Lecture_6_Minor_types_of_word_formation
.doc18. shortening may be represented as significant subtraction, in which part of the original word or word group is taken away.
Shortening consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts, as a result of which the new form receives some linguistic value of its own. The part retained doesn’t change phonetically, hence the necessity of spelling changes (dub-double, fridge, frig – refrigerator, vac- vacuum cleaner, mike – microscope, trank – tranquilizer). Shortening may take any part of a word usually a single syllable and throw away the rest: pram, lab, phone – telephone, plane – airplane, flu – influence.
Shortening is sometimes called clipping. The process often applies not just an existing word but to a whole phrase, thus the zoo is shortening from zoological gardens. The change is not only quantitative, a shorten word is always in some way different from its prototype in meaning and usage. Shortening may be regarded as good creation because the resulting new morphemes are capable of being used as free forms and combine with bound forms. They can take functional suffixes (bike – bikes). Most of these produce verbs by conversion (to phone, to vet) in which the semantic relation with a prototype remains quite clear. They also serve as bases for further word–formation by derivation or compounding (e.g.: fancy (n.) – is formed from fantasy, to fancy (v.) – fanciful (adj.), fancy dress (n.) – compounding).
19. The correlation of a shortened word with its prototype is of great interest. 2 possible developments should be pointed out.
1) The shorten form may be regarded as a variant or a synonym differing from the full form quantitatively, stylistically, emotionally. The prototype is usually stylistically and emotionally neutral (doc –doctor, exam – examination). The same with proper names: Becky – Rebecca, Frisco – San Francisco, Japs – Japanese. The missing part can at all time be supplied by the listener. So the connection between the prototype and the short form is not lost.
2) In the opposite case the connection can be established only etymologically. The meaning may be changed so much that the clipping becomes a separate word and a pair of etymological doublets comes into being (chap = chapman, fan – fanatic, fancy - fantasy, miss – mistress). The relationship between shorten words and the prototypes in the second group is irrelevant to the present-day vocabulary system and is a matter of diachronic study. Words belonging to the first group can be replaced by their prototypes and show in this way a certain degree of interchangeability while the doublets are never equivalent lexically as there are no context where the prototype can replace the shorten word without a change of meaning. Shorten word of the first group render one of the possible meanings of the prototype creation a colloquial or slang-shade and other emotional colouring as well. These words are also homonymous (gym for gymnastics, gymnasium; vet for veteran, veterinarian).
Unlike conversion, shortening produces the words of the same part of speech. The bulk of shorten words is constituted by nouns. Verbs are hardly ever shortened in present-day English. The verbs to phone, to vet are in fact converted from nouns. Shortened adj. are very few and mostly reveal a combination of shortening and affixation (dilly – delightful) they occur in slang.
20. The generally excepted classification of shortened words is based on the position of clipped parts according whether it is final, initial or middle part of the word we distinguish: final clipping, initial clipping, medieval clipping (syncope).
1) Final clipping (apocope) in which the beginning of the prototype is retained is practically the rule and forms the bulk of the class (ad, advert from advertising, coke from coca – cola, fab – fabulous, lab – laboratory, mac- mackintosh, ref - referee, vegs – veggies).
2) Initial clipping (aphesis, apheresis) – words retaining the final part of the prototype are less numerous but much more firmly established as separate lexical units with a meaning very different of that of the prototype and stylistically neutral doublets (cute – acute, fend - defend, mend – amend, story from history, to tend from attend) are synonyms. Neologisms are very few (chute - parachute). Cases like cello – violoncello, to phone – telephone where the curtailed words are stylistical synonyms or even variants of their prototypes are very rare. The process of assimilation of loan words is especially frequent in this group.
3) Shorten words with the middle part of the word left out are equally few. They are divided into 2 groups:
3.1. words with a final-clipped stem retaining the functional morpheme (maths – mathematics, specs – spectacles)
3.2. contractions (fancy – fantasy, ma’am – madam).
Shorten words arise in various types of colloquial speech as long as their connection with prototype is alive, they remain synonyms. When the connection is lost the shorten words may become stylistically neutral. Stylistically they may belong to any variety of colloquial style. They are especially numerous and various branches in slang (sport, newspaper etc). Nursery words are also clipped (granny, mum). Stylistic peculiarity goes with the emotional colouring. School and college slang reveal some ironical attitude to the things named (ec – economics, caf – cafeteria). The only type of clippings that belongs to literary of booking style are poetical contractions (ne’er, e’er o’er).
