonce-words. It's a vital and developing process that penetrates colloquial language. Subconsciously every speaker understands his making a new word.

  

   The most frequent semantically related groups in conversion are nouns and verbs derived from them.

   The lexical meaning of the verb points out the instrument, the agent, the place, the cause, the result, the time of action

   Instrumental meaning:

   parts of human body - to finger ( to touch with fingers

   tools, machines, weapons - to free- wheel ( to go with the engine switched off)

   AGENT:

   to crowd - to come together in large numbers

   to ape - to imitate in a foolish way as an ape does

   LOCATION

   to bag - to put in a bag

   to bottle - to store in bottles

  

   Some authors don't consider conversion in: - laugh - to laugh; work - to work; - drink - to drink.

   Etymology: OE noun lufu; verb lufian.

   The point was in dropping of the ending. However, still this zero affixation is no point since there's same stem and different paradigm.

   Categories of speech that are especially affected by conversion:

   - verbs made from nouns are the most numerous - # to hand, to blacklist, to bottle;

   - nouns from verbs - # a go, a make, a cut;

   - verbs from adjective - # to pale, to yellow, to grey;

   - adjectives from nouns - a native, a relative, a Russian

   - but there are also: to down, ifs and buts; ins and outs (FROM ANY PART OF SPEECH).

   Criteria of direction of conversion:

  -- semantic - defines the frequency of usage; also if one word is used only in one of its forms # to neighbour - a neighbour.

  -- Stylistic

  -- Type of semantic structure

  -- Formal criteria - morphological structure of the word (suffixes etc.) - shows the original part of speech: a document - to document.

  

   2.2.2 

  

   2.2.3 Affixation

   Affixation has been one of the most productive ways of word-building throughout the history of English. It consists in adding an affix to the stem of a definite part of speech. Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation.

   There's not rigid classification of suffixes. No definition of a suffix, esp when we speak about semi-affixes. # iceberg; ice-cream - some believe that ice is a prefix in cases when it has lost its concrete meaning.

   Classification according to their origin (etymological point of view):

   - native; (-er, -dom)

   - borrowed. (-tion, -age)

   Classification #2.

  -- productive - ones which take part in deriving new words in this particular period of language development - look for them among neologisms and nonce-words - er, -ess, -ism, -ing, -ist, -ant; -y; -ed; -less, -able, un-, re-, dis. Nonce-words are coined and used only for this particular occasion.

   # unputdownable

  -- Non-productive

   # th, -hood, -dom; -en, -ous.

   There are a number of high-frequency affixes which are no longer used in forming new words.

   # -ly, -ful, -ent, -al, -ant.

   Semantics of Affixes.

   Three main approaches:

   - no meaning, the role is to shape the word structure.

   # syntactic derivation - the rich, the old

   - affixes may be characterized as bearing some shade of meaning

   # modificational affixes; emotional affixes - dog - doggy

   - affixes bear the meaning of a category

   # categorized meaning (very vast) - er - designating persons from the object of their occupation - # doer, painter; - ful - full of sth # wonderful; ish - implies insufficiency of quality - greenish.

   Not only the suffix adds its own meaning to the meaning of the root but the suffix is also affected by the root and undergoes certain semantic changes.

WORDS

A great many words can consist of smaller meaningful structural units which are called morphemes. From the semantic point of view all morphemes are subdi­vided into two large classes: root morphemes (roots) and affixational morphemes (affixes). The root is the lexical nucleus of a word. It is common to a set of words that make up a lexical word-cluster, e.g. act in act, actor, action, active, inactive; theor- in theory, theorist, theoretician, theoretical, etc. There exist many roots which coincide with root-words, e.g. man, son, desk, tree, black, red, see, look, etc.

The affixes, in their turn, fall into prefixes which precede the root (un-: happy, rewrite, discover, decipher, impossible, misbehaviour, etc.) and suffixes which follow the root (friendship, peaceful, worker, teaching, realize, calmly, j etc.).

The part of a word which remains unchanged in all the forms of its para­digm is called a stem, e.g. girl- in girls, girl’s, girls’; darken in darkens, darkened, darkening.

Stems that coincide with roots are known as simple stems, e.g. boy’s, trees, reads, etc.

Stems that contain one or more affixes are derived stems, e.g. teacher’s, misfires, governments, undecipherable, etc.

Binary stems comprising two simple or derived stems are called compound stems, e.g. machine-gunner’s, ex-film-star, gentlemanly, school-boyish, etc.

From the structural point of view morphemes fall into three types: free morphemes, bound morphemes, and semi-bound morphemes.

A free morpheme can stand alone as a word, e.g. friendly, friendship (cf. a friend).

