Section III morphological structure of the english word. Word-formation

The concept of the morpheme. The morpheme as the ultimate (smallest) unit of the language, a bilateral unit, an association of a particular meaning with a particular sound form.

Classification of morphemes: root morphemes and affixational morphemes (suffixes and prefixes). The difference between lexical morphemes and grammatical morphemes; affixational inflexional morphemes vs affixational derivational morphemes. The object of lexical morphology. The stem. Monomorphemic and polymorphemic words. Derived words.

The two aspects of lexical morphology. Item and arrangement: the ways of segmenting the existing words into morphemes. Item and process: the ways of making new words, the productivity of morphemes, their ability to form new words.

Principles of morphological analysis. The criteria of one-to-one correspondence between expression and content, the unity of the given form and the given meaning. The distinction between words segmentable "one way" and "both ways". Potential words. Lexical morphological categories.

Affixation

Affixation as one of the principal ways of word formation. Suffixation and prefixation.

Affixation in terms of "item and arrangement". Etymological classification of affixes: native affixes vs borrowed affixes. Hybrids. Classification of suffixes according to lexico-grammatical class of words they form. Noun-forming, adjective-forming, adverb-forming, verb-forming suffixes. Classification of suffixes and prefixes according to their meaning. The division of affixes into those characterised by neutral stylistic reference and those having a certain stylistic value.

Affixation in terms of "item and process”. The concept of productivity of word-building patterns. Productive vs non-productive affixes. Dead affixes. The suffixes -er, -ness, -ish, -able, -less, -y as the most productive ones in Modern English.

Conversion

Conversion (zero derivation, root formation) as a special type of derivation in which the word-forming means is the paradigm of the word itself. Semantic changes accompanying instances of conversion. The criteria which help to distinguish between the original word and the derived one (semantic structure of words, derivational capacity, frequency of occurence). Synchronic and diachronic aspects of conversion. Conversion as a derivational means and conversion as a type of word-building relations. Parts of speech affected by conversion. High productivity of conversion. Factors facilitating the process of conversion (analytical structure of Modern English, simplicity of paradigms of English parts of speech, a great number of monosyllabic words).

Composition

Composition as one of the oldest methods of word-building. Semantic aspect of compound words. Correlation between the meanings of the parts of the word and the meaning of the compound. Idiomatic vs non-idiomatic compounds. The structural aspect of compound words: morphological compounds (compounds with special connecting elements); neutral compounds (compounds without connecting elements); syntactic compounds (compounds which resemble word-combinations and sentences); derivational compounds. Unstable compounds. Lexicalization. String compounds. Criteria for distinguishing between a compound and a word-combination. Semi-affixes.

Minor types of word-building

Shortening (contraction). Making a new word from a syllable of the original word; making a new word from the initial letters of a word-group; combining parts of two words to form one word (blending).

Sound-Imitation (Onomatopoeia). Words made by imitating different kinds of sounds that may be produced by animals, birds, insects, human beings, inanimate objects.

Reduplication as the process of making a word by doubling a stem (without any phonetic changes or with the variation of the root vowel or consonant).

Back-formation as the process of making a new word by substracting what is mistakenly associated with a morpheme. Forming a word from a supposed derivative on the analogy of the existing pair.

Sound- and stress-interchange. Vowel interchange and consonant interchange.

Working Definitions of Principal Concepts

Morpheme	the smallest ultimate unit of the system of expression directly related to a corresponding unit of the system of content
Lexical morpheme	root and derivational morpheme, expressing lexical meanings in contrast to flectional morphemes that express grammatical meanings
Root morpheme	the semantic nucleus of a word with which no grammatical properties of the word are connected
Derivational morpheme	an affixal morpheme which when added to the stem modifies the lexical meaning of the root and forms a new word
Stem	the part of a word to which grammatical inflections and affixes are added
Word formation	the process of forming words by combining root and affixal morphemes
Affixation	forming a word by combining a stem and derivational affixes
Composition	forming a word by combining two or more stems
Compound derivative	a word which is formed by the process of derivation and composition
Conversion	a special type of derivation in which the word forming means is the paradigm of the word
Back formation	singling out of a stem from a word which is wrongly regarded as a derivative
Abbreviation	forming a word out of the initial elements of a word combination
Clipping	cutting off of a part of a word to one or two syllables
Blending	combining parts of two words to form one word
Onomatopoeia (sound imitation)	formation of words from sounds that resemble those associated with the object or action to be named (or that seem suggestive of its qualities)
Reduplication	forming a word by doubling the stem

