12.Word-formation. The main types of word-formation in English.

Word-formation- or word building, is the process of making new words from the
material available of the word stock, according to the pattern specific form the language.
Various types of word-formation in Modern English possess different degrees of
productivity. Some of them are highly-productive (affixation, conversion, compounding,
shortening); others are semi-productive (back-formation, sound-imitation); and non
productive (sound interchange, change of stress)
Affixation is the formation of new words by means of suffixes and prefixes.
From the etymological point of view, affixes are classified into native(under,over,mis)
and borrowed(ex,ir,re).
Suffixes derive a certain part of speech, hence we distinguish noun-forming, adjective-
forming, verb-forming, adverb-forming.
Prefixes change the meaning of the root of the word, they do not change the category of
a part of speech. Suffixes changes both.
Compounding (composition)- it is making a new word by combining two or more roots.
The structural unity of a compound word depends upon: a) unity of stress; b) solid or
hyphonated spelling; c) semantic unity; d) unity of morphological and syntactic
functioning. These are characteristic features of compound words in all languages. For
English compounds some of these factors are not very reliable.
There are 3 structural types of compounds:
1. neutral compounds – their elements are placed one after another without any
linking elements;
2. morphological – the elements are joined together by a linking vowel or a
consonant;
3. syntactic compounds – are segments of speech, the result of combination of a
free word-group into one unit.
The structure of most compounds is transparent and clearly shows the origin of these
words from word-combinations. The compounds whose meanings do not correspond to
the separate meanings of their constituent parts are called idiomatic compounds, in
contrast to the non-idiomatic, whose meaning can be described as the sum of their
constituent parts.
Conversion- is making a new word from some existing word by changing the category
of a part of speech, without changing the morphological structure (wolk-to wolk).
Shortening. There exist 2 main types of shortening: contraction and abbreviation.
Contraction (clipping). Shortenings (or contracted words) are produced by making a new
word from a syllable or two of the original word. The latter may lose its beginning, its
ending or both the beginning and the ending.
Final shortening (від.кінц. част)examination-exam
Mixed clipping (відс.поч. і кін.залиш.середину) refrigerator-fridge
Middle clipping(відс.серед.) mathematics-maths,spectacles-specs.
Abbreviation (initial shortening) – making a new word from the initial letters of a word
group. They are read 1) according to the rules of orthoepy as though they were ordinary
words. As if they where ordinary words with a full stress(NATO,UNESCO)
2) letters get their full alphabetic pronunciation and a full stress. Every latter is
pronounced as is the alphabet.(KPNU,FBI,BBC)
Abbreviation does not change the part-of-speech meaning, it produces words belonging
to the same part of speech as the primary word.
Back-formation- is making a new word by clipping or other element resembling it from
other original word.e.g. to greed from greedy, tofingerprint from finger printings, to
house-keep from a housekeeper, to locomote from locomotive, to televise from
television, to vacuum-clean from vacuum-cleaner. In these cases the verb was made
from the noun by subtracting what was mistakenly associated with the English suffixes.
sound-interchange is the formation of a word due to an alteration in the phonetic
composition of its root. Sound-interchange can be two types: 1)vowel-interchange (or
ablaut): full to fill, blood to bleed, food – to feed.
2) consonant-interchange e.g. belief. The combination of consonant-interchange and
vowel-interchange may be found among English words either, e.g. life-to-life.
Sound imitation (onomatopoeia).-is the way word formation which is found by imitating
different sounds.
New words formed by this type of word- "building denote an action or a thing by more or
less exact reproduction of the sound which is associated with it: cock-a-dodoodle-do,
bang.
