1. Define the field of word-formation.

Does word-formation always treat

composites?

Thus word-formation is said to treat of composites which are analyzable both formally and
semantically.
2. Think of the possible points of intersection between morphology and word-
formation.
The distinction between the formation of new lexical units and inflection has long been regarded as
controversial. It is generally acknowledged now that while inflection produces all the word-forms of that
lexeme from the stem (or stems) of a given language, derivation results in the formation of what is
traditionally considered to be a different word.

3. What are the two main fundamental approaches to word-formation

research?
All types of word-formation may be studied in two aspects: word-creation as a historical process
and the relation of new words to other words in the language. The process of word formation is
extremely important for the study of lexicology because it is aimed at producing description of
one language vocabulary from the perspective of another at the present state of their development.
So it is very important to analyze those types of word-formation which characterize modern
lexical systems of languages.
4. What principles of classification of the types of word-formation are
recognized in modern lexicology?
I. Based upon the morphemic structure of the initial word or words. Proceeding from this principle
we may distinguish: A. Derivation − the type where the word has only one semantic centre,
other morphemes being affixes, e.g. brotherhood. B. Compounding − the type where the word
has at least two semantic centres, e.g. red-hot, navy-blue, walking-stick, newspaper, to
whitewash.
II. Based on the relationship of components to the new word. According to this principle we can
single out the following types:
A. Morphological word-building − creating new words using morphemes and changing the
structure of the existing words after certain linguistic patterns. This type of word- building
comprises: derivation – suffixation, prefixation and zero-derivation; compounding − joining of
two or more stems to form a new unit; shortening − abbreviation or curtailing of the word;
sound-interchange- the change of a unit in a morpheme resulting in a new lexical meaning (life −
live); back – formation (editor – to edit); reduplication (to murmur)
B. Morphological-syntactic word-building − new words appear through transference from one
part of speech into another which implies both a change in morphological and syntactic
peculiarities of a word, e.g. substativation of adjectives: the unemployed, the poor, молода
тополя i молода запрошувала гостей на весiлля; other types of conversion (to drink – a
drink).
C. Lexico-syntactic word-building i.e. the formation of new units through the process of
isolation from free word-combinations, e.g. forget- me-not, marry-go-round, stay-at-home,
happy-go-lucky, kill-me-quick (a hat), for-eyesonly (a film-star), pie-in-the-sky (promise),
добранiч, нiсенiтниця.
5. What types of word-formation are distinguished proceeding from the
semantic structure of word or words
A.Derivation - the type where the word has only one semantic centre, the other morphemes being affixes,
e.g. manhood. B. Compounding - the type where the word has at least two semantic centres,e.g. red-hot,
navy-blue walking-stick, newspaper, to whitewash.

6. What types of word-formation are distinguished proceeding from the the

relationship of word components to the new word?
A. Morphological word-building − creating new words using morphemes and changing the
structure of the existing words after certain linguistic patterns. This type of word- building
comprises: derivation – suffixation, prefixation and zero-derivation; compounding − joining of
two or more stems to form a new unit; shortening − abbreviation or curtailing of the word; sound-
interchange- the change of a unit in a morpheme resulting in a new lexical meaning (life − live);
back – formation (editor – to edit); reduplication (to murmur)
B. Morphological-syntactic word-building − new words appear through transference from one
part of speech into another which implies both a change in morphological and syntactic
peculiarities of a word, e.g. substativation of adjectives: the unemployed, the poor, молода тополя
i молода запрошувала гостей на весiлля; other types of conversion (to drink – a drink).
C. Lexico-syntactic word-building i.e. the formation of new units through the process of
isolation from free word-combinations, e.g. forget- me-not, marry-go-round, stay-at-home, happy-
go-lucky, kill-me-quick (a hat), for-eyesonly (a film-star), pie-in-the-sky (promise), добранiч,
нiсенiтниця.

7. Comment on the difference between morphological, morphological-

syntactic and lexico-syntactic word-building.
A. Morphological word-building − creating new words using morphemes and changing the
structure of the existing words after certain linguistic patterns. This type of word- building
comprises: derivation – suffixation, prefixation and zero-derivation; compounding − joining of
two or more stems to form a new unit; shortening − abbreviation or curtailing of the word; sound-
interchange- the change of a unit in a morpheme resulting in a new lexical meaning (life − live);
back – formation (editor – to edit); reduplication (to murmur)
B. Morphological-syntactic word-building − new words appear through transference from one part
of speech into another which implies both a change in morphological and syntactic peculiarities of
a word, e.g. substativation of adjectives: the unemployed, the poor, молода тополя i молода
запрошувала гостей на весiлля; other types of conversion (to drink – a drink).
C. Lexico-syntactic word-building i.e. the formation of new units through the process of isolation
from free word-combinations, e.g. forget- me-not, marry-go-round, stay-at-home, happy-go-lucky,
kill-me-quick (a hat), for-eyesonly (a film-star), pie-in-the-sky (promise), добранiч, нiсенiтниця.