Bound morphemes occur only as constituent parts of words, e.g. free­dom, greatly, poetic; depart, adrift, enlarge, dishonest, misprint; conceive, de­ceive, receive; desist, resist, subsist, etc.

Semi-bound morphemes can function both as affixes and as free mor­phemes (i.e. words). Cf. after, half, man, well, self and after-thought, half- baked, chairman, well-known, himself.

In Modern English one can often meet morphemes of Greek and Latin origin which have a definite lexical meaning though are not used as autonomous words, e.g. tele- ‘far¹, -scope ‘seeing, -graph,-’writing’, etc. Such morphemes are usually called

combining forms or bound root morphemes.

Positional variants of a morpheme are known as allomorphs. Thus the prefix in (intransitive, involuntary) can be represented by allomorph il- (illegal, illiteracy), im- (immortal, impatience) ir- (irregular, irresolute).

Several morphemes are polysemic, i.e. a certain form, being a component of words which belong to the same part of speech, can express different meanings. Cf. bluish (a.):: Spanish (a.); baker (n.):: boiler (n.); sculptor (n.):: reactor (n.).

Homonymic morphemes have the same form and different meaning, being components of words that belong to different parts of speech, e.g. quickly (adv.) :: lovely (a.); soften (v.):: silken (a.). One should distinguish between the hom­onymy of derivational affixes, on the one hand, and the homonymy of such affixes and inflections, on the other, e.g. worker (n.) :: longer (comp. d. of a.); golden (a.):: taken (Past part.).

3. Word formation in English.

AFFIXATION

Affixation is a word-formative process in which words are created by add­ing word-building affixes to stems. Affixation includes prefixation, i.e. form­ing new words with the help of prefixes, and suffixation, i.e. forming new words with the help of suffixes.

From the etymological point of view affixes are classified according to their origin into native (e.g. -er, -nese, -ing, un-, mis-, etc.) and borrowed (Romanic, e.g. -tion, -ment, -ance, re-, sub-, etc.; Greek, e.g. -ist, -ism, anti-, etc.).

Affixes can also be classified into productive (e.g. -er, -ness, -able, -y, -ize, un-, re-, die-, etc.) and non-prpductiye (_?th,-h^od -en, -ous, etc.). Suffixes de­rive a certain part of spe^ch^henc^n^^^md^fisfinguish: noun-forming, ad­jective-forming, verb-forming and adverb-forming suffixes.

Composition (compounding)

   Compounds represent one of the most typical and specific features of English word-structure.

   Compounds are produced by combining two or more stems.

   The aspect of identification of a compound word:

  -- two or more stems

   There's a problem: in which case the word is a combination or compounding?

   Criteria for differentiation:

  -- phonetic - emphasis: compounds have one main stress

  -- morphological - morphological unity of a compound: every compound has one paradigm;

  -- syntactic - limitation of collocations of compound words;

  -- semantic - semantic unity of a compound word; meaning's not transparent;

  -- orthographic - whether it's hyphenated; written as one word.

   There are three important peculiarities distinguishing compounding in English from compounding in other languages:

  -- Both constituents of an English compound are free forms.

   Examples:

   afternoon, anyway, somebody, schoolboy, railway, mankind, post-card, grown-up

   In English bound forms like Anglo-Saxon, Indo-European or politico-economical occur very rarely and seem to be avoided.

  -- The regular pattern for the English language is a two-stem compound.

   ! An exception to this rule is observed when the combining element is represented by a form-word stem:

   man-of-war, good-for-nothing, mother-in-law

  -- One more feature - attributive syntactic function - plays important role in providing a phrase with structural cohesion and thus turning it into compound:

   ... we've done last-minute changes before... (compound)

   Compare: we changed it at the last minute more than once (adverbial free phrase)

   Sometimes the author creates these "nonce-compounds" (окказиональные )

   Example:

   This is the-man-I-saw-yesterday's daughter.

  

   Correlational types of compounds

   Traditionally they distinguish three types of compounds:

  -- neutral

  -- morphological

  -- syntactic

  -- In the first type neutral compounds the process of compounding is realized without any linking elements, by a mere juxtaposition of two stems, such as:

   blackbird

   bedroom

   tallboy

   sunflower

   The second subtype of neutral compounds is called derived or derivational compounds. The productivity of this type is confirmed by a considerable number of comparatively recent formations, such as teenager, babysitter, double-decker.