Productive	able to form new words (at a certain historical period) which are understood by the speakers of a language
Productivity	the ability of being used to form new words
Potential word	a derivative or a compound word that does not exist, but which can be produced in accordance with the productive word forming patterns of the language

1. Read the following text and say what is meant by ‘one-way’ and ‘two-way’ segmentability of the word.

When we turn to the study of lexical morphemes we have to admit that quite a few questions remain open. One of the problems can be formulated as follows: how can we discover what parts does the word consist of? Obviously, one of the criteria is one-to-one correspondence between expression and content. Very often it is easy to establish the way the word is divided into parts on the basis of the unity of the given form and the given meaning. Thus, for instance, in cases like child-less, water-y, yellow-ish, etc., no special problem arises, because their inner form is transparent.

But if we turn to the great number of words already existing in the language, then, obviously, what we have to decide is whether in each particular case we are dealing with a monomorphemic or polymorphemic word. A case in point is English cranberry. Cranberry in the system of the English language is part of a long series of words each denoting a particular variety of berries. But in contrast with blueberry and blackberry, for example, which are readily divided into two morphemes, cranberry looks like a monomorphemic word, because cran- has got nothing to do with cran meaning “measure of fresh herrings” (37.5 gallons).

Quite a number of great linguists concerned themselves with this problem: the solution offered by A.I.Smirnitsky seems to be the most acceptable of all. A.I.Smirnitsky was sure that morphological analysis is assured if a sufficiently clear-cut lexical morpheme is powerful enough to induce meaningfulness in the rest of the word. It follows that cran- is a morpheme because –berry is.

In Russian the terms po odnomu r’adu or po dvum r’adam are used to distinguish between words which are segmentable either ‘one way’, or ‘both ways’. Thus, for example, the word beautiful is segmentable into beauty- and –ful, because, on the one hand, there are plenty of words with [b’u:ti] as the stem (or ‘root’ morpheme), and even a larger number of words ending in –ful, on the other.

Graphically the ‘both ways’ relationship may be represented as follows:

beautiful

beauty careful

beauteous wonderful

to beautify hopeful

beautician, etc. plentiful, etc.

The ‘one way’ relation was discussed above in connection with the –berry derivatives. Blueberry, blackberry are examples of ‘both ways’. Raspberry, gooseberry leave us with a vague impression of a meaningful first part, while in case of cranberry the relationship is obviously ‘one way’ and ‘meaningfulness’ for cran- is either not there at all, or is ‘induced’ by the morphological power of the second (or -berry) element [5].

2. Read the following and answer the questions: What are the two aims of word- formation? What is meant by lexical category? What lexical morphological categories are discussed in the passage?

It is necessary to make a distinction between the two aims of word-formation. On the one hand, productive models of language are used to coin neologisms, i.e. words which have been produced to denote new concepts or things resulting from the development of the social life of the speech community in question.

On the other hand absolutely productive suffixes are used to coin lexical units, which are formed by a writer or a speaker in order to produce different aesthetic effects. These formations are called potential words. Both neologisms and potential words serve as conclusive evidence to prove the existence of lexical-morphological categories.

The concept of lexical-morphological category was first put forward by A.I.Smirnitsky who came to the conclusion that pairs like ‘write-rewrite, read-reread, type-retype’, etc. display a regularity which is similar to the properties of grammatical categories. Oppositions of this kind are regularly reproduced in speech, the resulting complexes being entirely lexical in character. On the basis of regular oppositions of this type the notion of the lexical category of repeated action was formulated.

