Lexicology (Fundamentals)

Plan

1. Lexicology as a branch of linguistics.

2.Word as the basic lexical unit of language.

Literature:

1. Антрушина Г.Б., Афанасьева О.В., Морозова Н.Н. Лексикология английского языка: Учеб. пособие для студентов. – М.: Дрофа, 1999. – 288 с.

2. Арнольд И.В. Лексикология современного английского языка: Учеб. для ин-тов и фак. иностр. яз. – М.: ВШ, 1986. – 295 с.

3. Гвишиани Н.Б. Современный английский язык: Лексикология (новый курс для филологических факультетов университетов). – М.: МГУ, 2000. – 221 с.

4. Дубенец Э.М. Современный английский язык. Лексикология: Пособие для студентов гуманитарных вузов. – М. / СПб.: ГЛОССА / КАРО, 2004. – 192 с.

1. Lexicology as a branch of linguistics.

The term ‘lexicology’ is of Greek origin, from lexis – word and logos – science. Lexicology is the part of linguistics which deals with the vocabulary and characteristic features of words. Its basic task is a systematic description of the vocabulary of some particular language in respect to its origin, development and current use.

Lexicology presents a wide area of knowledge and includes the following branches: a) historical lexicology or etymology. Historical lexicology or etymology studies the development of the vocabulary, the origin of words and word-groups, their semantic relations and the development of their sound forms and meaning.

b) descriptive lexicology. Descriptive lexicology studies the vocabulary at a definite stage of its development.

c) semantic or semasiology. Semantic or semasiology specialises in the studies of the meaning of words.

d) comparative or contrastive lexicology. Comparative or contrastive lexicology establishes facts of similarities and differences between languages.

e) applied lexicology. Applied lexicology covers terminology, lexicography, translation, linguodidactics.

It is also possible to speak about general lexicology and special lexicology. General lexicology studies words irrespective of the specific features of any particular language. Special lexicology devotes its attention to the description of the characteristic peculiarities in the vocabulary of a given language. So, lexicology of the English language is special lexicology. Every special lexicology is based on the principles of general lexicology. General lexicology is at the very beginning of its formation yet.

Lexicology connects with phonetics, stylistics and grammar. The ties between lexicology and phonetics are based on the assumption that a word is a combination of a group of sounds with a meaning. So, window is one word and widow is another. Discrimination between words may be based upon stress: import is a noun and import ia a verb.

Meaning is necessary to phonemic analysis. To establish the phonemic difference between [ou] and [o] it is sufficient to know that hope means something different from hop.

Many problems treated in lexicology are studied in stylistics but from a different angle. These are problems of meaning, connotations, synonymy, functional differentiation of vocabulary.

Lexicology is connected with grammar. Each word belongs to some part of speech and have lexico-grammatical characteristics of this part of speech. Words seldom occur in isolation. They are arranged in some patterns. So, alongside with their lexical meaning they possess grammatical meaning. For exemple: I am going is different from I am going to do. Verbs when used with human nouns and with object nouns may change their meanings. For exemple: The girls gave him a strange smile and The new teeth gave him a strange smile. The ties between lexicology and grammar are very strong in the field of word-formation. Many linguists consider word-formation a part of grammar not lexicology.

Lexicology as a linguistic discipline was introduced in works by V.V. Vinogradov, G.O. Vinokur, L.V. Scherba, A.I. Smirnitsky, O.S. Ahmanova and others.

No corresponding discipline is officially distinguished in Western European or American linguistics. A prominent linguist Uriel Weinreich once wrote: ‘To an American observer, the strangest thing about Soviet lexicology is that it exist’. Another well-known British lexicographer says: ‘...over the last thirty years, vocabulary and vocabulary teaching have been unduly neglected by linguists, applied linguists and language teachers alike. This may well be true of Western Europe and the United States where, as they argue, the dominance of syntactic models of language has, until recently, relegated the study of vocabulary to the periphery of linguistic scholarship. This criticism is, however, demonstrably not applicable to the study of language in the Soviet Union, where lexicography in general, and pedagogical lexicography, in particular, has never ceased to be a major subject of interest to Soviet linguists and language teachers’.

2. Word as the basic lexical unit.

The main unit of the lexical system of a language is a word. The word is used for the purposes of human communication. Everybody knows that when people are travelling they do not carry grammar books with them, they carry dictionaries. In conversations a word can hurt, excite, decide a case, lead to conflicts.

The word materially represents a group of sounds: wall – well, cat – court, house – mouse.

The word can be used in different grammatical forms Remember, for exemple the following proverb: Don’t trouble trouble until trouble troubles you.

The word is the smallest unit of a language which can stand alone as a sentence, for example: Go! Stop!

The word possesses a structure. We must distinguish between the external and the internal structures of the word. The external structure of the word is its morphological structure. For exemple, in the word post-impressionists there are the following morphemes: the prefixes post-, im-, the root press, the suffixes -ion, -ist,-s. All these morphemes constitute the external structure of the word post-impressionists. The internal structure of the word is its meaning or its semantic structure.