   The third subtype of neutral compounds is called contracted compounds. These words have shortened (contracted) stem in their structure

   TV-set

   V-day (Victory day)

   G-man (Government man, "FBI agent")

   T-shirt

   2) Morphological compounds are few in number. This type is represented by words in which two compounding stems are combined by a linking vowel or consonant.

   e.g. Anglo-Saxon

   handiwork

   Franko-Prussian

   statesman

   3) In syntactic compounds we may find a feature of specifically English word-structure. These words are formed from segments of speech, preserving in their structure numerous traces of syntagmatic relations typical of speech: articles, prepositions, adverbs.

   e.g. Jack-of-all-trades

   good-for-nothing

   mother-in-law

   The compounds the meanings of which do not correspond to the separate meanings of their constituent parts (2,3 groups) are called idiomatic compounds, in the contrast to the first group known as non-idiomatic compounds.

PHRASAL VERBS

Phrasal verbs are combinations of a verb and adverb or a verb and preposi­tion (or verb with both adverb and preposition).

Phrasal verbs may be either non-idiomatic or idiomatic. Non-idiomatic phrasal verbs retain their primary local meaning, e.g. come in, come out, come out of, take off, put down, etc. They may also have a kind of perfective colour- ■’ ing, e.g. add up, eat up, drink up, swallow up, rise up, etc.

In idiomatic compounds meanings cannot be derived from their ICs: bring up - BHXOByBara, bear out - nijitbepj^KyBaxh, give in - niAflaBaTHca, fall out - CBapHTHCsi, take in- o6mamoBaxH, etc.

Exercise 24. Give Ukrainian equivalents of the following simple and phrasal verbs.

bear - + down, out, up, with; beat - + back, down, into, out, up; break - + down, off, up, with; call - + at, for, in, on (upon), over, up; come - + about, across, along, at, back, by, down, down upon, for, in, of, off, out, out with, over, round, to, up, up to, up with, upon; cry - + down, for, up; cut - + down, in, off, out; do - + away with, up, with, without; drop - + across, away, behind, in, into; fall - + away, back, back upon, behind, in, into, in with, off, out, through, to, under, upon; hang

• + about, back, on, out, together, up; pick - + apart, at, away, from, in, off, on, out, over, up, with.

• CONVERSION

• Conversion is a special type of affixless derivation where a newly-formed word acquires a paradigm and syntactic functions different from those of the original word.

• As a matter of fact, all parts of speech can be drawn into the wordbuilding process of conversion to a certain extent. Its derivational patterns are varied, the most widespread among them being^N —>V)|V —»Nj

• SUBSTantivation

• Substantiation is the process in which adjectives (or participles) acquire the paradigm and syntactic functions of nouns. One should distinguish two main types of substantivation: complete and partial.

• Completely substantivized adjectives have the full paradigm of a noun, i.e. singular and plural case forms. They may be associated with various determin- ers (definite, indefinite,and zero articles, demonstrative and possessive pro- nouns, etc.), e.g $$official, officials, the officials, officials, offi- cials’, this official, our officials, etc. Complete substantivation is often regarded as a pattern of conversion (A —> N), though it may be argued, since, as a rule, it is the^j^M^f Ellipsis in an attributive^hrase: a conservative politician —» a conservative, a convertible car —> a COTveMS^fT

• In the case of partial substantivation adjectives do not acquire the full para- digm of a noun. They fall into several structural-semantic groups:

• a) partially substantivized adjectives (PSA) or participles which are singu- lar in form though plural in meaning. They are used with the definite article and denote a group or a class of people, e.g. the rich, the accused, the English, the blind, the living, etc.;

• ed mostly in the plural and denoting a group or a class of people

• ADJECTIVIZATION

• Prempdjfication of nouns by nouns is highly frequent in Modern English. Noun^aaji^re^hould not be considered as adjectives produced by means of conversion. Nevertheless, some nouns may undergo the process of adjectivi- zation and function as attributes with idiomatic meanings, e.g.:

• coffee-table (n.) —> coffee-table (adj.) - “Of a large size and richly illustrated.

PHRASAL NOUNS

Phrasal nouns are built from phrasal verbs as a result of a combined effect of compounding, conversion, and change of stress. They consist of ICs identical to those of the corresponding verbs, but obtain, as a rule, the single­

stress pattern and either soluH^yphenated spelling, e.g.: to break down —» a breakdown (a break-down).

SHORTENING

There exist two main ways of shortening: contraction (clipping) and abbre­viation (initial shortening).

Contraction. One should distinguish betwe&afour types,of contraction:

1. Final clipping ^w*p^^.€y0rn)^i^0r (^wraTpmr^f the word, e.g.: doc (< doctor), lab (< IabOTaxof^ rfrag (< magazine), prefab (< prefabri­cated), vegs (< vegetables), A1 (< Albert), Nick (< Nickolas), Phil (< Philip), etc.

