Non-Productive Ways of Word Building

There sexist non-productive ways of word-building in the English language. Among them we can find back formation, preduplication, onomatopoeia, sentence condensation, sound and stress interchange.

Back formation is a semi-productive type of word-building. It is often found in compound verbs. The basis if this type of word-building are words and word combinations that have verbal nouns, gerunds, participles as their second component.

e. g. rush-development, finger-printing, well-wisher

These compounds give a rise to such verbs as to rush-develop, to finger-print, to well-wish.

Onomatopoeia is the naming of an action or thing by a more or less exact reproduction of a natural sound associated with it.

e. g. to babble, to twitter, to crow

Semantically, accroding to the source of sound-imitating words, they fall out into next groups:

1) verbs denoting sounds produced by human beings in the process of communication or in expressing their feelings (to gruble, to murmur, to titter, to whisper);

2) sounds produced by animals, birds and insects (to buss, to cackle, to hiss, to moo, to roar, to howl);

3) verbs imitating sounds of water (to splash, to bubble);

4) verbs imitation the sounds of mettalic things (to clink, to tinkle);

5) words denoting and imitationg forceful notions (to clash, to whip, to crash).

23. Affixation. Classification of Affixes (Аффиксация. Классификация Аффиксов).

Affixation is the formation of new words with the help of derivational affixes. Suffixation if more productive than prefixation.

Affixes are usually divided into living and dead. Living affixes are easily separated from the stem.

e. g. careful

Dead affixes have become fully merged with the stem and can be singled out by diachronic analysis.

e. g. to admit (from Latin ad + mittere)

Considered in origin, suffixes are divided into:

a) suffixes of English origin (-er, -dom, -ship);

b) suffixes of Latin origin (-ain, -eer, -ee, -ance);

c) suffixes of Greek origin (-ic, -ist, -asm);

d) suffixes of French origin (-ism, -ize, -ise)

Considered in meaning, suffixes forming nouns may be classified into:

a) denotng agent or doer (-or, -er);

b) denoting political or scientific adhearance (-ist, -te);

c) denoting the object of an action the one, to whom the act is done or a right is given (-ee);

d) denoting nationality (-ian, -ish, -on, -ese);

e) forming abstract concepts (-tion, -sion, -ence).

Adjective-forming suffixes are divided according to what they denote:

a) capacity, fitness or worthiness (-able, -ible);

b) a certain degree of some quality (-ish);

c) the presence of quality (-ful, -ous);

d) the absence of quality (-less).

According to the parts of speech, suffixes can be divided into:

a) noun-forming (-ment, -ship, -hood, -er);

b) adjective-froming (-ful, -ivy, -ous);

c) verb-forming (-ate, -en, -fy, -ize);

d) adverb-forming (-ly, -wise);

e) numeral-forming (-teen, -ty, -th).

Prefixes modify the lexical meaning of the stem, but they rarely effect its lexico-grammatical component. Therefore, the simple word and the derived one belong to the same part of speech. For example, the prefix -mis when it is added to verbs doesnt change the part of speech, but the meaning of the verb.

e. g. to behave - to misbehave

Affixes are subdivided into productive and non-productive. We should not confuse the productivity of affixes with their frequency of occurrence.

There aren't many high-frequency affixes which are used in word-formation in Modern English. Some productive affixes:

a) noun-forming (-er, -ing, -ness, -ism, -ist);

b) adjective-forming (-y, -ish, -ed, -able, -less);

c) adverb-forming (ly);

d) verb-forming (-ize, -ise, -ate);

e) prefixes (un-, re-, dis-).

Non-productive affixes:

a) noun-forming (-hood, dom, -th);

b) adjective-froming (-ly, -some, -ous, -en);

c) verb-froming (-en).