The word possesses unity: both external and semantic unity. The external unity of the word is also called the formal unity. The formal unity of the word can be illustrated by comparing a word and a word-group with identical constituents, for example the word blackbird and the word-group black bird. We say that the word blackbird is characterized by the formal unity because grammatically this word changes as a whole thing: blackbird – blackbirds , not as blacksbirds. In the word-group a black bird each constituent can have its own grammatical forms: the blackest birds I have ever seen. Or we may introduce other words between the components of the word-group: a black night bird. So, the word-group black bird has no formal unity.

The semantic unity of the word may be shown with the help of the same word blackbird and the same word-group black bird. The word blackbird conveys only one concept: the type of bird. In the word-group black bird each component conveys a separate concept: bird – a kind of living creature, black – a colour.

So, the word may be defined as the basic lexical unit used for the purposes of human communication, materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning, grammatically changeable and characterized by formal and semantic unity.

The term word is not a well-established element in the British linguistic tradition. British scientists such as D. Crystal and M.A.K. Halliday agree that intuitevely all speakers know what is meant by a word, all speakers recognise words. But as a term it is extremely vague. Therefore British scientists suggest that the term word should be replaced by the terms lexical item, lexeme. The term lexical item has three meanings:

1) lexical item (лексема) is a unit conventionally listed in dictionaries as a separate entry. For exemple: such pairs as discover – discovery, announce – announcement are the same lexical items.

2) lexical item (cложный эквивалент слова). Many lexical items are words but some of them are not. For exemple: turn off is one item but two words.

3) lexical item (знаменательное слово). Sentences consist of words. Some of them are lexical items and some are grammatical items. For exemple: in the sentence We are at the lecture there are lexical items We, lecture and grammatical items are, at, the.

It follows that lexical item is a broader term than word. When we speak about a lexical item and a word we speak about different things.

Other lexical units of language.

The basic unit of the vocabulary is a word. Other units are morphemes and word groups.

Morphemes are parts of words into which words may be devided. Word groups are groups of words into which words are combined. Unlike words morphemes cannot be devided into smaller meaningful elements. They function only as parts of words. The meaning of morphemes is rather abstract and general. Morphemes are less autonomous than words. Though many American linguists such as Ch. Hockett, Z. Harris regard a morpheme not a word as the main unit of the vocabulary. They segment utterance into morphemes ignoring words.

Word groups are ready-made combinations of words with a specialized meaning of the whole that is not a sum total of the meanings of the elements. For exemple: lady-killer – дамский угодник, to cut smb down to size – сбить спесь с кого-либо, поставить на место.

Discussing the problem of lexical units one should remember that the boundaries separating words, morphemes and word groups are fluid. The vocabulary of a language is constantly changing.

Lecture # 2

The Etymology of English Words

Plan

1. Native words vs. borrowings.

2. Classification of borrowings according to the borrowed aspects.

3. Classification of borrowings according to the degree of assimilation.

4. Classification of borrowings according to the language from which they were borrowed.

5. Etymological doublets.

6. International words.

Literature

5. Антрушина Г.Б., Афанасьева О.В., Морозова Н.Н. Лексикология английского языка: Учеб. пособие для студентов. – М.: Дрофа, 1999. – 288 с.

6. Арнольд И.В. Лексикология современного английского языка: Учеб. для ин-тов и фак. иностр. яз. – М.: ВШ, 1986. – 295 с.

7. Гвишиани Н.Б. Современный английский язык: Лексикология (новый курс для филологических факультетов университетов). – М.: МГУ, 2000. – 221 с.

8. Дубенец Э.М. Современный английский язык. Лексикология: Пособие для студентов гуманитарных вузов. – М. / СПб.: ГЛОССА / КАРО, 2004. – 192 с.

Native words vs. borrowings.

English words according to their origin are divided into two sets. The first set comprises native words, the second embraces borrowed words. Borrowed words are also called loan words or borrowings.

A native word is a word which belongs to the original English vocabulary as known from the earliest manuscripts of the Old English period.

A borrowed word is a word taken over from another language and modified according to the standards of the English language.

Native words constitute only 30 % of the English vocabulary. Native words are the most frequently used words. They are often monosyllabic, for example: hard, sun, tree. Native words are polysemantic, for example: the word star possesses 10 meanings, the word sit has 12 meanings, the word make develops 17 meanings. Native words show great word-building power, for example: the word heart form the words heart-ache, hearetbeat, heart-blood, heart-break,heartburn, hearten, heart-felt, heart-free, heartful, heartily. Native words form a lot of phraseological units, for exemple: bad hat – негодяй , to take off one’s hat to smb – преклоняться перед кем-либо, hat in hand – подобострастно.

Native words are subdivided into three groups: words of Indo-European origin, words of Common Germanic origin and English proper words. Indo-European and Common Germanic words are so old that they cannot be dated. English proper words appeared in the English vocabulary in the 5^th century or later.

Words of Indo-European origin have cognates in the vocabularies of different Indo-European languages. These words fall into definite semantic groups:

· words denoting kinship: father, mother, daughter, son, brother.

· words denoting phenomena of nature: sun, water, moon, hill, wind.

· words denoting animals and birds: cat, goose, wolf, crow, bull.

· words denoting parts of a human body: arm, ear, eye, foot.

· words denoting physical properties: quick, slow, hard.

· some most often used verbs: sit, stand, come, bear.

· numerals: from one to a hundred.