Semantically, according to the source sound, many onomatopoeic words are divided into
the following groups: 1) words denoting sounds produced by humans. beings in the
process of communication or expressing their feelings, eg chutter, boor, 2) words
denoting sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, eg, moo, buzz; 3) words imitating
the sounds of water, the noise of metallic things, movements, eg, splash, scratch, swing
Stress interchange. There is a large class of such words characterized by ambiguity in
stress placements. When a word can be stressed on two different syllables, stress
placement determines the part of speech of the word (e.g. whether it is a verb or a
noun). As a rule of thumb, if the stress is on the second syllable, the word is usually a
verb: accent, v-accent, n; addict, v-addict, n
This phenomenon is explained in the following way: French verbs and nouns had
different structure when they were borrowed into English, verhs had one syllable more
than the corresponding nouns. When these borrowings were assimilated in English the
stress in them was shifted to the previous syllable (the second from the end). Later on
the last unstressed syllable in verbs borrowed from French was dropped and after that
the stress in verbs was on the last syllable while in nouns it was on the first syllable. As a
result of it we have such pairs in English as: to af fix-affix, to conflict conflict, to export-
export, to extract extract etc.
Blending is a specific type of shortening, Blends are formed by means of merging parts
of words (not morphemes) into a new word. In other words, blending is compounding by
means of clipping. In blends two ways of word-building are combined: abbreviation and
composition. One of the first blends in English was the word smog (smoke +fog). As a
rule, many blends are short lived. In the language of advertising they are created for a
specific aim only: to attract the attention of the people with the help of interesting
linguistic discoveries; crocoraffe crocodile giraffe (the mystical symbol of the company
producing toys, clothes, etc. for children). Some of the blendings were so successful that
they have already become part of the language: motel motor hotel botel boat hotel, airtel
airport+ hotel. Because of its influence thousands of blendings appear every year,
especially in the language of advertising caromat cash + automat, popcert popular
concert, yarden yard garden. Most of them would disappear in the whirlpool of the same
blends, but some would survive and enlarge the vocabulary existing universally.
13.Affixation. Suffixes. Prefixes.
Affixation is the formation of new words by means of suffixes and prefixes.
A prefix-is a morpheme which precedes a root.
A suffixes-is a morpheme that follows a root.
From the etymological point of view, affixes are classified into native(under,over,mis)
and borrowed(ex,ir,re).
Suffixes derive a certain part of speech, hence we distinguish noun-forming ("-ness"
(e.g., happiness)"-ity" (e.g., creativity)"-tion" (e.g., exploration), adjective-forming ("-ful"
(e.g., beautiful)"-ous" (e.g., delicious)"-ish" (e.g., childish), verb-forming ( "-ify" (e.g.,
simplify)"-ize" (e.g., optimize)"-ate" (e.g., participate), adverb-forming ("-ly" (e.g.,
quickly)"-ward" (e.g., backward)"-wise" (e.g., otherwise).
Prefixes change the meaning of the root of the word, they do not change the category of
a part of speech. Suffixes change both.
14.Classification of affixes from the etymological point of view. Semantics of
affixes.
Etymologically, affixes can be classified into two main categories: native and borrowed.
Native affixes originate from the same language, evolving over time within that linguistic
system(e.g.: -er/-or: (e.g., teacher, doctor) - Used to denote a person or thing that
performs a particular action or is associated with a particular task.-ness: (e.g., kindness,
darkness) - Added to adjectives to form nouns indicating a quality or state.un-: (e.g.,
unhappy, undo) - Used to indicate the reversal or negation of the meaning of the base
word.-ly: (e.g., quickly, happily) - Forms adverbs from adjectives, indicating manner or
how something is done.-able/-ible: (e.g., readable, flexible) - Creates adjectives
indicating capability, possibility, or suitability.). Borrowed affixes, on the other hand, are
adopted from other languages and integrated into the host language ( the suffix "-
phobia" is borrowed from Greek, as seen in terms like "arachnophobia" or
"claustrophobia." Another example is the prefix "pseudo-," borrowed from Greek, as
seen in words like "pseudoscience" or "pseudonym.”). This classification helps trace the
historical development and influences on a language's morphology.
