Ways of forming compound words.

Compound words in English can be formed not only by means of composition but also by means of:

a) reduplication, e.g. too-too, and also by means of reduplicatin combined with sound interchange, e.g. rope-ripe,

b) conversion from word-groups, e.g. to micky-mouse, can-do, makeup etc,

c) back formation from compound nouns or word-groups, e.g. to bloodtransfuse, to fingerprint etc,

d) analogy, e.g. lie-in (on the analogy with sit-in) and also phone-in, brawn-drain (on the analogy with brain-drain).

 

AFFIXATION

Is one of the most productive ways of word-building throughout the history of English. It consists in adding an affix to the stem of a definite part of speech. Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation. Affixes - words which have particles at the beginning or end of the words which modify the meaning of the root in some way. may be: derivational - suff., prefix.; functional - they convey grammatical meaning: -s /verbs of 3 person singul./, degrees of comparison /er, est/, tenses of verbs /ed, ing/. The newest formation of affixes from independed words are called semi - affixes: she is a postman (s.-a.: -man /postman/, -proof /waterproof, kissproof/, -tight, -wise, -monger /warmonger, gossipmonger/, -like /moonlike/. Classification of aff.: 1) highly - producted, 2) semi - producted, 3) productive, 4) unproductive, 5) dead.; Semi - preffixes: - fellow /fellowstudent/, - ill /ill-breed/, -mini, -maxi, -out /outcome/, -under /underline/. Synonyms: - nationalities: -ish, -ian /Ukrainian, russian, british/; -professions: -ist /botanist/, -er /driver/; - negative meaning: - un, -ill, -im, -ie, -dis, -mis, -in, -let /booklet, cloudlet/. Polysemy: -y /full of smth. bony, stony, bushy/.

Compounding (word-composition)

is one of the productive types of word formation in modern English. Compound words are inseparable vocabulary units. Structurally compound words are characterized by the specific order and arrangement in which bases follow one another. Compound words have three stress patterns: a) a high or unity stress, on the first component as in (honeymoon, doorway); b) a double stress, with a primary stress on the first component and a weaker, secondary stress on the second component (blood - essel,mad - doctor); c) it is not infrequent for compound words to have level stress (arm - chair). Graphically most compounds have two types of spelling - they are spelt either solidly or with a hyphen. It is true that hyphenated spelling by itself may be sometimes misleading, it may be used in word - groups to emphasize their phraseological character as in: (daughter - in - law, man - of - war) or in longer combinations of words to indicate the semantic unity of astring of words used attributively as:)we - are - in - the - know jargon). The two types of spelling typical of compounds are not rigidly observed. The spelling of these compounds varies from author to author and from dictionary to dict. (war - path, war - time - are spelt both with a hyphen and solidly. Compounds are not homogeneous in structure. Taditionally 3 types are distinguished: neutral, morphological, syntactic. In neutral compounds the process of compounding is realized without any linking elements, as in (blackbird, shop - window, bedroom). Compounds which have affixes in their structure are called derived or derivational compounds (blue - eyed, music - lover, newcomer). Contracted compounds have a shortened stem in their structure: TV - set, V - day (victory day), T - shirt. Morphological compounds are few in number. This type is non - productive. Here two compounding stems are combined by a linking vowel or consonant: Anglo - Saxon, handiwork. In syntactic compounds words are formed from segments of speech: articles, prepositions, adverbs,as in the nouns: lily - of - the - valley, mother - in - law.

 

Conversion

is one of the most productive ways of modern English word - building. C. 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: (yellow leaves and the leaves were turning yellow (adj. denote colour), but - in the leaves yellowed - the converted unit no longer denotes colour. Conversion is an easily way of enriching the vocabulary with new words. The two categories of parts of speech especially affected by conversion are nouns and verbs: face - to face, to hand; He has still plenty of go at his age (go - energy). Verbs can also be made from adj.: to pale, to yellow, to cool. Verbs made from nouns: - v. denote an action performed by the tool: to hammer, to nail, to comb, to pencil, to brush; - noun is the name of an animal: to dog, to monkey, to fox. to rat; - name of a part of the human body: to hand, to eye, to leg: - name of profession, occupation: to nurse, to cook, to maid: - name of a meal: to lunch, to supper.

