9. Back-Formation

Back-formation is the word formation process in which an actual or supposed derivational affix detaches from the base form of a word to create a new word. For example, the following list provides examples of some common back-formations in English:

Original – Back-formation

babysitter – babysit

donation – donate

gambler – gamble

hazy – haze

moonlighter – moonlight

obsessive – obsess

procession – process

resurrection – resurrect

sassy – sass

television – televise

Back-formation is often the result of an overgeneralization of derivation suffixes. For example, the noun back-formation entered the English lexicon first, but the assumption that the -(at)ion on the end of the word is the -ion derivational suffix results in the creation of the verb back-form. Back-formation, therefore, is the opposite of derivation

.10. Word definition.

(Arnold) The important point to remember about definitions is that they should indicate the most essential characteristic features of the notion expressed by the term under discussion, the features by which this notion is distinguished from other similar notions. For instance, in defining the word one must distinguish it from other linguistic units, such as the phoneme, the morpheme, or the word-group. In contrast with a definition, a description aims at enumerating all the essential features of a notion.

The word is the basic unit of the lg.: 1) It unites meaning and form, 2) composed of one or more morphemes, 3) each consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation.

Th. Hobbes (1588-1679) - (materialistic approach): Words are not mere sounds but names of matter.

P. Pavlov(second signal system): A universal signal that can substitute any other signal from the environment in evoking a response in a human organism.

Machine translation: A word is a sequence of graphemes which can occur btw. spaces, or the representation of such a sequence on morphemic level.

In linguistics the word is defined

1)Syntactically; Bloomfield, H.Sweet, S. Potter: “A minimum free form” (forms which occur as sentences). H. Sweet: “the minimum sentence”.

2)Phonological: Л.С. Бархударов: Последовательность морфем (в простейшем случае – одна морфема) внутри которой не может быть вставлена другая такая же последовательность морфем

3) Syntactic and semantic aspects:

E. Sapir: ‘A word is one of the smallest completely satisfying bits of isolated ‘meaning’ into which the sentence resolves itself. It cannot be cut into without a disturbance of meaning’…(the essence of indivisibility: a(living or dead) lion and alive). Each other and one another are word-units(not word-groups).

J. Lyons: two criteria: ‘positional mobility and uninterruptability’:

The- boy-s-walk-ed-slow-ly-up-the-hill

Slow-ly- the- boy-s- walk-ed- up-the-hill

‘One of the characteristics of the word is that it tends to be internally stable (in terms of the order of the component morphemes) but positionally mobile, (permutable with other words in the same sentence)

4)Semantic treatment:

Stephen Ullmann’s

«A connected discourse will fall into a certain number of meaningful segments which are ultimately composed of meaningful units. These meaningful units are called words».

Semantic, phonological and grammatical criteria: A. Meillet: The association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment.

The semantic-phonological approach: Gardiner: An articulate sound – symbol in its aspect of denoting smth which is spoken about

Antrushina, Afanasieva, Morosova: A speech unit used for the purposes of human communication, materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning, successible to grammatical employment and characterized by formal and semantic unity

Collins Cobuild - Is a single unit of language that can be represented in writing or speech

Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (OALD) – A sound/combination of sounds which expresses a meaning and forms an independent unit of grammar or vocabulary of a language

American Heritage Dictionary (1985):”a sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing or printing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or of a combination of morphemes”.

Collins English Dictionary “One of the units of speech or string that native speakers of a language usually regard as the smallest isolated meaningful element of the language, although linguists would analyze these further into morphemes”.

Chambers English Dictionary: “A unit of spoken language: a written sign representing such an utterance”.

I.V. Arnold:‘A word is the smallest significant unit of a given lg. capable of functioning alone and characterized by 1) positional mobility within a sentence; 2) morphological uninterruptability; 3) semantic integrity.

It is a dialectal unity of form and content.