21. Much less commonly we find what are called back formation. (edit – editor) –or is wrongly analysed as a suffix like –er (worker, builder) and is therefore removable. To burgle – burglar the same way. Most examples are no longer transparent. It’s difficult to realize that the verb to grovel is a back formation from groveling, (grove – face down + one who does). There are not many of these and except of very recent one like burgle, they are always opaque. They came into the language because the form they came from was itself opaque and open to the wrong analyses.
22. Creation by blending are also called portmanteau words (языковая контаминация, слово-гибрид) There are 2 meanings packed up into one word. In blending parts of 2 familiar words are yoked together (usually the first part of one word and the second of the other), to produce a word which combines the meanings and sound of the old ones. The process of formation is also called telescoping because words seem to slide into one another like sections of a telescope. (smog = smoke +fog, heliport = helicopter + airport, motel = moto + hotel, flush = flash + quash). Sometimes we lose the track of the components of new bland, the original of the word is no longer transparent (Vaseline = Wasser (German) water + elaron (Greek) oil).
Two types of blends can be distinguished. One may be termed additive, the second – restrictive. Both involve the sliding together not only of sound but of meaning as well. Yet the semantic relations are different.
1). the first is transformable into a phrase consisting of the respective complete stems combined by the conjunction and (e.g. smog < a mixture of smoke and fog). The elements may be synonymous, belong to the same semantic field or at least be members of the same lexico-grammatical class of words: smaze < smoke + haze.
2). The restrictive type is transformable into an attributive phrase where the first element serves as modifier of the second: cine(matographic pano)rama > Cinerama; medicare < medical care, positron < positive electron, telecast < television broadcast.
23. Acronym (Acros = end + onym = name) is a special type of blending, a typical acronym takes the first sound of each of the several words and makes a new word from those initial sounds. If the resulting word is pronounced like any other word – it is a true acronym.
E.g.: ASCII – American Standard Court of Internation Interchange. WAC – Women Army Cops. NATO – North-Atlantic Treaty Organization, VAT – Value Added Tax, UNO - United Nations Organization, Laser – light amplification by stimulated emission radiation, wasp – white Anglo-Saxon protestants.
To make an acronym pronounceable we take not initial sound, but the first consonant and the first vowel together (rador = radio detecting + ranging). Sometimes acronyms are based on even larger changes of the words they abbreviate. COMECOM – Council for mutual economical system. FORTRAN – formula translation. There is a half way between blendings and acronyms. Then an acronym becomes fully accepted as a word often comes to be spelt with locace letters (rador).
24. If the letters which make up an acronym are individually pronounced such acronyms are called initialisms. (E.g.: BBC - British Broadcasting Company, SOS – save our souls (a wireless code-signal of extreme distress), TV, B.C., I. Q., OK, pto.
3) Abbreviation is achieved by omission of letters from one or more parts of the whole. (usu –usual, Fri – Friday, abbr – abbreviation, bldg – building, govt – government, wd - word, doz, dz – dozen, ltd – limited, B.A. – Bachelor of Arts, NY). Doubling of initial letters shows plural forms as p.p. for pages. These are not separate words but only graphic signs or symbols representing them.
A specific type of abbreviations having no parallel in Russian is represented by Latin words but substituted by their English equivalents (a.m., p.m., cf., e.g. “exempli gratia”, ibid “ibidem”, i.e., viz = “namely”).
The USA seems to be the great breeding ground of initialisms. They were quite rare in English before the 20th century. The first words were produced by a small acronym.
E.g.: WAAC – women’s army axillaries corps, WREN – women’s royal naval service.
It was during the first administration of Roosevelt and during WW2 that the fashion for acronyms and initialisms really got moving.
E.g.: GIs – general issues, GP – general purpose, UFO.
Roosevelt created many new government adjectives, most of them were refereed to by initialisms.
E.g.: WPA - works progress administration. FTC – federal Trade Commission. So, the practice became respectable and started a trend that is now enormously productive in all areas of life.
E.g.: IRS – in the USA the pay taxes Internal Revenue Service. DMV – division of Motor Vehicles (the driver’s license). NBC – National Broadcasting Company, ABC – American Broadcasting Company.
But it would be unfair any longer to think as a trend of America.
E.g.: ICA – Institute of Contemporary Art
In more recent time the proliferation of initialisms and acronyms has been much increased by the ubiquity of computer abbreviations.
E.g.: DRAM dynamic rendermaxes memory, CPU – central processing unit.
3.2. The creation start with a word they want as their name, and then they work. CORE from those letters to find words which present something like the idea they want to be associate with. This acronym stands for of equity. MAMD – mothers against mad drivers, AIM – American Indian movement, HOPE – health opportunity for people everywhere, PUSH – people united to serve humanity.
25 This reverse acronym have instant appeal and easy to resemble. Another wide spread phenomena acronym based simply on some popular phrase.
