Interraction of etymological and stylistic characteristics of words

The centre of gravity of borrowed words in the stylistic classification is represented by two groups: learned words and terminology. In these strata the foreign element dominates over the native; on the contrary, the informal strata, especially slang and dialect, abound in native words. If we compare the expressive and stylistic value of the French and the English words in such synonymic pairs as “to begin – to commence, to wish – to desire, happiness – felicity”, we can notice that the French word is usually more formal, more refined and has a less strong hold on the emotional side of life. The truth of this observation becomes more obvious in a pair of a native word and its Latin synonym: motherly – maternal, childish – infantile. “Motherly love” seems much warmer than “maternal feelings”, which sounds dutiful but cold. One may speak about “childish games” but “infantile diseases”, which sounds dry. But some pairs of words cannot be regarded as synonyms, though semantically they refer to the same word. If we analyse the pair “sunny – solar”, we’ll see that if a fine day can be described as “sunny”, it certainly can’t be characterized as “solar”, which is used in highly formal technological senses. The same is true about “handy – manual, toothy – dental, nosy – nasal).

Lecture 4

MEANS OF WORD – BUILDING.

If viewed structurally, words appear to be divisible into smaller units, which are called morphemes. Morphemes do not occur as free forms but only as constituents of words. Yet, they possess meanings of their own.

All morphemes are subdivided into 2 large classes:

roots affixes

prefixes suffixes

(precede the root) (follow the root)

ex.: re – read, ex.: teacher,

mispronounce curable

Words, which consist of a root and an affix (affixes) are called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the means of word – building known as affixation or derivation. Derived words are extremely numerous in the English vocabulary.

Successfully competing with this structural type are the so – called root words, which have only one morpheme in its structure. This type is widely presented by a great number of words belonging to the original English stock or to earlier borrowings (house, room, book, work, port, street) and in Modern English has been enlarged by the means of word – building called conversion (=derivation achieved by bringing a stem into a different paradigm: pale – to pale).

The 4^th wide – spread word structure is a compound word, consisting of two or more stems. Words of this structural type are produced by the word – building means called composition.

The somewhat odd – looking words like “flu, pram, lab, M.P., V – day, H – bomb” are called shortenings or contractions and are produced by the 5^th means of word – building known as shortening or contraction.

The 4 types (root words, derived words, compounds, shortenings) represent the main structural types of Modern English words, and conversion, derivation and composition are the most productive ways of word – building.

There are some borderline cases which present difficulties. Some elements of the English vocabulary occurring as independent nouns (man, berry, land) have been very frequent as second elements of words for a long time. They seem to have acquired valency similar to that of affixes. They are unstressed, and the vowel sound has been reduced. As these elements seem to come somewhere in between the stems and affixes, the term semi-affix has been offered to name them.

Such elements are considerably generalized semantically and approaches in meaning a mere suffix –er.

Words that are made up of elements derived from two or more different languages are called hybrids. English contains thousands of hybrid words, the vast majority of which show various combinations of morphemes coming from Latin, French and Greek and those of native origin.

Thus, readable has an English root and a suffix that is derived from the Latin abilis and borrowed through French. Moreover, it is not an isolated case, but rather an established pattern that could be represented as English stem + -able: answerable, eatable, likeable, usable. Its variant with the native negative prefix un- is also worthy of note: un- + English stem + -able. The examples for this are: unanswerable, unbearable, unsayable, unforeseeable, unbelievable. An even more frequent pattern is un- + Romantic stem + -able, which is also a hybrid: unallowable, uncontrollable, unmoveable, unquestionable, unreasonable and many others. A curious example is the word unmistakable, the ultimate constituents of which are: un-(Engl) + mis-(Engl) + -tak-(Scand) + -able (Fr). The very high valency of the suffix –able seems to be accounted for by the presence of the homographic adjective able with the same meaning.

AFFIXATION

The process of affixation consists in coining a new word by adding an affix or several affixes to a root morpheme. The role of the affix in this procedure is very important. Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation.