Words of Common Germanic origin have parallels in Germanic languages such as German, Norwegian, Dutch, Icelandic. Among the words of Common Germanic origin are the following groups:

- nouns: summer, winter, storm, rain, ice, ground, bridge, house, life, shoe.

- verbs: bake, burn, buy, drive, hear, keep, learn, meet, see, rise.

- adjectives: broad, dead, deaf, deep.

English proper words are opposed to the first two groups. Firstly, they can be dated. Secondly, they are specifically English which means they have no cognates in other languages. Cognates are words of common origin. The following words are English proper words: bird, boy, girl, lord, lady, always, woman.

Proper English words also include words which were made after the 5^th century according to the English word-building patterns both from native and borrowed elements. For example: the word beautiful is built from the French borrowed root and the native English suffix. This word is considered to be a proper English word.

English history is very rich in different types of contacts with other countries: the Roman invasion, the adoption of Christianity, Scandinavian and Norman conquests of the British Isles, the development of British colonialism, trade and cultural relations served to increase the English vocabulary. The majority of borrowed words are assimilated in English in their pronunciation, grammar and spelling. They do not differ from native words. English continues to take in foreign words, but now the quantity of borrowings is not so great as it was before. English now is becoming a giving language.

Discussing the problem of borrowed words it is necessary to differentiate two terms: the term source of borrowing and the term origin of borrowing. Source of borrowing is a language from which the borrowing was taken into English. Origin of borrowing is a language to which the word may be traced. For example: the word paper < Fr. papier <Lat. papyrus <Gr. papyros has Franch as its source of borrowing and Greek as its origin.

Borrowing can be classified according to different criteria: according to the aspect which is borrowed, according to the degree of assimilation, according to the language from which the word was borrowed.

Classification of borrowings according to the borrowed aspects.

According to the borrowed aspects borrowings are subdivided into four groups. They are: phonetic borrowings, translation loans, semantic borrowings, morphemic borrowings.

Phonetic borrowings are the most numerous in English. In the process of phonetic assimilation each sound of the borrowed word is substituted by the corresponding sound of the borrowing language. For example: the words labour, travel, table, chair, people are phonetic borrowings from French. The words bank, soprano, duet are phonetic borrowings from Italian.

Translation loans are word-for-word or morpheme-for-morpheme translations of foreign words or expressions. In such cases the notion is borrowed from a foreign language but it is expressed by native lexical units. For example: to take the bull by the horns (Latin, взять быка за рога), fair sex (French, прекрасный пол), living space (German, жизненное пространство), pale-faced (Indian, бледнолицый), superman (German, супермен).

Semantic borrowings appear in two cases.

Firstly, semantic borrowings can appear when an English word was borrowed into some other language, developed there a new meaning and this new meaning was borrowed back into English. For example: the English word brigade was borrowed into Russian and got the meaning бригада. This meaning was borrowed back into English as a Russian borrowing.

Secondly, semantic borrowings can appear if in two relative languages there are common words with different meanings. For example: in Scandinavian and in English which are relative languages there was a common word dwell. In Scandinavian the word dwell meant live, in English it had the meaning wander. Later, an English word wander acquired the meaning live.

Morphemic borrowings are borrowings of affixes. It happens when many words with identical affixes are borrowed from one language into another. In such a way the morphemic structure of borrowed words becomes familiar to the people speaking the borrowing language. In English there are a lot of words-hybrids in which different morphemes have different origin. For example: the word unmistakable has an English prefix un-, an English prefix mis-, a Scandinavian root -tak- and a Romanic suffix -able.

Classification of borrowings according to the degree of assimilation.

According to the degree of assimilation borrowings are subdivided into three groups: completely assimilated, partly assimilated, non-assimilated.

Completely assimilated borrowings are not felt as foreign words. For exemple: sport, capital, service (French). Completely assimilated verbs belong to regular verbs: correct – corrected. Completely assimilated nouns form their plural by means of s-inflexion: gate – gates. The stress in completely assimilated words shifts to the first syllable: officer (French officier), monitor (French moniteur). As a rule, even completely assimilated words do not bring all their meanings into the borrowing language. For example: the Russian borrowing sputnik is used in English only in one of its meanings космическая ракета.

Partly assimilated borrowings are subdivided into the following groups:

a) borrowings non-assimilated semantically.

Such words denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from the language of which they were borrowed. For example: sombrero, sarafan, taiga, steppe, tsar, shah, peseta, zloty.

b) borrowings non-assimilated grammatically.

Some nouns borrowed from Latin and Greek retain their teir plural forms. For example: bacillus – bacilli, phenomenon – phenomena, genius – genii.

c) borrowings non-assimilated phonetically.

Some Scandinavian borrowings have the sounds g, k at the beginnings: girl, get, give, kill, kid while in the native words g, k aresubstituted by : German, child. Scandinavian borrowings may retain sk at the beginning. For example: sky, skate, ski. Though in native words there is only sh: shirt.

Some French borrowings retained their stress on the final syllable: police, cartoon, unique. Some French borrowings have special combinations of sounds: memoir, bourgeois, camouflage, boulevard.

Very often the whole pattern of the word’s make-up is different as in Italian or Spanish borrowings. For example: confetti, incognito, macaroni, opera, sonata, soprano, tobacco, potato, tomato.

d)borrowings can be partly assimilated graphically.