24. Composition (состав).

Word-composition is a highly productive way of word-building, when new words are procued by combining two or more stems. The result of word-composition is a compound word, the two constituents of which are stems of notional words.

e. g. ice-cold, ill-luck

Derivational compound is a word formed by simultaneous process of composition and derivation. It is a word that consists of two constituents, only one of which is a compound stem, the other is a derivational affix.

e.g. blue-eyed

In the English language there exist coordinative compounds. Their components are structurally and semantically independent, and constitute two centers.

e. g. breath-taking, self-discipline

Composition is the way of word-building when a word is formed by joining

two or more stems to form one word. The structural unity of a compound word

depends upon:

a) A unity of stress. As a rule, English compounds have one uniting stress,

e.g. 'best-seller. We can also have a double stress in an English

compound: 'blood-‚vessel. The main stress may be on the second

component: ‚sky-'blue.

b) Solid or hyphenated spelling. Spelling in English compounds is not very

reliable because they can have different spelling even in the same text,

e.g. war-ship, blood-vessel can be spelt through a hyphen and also with a

break. Insofar, underfoot can be spelt solidly and with a break.

c) Semantic unity. It is often very strong. in such cases we have idiomatic

compounds where the meaning of the whole is not a sum of meanings of

its components, e.g. to ghostwrite, skinhead, brain-drain. In nonidiomatic compounds semantic unity is not strong, e.g. airbus,

astrodynamics.

d) Unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. They are used in a

sentence as one part of it and only one component changes

grammatically: These girls are chatter-boxes.

25. Specific Features of English Compounds (Особенности английского соединений).

There are two characteristic features of English compounds:

a) both components in an English compound can be used as words with a

distinctive meaning of their own, e.g. a 'green-house and a 'green 'house; b) English compounds have a two-stem pattern, with the exception of

compound words which have form-word stems in their structure, e.g.

middle-of-the-road, off-the-record.

English compounds can be formed not only by means of composition but

also by means of:

a) reduplication: too-too – sentimental;

b) partial conversion from word-groups: to micky-mouse, can-do;

c) back formation from compound nouns or word-groups: to fingerprint

(fingerprinting), to baby-sit (baby-sitter);

d) analogy: lie-in (on the analogy with sit-in);

e) contrast: brain-gain (in contrast to brain-drain)

26. Classification of Compounds (Классификация соединений).

1. According to the parts of speech compounds are subdivided into:

a) nouns: baby-moon;

b) adjectives: power-happy;

c) adverbs: headfirst;

d) prepositions: into, within;

e) numerals: fifty-five.

2. According to the way components are joined together compounds are

subdivided into:

a) neutral, which are formed by joining together two stems without any

joining morpheme: ball-point;

b) morphological where components are joined by a linking element:

astrospace, handicraft, sportsman;c) syntactical where components are joined by means of form-word stems,

e.g. do-or-die.

3.According to their structure compounds are subdivided into:

a) compound words proper which consist of two stems: to job-hunt, trainsick;

b) compound-affixed words, where besides the stems we have affixes: earminded, hydro-skimmer, astrophysical;

c) compound words consisting of three or more stems: cornflower-blue,

singer-songwriter;

d) compound-shortened words, e.g. V-day, Eurodollar, Camford.

4. According to the relations between the components compounds are

subdivided into:

a) subordinative compounds where one of the components is the semantic

centre and the structural centre and the second component is subordinate:

honey-sweet, gold-rich, love-sick, Tom-cat;

b) coordinative compounds where both components are semantically

independent. Here belong such compounds when one person (object) has

two functions. Such compounds are called additive: Anglo-Saxon,

woman-doctor. There are also tautological compounds. They are formed

by means of reduplication: no-no, fifty-fifty or with the help of rhythmic

stems: criss-cross, walkie-talkie.

5. According to the meaning of the whole compound we can point out

idiomatic and non-idiomatic compounds. Idiomatic compounds are very

different in meaning from the corresponding free phrase: a blackboard is

quite different from a black board. Non-idiomatic compounds are not

different in their meaning from corresponding free phrases: airmail,

speedometer.