8. Word-formation rules versus grammar rules: find similarities and

differences
Difference: A rule of word-formation is of limited productivity, in the sense that not all words which result
from the application of the rule are acceptable. They are freely acceptable only when they have gained an
institutional currency in the language. Thus there is a line to be drawn between “actual words” (sandstone,
unwise), and “potential words” (*lemonstone, *unexcellent) both of these being distinct from “non-English
words” like *selfishless, which, because it shows the suffix -less added to an adjective and not to a noun,
does not obey the rules of word-formation.
Similarity: both grammar and word-formation rules undergo change: affixes and compounding processes
can become productive or lose their productivity; can increase or decrease their range of meaning or
grammatical applicability.
 9. Explain the notion of nonce formation and give examples in English and
in Ukrainian.
 New formations, invented casually for a particular occasion (as in She needs guidance, and the
poor child is as guidanceless as she is parentless are normally comprehensible, but are used at
a certain cost to acceptibility.
Nonce is a term describing a linguistic form which a speaker consciously invents or
accidentally uses on a single occasion: a nonce word or a nonce formation (which may involve
units larger than the word). Many factors account for their use, e.g. a speaker cannot
remember a particular word, so coins an alternative approximation (as in linguistified, heard
from a student who felt he was getting nowhere with linguistics), or is constrained by
circumstances to produce a new form (as in newspaper headlines). Nonce formations have
occasionally come to be adopted by the community – in which case they cease by definition to
be ‘nonce’ (forms used ‘for the (n)once’), and become neologisms.
Examples: phubbing,  "an anti-everything-wrong organization", titilifarious (a blend of
'titillating' and 'hilarious'?) and plumtuous (a blend of 'plump' and 'sumptuous'?)
Смомбі (смартфон і зомбі, керуяцтво, лягівниця, набач, обритвити
10.Read the following poem from “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll:
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
11.  Comment on the notion of productivity in the field of word-formation
Productivity is a general term used in linguistics to refer to the creative capacity of language users
to produce and understand an indefinitely large number of utterances. The term is also used in a
more restricted sense with reference to the use made by a language of a specific feature or pattern.
Any description of word-formation should obviously be concerned with processes that are
productive at the present time. The fact that words have resulted from the past operation of word-
formation processes is in itself irrelevant from a synchronic point of view. Thus the word gospel
cannot be seen as a modern English word-formation, though formed in earlier English from the
words good and spell (in the obsolete sense “news”). Nor, as an English word, can karate be seen
as a ‘formation’, though in Japanese it is clearly a junction of cara ‘empty’ and te ‘hand’. On the
other hand, words like ice-cream, conceptualize, psychosomatic, workaholic, motel, bionic have
all been formed within English sufficiently recently as to be representative of currently productive
processes.
12. What types of word-formation are most productive in modern English
and in modern Ukrainian?  How can you comment on the growing
productivity of shortening and compounding in both languages?
about two-fifths of English new words is nowadays formed through affixation and about three fifths by
compounding. Oleksandr Taranenko (see an article indicated in Additional resources) who analyzed modern
tendencies in Ukrainian word-formation also attracts attention to the dominant role of derivation, in
particular affixation, in Ukrainian. In particular, he speaks about suffixal feminization as the most
productive phenomenon. He claims that processes of democratization of the lingual activity in modern
Ukraine brought to life word-formation processes of creating nouns to denote feminine gender through
derivation: банкірка, барменка, бізнесменка, піарниця, продюсерка, роботодавиця; бойовичка,
рекетирка; ваххабітка, ісламістка, шахідка and others.