In Greek borrowings the letter y is spelled in the middle of the word: symbol, synonym. In Greek words the letters ph denote the sound f : phoneme, morpheme. The letters ch denote denote the sound k : chemistry, chaos.

Latin borrowings keep their polysyllabic structure, have double consonants: accompany, affirmative. The letters j, x, z in the initial position also indicate the Latin origin of the word: jewel, zest, xylophone.

In French borrowings consonants p, t, s are not pronounced at the end of the word: buffet, coup, debris. A specifically French combination of letters eau can be found in the borrowings beau, chateau, trousseau. Some digraphs retain their French pronunciation: ch is pronounced as : chic, parachute, qu is pronounced as : bouquet, ou is pronounced as : rouge, soup. Some French borrowings keep diacritic mark: cafe, cliche.

German borrowings are spelled with a capital letter: Autobahn, Lebenstraum. A in German borrowings is pronounced as a: Dictat, u is pronounced as u: Kuchen, au is pronounced as au: Hausfrau, ei is pronounced as ai: Reich.

Non-assimilated borrowings or barbarisms are used very rarely. Among them are addio, tete-a-tete, dolce vita, a femme, ciao, coup d’etat.

The degree of assimilation of borrowings depend on the following factors:

a) from what group of languages the word came. If the word belongs to the same group of languages to which the borrowing language belongs it is assimilated easier.

b) in what way the word is borrowed: orally or in the written form. Words borrowed orally are assimilated quicker.

c) how often the borrowing is used in the language. The greater the frequency of its usage, the quicker it is assimilated.

d) how long the word lives in the language. The longer it lives, the more assimilated it is.

Classification of borrowings according to the language from which they were borrowed.

In English there are two main groups of borrowings according to the language from which they were borrowed. They are Romanic borrowings and Germanic borrowings.

Romanic borrowings include Latin, French, Italian and Spanish borrowings.

Many Latin words were borrowed during the period when the British Isles were a part of the Roman Empire: street, port, wall. A lot of Latin (and Greek) words came into English during the Adoption of Christianity. These borrowings are usually called classical borrowings: alter, cross, dean, church, angel, devil.

Latin and Greek borrowings appeared in English during the Middle English period. These are mostly scientific words because Latin was the language of science at that time: memorandum, minimum, maximum, veto. Classical borrowings continue to appear in Modern English. They are numerous in medecine: aspirin, appendicitis, in chemistry: valency, acid, in technology: antenna, airdrome, biplane, in politics: socialism, militarism. In philology most terms are of Greek origin: homonym, archaism, lexicography.

French borrowings came into English during the Norman conquest. French influenced not only the vocabulary of English but also its spelling. Documents were written by French scribes because local population was illiterate and the ruling class was French. For example, French scribes substituted the letter u before the letters v, m, n and the digraph th by the letter o to escape the combination of many vertical lines: sunu – son, luvu – love.

There are some semantic groups of French borrowings:

a) words relating to government: state, empire, administer;

b) words relating to military affairs: army, war, soldier, battle;

c) words relating to jurisprudence: advocate, petition, sentence;

d) words relating to fashion: collar, coat, lace;

e) words relating to jewelry: topaz, pearl, emerald;

f) words relating to food and cooking: lunch, dinner, appetite.

Italian borrowings are terms of music: alto, baritone, duet, quartet, violin, libretto. Among the Italian borrowings are also gazette, incognito, autostrada, fiasco, dilettante, grotesque.

Spanish borrowings came into English through its American variant: cargo, embargo, tango, rumba, guitar, bananas, ananas.

Germanic borrowings include Scandinavian, German and Dutch borrowings.

In the Old English period English underwent a strong influence of Scandinavian due to the Scandinavian conquest of the British Isles. There are about 700 Scandinavian words in English. They are bull, cake, egg, knife, window, happy, ill, low, ugly, call, get, give, die, same, both, they, them, their.

There are some 800 words borrowed from German into English. Among German borrowings are cobalt, zinc, wolfram, iceberg, Kindergarten, Bundeswehr, gestapo, Volkswagen, Gaistarbaiter.

Holland and England had constant interrelations and more than 2000 Dutch words were borrowed into English mainly in the 14^th century. Most of them are nautical terms: skipper, keel, dock, reef, deck, pump.

Etymological doublets.

Sometimes a word is borrowed rwice from the same language. As a result, there are two different words with different spellings and differernt meanings but historically they come back to one and the same word. Such words are called etymological doublets. Among etymological doublets are the following: money / mint, chamber / camera, castle / chateau, whole / hale.

International words.

The process of borrowing is mostly connected with the appearance of new notions which they serve to express. So, it is natural that the borrowing is seldom limited to one language. Words of identical origin that occur in several languages as a result of simultaneous or successive borrowings from one ultimate source are called international words. Examples of international words are: concerts, piano, antibiotics, bionics, anaconda, orang-outang, football, tennis, time, shorts, leggings.

To sum up the lecture it is necessary to say that English includes etymologically different words which have been coexisting for centuries.

. Проблема продуктивности словообразовательных средств. Методы исследования словообразования. Понятие моделированного словообразования.