 

Cockney

Dialect or accent used among natives of London, esp. of the East End. There are two kinds of ordinary cockney: 1) the variety of Modified Standart speech which is the typical Cockney English of London, as spoken by educated Middle - Class people; 2) the variety of Modified Standart which is also heard in London but which is spoken by the semi - literate and the quite illiterate. The expression “cockney” was a name applied by country people to those who dwelt in cities. In the 17^th century the word “cockney” was applied to the inhabitants of London. Cockney English as it was spoken at one time is seldom heard now, except in a certain very limited area of the East End of London. Peculiarities: In pronunciation the cockney is very partial to the following vulgarisms. He consistently drops his h’s, that is he doesn’t sound the h where it ought to be heard and puts in an h where there is none (ham and eggs - ‘am an’ heggs). The dropping of the g is a frequent vulgarism even among people who are higher up in the social scale: mornin’, goin’. The sound d and t are also frequently dropped as in: an’ (and), I don’ know (don’t). Vowel sound of long i (mine) given to the stressed long a, the sound of oi in cases which require a long i sound and that of ow (how) instead of a long o.: toim - time, plice - place, sow - so, rowd - road. The differences between the two varieties of English are immediately noticeable in the field of phonetic. All lexical units may be subdivided into general English, Americaniams, Briticisms. the bulk of the vocabulary belongs to general English. In the pair: post - mail the first word is more frequent in Britain, the second - in America. Americanisms - mailbox, supermarket. There may be Lowland (Scottish or Scots, North of the river Tweed), Northern (between the rivers Tweed and Humber), Western, Midland, Eastern, Southern (South of the Thames).

 

Phraseology.

Phraseology is known in the narrow sense as a branch of Linguistics. In the lexicological aspect Phraseology studies the meaning of set expressions and idioms. As a linguistic science Phraseology investigates semantic patterns possessing different degrees of structural and semantic integrity. Turning of Phraseology from a part of Lexicology into a full-fledged branch of Linguistics was grounded by the works of academician V.V. Vinogradov. In the English and American Linguistics Phraseology doesn't exist as a branch of study. Idioms are considered there the subject of study of stylistics, folklore and lexicography. Absebce of profound phraseological researches in Great Britain and the USA is probably motivated by thelow frequency of idioms in the speech of native speakers. Traditionally, for English-speaking educated people idioms signal stereotyped thinking & inability to express one's thoughts spontaneously. A Phraseological Unit & its definition. The combinations of words maybe divided into free and set phraseology studies, set combinations of words.   Free word-combinations comprise two or more notional words combined in accordance with grammar rules. Each component preserves its individual lexical and grammatical meanings, stylistic colouring and syntactical function: to break a match (2 matches): to change a plan (a programme); Set expressions are word combinations characterized by structural, semantic, functional, stylistic integrity, i.e. neither the forms nor the order of the components may be changed, no words can be inserted into PhUs, the meaning of the whole structure is not the sum of the meaning of PhU components, the components are united by one syntactic function and stylistic colouring.

Comparison

Free combinations:  - have insertions to take a book, to receive the books; - each component preserves an independent meaning: to take, to grasp, to snatch a book; - each component has its own stylistic colouring: to help - neutral style; daddy - colloquial. - free word combinations are formed in speech when a necessity arises

Set expressions: - stable grammatical structures: to rain cats and dogs, to snow black a cat or hounds; - the meaning of the components put together isn't adequate to the meaning of the whole PhU: to rain cats & dogs; - one logically possible component: profound, thorough, considerable deep gratitude: - the PhU has one stylistic colouring - colloquial: to kick the bucket - colloquial style: - we don't create but use PhU by tradition the usage of a PhU is programmed for effect.