13. Give the definition and indicate the main characteristic features of
compound.
A compound is a lexical unit consisting of more than one stem and functioning both
grammatically and semantically as a single word. In Ukrainian lexicological tradition
compounding is subdivided into: 1. Stem-combining with the help of interfixes о, е, є
(доброзичливий, працездатний, життєрадісний) or without them (триповерховий, всюдихiд);
 2. Word-combining or juxtaposition (Lat. juxta − near, positio − place) − combining several
words or word-forms in one complex word (хаталабораторiя, салон-перукарня). in English,
except for a relatively minor class of items (normally abbreviated), compounds usually comprise
two stems only, however internally complex each may be. Compounding can take place within
any of the word classes, but with very few exceptions, the resulting compound word in English is
a noun, a verb or an adjective. In Ukrainian this list includes nouns, adjectives and adverbs. The
structural cohesion and integrity of a compound may depend upon unity of stress, solid or
hyphenated spelling, semantic unity, unity of morphological and syntactic functioning or, more
often, upon the combined effect of several of these factors. The integrity of a compound is
manifested in its indivisibility, i.e. the impossibility of inserting another word or word-group
between its elements. e.g., a sunbeam – we can insert bright or unexpected between the article and
the noun: a bright sunbeam, a bright and unexpected sunbeam, but no such insertion is possible
between sun and beam.
14. What are the structural types of compounds?
Although both bases in a compound are in principle equally open, they are normally in a relation
whereby the first is modifying the second. In short, compounding can in general be viewed as
prefixation with open-class items. [A Comprehensive grammar, p. 1568] But this does not mean
that a compound can be formed by placing any lexical item in front of another. The relations
between items brought together in compounding must be such that it is reasonable and useful to
classify the second element in terms of the first. Such compounds are called endocentric. In
exocentric compounds there is no semantic center as in scarecrow (figure of a man in old clothes
set up to scare birds away from crops). Only the combination of both elements names the referent.

15. Can the meaning of a compound word be regarded as the sum of its
constituent meanings?
No, because The semantic integrity of a compound is very often idiomatic in its character, so that
the meaning of the whole is not a mere sum of its elements and the compound is often very
different in meaning from a corresponding syntactic group. e.g. a blackboard – a black board. In
some cases, the original motivation of the idiomatic compound cannot be easily re-created, e.g
blackmail -getting money or some other profit from a person by threats.
16. Why do you think the number of stems involved in compounding is
usually only two?

17.What types of compounds are most commonly encountered in English?

In Ukrainian?

.
I. SUBJECT + ACTION: вода спадає – водоспад. This type is represented by the following
ways of combining of structural components:
 noun (subject) + deverbal noun e.g. English: sunrise, rainfall, headache, bee-sting,
frostbite, daybreak, heartbeat, rainfall Ukrainian: небосхил, серцебиття, зорепад,
сонцестояння, снігопад This type is rather productive in both contrasted languages
.  deverbal noun + noun (subject) In English we refer to this type those compounds where
the first component is a verbal noun in -ing, e.g, flying machine, firing squad, investigating
committee and it is very productive. In Ukrainian examples are few: падолист (арх.),
трясогузка.
 verb + noun (subject) This type can be found only in English: watchdog, playboy.
II. OBJECT + ACTION: вказує дорогу – дороговказ
 noun (object) + deverbal noun
This is a moderately productive type in English but very common in Ukrainian, e.g.
English: birth-control, handshake. Ukrainian: душогуб, сінокіс, гречкосій, родовід. In
English we can single out a subtype noun (object) + verbal noun in -ing: book-keeping,
 town-planning. In Ukrainian compounds of that subtype correspond to compounds in -ння:
сироваріння, містобудування.
III. ACTION + ADVERBIAL: ходить пішки – пішохід. In English this type of noun
compounds has the following subtypes:  verbal noun in -ing + noun (adverbial
component which can be transformed into prepositional phrase), e.g. writing-desk (write at
a desk), hiding place (hide in a place), walking stick (walk with a stick).
18. What does the structural cohesion and integrity of a compound depend
upon?
The structural cohesion and integrity of a compound may depend upon unity of stress, solid or
hyphenated spelling, semantic unity, unity of morphological and syntactic functioning or,
more often, upon the combined effect of several of these factors. The integrity of a compound is
manifested in its indivisibility, i.e. the impossibility of inserting another word or word-group
between its elements. e.g., a sunbeam – we can insert bright or unexpected between the article and
the noun: a bright sunbeam, a bright and unexpected sunbeam, but no such insertion is possible
between sun and beam.
19.Explain the difference between endocentric and exocentric compounds.
endocentric -- The relations between items brought together in compounding must be such that it
is reasonable and useful to classify the second element in terms of the first.. In exocentric
compounds there is no semantic center as in scarecrow (figure of a man in old clothes set up to
scare birds away from crops). Only the combination of both elements names the referent.
20.Comment on the semantic integrity in bahuvrihi compounds.
The Sanskrit compound bahuvrihi exemplifies this type of compounding since its literal meaning
is ‘much rice’ and is used to denote something which is not connoted by the compound members,
that is, ‘having much rice, i.e. a rich man’. Given that the meaning of most bahuvrihis is ‘having
X’, these formations are also attested as possessive compounds in the relevant literature. Leonard
Bloomfield attracted attention to the fact that the large class of English compounds that is
exemplified by whitecap, longnose, swallow-tail, blue-coat, blue-stocking, red-head, shorthorn has
noun function and a noun as head member, and yet is to be classed as exocentric, because the
construction implies precisely that the object does not belong to the same species as the head
member: these compounds mean ‘object possessing such-and-such an object (second member) of
such-and-such a quality (first member)’ [Bloomfield 1933, p. 236]. We will accept the approach
that the term bahuvrihi.
21.How can semantic connections within compounds be treated in terms of
syntactic relations?
The analysis of the semantic relationship existing between the constituents of a compound
presents many difficulties. Some linguists are treating semantic connections within compounds in
terms of syntactic relations. For exfmple, such mode of presentation which (where possible) links
compounds to sentential or clausal paraphrases is adopted by A Comprehensive Grammar,
H.Marchand. As an example of this approach we may take the two compounds: daydreaming and
sightseeing which can be analyzed in terms of their sentential analogues: X dreams during the day,
i.e. verb + adverbial X sees sights, i.e. verb + object. V. Arnold calls such approach a “mistake”
because syntactic ties are ties between words, whereas in dealing with compounds one studies
relations within a word [Arnold, p. 61–62]. Although not all compounds are directly “derived”
from the clause-structure functions of the items concerned we still consider such treatment of
word-formation appropriate enough in the context of general description and concentrating
attention on the language’s productive capacity.
22.Get ready to discuss different types of shortenings. Think of examples in
both languages.
Shortening is the process and the result of forming a word out of the initial elements (letters,
morphemes) of a word combination
To make a new word from a syllable (or two) of the original words. The latter may lose it’s
beginning (telephone – phone, defence — fence), it’s ending (holidays – hols, advertisement- ad), or
both the beginning and the ending (influenza – flu, refrigerator — fridge)
To make a new word from the initial letters of a word group:
U.N.O – United Nation Organization, B.B.C. and et c.
Types of Shortening
clipping
acronyms
blending
abbreviation
Clipping
is a type of word-building shortening of spoken words
m e d i a l clipping (or s y n c o p e , from Greek "syncope" a cutting up), e.g., fancy (fantasy),
ma'am (madam) .
f i n a l clipping (or a p o c o p e , from Greek "apokoptein" - cut off), e.g., cap (captain), gym
(gymnasium, gymnastics) , lab (laboratory), ed (editor ) ;
i n i t i a l clipping (or a p h e s i s , i.e. a p h e r e s i s , from Greek "aphairesis" - a taking away ),
e.g., cap (captain), phone (telephone), story (history), chute (parachute ) ;
may be combined and result in the curtailed words with the middle part of the prototype
retained, e.g., flu (influenza), frig (refrigerator), tec (detective )
B l e n d i n g is a type of compounding by means of merging parts of words into new one word .
coining a new word from the initial elements of one word and the final elements of another, e.g. ,
drunch (drink + lunch), skort (skirt + short ) ;
combining the initial elements of one word with a notional word, e.g., mobus (motors + bus),
legislady (legislative lady) .
coining a new word by combining one notional word arid the final element of another word, e.g.,
manglish (man + English), radiotrician (radio + electrician );