Lecture # 3

Morphological structure of English words

Plan

1. Morphemes. Combining forms. Allomorphs.

2. Morphological classification of words.

3. Analysis into immediate constituents.

Literature

1. Антрушина Г.Б. Лексикология английского языка. С. 78 – 104.

2. Гвишиани Н.Б. Современный английский язык. С. 80 – 82.

3. Э.М. Дубенец. Современный английский язык. С. 5 – 20.

4. Arnold I.V. The English word. P. 77 – 81, 83 – 87, 104 – 106.

1. The word morpheme is derived from Greek morphe -form. A morpheme is an association of a given meaning with a given sound pattern. Unlike a word, which is also an association of a given meaning with a given sound pattern a morpheme is not autonomous. Morphemes occur only as a constituent parts of words, not independently, though a word may consist of one morpheme. Morphemes are not divisible into smaller meaningful units. That is why the morpheme may be defined as the minimum meaningful language unit.

Morphemes are divided into two large groups: lexical morphemes and grammatical morphemes. Both lexical and grammatical morphemes can be free and bound. A morpheme is said to be free if it may stand alone without changing its meaning, for exemple: cat, sport, always. A morpheme is called bound because it is bound to something else. For exemple, in the word sportive sport- is a free morpheme, it can be used independently, there is the word sport. The morpheme -ive is a bound morpheme, it can not be used alone, there is no word like ive.

Free lexical morphemes are roots of words.

Free grammatical morphemes are function words such as articles, conjuctions and prepositions.

Bound lexical morphemes are affixes. Affixes are subdivided into prefixes, suffixes, infixes, combining forms or completives. Bound grammatical morphemes are endings (inflexions). For exemple: -s for the plural of nouns, -ed for the Past Indefinite of regular verbs and so on.

A prefix is a morpheme standing before a root and modifying its meaning, for exemple: hearten – dishearten. In some cases prefixes not only modify the meaning of a word but can form words of a different part of speech. For exemple: earth is a noun, to unearth is a verb. Prefixes can also express the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs, for exemple: to stay – to outstay.

A suffix is a morpheme following the root or a stem and forming a new word of a different part of speech or a different word class of the same part of speech. For exemple, the suffixes -en, -y, -less form such words of different parts of speech as hearten, hearty, heartless. The suffixes -ify, -er are verb-forming suffixes, but the suffix -ify forms causative verbs, for exemple: horrify, purify, while the suffux -er forms frequentative verbs, for exemple: flicker, shimmer, twitter.

An infix is an affix placed within the word, like -n- in stand, like -s- in statesman. Infixes are rare in the English language.

A combining form or completive is a bound form which can be distringuished from an affix historically. Combining forms are always borrowed from Latin or Greek. In Latin or Greek combining forms existed as free forms, as separate words. In English combining forms occur in compound and derivative words as their parts. These compound and derivative words did not exist in Latin or Greek, they were formed only in modern times in English. For exemple: megapolis (from mega- Greek and polis - Greek), AIDSophobia (from phobia – Latin), autocue (from auto - Greek), chimponaut (from naut - Greek). Combining forms are mostly international.

Some morphemes may have variants. For exemple, -ion, -sion, -tion, -ation are variants of the same suffix. They do not differ in meaning or function but show a slight difference in sound form which depends on the final sound of the preceding stem. Such variants are called allomorphs. An allomorph is from Greek allos – другой.

Analysing all the grammatical forms of a word, that is its paradigm, we may see the part which remains unchanged through the whole paradigm. This unchanged part is a stem of a word. Stems may be free or bound, simple or derived. For exemple, the paradigm of the adjective clean is clean – cleaner – cleanest. The stem of the word clean is clean-. This stem is free, not bound, because there is an independent word clean. At the same time, this stem is simple, because it coincides with the root of the word clean. In the words cordially and cordiality the stem is cordia-l. This stem is free as there exist the word cordial. But it is not a simple stem, it is a derived stem consisting of the root cord- and a suffix -ial. Bound stems are characteristic of loan words. Take for exemple French borrowings arrogance, charity, courage, coward, distort, involve, notion, legible. After the affixes of these words are taken away the remaining stems are arrog-, char-, cour-, cow-,-tort, -volve, not-, leg-. They are bound stems, they do not exist independently. Of course, the words cow, not, leg do exist, but the meaning of the stems -cow, not-, leg- and the meaning of the separate words cow, not, leg is different.

Stems have not only the lexical meaning, but also grammatical, part-of-speech meaning. They can be noun stems, as gir-l in the adjective girlish. They can be adjective stems, as girlish- in the noun girlishness. Stems can also be verb stems as in the noun expellee. Stems differ from words by the absence of inflexions in their structure, they can be used only in the structure of words.

2. According to the nature and the number of morphemes constituing a word there are different structural types of words in English: simple, affixed, compound, compound-affixed.

Simple words consist of one root morpheme and an inflexion. In many cases the inflexion is zero, for exemple: seldom, chair, asked, speaking.

Affixed words consist of one root morpheme, one or several affixes and an inflexion, for exemple: unemployed, underground, overestimation.

Compound words consist of two or more root morphemes and an inflexion, for exemple: wait-and-see, forget-me-not, baby-moons.

