CONVERSION.

WORD COMPOSITION.
SHORTENING
AND MINOR WAYS OF WORD-FORMATION.

Lecture 7
 Plan

1. Conversion.
2. Compounds and free word-groups.
3. Classification of compounds.
4. Shortening. Types of shortening.
 1. Conversion

Conversion – a highly productive way of replenishing the English word-stock that refers to the numerous cases of
phonetic identity of two words belonging to different parts of speech.
work – to work, love – to love, paper – to paper, brief – to brief, wireless – to wireless
The para­digm plays significant role in the process of word-formation in general and not only in the case of conversion.
the noun cooker (cf. gas-cooker) is formed from the verb to cook not only by the addition of the suffix -er, but also by
the change in its paradigm

the paradigm is a morphological category → conversion – a mor­phological way of forming words.

Typical semantic relations between words related through conversion:

I. Verbs converted from nouns (denominal verbs) may de­note:

1) action characteristic of the object
ape n - ape v - 'imitate in a foolish way’;
butcher n - butcher v - 'kill ani­mals for food, cut up a killed animal'
2) instrumental use of the object
screw n - screw v - 'fasten with a screw’;
whip n - whip v - 'strike with a whip’
3) acquisition or addition of the object
fish n - fish v - 'catch or try to catch fish’;
coat n - 'covering of paint’ - coat - put a coat of paint on'
4) deprivation of the object
dust n - dust v - 'remove dust from something’;
skin n - skin v - 'strip off the skin from'
II. Nouns converted from verbs (deverbal substantives)may denote:
1) instance of the action
jump v - jump n - 'sudden spring from the ground’;
move v - move n - ‘a change of posi­tion'
2) agent of the action
help v - help n - 'a person who helps’;
switch v - 'make or break an electric circuit’ - switch n - 'a device for making or breaking an electric circuit'
3) place of the action
drive v - drive n - ‘a path or road along which one drives’;
walk v - walk n - ‘a place for walking'
4) object or result of the action
peel v - peel n - ‘the outer skin of fruit or potatoes taken off;
find v - find n - ‘something found, esp. something valuable or pleasant’
Substantivation of adjectives is conversion of adjectives into nouns.

Full substantivation is when the adjective becomes the noun and possesses all its
categories.
relative a – relative n, criminal a – criminal n.

Partial substantivation is when the adjective has only some features of the noun.
It may be used with the article the without any endings in the plural: old – the old, young
– the young.
 2. Compounds and free word-groups.

Word-composition is a highly productive type of word-building when new

words are produced by combining two or more smaller words.

The result of this process is compounds, i.e. words consisting of at least two
stems which occur in the language as free forms.
week-end, time-table, blackboard
Synchronically we concentrate our attention on such problems as
1) the principal features of compounds in Modern English which help to
distinguish, them from other structural types of words and from free
phrases;
2) the structure of compounds in Modern English, in particular, their
semantic structure;
3) different principles underlying different classifications of compounds.
Like all other structural types of words compound words are characterized by
nonseparability, i.e. structural and semantic nonseparability (the term of Smirnitsky),
which finds expression in the graphic, phonetic, morphological and semantic integrity.

1) the graphic indication of nonseparability is a solid or hyphenated spelling

railway, ice-cream, war-path
This criterion is not reliable, as the same unit may exist in solid and hyphenated
spelling, or with a break between the components
air-line, airline, air line; headmaster, head-master, head master; loudspeaker, loud-
speaker, loud speaker
2) the phonetic indication of nonseparability is the unity of stress.
Compound words have three stress patterns:
a) a high or unity stress on the first component
blackboard, honeymoon, ice-cream
b) a double stress, with a primary stress on the first component and secondary stress on the second component
blood-vessel, washing-machine
c) both ICs have level stress, e.g., compound adjectives are double stressed
gray-green, new-born, easy-going, icy-cold

'overwork – extra work; 'overwork – hard work injuring one’s health;

'mankind – men, contrasted with women; 'mankind – the human race;
'bookcase – a piece of furniture with shelves 'bookcase – a paper cover for books.
for books.  
3) the morphological indication of nonseparability is the specific order and
arrangement in which bases follow one another.
 The order in which the two elements are placed within a compound is
rigid1y fixed: it is the second element that makes the head-member of
the word, i.e. its structural and semantic centre, e.g., chess-board, notice-
board, sign-board.
 Then, the connective elements which ensure the integrity, leave no
doubt that a combination is a compound. These elements are few, they
are: -s- (craftsman), -o- (Anglo-Saxon), -i- (handiwork).
4) the semantic indication of nonseparability is the semantic integrity of the compound, i.e. a
compound word has a single semantic structure irrespective of the amount of components, and
expresses only one meaning.

