Minor Ways of English Word Formation

 

Key words: substantivation, adjectivalization, adverbialization, sound-interchange, stress shift (stress interchange), shortening (abbreviation), graphical shortening, lexical shortening, initial shortening (acronymy), blending (telescoping), clipping, back-formation (back-derivation, reversion), the extension of proper names, classical myths, rhyming slang, composition of scientific names, sound-imitation (onomatopoeia, echoism), reduplication (ablaut and rime gemination), lexicalization, compression, analogical word formation, reinterpretation of sound and morphemic structure of words, word-manufacturing.

Look up these terms in the glossary or in the sources indicated in the bibliography to the glossary. Compare the definitions given in English and in Russian.

 

 

Problems for Discussion

 

1. Minor ways of word formation. The problem of differentiating between major and minor ways of word formation.

2. Peculiarities of minor ways of word formation active and non-active in present-day English.

3. Shortening as one of the most active and productive minor ways of word formation. Graphical and lexical shortenings. Shortenings of different structural types and the ways of their creation.

 

 

Questions and Tasks

 

1. Compare the following groups of shortenings: Dr, hdqrs, kg and doc, HQ, kilo. Try to explain why the first group is called graphical shortenings and the second group – lexical ones.

2. Divide the following shortenings into two groups (graphical shortenings and lexical shortenings) according to the way they are pronounced: Ap, or Apl, (April), apd (approved), apmt (appointment), BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), hr (hour), MP (Member of Parliament), Mr (Mister), PS (postscript). Give your own examples of graphical and lexical shortenings.

3. Explain in what way graphical and lexical shortenings can correlate. Try to give examples of the words which are the results of changing graphical shortenings into lexical ones.

4. Analyze changes in spelling and etc. of the following shortenings and try to explain their nature:

E mail → E-mail / e-mail → Email / email;

OK → okay, DJ → deejay, VJ → veejay;

A.M. (from Latin ‘ante meridiem’, do not have its own sound form) → AM / a.m. / am [ֽeı em], P.M. (from Latin ‘post meridiem’, do not have its own sound form) → PM / p.m. / pm [ֽpi: em].

Find analogous examples.

5. Compare the word formation techniques the following lexical shortenings are created by: clipping – copter (helicopter), blending – helipad (helicopter pad) and initial shortening – HAS (Helicopter Air Service). Give your own examples of shortenings belonging to different structural types.

If you consider blending not to be one of the structural types of shortening but an independent type of word formation give your reasons.

6. Analyze the following group of words created by clipping. Identify the type of clipping (initial, final, both initial and final, middle) they belong to: ad, burbs, celeb, champ, chimp, chute, comms, croc, deb, doc, dorm, exam, flu, fridge, gator, gym, hippo, hols, info, lab, limo, lino, loco, mag, maths, mic, phone, photo, pol, pro, reg, rep, rhino, roo, sax, specs, stats, teen, veg, zoo. Give your own examples of clipped (curtailed) words.

7. Comment on the structural, semantic and stylistic differences (if there are any) between the clipped words given above and their original words. Give examples of monosemantic and polisemantic clipped words.

8. Compare the word formation techniques the following blends (portmanteau words) are created by: Benelux (Be lgium + the Ne therlands + Lux embourg), Bollywood (Bo mbay + H ollywood), Eurasia (Eur ope + Asia). Give your own examples of blends belonging to different structural types.

9. Give original words of the following blends: biopic, brunch, Brangelina, docudrama, docusoap, herkey, medicare, motel, netiquette, netizen, showbiz, sitcom, smog, webcam, webliography. What are the main spheres of life we can come across such words? Are they long-lived?

10. Comment on the status of the part tele- in the following words: telecamera, telecast, telecommunications (telecoms), telefilm, telekinesis, telepathy, teletext, teletype and etc. and identify the way of word formation they are created by. Give analogous chains of words created with the help of the so-called ‘combining forms’.

11. Compare the word formation techniques the following initial shortenings are created by: UK (U nited K ingdom), nylon (N ew Y ork + Lon don), V-Day (V ictory Day). Give your own examples of initial shortenings belonging to different structural types. Comment on their similarity with and/or difference from their original word groups.

12. Divide the following initial shortenings into two groups according to the way they are pronounced (as a regular word existing in the language or as a series of letters): AIDS (Aids), AP, BASIC (Basic), BBC, bpi, bps, BST, DC, EFL, EU, FIFA, FA, GB, GDP, HQ, IQ, LAN, LSD, MEP, PC, R&B, UEFA, UFO (ufo), UNESCO (Unesco), WAN, Wasp (WASP). Give your own examples of different types of initial shortenings.