27. Compound Nouns (Сложные существительные).

Within the class of compound nouns we distinguish endосentriс and exocentric compounds. In endocentric nouns the referent is named by one of the elements and given a further characteristic by the other. In exocentric nouns only the combination of both elements names the referent. A further subdivision takes into account the character of stems. The sunbeam type. A noun stem is determined by another noun stem. This is a most productive type, the number of examples being practically unlimited. The maidservant type also consists of noun stems but the relationship between the elements is different. Maidservant is an appositional compound. The second element is notionally dominant. The looking-glass type shows a combination of a derived verbal stem with a noun stem. The searchlight type consisting of a verbal stem and a noun stem is of a comparatively recent origin. The blackboard type has already been discussed. The first stem here very often is not an adjective but a Participle II: cutwork. Sometimes the semantic relationship of the first element to the second is different. For instance, a green-grocer is not a grocer who happens to be green but one who sells vegetables. There are several groups with a noun stem for the first element and various deverbal noun stems for the second: housekeeping, sunrise, time-server. In exocentric compounds the referent is not named. The type scarecrow denotes the agent (a person or a thing) who or which performs the action named by the combination of the stems. In the case of scarecrow, it is a person or a thing employed in scaring birds. The type consists of a verbal stem followed by a noun stem. The personal nouns of this type are as a rule imaginative and often contemptuous: cut-throat, daredevil ‘a reckless person’, ‘a murderer’, lickspittle ‘a toady’, ‘a flatterer’, pickpocket ‘a thief, turncoat ‘a renegade’. A very productive and numerous group are nouns derived from verbs with postpositives, or more rarely with adverbs. This type consists chiefly of impersonal deverbal nouns denoting some action or specific instance. Examples: blackout ‘a period of complete darkness’ (for example, when all the electric lights go out on the stage of the theatre, or when all lights in a city are covered as a precaution against air raids); also ‘a temporary loss of consciousness’; breakdown ‘a stoppage through accident’, ‘a nervous collapse’; hangover ‘an unpleasant after-effect’ (especially after drink); make-up, a polysemantic compound which may mean, for example, ‘the way anything is arranged’, ‘one’s mental qualities’, ‘cosmetics’; take-off, also polysemantic: ‘caricature’, ‘the beginning of a flight’, etc. Compare also: I could just imagine the brush-off he’d had (Wain). Some more examples: comedown, drawback, drop-out, feedback, frame-up, knockout, set-back, shake-up, splash-down, take-in, teach-in, etc. A special subgroup is formed by personal nouns with a somewhat derogatory connotation, as in go-between ‘an intermediary’, start-back ‘a deserter’. Sometimes these compounds are keenly ironical: die-hard ‘an irreconcilable conservative’, pin-up (such a girl as might have her photograph pinned up on the wall for admiration, also the photograph itself), pick-up ‘a chance acquaintance’, ‘a prostitute’. More seldom the pattern is used for names of objects, mostly disparaging. For instance: "Are these your books?” "Yes”. They were a very odd collection of throw-outs from my flat (Cooper). The group of bahuvrihi compound nouns is not very numerous. The term bahuvrihi is borrowed from the grammarians of ancient India. Its literal meaning is ‘much-riced’. It is used to designate possessive exocentric formations in which a person, animal or thing are metonymically named after some striking feature they possess, chiefly a striking feature in their appearance. This feature is in its turn expressed by the sum of the meanings of the compound’s immediate constituents. The formula of the bahuvrihi compound nouns is adjective stem +noun stem. The following extract will illustrate the way bahuvrihi compounds may be coined: I got discouraged with sitting all day in the backroom of a police station..... with six assorted women and a man with a wooden leg. At the end of a week, we all knew each other’s life histories, including that of the woodenleg’s uncle, who lived at Selsey and had to be careful of his diet (M. Dickens). Semantically the bahuvrihi are almost invariably characterised by a deprecative ironical emotional tone. Cf. bigwig ‘a person of importance’, black-shirt ‘an Italian fascist’ (also, by analogy, any fascist), fathead ‘a dull, stupid person’, greenhorn ‘an ignoramus’, highbrow ‘a person who claims to be superior in intellect and culture’, lazy-bones ‘a lazy person’.