People can produce acronym or initialism from any common phrase and from just about any stream of words. Most of them are used only within a business or a shop. A popular restaurant chain of the USA (west coast) is called TGIF – Thanks God it’s Friday. FYI – for your information. Call me asap – as soon as possible. DEWMS – individuals are referred to as dead European wide meals.
It must be emphasized that initial abbreviation, no less than other types of shortening, retains the valency, i.e. the combining possibilities of the prototypes.
26. Eponyms (epi – upon, onoma – name) are words based on names. All eponyms necessarily involve some degree of change in the meaning of the word. (e.g.: watt – a unit of electrical power and not the individual who invented the steam engine). The number of new words of this type (in biology, physics, medicine) is very large, since new discoveries are often named for their discoverers. Often we take the name of the individual, a character familiar from mythology, history, philosophy, a place name and extent its scope beyond the original individual reference, turning a proper noun into a common noun. Proper noun can be of several types and these types provide words in English based on their names.
1). Eponyms based on personal names: cardigan – Earl of Cardigan, the 19th century, a style of waste coat; nicotine – Jacque Nicot introduced tobacco into France in 1560.
2). based on geographical names: jean – Genoa (from Italian City Genoa where it was first made); port – oporto (the chief port for exporting wine from Portugal.
3). based on names from literature, mythology. Chimera – a mythological Greek monster purely a creature of imagination.
4). based on commercial trade names. Xerox – to copy by any dry process.
5). other sources 5.1. echoic words – the words to sound like a noise make by some object or creature (moo, bang, buzz, knock, meow). The number of these words is very small, it’s not the main source for vocabulary.
5.2. onomatopoeia (звукоподражание), reduplication (удвоение): dum-dum – type of ballet, so-so, fifty-fifty.
27.Ablaut (звуки) combinations are twin forms consisting of one basic morpheme (usually the second), sometimes a pseudo-morpheme which is repeated in the other constituent with a different vowel: chit-chat, dilly-dally, knick-knack, riff-raff, shilly-shally, zigzag, ding-dong, ping-pong, sing-song, tiptop, criss-cross, shilly-shally, pitter-patter, bibble-babble, clitter-clatter.
Rhyme combinations are twin forms consisting of two elements (most often pseudo-morphemes) which are joined to rhyme: boogie-woogie, flibberty-gibberty, harum-scarum, helter-skelter, hoity-toity, humdrum, hurry-scurry, hurdy-gardy, lovey-dovey, mumbo-jumbo, namby-pamby, titbit, willy-nilly (lat. Volens-nolense).
The words like gillyflower, may-day or sparrow-grass are not actually compounds; they are cases of false etymology.
5. Sound imitation (onomatopoeia, echoism) is the naming of an action or thing by a more or less exact reproduction of a sound associated with it. For instance words naming sounds and movement of water: babble, blob, bubble, flush, gurgle, gush, splash. The majority of onomatopoeic words serve to name sounds or movements. Most of them are verbs easily turned into nouns: bang, boom, bump, hum, rustle, smack, thud. They are very expressive and sometimes it’s difficult to tell a noun from an interjection. Sound-imitative words form a considerable part of interjections (bang! hush! Pooh!).
Semantically, according to the source of sound, onomatopoeic words fall into a few very definite groups. 1. Many verbs denote sounds produced by human beings in the process of communication or in expressing their feelings: babble, chatter, giggle, grunt, grumble, murmur, mutter, titter, whine, whisper. 2. Sounds produced by animals, birds, insects: cock-a-doodle-doo, buzz, cackle, croak, crow, hiss, honk, howl, moo, mew, neigh, purr, roar. 3. Some birds are named after the sound they make: crow, cuckoo, humming-bird, cricket, whip-poor-will. 4. Noise of metallic things: clink, tinkle, forceful motion clash, crash, whack, whip, whisk.
6. Sound interchange is an opposition in which words or word forms are differentiated due to an alteration in the phonemic composition of the root. (food – feed, speak – speech) The process is not active in the language at present, and oppositions survive in the vocabulary only as remnants of previous stages. Synchronically sound interchange should not be considered as a method of word – building, but rather as a basis for contrasting words belonging to the same word-family and different parts of speech or different lexico-grammatical groups.
7. Back-formation (reversion) is a term borrowed from diachronic (диахрония)linguistics. It denotes the derivation of new words by subtracting a real or supposed affix from existing words through misinterpretation of their structure. The process is based on analogy and has only diachronic relevance. The present-day speaker may not feel any difference in these relationships. The most productive type of back-formation in modern English is derivation of verbs from compounds that have either –er or –ing as their last element.