16. Shortening. Onomatopoeia. Reduplication.

Shortening of words involves the shortening of both the words and word groups. Distinction should be made between shortening of a word in written speech (graphical abbreviation) and in the sphere intercourse (lexical abbreviation). Lexical abbreviation is the process of forming a word out of the initial elements (either letters or morphemes). That’s why words that are made up by lexical abbreviation are called initials (UK, USA). To this group also belong acronyms. This is a kind of initial which is read by a single word (UNO). Clipping consists in cutting off 2 or more syllables of a word. Words that have been shortened at the end are called apocope: e.g.: doc (doctor). Words that have been shortened at the beginning are called aphaeresis: e.g.: phone (telephone). Words that have been shortened from the middle are called – syncope: e.g.: specs (spectacles); maths (mathematics). There also can be a combination: e.g.: frige (refrigerator). Onomatopoeia. Sound imitation. The naming of an action or a thing by a more or less reproduction of a natural sound associated with it. e.g.: babble. Semantically according to the source words they fall into a few definite groups. Many verbs denote sounds produced by humans in the process of communication or expressing their feelings: e.g.: chatter, murmur, whisper. There are sounds produced by animals, birds and insects: e.g.: hiss, raw, howl, buzz etc. The words imitating the sounds of water: splash; metal: clink, tickle. In reduplication new words are made by doubling a stem either without any phonetic change like in ‘bye-bye’ or with a variant of the root-vowel or consonant: e.g.: ping-pong, walkie-talkie. Most words made by reduplication represent informal groups: colloquialisms and slang.

17. Back formation. Blending.

Back formation. The earliest examples of this type of word-building are the verb to beg that was made from the French borrowing beggar, to burgle from burglar, to cobble from cobbler. In all these cases the verb was made from the noun by subtracting what was mistakenly associated with the English suffix -er. In the case of the verbs to beg, to burgle, to cobble the process was reversed: instead of a noun made from a verb by affixation (as in painter from to paint), a verb was produced from a noun by subtraction. That is why this type of word-building received the name of back-formation or reversion. Blendings (fusions) are formations that combine 2 words that include the letters or sounds that they have as a connecting element. e.g.: slymnastics. Also there is one more name for this phenomenon which is ‘portmanteau words’ which is created by Lewis Carroll. The 2^nd constituent when used in a serious of similar blends may turn into a suffix, e.g. suffix ‘on’ – was formed from the final element of the word ‘cotton’. This process is very active in present day word form in the English language. e.g.: regonomics, workaholic. The process of formation is also called telescoping, because the words seem to slide into one another like sections of a telescope.