28. Compound Adjectives (Соединение прилагательных).

Compound adjectives regularly correspond to free phrases. Thus, for example, the type threadbare consists of a noun stem and an adjective stem. The relation underlying this combination corresponds to the phrase ‘bare to the thread’. Examples are: airtight, bloodthirsty, carefree, heartfree, media-shy, noteworthy, pennywise, poundfoolish, seasick, etc. The type has a variant with a different semantic formula: snow-white means ‘as white as snow’, so the underlying sense relation in that case is emphatic comparison, e. g. dog-tired, dirt-cheap, stone-deaf. Examples are mostly connected with colours: blood-red, sky-blue, pitch-black; with dimensions and scale: knee-deep, breast-high, nationwide, life-long, world-wide. The red-hot type consists of two adjective stems, the first expressing the degree or the nuance of the second: white-hot, light-blue, reddish-brown. The same formula occurs in additive compounds of the bitter-sweet type correlated with free phrases of the type adjective1 and adjective2 {bitter and sweet) that are rather numerous in technical and scholarly vocabulary: social-economic, etc. The subgroup of Anglo-Saxon has been already discussed. The peace-loving type consisting of a noun stem and a participle stem, is very productive at present. Examples are: breath-taking, freedom-loving, soul-stirring. Temporal and local relations underlie such cases as sea-going, picture-going, summer-flowering. The type is now literary and sometimes lofty, whereas in the 20s it was very common in upper-class slang, e. g. sick-making ‘sickening’. A similar type with the pronoun stem self- as the first component (self-adjusting, self-propelling) is used in cultivated and technical speech only. The hard-working type structurally consists of an adjective stem and a participle stem. Other examples of the same type are: good-looking, sweet-smelling, far-reaching. It is not difficult to notice, however, that looking, smelling, reaching do not exist as separate adjectives. Neither is it quite clear whether the first element corresponds to an adjective or an adverb. They receive some definite character only in compounds. There is a considerable group of compounds characterised by the type word man-made, i.e. consisting of Participle II with a noun stem for a determinant. The semantic relations underlying this type are remarkable for their great variety: man-made ‘made by man’ (the relationship expressed is that of the agent and the action); home-made ‘made at home’ (the notion of place); safety-tested ‘tested for safety’ (purpose); moss-grown ‘covered with moss’ (instrumental notion); compare also the figurative compound heart-broken ‘having a broken heart’. Most of the compounds containing a Participle II stem for their second element have a passive meaning. The few exceptions are: well-read, well-spoken, well-behaved and the like.

29. Compound Verbs (Соединение глаголов).

It is not even clear whether verbal compositions exist in present-day English, though such verbs as outgrow, overflow, stand up, black-list, stage-manage and whitewash are often called compound verbs. There are even more complications to the problem than meet the eye. H. Marchand, whose work has been quoted so extensively in the present chapter, treats outgrow and overflow as unquestionable compounds, although he admits that the type is not productive and that locative particles are near to prefixes. "The Concise Oxford Dictionary", on the other hand, defines out- and over- as prefixes used both for verbs and nouns; this approach classes outgrow and overflow as derivatives, which seems convincing. The stand-up type was in turns regarded as a phrase, a compound and a derivative; its nature has been the subject of much discussion (see § 6.2.4). The verbs blackmail and stage-manage belong to two different groups because they show different correlations with the rest of the vocabulary. blackmail v = honeymoon v = nickname v blackmail n honeymoon n nickname n The verbs blackmail, honeymoon and nickname are, therefore, cases of conversion from endocentric nominal compounds. The type stage-manage may be referred to back-formation. The correlation is as follows: stage-manage v = proof-read v = housekeep v