2. Initial clipping (apheresis), i.e. omission of the fore part of the word, e.g.: phone (< telephone), plane (< aeroplane), story (< history), van (< cara­van), drome (< airdrorneJ^Dora C<TheodoraVFred (< Alfred), etc.

3. Medial clippingysl™^^ i.fe^f^slon of the middle part of the word, e.g.: maths (< mathematics), fancy (< fantasy), specs (< spectacles), binocs (< binoculars), through (< thorough), etc.

4. Mixed clipping, where the fore and the final parts of the word are clipped, e.g.: tec (< detective), flu (< influenza), fridge (< refrigerator), stach (< moustache), Liz (< Elisabeth), etc.

Contraction may be combined with affixation, i.e. by adding the suffixes y, -ie -o to clippings, e.g.: hanky (< handkerchief), comfy (< comfortable), unkie (< uncle), ammo (< ammunition), etc.

ABBREVIATION

Abbreviations (initial shortenings) are words produced by shortening the ICs of phrasal terms up to their initial letters. Abbreviations are subdivided into 5 groups:

1. Acronyms which are read in accordance with the rules of orthoepy as though they were ordinary words, e.g.: UNO /’ju:nou/ ( < United Nations Or­ganization), UNESCO /’ju:’neskou/ (< United Nations Educational Scientific ^and ?^rgf/- zation)f 3AlT7sQ:ltA |⁽<^trategic ArnYsHLimitation TaTfKsjTSTEM /stem/ (< scanning trar?lmis^Ti electrone microscope), radar /reida/ (< radio detecting and ranging), etc.

2. Alphabetic abbreviations in which letters get their full alphabetic pro­nunciation and a full stress, e.g.: USA /’ju:es’ei/ (< the United States of Amer­ica), B.B.C. /’bi:’bi:’si:/ (< the British Broadcasting Corporation), M.P. /’em’pi:/ (< Member of Parliament), G.I. /’d^": *ai/ ( < Goverrfm^iflssue), FBI /’ef’bi: ‘at/ (< Federal Bureau of Investigation), etc.

Alphabetic abbreviations are sometimes used for famous persons’ names, e.g.: F.D.R. (< Franklin Delano Roosevelt), G.B.S. (< George Bernard Shaw), B.B, (< Brigitte Bardot), etc.

3. Compound abbreviations in which the first IC is a letter (letters) and the second a complete word, e.g. A-bomb (< atomic bomb), V-day (< Victory day), Z-hour (< zero hour), L-driver (learner-driver), ACD solution (< acid

citrate de?

One or both ICs of compound abbreviations may be clipped, e.g.: mid- ■ August, Interpol (< International police), hi-fi (< high fidelity )*£ci-fic (< sci­ence fiction), etc.

4. Graphic abbreviations which are used in texts for economy of space. They are pronounced as the corresponding unabbreviated words, e.g.: Mr. (< Mister), m. (< mile), ft. (< foot/feet), v. ( < verb), ltd. ( < limited), govt. (< government), usu. (< usually), pp. (< pages), Co (< Company), Capt. (< Cap­tain), X-mas ( < Christmas), etc.

5. Latin abbreviations which sometimes are not read as Latin words but as separate letters or are substituted by their English equivalents, e.g.: le. /ai ‘i:/ -that is; a.m. /ei ‘em - before midday, in_the morning, e.g. - for example, Id. - in the same place, cf. - compare, etc. '

BACK-FORMATION (REVERSION)

BLENDING

Blending is the formation of new lexical units by means of mer|inglTag- ments of words into one new word, or combining the elements of one word with a notional word, e.g.: smog (smoke + fog), radiotrician (radio + electri­cian), drunch (drinks + lunch), cinemagnate (cinema + magnate), etc.

MINOR TYPES OF WORD-FORMATION: CHANGE OF STRESS

Several nouns and verbs of Romanic origin have a distinctive stress pat­tern. Such nouns, as a rule, are forestressed, and verbs have a stress on the second syllable, e.g.: ‘accent (n.):: ac’cent (v.),:: ‘contest (n.):: con’test (v.), record (n.):: re’cord (n.), ’attribute (n.):: at’tribute (v,), etc.

The same distinctive stress pattern is observed in some pairs of adjectives and verbs, e.g.: ‘absent (a.):: ab’sent (v), ‘abstract (a.):: ab’stract (v.), ‘frequent (a.):: fre’quent (v.), etc.

SOUND INTERCHANGE (GRADATION)

Words belonging to different parts of speech may be differentiated due to the sound interchange in the root, e.g.: food (n.):: feed (v.), gold (n.):: gild (v,), strong (a.):: strength (n.), etc.

