46. Consider on semantic field and give examples.

Words may be classified according to the concepts underlying their meaning. This classification is closely connected with the theory of conceptual or semantic fields. By the term “semantic fields” we understand closely knit sectors of vocabulary each characterised by a common concept. For example, the words blue, red, yellow, black, etc. may be described as making up the semantic field of colours, the words mother, father, brother, cousin, etc. — as members of the semantic field

of kinship terms, the words joy, happiness, gaiety, enjoyment, etc. as belonging to the field of pleasurable emotions, and so on.

The members of the semantic fields are not synonyms but all of them are joined together by some common semantic component — the concept of colours or the concept of kinship, etc. This semantic component common to all the members of the field is sometimes described as the common denominator of meaning. All members of the field are semantically interdependent as each member helps to delimit and determine the meaning of its neighbours and is semantically delimited and determined by them. It follows that the word-meaning is to a great extent determined by the place it occupies in its semantic field.

47. Speak on the minor types of word-formation.

Blending

The term blending is used to designate the method of merging parts of words into one new word; the result is a blend, also known as a portmanteau word. Blends are words formed from a word-group or two synonyms. In blends two way of word-building are combined: abbreviation and composition. To form a blend we clip the end of the first component and the beginning of the second component. As a result we have a compound-shortened word. One of the first blends in English was the word “smog” from two synonyms smoke and fog which means smoke mixed with fog. Cinemadict from cinema addict, chunnel from canal and channel, dramedy from drama and comedy, faction from fact fiction-fiction based on real facts, informecial from information commercial, medicare from medical care, slanguist from slang linguist.

Back-formation

It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by dropping the final morpheme to form a new word (reversion). Instead of a noun made from a verb by affixation, a verb was produced from a noun by substraction. It is opposite to suffixation that is why it is called back-formation. At first it appeared in the language as a result of misunderstanding the structure of a borrowed word. F: to collocate from collocation, to compute from computer, to emote from emotion, to televise from television, painter from to paint, to baby sit from baby sitter.

Back-formation is derivation of new words by substracting a real or supposed affix from existing words through misinterpretation of their structure.

Reduplication

New words are made by doubling a stem either without any phonetic changes or with a varation of the root vowel or consonant as in ping-pong, chit-chat, bye-bye, stylistically speaking most words are made by reduplication represent informal groups colloquialisms and slang.

Reduplication is the morphological process by which a morpheme is repeated, thereby creating a new word with a different word class. There are two types of reduplication: partial which reduplicates only part of the morpheme and full in which the entire morpheme is reduplicated.

Sound-interchange

They may be defined as an opposition in which words or word forms are differentiated due to an alternation in the phonemic composition of the root. It means some sounds are changed to form a new word. It is non-productive in Modern English, it was productive in old English and can be met in other Indo-European languages. In many cases we have vowel and consonant interchange. In nouns we have voiceless consonants and in verbs we have corresponding voiced consonants because in old English these consonants in nouns were at the end of the word and in verbs in the intervocal position. F: life-to live, blood-to bleed, hot-to heat, to sing-song.

Sound imitation

Words are made by imitating different kinds of sounds that may be produced by animals, birds, insects, human beings and inanimated objects. It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by imitating different sounds. a) sounds produced by human beings, to whisper, to giggle, to mumble, to sneeze, to whistle; b) sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, to hiss, to buzz, to bark, to moo; c) sounds produced by nature and objects, to splash, to rustle, to clatter, to bubble, to tinkle.

Stress interchange

They can be mostly met in verbs and nouns of Romanic origin: nouns have the stress on the first syllable and verbs on the last syllable. F: ‘accent-to ac’cent, to con’flict –‘conflict, to ex’port- ‘export.