13. Compare the following initial shortenings and say whether the nature of their origin is the same: A level (a dvanced level), A-team ( 1. the best sports team in a school, club, etc. 2. a group of the best workers, soldiers, etc. ), A-frame ( a house with very steep sides that meet at the top in the shape of the letter A). Give analogous examples.

14. Analyze the following contexts and say whether shortenings and their original words/word groups are interchangeable:

a. Anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) are to be scrapped and young offenders aged 10–18 will be made to sign an “acceptable behaviour contract” for first offences such as vandalism (The Times).

b. Oil prices fell for the eighth day in a row yesterday, after the American Petroleum Institute recorded a huge jump in US stocks. <...>

The API said that US stocks for the week ending July 13 stood at 316 million barrels, more than 6 million barrels higher than expected and 24 million barrels higher than in the same period a year earlier (The Times).

c. “You are suffering from narcotic poisoning,” he said coldly. “You very nearly died. I had to give you digitalis three times. You fought, you screamed, you had to be restrained.” His words were coming so fast they were leap-frogging themselves. “If you leave my hospital in this condition, you will get into serious trouble.”

“Did you say you were a doctor – a medical doctor?”

“Certainly. I am Dr. Sonderborg, as I told you.”

“You don’t scream and fight from narcotic poisoning, doc. You just lie in a coma. Try again. And skim it. All I want is the cream. Who put me in your private funny house?” (R. Chandler).

d. “May the Lawd receive his soul, brother.” Down went the voice again. “ Cop?”

“Private – on a confidential lay. And I Know a man who can keep things confidential when I see one.”

“ Coppers,” she said slowly, as if talking to herself, “will never catch that boy. He’s good and he’s got dough and he’s got friends. You’re wasting your time, copper ” (R. Chandler).

Give your own examples in which shortenings and their original words/word groups are/are not interchangeable

15. Analyze the following group of initial shortenings and try to explain to what extent the problem of ambiguity is typical of shortening: AID, CAP, CAR, CAT, DISH, GUM, HARM, HELP, KISS, LAMP, MAN, MAP, MOUSE, NORM, PAGE, SEA, SON, SPECTRE, TALISMAN, WOMAN, YARD and etc. Find analogous examples.

16. Analyze the following context and comment on the role of the words in bold type in understanding the meaning of the shortening:

CNN reported that the central command area at the airport in Kandahar had been attacked. A CNN correspondent in the city said that the assault was “like an earthquake” (The Times).

What lexical-semantic group do they belong to? What are other lexical-semantic groups of words which help to understand the meaning of a word especially when it is ambiguous or vague?

17. Find shortenings in the following sentences and identify their type:

a. The air conditioner fan was activated too, Hanraham noted. Why would a person turn on the a-c fan, which sucked in cold air, and the bathroom fan, which sucked out air, and at the same time burn the boiler at seventy-nine degrees (L. Deighton).

b. Tucked into the back, she was to be seen in already yellowing sports pages torn from the sort of local newspaper that carries large adverts for beauty salons and nursing homes (L. Deighton).

c. Preston, realizing that he had made a very bad mistake, hastily tried to make amends (J. Higgins).

d. Looking over my shoulder, he said, “And who’s this well-dressed gent with false mustache and big red plastic nose? Can it be Werner Volkmann?” (L. Deighton).

e. The five-day inquiry will be the first of its kind broadcast in its entirety on the internet on Devon County Council’s website, www.devon.gov.uk. (The Times).

f. Swiss police and Interpol are cooperating in the investigation (D. Delamaide).

g. Halden scrutinized the one-page memo on his desk (D. Delamaide).

h. “Freeze the mitts on the bar.” The barman and I put our hands on the bar (R. Chandler).

i. He visited Belgrade in 1999 during the Nato bombardment and was said to be moved by the city’s plight (The Times).

j. He hoped that she would do okay – because if anything else happened then his chances of accomplishing the Russian’s defection would be restricted (J. Mann).

k. Julian Steiglets had brown curly hair which could have been the result of a perm (J. Mann).

l. From the Theatre Royal Drury Lane to the Palace, theatergoers were asked whether jeans and T-shirts are as acceptable in the stalls as formal evening wear (The Times).

m. “You can always make it look as if you’ve seriously considered the possibility of having a U-boat in the right place at the right time” (J. Higgins).

n. But no, he was a vet, not a doctor, and she was a woman, not a dog (R. Rendell).

18. Analyze the structure of the following words: baccy, choccy, ciggy, footy (footie), hanky (hankie), lippy, lolly, nightie, tattie, veggie. Identify the way of word formation they are created by. Give your own examples of mixed formations.

19. Analyze the structure of the following words and identify the ways of word formation they are created by: anti-radar, non-U, pro-EU, NATO-friendly, Internet-compatible, to radar, vCJD (variant CJD), to lase. Give your own examples of the so-called ‘abbrevemes’.