stage-manager n proof-reader n housekeeper n The second element in the first group is a noun stem; in the second group it is always verbal. Some examples of the first group are the verbs safeguard, nickname, shipwreck, whitewash, tiptoe, outline, honeymoon, blackmail, hero-worship. All these exist in English for a long time. The 20th century created week-end, double-cross ‘betray’, stream-line, softpedal, spotlight. The type is especially productive in colloquial speech and slang, particularly in American English. The second group is less numerous than the first but highly productive in the 20th century. Among the earliest coinages are backbite (1300) and browbeat (1603), then later ill-treat, house-keep. The 20th century has coined hitch-hike (cf. hitch-hiker) ‘to travel from place to place by asking motorists for free rides’; proof-read (cf. proof-reader) ‘to read and correct printer’s proofs’; compare also mass-produce, taperecord and vacuum-clean. The most recent is hijack ‘make pilots change the course of aeroplanes by using violence’ which comes from the slang word hijacker explained in the Chambers’s Dictionary as ‘a highwayman or a robber and blackmailer of bootleggers’ (smugglers of liquor). The structural integrity of these combinations is supported by the order of constituents which is a contrast to the usual syntactic pattern where the verb stem would come first. Cf. to read proofs and to proofread. H. Marchand calls them pseudo-compounds, because they are created as verbs not by the process of composition but by conversion and back-formation. His classification may seem convincing, if the vocabulary is treated diachronically from the viewpoint of those processes that are at the back of its formation. It is quite true that the verb vacuum-clean was not coined by compounding and so is not a compound genetically (on the word-formation level). But if we are concerned with the present-day structure and follow consistently the definition of a compound given in the opening lines of this chapter, we see that it is a word containing two free stems. It functions in the sentence as a separate lexical unit. It seems logical to consider such words as compounds by right of their structural pattern.

30. Reduplication (Удвоение).

31. Conversion in Present-Day English (Преобразование в современном английском).

Conversion is a highly productive way of coining new words in Modern English. Sometimes it is named as and affixless way, a process of making a new word from existing root-word by changing the category of a part of speech without changing the morphemic shape of the original root-word. The transposition from one part of speech to another changes paradigms.

Conversion is not only a highly productive way of word-building, but also a particularly English way. It is explained by the analytical structure of Modern English and by the simplicity of paradigms of English parts of speech.

Conversion is a characteristic feature of the English word-building system. It

is also called affixless derivation or zero suffuxation. Conversion is the main way

of forming verbs in Modern English. Verbs can be formed from nouns of different

semantic groups and have different meanings because of that.:

a) verbs can have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns

denoting parts of a human body, tools, machines, instruments, weapons:

to eye, to hammer, to machine-gun, ti rifle;

b) verbs can denote an action characteristic of the living being: to crowd, to

wolf, to ape;

c) verbs can denote acquisition, addition, deprivation: to fish, to dust, to

paper;

d) verbs can denote an action performed at the place: to park, to bottle, to

corner.

Verbs can be converted from adjectives, in such cases they denote the

change of the state: to tame, to slim.

Verbs can be also converted from other parts of speech: to down (adverb), to

pooh-pooh (interjection).

Nouns can also be converted from verbs. Converted nouns can denote:

a) instant of an action: a jump, a move;

b) process or state: sleep, walk;

c) agent of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been

converted: a help, a flirt;

d) object or result of the action: a find, a burn;

e) place of the action: a drive, a stop.

Sometimes nouns are formed from adverbs: ups and downs.

32. Conversion in Different Parts of Speech (Преобразование в разных частях речи).

The factor that facilitates conversion is a great number of one-syllable words. Conversion is the main way of forming verbs in Modern English. Verbs can be formed from nouns and have different meanings:

1) instrumental, if they are formed from nouns denoting parts of human body (to eye, to shoulder), tools, machines, weapons (to hammer, to nail);

2) verbs can denote an action characteristic of the living being, that is denoted by the noun from which they have been converted from (to wolf, to crowd);

3) verbs can denote acquisition, addition or deprivation (to fish, to dust, to peel);

4) verbs can denote an action performed at a place denoted by the noun from which thay have been converted (to park, to bottle, to garage);

5) verbs can denote an action performed at the time denoted by the noun from which they have been converted (to weekend, to winter).