1. He went by underground to Portland road station, whence he took a cab and drove to the Zoo. Neutral a)
simple neutral compounds:
Він поїхав на метро до автовокзалу Портленда, звідки взяв таксі і поїхав до зоопарку.
2. There’s scarcely a pub within ten miles of London that she does not seem to have looked in at. Blendings
Навряд чи є паб за десять миль від Лондона, куди вона, схоже, не заглядала
3. You are going to be MP, aren’t you? Shortenings abreviation
Ви збираєтеся бути депутатом, чи не так?
4. I couldn’t even afford to go to decent hairdresser to have my hair properly done. Neutral a) simple neutral
compounds.
Я навіть не могла дозволити собі сходити до пристойного перукаря, щоб зробити нормальну зачіску.
5. Her well-wishers were more worried about her than she was herself. Neutral b)derivational compound
Її доброзичливці переживали за неї більше, ніж вона сама
6. I don’t believe in Papa-knows-best-in-all-matters theory. Syntactic compounds. Я не вірю в теорію
всезнайки папи
7. He was electrocuted as far as I remember. Наскільки я пам’ятаю його вбило електричним струмом.
Simple neutral compound
8. Wishing you congrats and all the best from my wife and I. Yours faithfully, Mr. and Mrs. Harper. Clipping
1) words that are shortened at the end: apocope. Blendings – Mr, Mrs. Я і моя дружина шлемо вам
найкращі вітання. З повагою, містер та місіс Харпер.
9. I’ll leave you those mags? Blendings Я залишу тобі ці кухлі?
10. His service as a guard had earned him the right to be the VIP greeter that day. Abrevation
Служба охоронцем дала йому право бути VIP-гостем того дня.