Minor types of word-formation in modern English

Substantiation, adjectivalization, adverbialization. Sound-interchange and stress shift. Shortening. Clipping. Acronymy. Blending. Back-formation. The extension of proper names. Classical myths. Rhyming slang. Composition of scientific terms. _f Echoic words, or onomatopoeia. Reduplication. Lexicatization of grammatical forms. Compression. Analogical word-formation. Reinterpretation of sound and morphemic structure of words. Word manufacturing. Derived words as items of the English lexicon

Besides major types of word-formation (affixation, composition and conversion) in English there are some other types, which are non-patterned and less important for replenishment of vocabulary. In addition, many of them do not deal with derivational morphemes but random word segments. This group of various, unpredictable, word-fonnations is called minor types.

Peculiarities of such minor types of word-formation as substantiation, adjectivalization, adverbialization, as well as non-active nowadays sound-interchange

and stress shift were mentioned above when the problem of conversion was discussed. Here some of the other most productive minor types of word-formation will be discussed.

Some of them, like sound-interchange, stress shift and back-formation, were acting in the past and are more important for diachronic research of vocabulary. Some of them, like clipping, blending, and acronymy are very common in modern English.

!l. Shortening

One of the most active and productive minor types of word-formation is shortening — subtraction of the original word or word group.

The earliest shortenings in English are Mr. and Mrs., and according to The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary they go back to 1447 and 1582 respectively. They are just graphical shortenings, used only in written speech, not new words.

If words acquire specific sound form and meaning they may change into lexical shortenings, like prep for 'preparatory school' or fan for 'fanatic'. Cases of lexical shortening were also registered sometime in the 15^th century, though this process of forming new words has become really active only recently.

Lexical shortening may be of different types:

• a) Clipping

Creation of new words by shortening a word of two or more syllables or segments is called clipping. Clipping is mostly characteristic of noun derivation from nouns.

Clipping may be initial: bus (short for 'omniBUS', phone (short for 'telePHONE');yJna/: pop (short for 'POPular), exam (short for 'EXAMination'); both initial and final: flue (short for 'inFLUEnza', fridge (short for 'reFRIDGErator); middle: maths (short for MATHemntkS),pants (short for 'PANTaloonS').

Words derived by clipping are usually monosemantic (cf.: examination '1. the act or process of examining, 2. an exercise designed to examine progress or test qualification or knowledge, 3. a formal interrogation' and exam which is usually referred to oral examination) but sometimes they may stand for several words with the same segment and thus be polysemantic (cf.: natabbr '1. national, 2. native, natural').

Sometimes though not often clipped words may be used for creating a new word as in the case of stud-book 'an official record of the pedigree or purebred animals (like horses or dogs)'.

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