Verbs can also be converted from adjectives. In such cases they denote the change of state.

e. g. to clean, to slim

Фактор, который облегчает преобразование большого количества односложных слов. Преобразование является основным способом формирования глаголов в современном английском языке. Глаголы могут быть образованы от существительных и имеют разные значения:
1) инструментальную, если они образованы от существительных, обозначающих части человеческого тела (в глаза, к плечу), инструменты, машины, оружие (забить,гвоздь);
2) глаголы могут обозначать действие характеристика живого существа, которое обозначается существительным, из которых они были преобразованы из (в волка,в толпе);
3) глаголы могут обозначать приобретения того или лишения (к рыбе, к пыли,чистить);
4) глаголы могут обозначать действие, выполняемое на место обозначается существительным, из которых Тай были преобразованы (в парке, в бутылке, вгараже);
5) глаголы могут обозначать действие, совершаемое во время обозначаетсясуществительным, из которых они были преобразованы (в выходные дни, в зимнее время).
Глаголы также могут быть преобразованы из прилагательных. В таких случаях они обозначают изменение состояния.

е. г. чистить, чтобы похудеть

Nouns can also be formed by means of conversion from verbs. Converted nouns can denote:

1) instant of an action (a jumo, a move);

2) process or state (sleep, walk);

3) agent of the action (a help, a flirt, a scold);

4) object or result of the action (a find, a purchase);

5) place of the action (a stop, a drive).

Many nouns converted from verbs are used only in the singular forms. They denote instant actions. Such nouns are often used with verbs to have, to get, to take.

Существительные могут быть образованы путем преобразования из глаголов.Старинный существительные могут обозначать:
1) момент действия (JUMO, движение);
2) процесс или состояние (сон, прогулка);
3) субъект действия (помощь, флиртуют, ругаются);
4) объект или результат действия (поиск, покупка);
5) место действия (остановки диска).
Многие существительные от глаголов превращается используются только в особых формах. Они обозначают мгновенного действия. Такие имена часто используются с глаголами иметь, чтобы получить, взять.

33. Shortening. Types of Shortening (Сокращение. Виды Сокращений).

Shortening can be divided into abbreviation, blending and clipping. Distinction should be made between shortening of a word in written speech (graphical abbreviation) and in the sphere of oral speech (lexical abbreviation).

Graphical abbreviations are the result of shortening in written speech, while orraly the correspoindent full forms are used. They are used for the economy of space and effort in writing. The oldest abbreviations in English are of LAtin origin (i. e., e. g., a. m.). There are aslo graphical abbreviations of native origin. There are several semantic groups of them:

1) days of the week;

2) names of months;

3) names of counties in the UK;

4) names of states in the US;

5) names of addresses (Mr., Ms., Miss, Dr.);

6) military ranks (capt., sgt.);

7) scientific degrees (Ph. D., BA, DM, MB);

8) units of time, lenght, weight (in, ft, sec, mg).

The reading of some grammatical abbreviations can cause some difficulties which can be solved by the context. For example, letter m: made, married, meter, million, minute.

34. Blending (Смешивание).

Blendings may be defined as formation of new words when new words are combined, including the letters or sounds they have in common as a connected element.

e. g. slimnastics, minsy, nuetopia

This process is also called telescoping. Sometimes the analysis into constituence is helpful, as it permits to find the original paird of words.

We can find in the language that when the second constituent is used in a series of similar blends, it may turn into a suffix. This process seems to be very active in present-day English.

If we compare these three types of shortening, we will find out that abbreviation is a highly productive way of word-building.

35. Graphical Abbreviations. Acronyms. Clipping (Графические сокращения. Сокращения. Обрезание).

Initialisms are the boardering case between graphical and lexical abbreviations. When they appear in the languge, as a rule they denote some offices, they are closer to graphical abbreviations, because orally full forms are used (JV - joint venture). When they are used for some duration of time they acquire the shortened form of pronouncing and become closer to lexical abbreviations.