SOUND IMITATION (ONOMATOPOEIA)^^^^^

4. Lexical meaning and semantic structure of the English word.

LEXICAL MEANING AND SEMANTIC STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH WORDS

Semasiology is the branch of linguistics which studies the meaning of linguistic units, first of all, that of words and word equivalents.

Lexical meaning reflects the concept expressed by the given word.

The interrelation between the structural pattern of the word and its lexical meaning is called motivation. There are three main types of motivation: pho- netical motivation, morphological motivation, and semantic motivation.

Phonetical motivation is observed in words whose sound-clusters imitate the sounds they signify, e.g. boom, cuckoo, hiss, titter, whisper, murmur, etc.

Morphological motivation is apparent in derived words and nonidiomatic compounds due to their word-formation pattern, e.g. worker (work + er) = “one who works”; rewrite (re + write) = “write again or anew”; shoemaker (shoe + make + er) - “one who makes shoes”; bathroom (bath + room) = “room with a bath”, etc.

Semantic motivation is the relationship between the direct and the trans­ferred meaning of the word, e.g. a mother tongue, a summit meeting, the mouth of a river, a green beginner, etc.

The mistaken motivation due to the fancied analogy of borrowings with well-known native words is called folk (false) etymology. For instance, a cray­fish has nothing in common with fish. It originated from O.F. crevisse (cf. KpeBeTKa).

There are three main semantic structures of words: monosemy, polysemy, and semantic diffusion.

Monosemy is the existence within one word of only one meaning. Mono- semantic words are comparatively few in number. They are mainly scientific terms, e.g. biochemistry, cybernetics, molecule, radar, tungsten, etc.

Polysemy is the existence within one word of several connected meanings. One of them is the main (central) meaning, whereas the rest are associated (mar­ginal) meanings. Associated meanings of the word become evident in certain lexical and grammatical contexts. Polysemantic words constitute the bulk of the English vocabulary. E.g. face (n.) 1. the front of the head /the main meaning/.

1. the expression of the countenance. 3. the main or front surface. 4. the surface that is marked, as of a clock. 5. appearance; outward aspect. 6. Dignity; self- respect /associated meanings/ /After Webster’s New World Dictionary/.

Semantic diffusion is observed in words with a very wide conceptual vol­ume. Such words denote, in fact, one concept, but can name an indefinitely large number of objects (referents). For instance, the word thing denotes “any object of our thought”. Hence it can name various inanimate objects, living beings, facts, affairs, problems, possessions, pieces of writing, composition, etc.

CHANGE OF MEANING

If the polysemantic structure of the word is subjected to a diachronic se­mantic analysis, it becomes clear that the word, as a rule, retains its original meaning, but at the same time acquires several new ones.

Hence one should distinguish the following meanings comprising the set treked diachronically:

; _v I. The direct meaning, subdivided into:

_; a) the primary (etymological) meaning, e.g. wall (n.) < L. vallum -’’ram­part”, “fortification”;

b) the derived meaning: wall — “upright structure, forming part of a robm or building”.

II. The secondary meaning, subdivided into:

1. the secondary denotative meaning: wall - “inside surface of cavity or vessel”, e.g. walls of the heart; reactor wall;

2. the figurative meaning, e.g. wall of partition /between persons/; wall of fire; wall of hostility.

Semantic changes in denotation may lead to:

1. the extension (generalization) of meaning, e.g. barn n. OE bern -i place for storing barley” —> “a covered building for storing grain, hay, etc.”-,

2. the narrowing (specialization) of meaning, e.g. voyage n. OF v| age ’’any trip or journey” —> “a journey by sea or water”. ij

Semantic changes in connotation may result in: ^

1. the pejorative development of meaning (degradation), e.g. knave; OE cnafa - “a boy”, “a male servant” —»“a tricky rascal,” “a rogue”. ]

2. the ameliorative development of meaning (elevation), e.g. fame OF fame - “common talk”, “rumour” —> “reputation, esp. for good”. 1

5. English phraseology.

Phraseology: the main principles for classifying phraseological units

   Phraseology describes the context in which a word is used. This often includes typical usages/sequences, such as idioms, phrasal verbs, and multi-word units. Phraseological units are (according to Prof. Kunin A.V.) stable word-groups with partially or fully transferred meanings (e.g., "to kick the bucket").

   Phraseological units are word-groups that cannot be made in the process of speech, they exist in the language as ready-made units. They are compiled in special dictionaries. Like words, phraseologocal units express a single notion and are used in a sentence as one part of it. American and British lexicographers call such units idioms.