20. Analyze the word formation techniques the following words are created by: back-derivation (back-formation, reversion) – to beg ← a beggar, to burgle ← a burglar, to edit ← an editor, to typewrite ← a typewriter, compression – daddy-long-legs, man-of-war, lexicalization – arms ‘weapon’, works ‘factory’, reduplication – boogie-woogie, cha-cha-cha, sound-imitation (echoism, or onomatopoeia) – tick-tock, clap, clack, click, clunk and try to explain their nature. Give your own examples of the words which are the results of back-derivation, compression, lexicalization, reduplication and sound-imitation. Try to explain what accounts for the limited productivity of back-derivation and other minor ways of word formation.

21. Match the following terms with their definitions:

1) abbreviation

2) adjectivalization

3) adverbialization

4) back-derivation

5) compression

6) lexicalization

7) onomatopoeia

8) reduplication

9) sound-interchange

10) stress-interchange

11) substantivation

12) word-manufacturing

a) forming words sounding like the thing they represent, for example tick-tock for ‘the sound of a clock’ or containing sounds similar to the noise they describe, for example hiss;

b) forming a new word removing the end of a word that already exists;

c) forming holophrastic compound constructions by putting together a word combination or a sentence;

d) transformation of a grammatical form of a word into an individual lexeme with its own lexical meaning;

e) doubling a stem, either without any phonetic changes or with a variation of the root-vowel or consonant;

f) forming nouns from adjectives;

g) forming adjectives from nouns and participles;

h) forming adverbs from adjectives;

i) gradation of sounds occupying one and the same place in the sound-form of one and the same morpheme in various cases of its occurrence, as in song and to sing; may be regarded as a way of word formation;

j) shifting of stress, as in an ´increase and to in´crease; may be regarded as a way of word formation;

k) making a word, phrase or name shorter by leaving out letters or using only the first letter of each word;

l) invention of a complete new word.

22. Identify the ways of minor word formation the following words are created by: all-in-one, to automate, to baby-sit, bark, buzz, chit-chat, cock-a-doodle-doo, colours, cuckoo, customs, EU, goody-goody, goody-two-shoes, has-been, to house-keep, jazzercise, know-it-all, laser, magalog, to meditate, merry-go-round, miaow (meow), one-size-fits-all, pants, phone, photo, pictures, ping-pong, radar, ticky-tacky, tutty-frutty, up-to-the-minute, U-station, walkie-talkie. Find examples of analogous word formations in your native language.

23. Give examples of the words created by substantivation, adjectivalization, adverbialization, sound-interchange and stress-interchange (stress shift). Describe their place in the system of word formation.

24. Word formation vs. word-manufacturing. Give examples of the words which were invented.

 

Recommended Reading

Obligatory

Антрушина, Г.Б. Лексикология английского языка / Г.Б. Антрушина, О.В. Афанасьева, Н.Н. Морозова; на англ. яз. – 2-е изд., стер. – М.: Дрофа, 2000. – С. 115–120.

Арнольд, И.В. Лексикология современного английского языка / И.В. Арнольд; на англ. яз. – 3-е изд. – М.: Высш. шк., 1986. – C. 134–152.

Лексикология английского языка / Р.З. Гинзбург [и др.]; на англ. яз. – 2-е изд., испр. и доп. – М.: Высш. шк., 1979. – C. 187–191.

Лещёва, Л.М. Слова в английском языке: Курс лексикологии английского языка / Л.М. Лещёва; на англ. яз. – Минск: Академия управления при Президенте Республики Беларусь, 2001. – С. 89–94.

Харитончик, З.А. Лексикология английского языка / З.А. Харитончик. – Минск: Вышэйш. шк., 1992. – С. 188–191.

Bauer, L. English Word Formation / L. Bauer. – Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1983. – P 230–240.

 

Optional

Английская лексикология в выдержках и извлечениях / C.С. Хидекель [и др.]. – Л.: Просвещение. Ленингр. oтд-ние, 1969. – C. 132–145.

Елдышев, А.Н. Строение и мотивированность сокращенных слов (к проблеме взаимодействия формально-содержательных признаков в слове): автореф. дис. … канд. филол. наук: 10.02.04 / А.Н. Елдышев; Моск. гос. пед. ин-т иностр. яз. – М., 1985.

Кубрякова, Е.С. Типы языковых значений. Семантика производного слова / Е.С. Кубрякова. – М.: Наука, 1981. – С. 70–72.

Словообразование в английском языке: Хрестоматия по лексикологии английского языка / сост. З.А. Харитончик, И.В. Ключникова. – Минск: МГЛУ, 2005.

Смирницкий, А.И. Лексикология английского языка / А.И. Смирницкий. – М.: Изд-во лит. на иностр. яз., 1956. – С. 40–42.

 

 

Topic 5