There are three types of initialisms:

1) initialisms with alphabetical reading (UK, USA);

2) initialisms which are read as if they're words (NATO, UNESCO);

3) initialisms which coincide with English words in their sound form. They are called acronyms (CLASS).

Clipping

Clipping consists of cutting of two or more syllables of a word. There are three types of clipping:

1) apocope;

2) syncope;

3) apheresis.

Words that have been shortened at the end are called apocope.

e. g. doc, vet, mit

Words that have been shortened at the beginning are called apheresis.

e. g. phone, copter

Words in which some syllables or sounds have been omitted from the middles of the word are called syncope.

e. g. ma'am, mart

Sometimes a combination of these types can be obsereved.

e. g. fridge, tec

36. Sound and Stress Interchange (Замена звука и ударения).

The essence of this was of word-formation is in the fact that new word is formed when the stress is shifted to a new syllable. It mostly occurs in nouns and verbs. Some phonetic changes may accompany the shift of the stress.

e. g. 'export - to ex'port, 'import - to im-port, to break - breach, long – length

37. Sentence Condensation (Сокращение предложения).

Sentence Condensation is the formation of new wrods when the whole locution changes into a noun.

38. Onomatopoeia (Sound Imitation) (Звукоподражание (Имитация звука)).

The great majority of motivated words in present-day language are motivated by reference to other words in the language, to the morphemes that go to compose them and to their arrangement. Therefore, even if one hears the noun wage-earner for the first time, one understands it, knowing the meaning of the words wage and earn and the structural pattern noun stem + verbal stem+ -er as in bread-winner, skyscraper, strike-breaker. Sound imitating or onomatopoeic words are on the contrary motivated with reference to extra-linguistic reality, they are echoes of natural sounds (e. g. lullaby, twang, whiz.) Sound imitation (onomatopoeia or echoism) is consequently the naming of an action or thing by a more or less exact reproduction of a sound associated with it. For instance words naming sounds and movement of water: babble, blob, bubble, flush, gurgle, gush, splash, etc. The term onomatopoeia is from Greek onoma ‘name, word’ and poiein ‘to make1 → ‘the making of words (in imitation of sounds)’. It would, however, be wrong to think that onomatopoeic words reflect the real sounds directly, irrespective of the laws of the language, because the same sounds are represented differently in different languages. Onomatopoeic words adopt the phonetic features of English and fall into the combinations peculiar to it. This becomes obvious when one compares onomatopoeic words crow and twitter and the words flow and glitter with which they are rhymed in the following poem: The cock is crowing, The stream is flowing. The small birds twitter, The lake does glitter, The green fields sleep in the sun (Wordsworth). The majority of onomatopoeic words serve to name sounds or movements. Most of them are verbs easily turned into nouns: bang, boom, bump, hum, rustle, smack, thud, etc. They are very expressive and sometimes it is difficult to tell a noun from an interjection. Consider the following: Thum — crash! "Six o'clock, Nurse,” — crash] as the door shut again. Whoever it was had given me the shock of my life (M. Dickens). Sound-imitative words form a considerable part of interjections. Сf. bang! hush! pooh! Semantically, according to the source of sound, onomatopoeic words fall into a few very definite groups. Many verbs denote sounds produced by human beings in the process of communication or in expressing their feelings: babble, chatter, giggle, grunt, grumble, murmur, mutter, titter, whine, whisper and many more. Then there are sounds produced by animals, birds and insects, e.g. buzz, cackle, croak, crow, hiss, honk, howl, moo, mew, neigh, purr, roar and others. Some birds are named after the sound they make, these are the crow, the cuckoo, the whippoor-will and a few others. Besides the verbs imitating the sound of water such as bubble or splash, there are others imitating the noise of metallic things: clink, tinkle, or forceful motion: clash, crash, whack, whip, whisk, etc. The combining possibilities of onomatopoeic words are limited by usage. Thus, a contented cat purrs, while a similarly sounding verb whirr is used about wings. A gun bangs and a bow twangs. R. Southey’s poem "How Does the Water Come Down at Lodore” is a classical example of the stylistic possibilities offered by onomatopoeia: the words in it sound an echo of what the poet sees and describes. Here it comes sparkling, And there it flies darkling... Eddying and whisking, Spouting and frisking,... And whizzing and hissing,... And rattling and battling,... And guggling and struggling,... And bubbling and troubling and doubling, And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing, And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping... And thumping and pumping and bumping and jumping, And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing... And at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar, And this way the water comes down at Lodore. Once being coined, onomatopoeic words lend themselves easily to further word-building and to semantic development. They readily develop figurative meanings. Croak, for instance, means ‘to make a deep harsh sound’. In its direct meaning the verb is used about frogs or ravens. Metaphorically it may be used about a hoarse human voice. A further transfer makes the verb synonymous to such expressions as ‘to protest dismally’, ‘to grumble dourly’, ‘to predict evil’.