Compound-affixed words consist of two or more root morphemes, one or more affixes and an inflexion, for exemple: job-hopper, autotimer, hydroskimmer.

3. To define a structural type of a word, that is, to accomplish a morphological analysis, it is necessary to use the analysis into immediate constituents. It was first suggested by an American scientist L. Bloomfield. Immediate constituents are any of the two meaningful parts forming a larger linguistic unity. The main constituents are un affix and a stem.

L. Bloomfield analyzed the word ungentlemanly.

In the first stage of the analysis one breaks the word ungentlemanly into two immediate constituents: un + gentlemanly. The morpheme u- is a negative prefix, one has come across words built on the pattern un + stem: uncertainly, uncomfortably etc. And the adjective gentlemanly exists in the English language.

In the second stage one separates the stem gentleman and the morpheme ly. In English there are many words with the pattern stem + ly: womanly, masterly etc. There is also the noun gentleman. The immediate constituents of this pattern have the same semantic relationship: having the quality of the person denoted by the stem. Besides, there is the noun gentleman.

In the first two stages of the analysis one separated a free and a bound forms: un + gentlemanly and gentleman + ly.

In the third stage the cut gentle + man has its pecularities. The morpheme gentle is a stem. The element man may be classified as a semi-bound affix or as a variant of the free form man. A similar pattern can be found in the word nobleman.

To sum up: as one breaks the word, one obtains at any level only two immediate cobstituents, one of which is a stem. All the time the analysis is based on the patterns characteristic of the English vocabulary. As a result, we get the following formula: un + (gentle + man) + ly.

The above procedure is an elementary case of the analysis. There are complicated, open or unresolved cases.

An American scientist Eugine Nida discusses the morphological structure of the word untruly. This word might, it seems, be divided either un + truly or un + true + ly. E. Nida notices that the prefix un- is very rarely combined with adverb stems and is freely combined with the adjective stems. So the immediate constituents of the word untruly is untrue + ly. Other exemples of the same patterns are uncommonly, unlikely.

Some linguists think that words like pocket cannot be subjected to morphological analysis. They say that in the words pocket, hogget, locket it is possible to single out a diminutive suffix -et. In the words hogget, locket the remaining parts, that is, hog- and lock- are stems because there are independent words hog and lock. At the same time the remaining part of the word pocket, that is, pock- cannots be regarded as a stem. The element pock- does not exist independently.

Russian scientist Aлександр Иванович Смирницкий does not share the opinion of E. Nida. He believes that the stem is morphologically divisible if at least one of its elements belongs to a regular correlation. It means that if we agree that et- in the words pocket, hogget, locket is a suffix, we must agree that the elements pock-, hog, lock are stems. The words like pocket can be subjected to morphological analysis.

There are also cases, especially among borrowed words, that defy analysis altogether: calendar, perestroika.

Lecture 4

Wordbuilding

Plan

1. Main ways of wordbuilding in English:

a) affixation,

b) composition.

Literature

1. Дубенец Э.М. Современный английский язык. С. 26 – 74.

2. Антрушина Г.Б. Лексикология английского языка. С. 78 – 128.

3. I.V. Arnold. The English word. P. 90 – 165.

1. Wordbuilding is one of the main ways of enriching vocabulary. There are four main ways of wordbuilding in Modern English: affixation, composition, conversion, abbreviation.

There are also secondary ways of wordbuilding: sound interchange, stress interchange, sound imitation, blends, back formation.

Affixation

Affixation has been one of the most productive ways of wordbuilding 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.

Suffixation

Composition

2. Сomposition is the way of wordbuilding when a word is formed by joining two or more stems to form one word. The structural unity of a compound word depends on the following factors:

- the unity of stress,

- spelling,

- semantic unity,

- unity of morphological and syntactical functioning.

These are characteristics of compounds in all languages. For English some of these factors are not reliable. As a rule, English compounds have one uniting stress on the first component: hat-cover, best-seller. We can also have a double stress in English compouns, with the main stress on the first component and with a secondary stress on the second component: blood-vessel. The main stress can also be on the second component: snow-white, sky-blue. Besides, the stress may be phonological and help to differentiate the meaning of compounds: overwork – overwork, bookcase – bookcase.

Spelling in English compounds is not reliable as well. English compounds can have different spelling even in the same text: war-ship can be spelt through a hyphen, with a break or solidly.

The semantic unity of English compounds may be different. There are compounds in which the meaning of the whole is not a sum of meanings of its components: ghostwrite, skinhead, braindrain. There are componds the meaning of which is deduced from the meaning of the components: to blood-transfuse, airbus, astrodynamics.

English compounds have the unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. They are used in a a sentence as one part of it and only one component changes grammatically: These girls are chatter-boxes. The compound chatter-boxes is a predicative here and only the second component changes grammatically.

There are two characteristic features of English compounds:

- both components in an English compound are free stems. They can be used as words with a distinctive meaning of theit own. The sound pattern will be the same except for the stresses: green-house – теплица and green house – дом, выкрашенный в зеленый цвет;

- English compouns have mostly a two-stem pattern: railroad, homework.