When viewed from the semantic structure compound words fall into:
a) semantically transparent (fully or partially motivated) and
b) semantically non-transparent (lack motivation altogether, idiomatic).

The meaning of semantically transparent compounds is made up of the combined lexical

meaning of the bases and the structural meaning of the pattern
life-boat – a boat for saving lives from wrecks
boat-life – life on board the ship
a fruit-market – market where fruit is sold
market-fruit – fruit designed for selling
There are compounds that are
 completely motivated
sky-blue, foot-pump, tea-taster
 partially motivated
flower-bed – it’s not a piece of furniture
a castle-builder is not a builder, but a dreamer, one who builds castles in the air

There are compounds that lack motivation, it is impossible to deduce the meaning of a
compound from the lexical meaning of the bases and one meaning of the pattern.
eye-wash – smth said or done to deceive a person
fiddlesticks – nonsense, rubbish
a night-cap – a drink taken before going to bed at night
 3. Classification of compounds

Classification from the point of view of general relationship and degree of semantic independence of components, the
compound words fall into two classes:
a) coordinative (often termed copulative or additive),
b) subordinative (often termed determinative).
In c o o r d i n a t i v e compounds the two components are semantically equally important. Here we distinguish
a) reduplicative compounds which are made up by the repetition of the same base, e.g., bye-bye, fifty-fifty;
b) the compounds made by joining the phonically variated rhythmic twin forms, e.g., zig-zag, chit-chat, sing-song,
helter-skelter, a walkie-talkie;
c) additive compounds which are built on stems of the independently functioning words of the same part of speech,
e.g., a queen-bee, an actor-manager, a secretary-stenographer.
In s u b o r d i n a t i v e compounds the components are neither structurally nor semantically equal in importance
but are based on the domination of the head-member which is the second component. This second component
influence the part-of-speech meaning of the whole compound, e.g., stone-deaf, age-long (adj), a baby-sitter, a wrist-
watch (nouns).
According to the part of speech to which the compound belongs there are:

a) compound nouns within which we distinguish endocentric compound nouns (the

referent is named, by one of the elements, e.g., blackboard, bedroom, madman) and
exocentric (the combination of both elements names the referent), e.g., pickpocket a
thief, dare-devil "a murderer", turncoat "a renegade";
b) compound verbs among which we distinguish verbs formed by means of conversion
from the stems of compound nouns, e.g., to blackmail, to blacklist, to pinpoint, to
nickname, to honeymoon and verbs formed by back – formation from the stems of
compound nouns, e.g., to baby-sit (from baby-sitter), to stage-manage (stage-
manager), to house-keep (house-keeping), to play-act (play-acting), to playact (play-
acting).
c) compound adjectives, e.g., snow-white, light-blue, peace-loving, hard-working,
man-made, safety-tested, heart-broken, well-read.
According to the type of composition and the linking element the compounds may be classified into:
1) Words formed by merely one constituent after another in a definite order, which may be asyntactic (the order of
bases runs counter to the order in which the motivating words can be brought together under the rules of syntax of the
language. E.g., adjectives cannot be modified by preceding adjectives, but – red-hot, bluish-black, pale-blue; noun
modifiers are not placed before adjectives or participles, yet – oil-rich, rain-driven) and syntactic (the components are
placed in the order that resembles the order of words in free phrases, e.g., blue-bell, mad-doctor, blacklist, day-time).
2) Compound words whose components are joined together with a special linking element:
a) Indo-European link vowel "o" (gasometer, speedometer, electro-dynamic, video-phone, video-disc);
b) Latin link "i" (handicraft, tragicomic);
c) OE Genetive case "s" (spokesman, towns-man, statesman, sportsman, saleswoman, bridesmaid);
d) possessive case " s" (crow's feet – зморшки біля очей; cat's paw – легка рябінь на воді; dog's nose – джин з
пивом).
Compounds may also be classified according to the type of components that are
brought together to make a compound:

 Compounds proper are formed by joining together bases built on the stems or on
the word-forms of independently functioning words with or without the help of
special linking element.
door-step, age-long, babysitter, looking-glass, handiwork, sportsman
 Derivational compounds differ from compounds proper in the nature of bases and
their second component.
long-legged, three-cornered