Prefixes change the meaning of the root of the word, they do not change the category of
a part of speech. Suffixes changes both.
Suffixes derive a certain part of speech, hence we distinguish noun-forming ("-ness"
(e.g., happiness)"-ity" (e.g., creativity)"-tion" (e.g., exploration), adjective-forming ("-ful"
(e.g., beautiful)"-ous" (e.g., delicious)"-ish" (e.g., childish), verb-forming ( "-ify" (e.g.,
simplify)"-ize" (e.g., optimize)"-ate" (e.g., participate), adverb-forming ("-ly" (e.g.,
quickly)"-ward" (e.g., backward)"-wise" (e.g., otherwise).Suffixes can also change the
grammatical category of a word, such as turning a noun into an adjective (e.g.,
"happiness" to "happy") or a verb into a noun (e.g., "play" to "player"). They can indicate
plurality (e.g., "cats") or possessiveness (e.g., "John's"). Suffixes can also add specific
meanings such as forming a diminutive (e.g., "-let" as in "booklet") or expressing a
specific verb tense or mood (e.g., "-ed" for past tense).
Prefixes can change the grammatical category of a word, such as turning a noun into a
verb (e.g., "unfriend" from "friend") or an adjective into an adverb (e.g., "unusually" from
"usual"). They can also indicate negation (e.g., "dislike" from "like") or express intensity
or extent (e.g., "supermarket" from "market").
15.Conversion as a type of word-formation. Parts of speech affected by
conversion.
Conversion- is making a new word from some existing word by changing the category
of a part of speech, without changing the morphological structure (wolk-to wolk).
Conversion is the word formation process in which a word of one grammatical form
becomes a word of another grammatical form without any changes to spelling or
pronunciation. For example, the noun email appeared in English before the verb; a
decade ago I would have sent you an email (noun) whereas now I can either send you
an email (noun) or simply email (verb) you.Conversion is a characteristic feature of the
English word-building system. The term "conversion" first appeared in the book by Henry
Sweet "New English Grammar in 1891. Conversion is sometimes referred to as an
affixless way of word-building or even affixless derivation. It consists in making a new
word from some existing word by changing the category of a part of speech, the
morphemic shape of the original word remaining unchanged. The new word has a
meaning which differs from that of the original one though it can more or less be easily
associated with it.Conversion may be regarded as a specific feature of the English
categories of parts of speech. It is not only highly productive but also a particularly
English way of word-building. The analytical structure of Modern English greatly
facilitates processes of making words of one category of parts of speech from words of
another. It is a convenient and "easy" way of enriching the vocabulary with new words.
The 2 categories of parts of speech especially affected by conversion are nouns and
verbs, eg verbs made from nouns: to hand, to back, to face, to monkey, to blackmail, to
can, to stage; nouns made from verbs: do (event, incident), go (energy), walk, worry,
show, run, drink, whistle,verbs made from adjectives: to pale, to yellow, to cool, to wet,
to dry, to slow. Other parts of speech are not entirely unsusceptible to conversion as the
following examples show: to down, to out, the ups and downs, the ins and outs
16.Composition (compounding). Structural types of compounds.
Compounding (composition)- it is making a new word by combining two or more roots.
The structural unity of a compound word depends upon: a) unity of stress; b) solid or
hyphenated spelling; c) semantic unity; d) unity of morphological and syntactic
functioning. These are characteristic features of compound words in all languages. For
English compounds some of these factors are not very reliable.
There are 3 structural types of compounds:
neutral compounds – their elements are placed one after another without any linking
elements;
morphological – the elements are joined together by a linking vowel or a consonant;
syntactic compounds – are segments of speech, the result of combination of a free
word-group into one unit.
The structure of most compounds is transparent and clearly shows the origin of these
words from word-combinations. The compounds whose meanings do not correspond to
the separate meanings of their constituent parts are called idiomatic compounds, in
contrast to the non-idiomatic, whose meaning can be described as the sum of their
constituent parts.