39. Back-Formation (Обратное словообразование).

Back-formation (also called reversion) is a term borrowed from diachronic linguistics. It denotes the derivation of new words by subtracting a real or supposed affix from existing words through misinterpretation of their structure. The phenomenon was already introduced in § 6.4.3 when discussing compound verbs. The process is based on analogy. The words beggar, butler, cobbler, or typewriter look very much like agent nouns with the suffix -er/-or, such as actor or painter. Their last syllable is therefore taken for a suffix and subtracted from the word leaving what is understood as a verbal stem. In this way the verb butle ‘to act or serve as a butler’ is derived by subtraction of -er from a supposedly verbal stem in the noun butler. Butler (ME buteler, boteler from OFr bouteillier ‘bottle bearer’) has widened its meaning. Originally it meant ‘the man-servant having charge of the wine’. It means at present ‘the chief servant of a rich household who is in charge of other servants, receives guests and directs the serving of meals’. These examples are sufficient to show how structural changes taking place in back-formation became possible because of semantic changes that preceded them. In the above cases these changes were favoured by contextual environment. Back-formation may be also based on the analogy of inflectional forms as testified by the singular nouns pea and cherry. Pea (the plural of which is peas and also pease) is from ME pese The degree of substantivation may be different. Alongside with complete substantivation of the type already mentioned (the private, the private’s, the privates), there exists partial substantivation. In this last case a substantivised adjective or participle denotes a group or a class of people: the blind, the dead, the English, the poor, the rich, the accused, the condemned, the living, the unemployed, the wounded, the lower-paid. We call these words partially substantivised, because they undergo no morphological changes, i.e. do not acquire a new paradigm and are only used with the definite article and a collective meaning. Besides they keep some properties of adjectives. They can, for instance, be modified by adverbs. E.g.: Success is the necessary misfortune of human life, but it is only to the very unfortunate that it comes early (Trollope). It was the suspicious and realistic, I thought, who were most easy to reassure. It was the same in love: the extravagantly jealous sometimes needed only a single word to be transported into absolute trust (Snow). Besides the substantivised adjectives denoting human beings there is a considerable group of abstract nouns, as is well illustrated by such grammatical terms as: the Singular, the Plural, the Present, the Past, the Future, and also: the evil, the good, the impossible. For instance: "One should never struggle against the inevitable,” he said (Christie)/ It is thus evident that substantivation has been the object of much controversy. Some of those, who do not accept substantivation of adjectives as a variant of conversion, consider conversion as a process limited to the formation of verbs from nouns and nouns from verbs. But this point of view is far from being universally accepted.

40. Phraseology. Phraseological Units. Definitions (Фразеология. Фразеологические единицы. Определения).

Phraseological units are word-groups that cannot be made in the process of

speech, they exist in the language as ready-made units. They are compiled in

special dictionaries. Like words, phraseologocal units express a single notion and

are used in a sentence as one part of it. American and British lexicographers call

such units idioms. Phraseological units can be classified according to the ways they are formed,

according to the degree of motivation of their meaning, according to their structure

and according to their part-of-speech meaning.

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