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

-reduplication: too-too – sentimental, toy-boy – gigolo, shock-frock – bare-bosomed cocktail dress;

-conversion from word-groups: to micky-mouse, can-do, make-up;

-back formation from compound nouns or word-groups: to baby-sit from baby-sitter, to fingerprint from finger-printing;

-analogy: lie-in on the analogy with sit-in, brawn-drain on the analogy with brain-drain;

contrast: brain-gain in contrast to brain-drain.

There are different classifications of English compounds:

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

- nouns: baby-moon, globe-trotter;

- adjectives: free-for-all, power-happy;

- verbs: to henpeck, to honeymoon;

- adverbs: downdeep, headfirst;

- prepositions: into, within;

- numerals: fifty-five.

2. According to the way components are joined together compounds are subdivided into:

- neutral, which are formed by joining together two stems without any joining morphemes: ball-point, to window-shop;

- morphological where components are joined by a linking element: astrospace, handicraft, sportsman;

- syntactical where the components are joined by means of stems: here-and-now, free-for-all, do-or-die.

3.According to their structure compounds are subdivided into:

-compound words which consist of two stems: job-hunt, train-sick, tip-top;

- compound-affixed words, where besides the stems we have affixes: ear-minded, autotimer;

-compound words consisting of three or more stems: singer-songwriter, eggshell-thin;

-compound-shortened words: V-day, intervision.

4.According to the relations between the components compound words are subdivided into:

- subordinative compounds where one of the components is the semantic centre and the structural centre and the second component is subordinate. These subordinative relations can be different. For exemple, they can be comparative : honey-sweet, goldfish; time relations: summer-house, spring-fresh; sex-relations: she-dog, he-goat, Tom-cat etc.

-coordinative compounds where both components are semantically independent: no-no, Anglo-Saxon, secretary-stenographer etc.

5. According to the order of the components compounds are divided into compounds with direct order: killjoy and compounds with indirect order: nuclear-free, rope-ripe etc.

6. According to the meaning of the whole compound we can point out idiomatic and non-idiomatic compounds. Compounds may be very different in meaning from the corresponding free phrase. Such compounds are calles idiomatic: a blackboard – a black board, a tall boy – a tallboy, a blue bell – a bluebell. Compounds which are not different in their meaning from corresponding free phrases are called non-idiomatic: swimming-pool, speedometer, airmail etc.

Lecture # 5

Wordbuilding

Plan

7. Main ways of wordbuilding in English:

a) conversion,

b) abbreviation.

2. Secondary ways of wordbuilding.

Literature

4. Дубенец Э.М. Современный английский язык. С. 26 – 74.

5. Антрушина Г.Б. Лексикология английского языка. С. 78 – 128.

6. I.V. Arnold. The English word. P. 90 – 165.

Conversion

Conversion is a characteristic feature of the English wordbuilding system. It is also called affixless derivation or zero-suffixation but it is not quite correct because there are other types of wordbuilding in which new words are also formed without affixes: compounds, contracted words, sound-imitation words etc. The term conversion first appeared in the book by Henry Sweet New English Grammar in 1891. Conversion is very productive way of worldbuilding. Its productivity is encouraged by the analytical structure of Modern Englisg which facilitates processes of making words of one category of part of speech from words of another. A great number of one-syllable words is also a factor in favour of conversion. Such words are more mobile and flexible than polysyllabic words.

Conversion is treated differently by different scientists. A.И. Смирницкий treats conversion as a morphological way of forming words when one part of speech is formed from another part of speech by changing its paradigm. For exemple, to form the verb to dial from the noun dial we change the paradigm of the noun a dial – dials for the paradigm of a regular verb I dial, he dials, dialed, dialing. A. Marchand treats conversion as a morphological-syntactical wordbuilding because we have not only the change of the paradigm, but also the change of the syntactical function. For exemple, in the sentence I need some good paper for my room the noun paper is an object in the sentence. In the sentence I paper my room every year the verb paper is the predicate in the sentence.

A word made by conversion has a different meaning from the meaning of the word from which it was made. Though both meaning can be associated. There are some regularities in these associations:

-the noun is the name of a tool or instrument, the verb denotes an action performed by the tool: to pencil, to nail, to pin;

-the noun is the name of an animal, the verb denotes an action or aspect of behaviour typical of this animal: to ape, to wolf, to fox;

-the name of a part of the human body – an action performed by it: to nose, to shoulder, to elbow;

-the name of a profession or occupation – an activity typical of it: to nurse, to maid, to groom;

-the name of a place – the process of occupying the place or of putting smth / smb in it: to room, to cage, to table;

-the name of a container – the act of putting smth within the container: to pocket, to bottle, to can;

-the name of a meal – the process of taking it: to lunch, to supper, to dinner.

In cases of conversion we have a question: which word is primary and which is converted from it? There are three approaches to this problem.

1.If the lexical meaning of the root morpheme and the lexico-grammatical meaning of the stem coincide the word is primary. For exemple, in cases pen – to pen, father – to father the nouns are names of an object and a living being. In the nouns pen and father the lexical meaning of the root and the lexico-grammatical meanings of the stems coincide. The verbs to pen and to father denote an action, a process. The lexico-grammatical meanings of the stems do not coincide with the lexical meanings of the roots. The verbs have a complex semantic structure and they were converted from nouns.

2. If we compare a converted pair with a synonymic word pair which was formed by means of suffixation we can find out which of the pair is primary. This criterion can be applied only to nouns converted from verbs. For exemple, chat as a noun and chat as a verb can be compared with conversation – converse.