17.Shortening. Types of shortening. Stylistic characteristics of shortened words.
Back-formation.
Shortening. There exist 2 main types of shortening: contraction and abbreviation.
Contraction (clipping). Shortenings (or contracted words) are produced by making a new
word from a syllable or two of the original word. The latter may lose its beginning, its
ending or both the beginning and the ending.
Final shortening (від.кінц. част)examination-exam
Mixed clipping (відс.поч. і кін.залиш.середину) refrigerator-fridge
Middle clipping(відс.серед.) mathematics-maths,spectacles-specs.
Abbreviation (initial shortening) – making a new word from the initial letters of a word
group. They are read 1) according to the rules of orthography as though they were
ordinary words. As if they were ordinary words with a full stress(NATO,UNESCO)
2) letters get their full alphabetic pronunciation and a full stress. Every letter is
pronounced as is the alphabet.(KPNU,FBI,BBC)These stylistic characteristics contribute
to a conversational and relaxed tone, reflecting the speed and brevity often associated
with digital communication.
Abbreviation does not change the part-of-speech meaning, it produces words belonging
to the same part of speech as the primary word.
Back-formation- is making a new word by clipping or other element resembling it from
other original word.e.g. to greed from greedy, to fingerprint from finger printings, to
house-keep from a housekeeper, to locomote from locomotive, to televise from
television, to vacuum-clean from vacuum-cleaner. In these cases the verb was made
from the noun by subtracting what was mistakenly associated with the English suffixes.
18.Semasiology. Semantics. Lexical meaning.
Meaning can be more or less described as a component of the word through which a
concept is communicated. Thus a word is able to denote real objects, qualities, actions
and abstract notions. Lexical meaning reflects the concept expressed by the given
word.
Semasia-a Greek words instead of “meaning”.
Semasiology- is a branch of linguistics which studies the meaning of lexical
units(words).
The meaning of words is such a component through which a concept is communicated.
It is studied by semasiology which concentrates on elements, components,shades and
change of lexical meaning.
Semantics- is a branch of linguistics which studies the meaning of different languages
units.
19.Monosemy. Polysemy.
The main semantic structures of a word are monosemy and polysemy.
Monosemy-is type of a semantic structure when a word has only one
meaning.Monosemantic words are comparatively few in number. Monosemy refers to
words that have a single, clear meaning.Examples include "sun," "table," and "tree.”
Polysemy- the type of a semantic structure when one words has more than one
meanings.Most English words a polysemantic.(e.g.:Bank:Financial institution,Side of a
river,Bat:Nocturnal flying mammal,Sports equipment used in baseball,Book:Physical
object with pages,To reserve or schedule something,Mouse:Small rodent,Computer
input device.
20.Types of semantic components within a semantic structure of a word.
The structure of meanings in a poly semantics is a hierarchy. It is a system with
components of different semantic value.
The leading semantic component in the semantic structure of a word is usually termed
denotative (= referential) component. It expresses the conceptual content of a word.
Additional semantic components are termed connotations or connotative components.
E.g.:
Lonely, adj.Denotative components:Alone, without company,Connotative
components:Melancholy, sad (emotive connotation),To glance, v.Denotative
components:To look,Connotative components:To look briefly, passingly (connotation of
duration).
20.Reasons of developments of new meanings. Linguistic metaphor.
The process of development of a new meaning (or a change of meaning) is traditionally
termed transference. (The word may transfer from one referent onto another thus
acquiring a new meaning). One and the same word may be used to name two or more
objects if there is sumsimilarity between them.The type of transference based on
resemblance (similarity) is called linguistic metaphor. A new meaning appears as a
result of associating 2 objects (phenomena, qualities, shape, function, position, colour,
temperature, etc.) due to their outward similarity. E.g. box (a small separate enclosure
forming a part of a theatre) developed on the basis of its former meaning (a rectangular
container used for packing or storing things).