The complete definition of the lexical category as given by A.I.Smirnitsky is as follows: The lexical categories are those categories of the most general character which are realized in the semantic opposition according to a certain distinctive feature of two or more words on condition that the same opposition finds systematic expression. It is clear that the concept of lexical category has a direct bearing on the so-called ‘productivity’ of various word-building patterns.

Another lexical morphological category is that of quality. It is constituted by the opposition of the substantival and the adjectival representations of quality for example: black – blackness, dark – darkness, quiet – quietness, happy – happiness, etc. The lexical category of quality is freely realized in speech.

Different stems can be used to form new words with the help of “-ness”:

root-morphemes – sadness, brightness;

derived adjectives – heartlessness, childlikeness;

compound adjectives – school-girlishness;

forms of degrees of comparison – betterness, nearestness;

predicative adjectives – aloneness, awareness;

past participle – unexpectedness, unwashedness;

ing-forms – astonishingness, insultingness, etc.

The suffix “–er “is the basis of the lexical morphological category of action-agent. This category is constituted by the opposition of the form of the verb and the “-er”-form of the noun, for example: to do – doer, to read – reader, to manage – manager, to go – goer, to combine –combiner, to intrude – intruder.

The lexical morphological category of caritivity is constituted by the opposition of a noun and an adjective in “-less”. Caritive adjectives denote the absence of some quality, for example: friend – friendless, faith – faithless, rest – restless, tree – treeless, expression – expressionless, etc. [6].

3. Explain the principles of back-formation using the text below.

Back-formation is a fruitful source of new forms. Some of these are deliberate, though many were originally the result of ignorance; often it has happened that a word has been thought to be formed from a primary stem by the addition of a suffix when this has not been the case, and so a new ‘root-form’ has been unconsciously coined.

As an example of verbs formed from nouns we may note butcher, from French boucher; the –er has no connection with the English suffix –er to denote an agent, yet the word to butch appears in some dialects. In the standard language editor gives to edit, though –or is an integral part of the word, and not a mere suffix added to the verbal stem (Latin editor – one who gives out from edere – to give out); and similarly to audit, to hawk, to peddle, to swindle, developed from auditor, hawker, pedlar, and swindler.

This is a reversal of the usual process, for most names of agents are formed from a verb by the addition of a suffix, but in all these cases the noun is recorded earlier than the verb. Nouns are formed from adjectives by this process, as greed from greedy. This type of formation is found more frequently in colloquial speech, and has also been put to humorous use; G.K.Chesterton writes: “The wicked grocer groces”. Only a few of these are acceptable in standard English, yet they do show a tendency, and indeed there is much good sense in such formations, if an actor acts and a painter paints, why may not a buttler buttle, or a sculptor sculpt? [7]

4. Study the text below and provide lexicological explanation of it. What term is used to describe the ‘craziness’ of compounds listed in the paragraph?

It’s now time to face the fact that English is a crazy language. In English there is no butter in the buttermilk, no egg in eggplant, no grape in grapefruit, no bread in shortbread, neither worms nor wood in wormwood, neither mush nor room in mushroom, neither pine nor apple in pineapple, neither peas nor nuts in peanuts and no ham in hamburger. And we discover even more culinary madness in the revelations that a sweetmeat is a candy, while a sweetbread, which isn’t sweet, is meat. Tomboys are girls, silverware can be made of stainless steel, glasses of plastics and tablecloth of paper.

A writer is someone who writes, and a stinger is something that stings. But fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, hammers don’t ham and hum-dingers don’t humding. If we conceive a conception and receive at a reception, why don’t we grieve a greption and believe a beleption? If the horsehair mat is made of the hair of horses and a camel’s hairbrush from the hair of camels, from what animal is a mohair coat made? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If a fire fighter fights fire, what does a freedom fighter fight? If pro and con are opposites, is Congress the opposite of progress? [8]