The two components of the compounds are the suffix "-ed" meaning "having" and the
base built on a free word-group "long legs".
According to the correlation between compounds and free word-groups it is possible to classify compounds into
four major classes:
1. Adjectival – nominal compounds have one following patterns: compound adjectives of n + a pattern (snow-
white, age-long, care-free); compound adjectives of num + n pattern (two-day beard, a seven-day week);
derivational compound adjectives of (a/n + n) + ed pattern (long-legged, bell-shaped, doll-faced).
2. Verbal – nominal compounds have one derivational structure n + nV, i.e. a combination of a noun-base with a
deverbal suffixal noun-base (bottle-opener, stage-manager, peace-fighter, rocket-flying, office-management,
price-reduction).
3. Nominal compounds are nouns of highly productive derivational pattern n + n; both bases are simple stems
(horse-race, pencil-case, windmill).
4. Verba1 - adverbial compounds are derivational nouns built with the help of conversion according to the
pattern (v + adv) + conversion (a breakdown, a castaway, a runaway).
 4. Shortening. Types of shortening

Shortening is subtraction, in which part of the original word is taken away.

The types of shortening are: clipping, blending, abbreviation and acronyms.

Clipping is a type of word-building shortening of spoken words. Shortening

consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts, as a result of which the
new form acquires some linguistic value of its own. The part retained does
not change phonetically, hence the necessity of spelling changes
double :: dub, microphone :: mike, tranquilizer :: trank
The generally accepted classification of shortened words is based on the position of the
clipped part. According to whether it is the final, initial or middle part of the word that is
cut off we distinguish:
1) initial clipping (or aphesis , i.e. apheresis , from Greek "aphairesis" - a taking away)
cap (captain), phone (telephone), story (history), chute (parachute)
2) final clipping (or apocope , from Greek "apokoptein" - cut off)
cap (captain), gym (gymnasium, gymnastics), lab (laboratory), ed (editor)
3) medial clipping (or syncope , from Greek "syncope" a cutting up)
fancy (fantasy), ma'am (madam)
Final and initial clipping may be combined and result in the curtailed words with the
middle part of the prototype retained
flu (influenza), frig (refrigerator), tec (detective)
If we approach the shortened word from the point of view of the structure of the
prototype we distinguish two groups:
1) shortened words correlated with words
cabbie (cabman), nightie (nightdress), teeny (teenager)
2) shortened words correlated with phrase
finals (final examinations), perm (permanent wave), pop (popular music), pub (public
house), taxi (taximeter-cab)

 Unlike conversion, shortening produces new words in the same part of speech.
 The bulk of shortened words are nouns.
 Verbs are rarely shortened, e.g., rev (revolve), tab (tabulate)
 Clipped adjectives are also very few, e.g., comfy (comfortable), awk (awkward), impos
(impossible), mizzy (miserable).
Blending is a type of compounding by means of merging parts of words into new one word. The process of formation
is also called telescoping , because the words seem to slide into one another like sections of a telescope.
brunch (breakfast + lunch), smog (smoke + fog), smaze (smoke + haze), slimnastics (slim + gymnastics)
It seems practical to distinguish the following groups of blends:
1) 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);
2) coining a new word by combining one notional word arid the final element of another word, e.g., manglish (man +
English), radiotrician (radio + electrician);
3) combining the initial elements of one word with a notional word, e.g., mobus (motors + bus), legislady (legislative
lady).
 Such coinages are often formed with a playful or humorous intent and have a stylistic status.
 They can convey various shades of emotive colouring (irony or mockery), which makes them most active in
different types of slang: dopelomat (dope + diplomat), Yanigan (Yankee + hooligan), nixonomics (Nixon +
economics).
Abbreviation is a type of shortening when words are formed from the initial letters of each part of a
phrasal term.
 Abbreviations are pronounced as a series of letters, i.e. the alphabetical reading of the letters is
retained.
B.B.C. (The British Broadcasting Corporation), M.P. (Member of Parliament), P.M. (Prime Minister),
T.V. (Television), Y.C.L. (The Young Communist League)
 A specific type of abbreviations having no parallel in Ukrainian is represented by Latin
abbreviations, which are not read as Latin words but substituted by their English equivalents
a.m. (ante meridium) – in the morning; p.m. (post meridiem) – in the afternoon; i.e. (id est) – that is;
cp. (comparare) – compare; e.g., (exempli gratia) – for example
Acronyms (from Greek "acros" end + "onym" name) are abbreviated words formed from the initial
letters of word-combination; the abbreviated written form lends itself to be read as though, it were an
ordinary English word and sounds like an English word.
NATO /neitou/ - The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, UNO /ju:nou/ - United Nations Organization,
SALT /solt/ - Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, radar – radio detecting and ranging; laser – light
amplification stimulated emission radio; maser – microwave amplification stimulated emission radio.