The main function of suffixes in Modern English is to form one part of speech from another, the secondary function is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. (e.g. «educate» is a verb, «educatee» is a noun, and «music» is a noun, «musicdom» is also a noun).

There are different classifications of suffixes:

1. Part-of-speech classification. Suffixes, which can form different parts of speech are:

a) noun-forming suffixes, such as: -er (criticizer), -dom (officialdom), -ism (ageism),

b) adjective-forming suffixes, such as: -able (breathable), less (symptomless), -ous (prestigious),

c) verb-forming suffixes, such as -ize (computerize), -ify (micrify),

d) adverb-forming suffixes, such as: -ly (singly), -ward (tableward),

e) numeral-forming suffixes, such as: -teen (sixteen), -ty (seventy).

2. Semantic classification. Suffixes changing the lexical meaning of the stem can be subdivided into groups, e.g. noun-forming suffixes can denote:

a) the agent of the action, e.g. -er (experimenter), -ist (taxist), -ent (student),

b) nationality, e.g. -ian (Russian), -ese (Japanese), -ish (English),

c) collectivity, e.g. -dom (moviedom), -ry (peasantry, -ship (readership), -ati ( literati),

d) diminutiveness, e.g. -ie (horsie), -let (booklet), -ling (gooseling), -ette (kitchenette),

e) quality, e.g. -ness (copelessness), -ity (answerability).

3. Lexico-grammatical character of the stem. Suffixes, which can be added to certain groups of stems are subdivided into:

a) suffixes added to verbal stems, such as : -er (commuter), -ing (suffering), - able (flyable), -ment (involvement), -ation (computerization),

b) suffixes added to noun stems, such as : -less (smogless), ful (roomful), -ism (adventurism), -ster (pollster), -nik (filmnik), -ish (childish),

c) suffixes added to adjective stems, such as : -en (weaken), -ly (pinkly), -ish (longish), -ness (clannishness).

4. Origin of suffixes. Here we can point out the following groups:

a) native (Germanic), such as -er,-ful, -less, -ly.

b) Romanic, such as: -tion, -ment, -able, -eer.

c) Greek, such as: -ist, -ism, -ize.

d) Russian, such as: -nik.

5. Productivity. Here we can point out the following groups:

a) productive, such as : -er, -ize, --ly, -ness.

b) semi-productive, such as : -eer, -ette, -ward.

c) non-productive, such as : -ard (drunkard), -th (length).

Suffixes can be polysemantic, such as: -er can form nouns with the following meanings: agent, doer of the action expressed by the stem (speaker), profession, occupation (teacher), a device, a tool (transmitter). While speaking about suffixes we should also mention compound suffixes which are added to the stem at the same time, such as -ably, -ibly, (terribly, reasonably), -ation (adaptation from adapt).

There are also disputable cases whether we have a suffix or a root morpheme in the structure of a word, in such cases we call such morphemes semi-suffixes, and words with such suffixes can be classified either as derived words or as compound words, e.g. -gate (Irangate), -burger (cheeseburger), -aholic (workaholic) etc.

Prefixation is the formation of words by means of adding a prefix to the stem. In English it is characteristic for forming verbs. Prefixes are more independent than suffixes. Prefixes can be classified according to the nature of words in which they are used: prefixes used in notional words and prefixes used in functional words. Prefixes used in notional words are proper prefixes which are bound morphemes, e.g. un- (unhappy). Prefixes used in functional words are semi-bound morphemes because they are met in the language as words, e.g. over- (overhead).

The main function of prefixes in English is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. But the recent research showed that about twenty-five prefixes in Modern English form one part of speech from another (bebutton, interfamily, postcollege etc).

Prefixes can be classified according to different principles:

1. Semantic classification:

a) prefixes of negative meaning, such as : in- (invaluable), non- (nonformals), un- (unfree) etc,

b) prefixes denoting repetition or reversal actions, such as: de- (decolonize), re- (revegetation), dis- (disconnect),

c) prefixes denoting time, space, degree relations, such as : inter- (interplanetary) , hyper- (hypertension), ex- (ex-student), pre- (pre-election), over- (overdrugging) etc.