3. We must take a word-cluster of relative words to which the converted pair belongs. If the root stem of the word-cluster has suffixes added to a noun stem, the noun is primary in the converted pair. For exemple, in the word-cluster hand n., hand v., handy, handful the affixed words have suffixes added to a noun stem, that is why the noun is primary and the verb is converted from it. In the word-cluster dance n., dance v., dancer, dancing we see that the primary word is a verb and the noun is converted from it.

What is relationship between conversion and substantivation? Some scientists refer substantivation of adjectives to conversion. But most scientists do not, because in cases of substantivation of adjectives we have quite different changes in the language. Substantivation is the result of syntactical shortening when a word combination with a semantically strong attribute loses its semantically weak noun: a grown-up person is shortened to a grown up. In cases of substantivation the attribute takes the paradigm of a countable noun: a criminal, criminals, a criminal’s, crimiunals’. There are also two types of partly substantivized adjectives:

c) those which have only the plural form and have the meaning of collective nouns: sweets, news, empties, finals, greens;

b) those which have only the singular form and are used with the definite article. They also have the meaning of collective nouns and denote a class, a nationality, a group of people etc.: the rich, the English, the dead.

These words are called partly substantivized because they do not get a new paradigm. Besides, they keep some properties of adjectives, they can be modified by adverbs: the enormously rich, the very unfortunate, the extravagantly jealous.

There is one more problem connected with convertion in English. In English there are a lot of word combinations of the type stone wall. For exemple: time table, homework, price rise, language teacher etc. If he first component of such units is an adjective converted from a noun, combinations of this type are free word-groups of the structure adjective + nouns. This point of view is proved by O. Yespersen by the following facts:

1. The word stone denotes some quality of the object named by the word wall.

2. The word stone stands before the word it modifies as adjectives do.

3. The word stone is used in the singular though its meaning may be plural, and adjectives in English have no plural form.

4. There are some cases when the first component is used in the comparative or the superlative degree, and adjectives can have degrees of comparison: the bottomest end of the scale.

5. The first component can have an adverb which characterizes it, and adjectives are characterized by adverbs: a purely family gathering.

6. The first component can be used in the same syntactical function with a proper adjective to characterize the same noun: lonely bare stone houses.

7. After the first component the pronoun one can be used instead of a noun: I shall not put on a silk dress, I shall put on a cotton one.

But other scientists say that these criteria are not characteristic of the majority of such units. They consider the first conponent of such units to be a noun in the function of an attribute because in Midern English almost all parts of speech and even word-groups and sentences can be used in the function of an attribute. For exemple: the then president (an adverb in the function of an attribute), out-of-the-way villages (a word-group in the function of an attribute), a devil-may-care speed (a sentence in the function of an attribute).

There are different semantic relations between the components of such combinations:

-time relation: evening paper,

-space relation: top floor,

-qualitative relations: winter apples,

-cause relations: war orphan etc.

Abbreviation

In the process of communication words and word-groups can be shortened. The causes of shortening can be linguistic and extra-linguistic. By extra-linguistic causes changes in the life of people are meant. In Modern English many new abbreviations are formed because the tempo of life is increasing and it becomes necessary to give more and more information in the shortest possible time. There are also linguistic causes of abbreviating words and word-groups. Among them are: demand of rhythm, which is satisfied by monosyllabic words and shortening of borrowings from other languages.

There are two main types of shortenings: graphical and lexical.

Graphical abbreviations are the result of shortening of words and word-groups only in written speech while orally the corresponding full forms are used. They are used for the economy of space and effort in writing.

The oldest group of graphical abbreviations in English is of Latin origin. In these abbreviations in the spelling Latin words are shortened while orally the corresponding English equivalents are pronounced in the full form. For exemple: a.m. – in the morning (ante meridiem), No – number (numero), i.e. – that is (id est), p.a. – a year (per annum), lb – pound (libra) etc.

In some cases initial letters are pronounced: a.m., p.m.

Some graphical abbreviations of Latin origin have different English equivalents in different contexts: p. m. can be pronounced in the afternoon (post meridiem) and after death (post mortem).

Graphical abbreviations of native origin represent several semantic groups:

- days of the week: Mon – Monday, Tue – Tuesday,

- names of months: Apr – April, Aug – August,

- names of address: Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr,

- military ranks: capt – captain, col – colonel, sgt – sergeant,

- scientific degrees: BA – Bachelor of Arts, DM – Doctor of Medicine,

- units of time, length, weight: f / ft – foot / feet, in. – inch, mg. – milligram etc.

The reading of some graphical abbreviations depends on the context. For exemple: m can be read as male, married, masculine, metre, mile, million, minute.

Lexical abbreviations

Lexical abbreviaion consists in clipping a part of a word. As a result we get a new lexical unit where either the lexical meaning or the style is different from the full form of the word. For exemple: in such cases as fantasy and fancy, fence and defence we have different lexical meanings. In such cases as laboratory and lab, we have different styles.

Lexical abbreviaion does not change the part-of-speech meaning, it produces words belonging to the same part of speech as the primary words. For exemple: professor is a noun, prof is also a noun.

Abbreviated are usually no

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