Lecture
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Marchand and others, a zero morpheme. However, despite its misleading motivation, this term has been fixed by tradition and, as noted earlier, is most often used in describing the phenomena under analysis.
The description of conversion as a method of word-formation carried out by means of a zero morpheme is undoubtedly productive, since it thereby establishes a means distinguishing this method of word-formation from others - affixation and compounding. At the same time, the use of the notion of zero morpheme, so significant in linguistic descriptions, is fraught with such a dangerous consequence as the emergence of a "sea" of zero morphemes in the description of a morphologically poor language. Preferable, therefore, in our view, is the interpretation of conversion proposed by A.I. Smirnitsky, according to which conversion is that kind of word-production in which the paradigm of the word alone serves as the word-formation means. Taken as a whole, as a definite system of forms, the paradigm of a word characterizes it precisely as a word of a definite type, a definite grammatical category, a definite grammatical class. Characterizing the word as a whole, in relation to other words, the paradigm of each given word, as A.I. Smirnitsky points out, also performs a lexical function: it is a definite formal marking of the word and thereby acts as a word-formation means. And it is this means of word-formation that is employed in conversion. Moreover, A.I. Smirnitsky stresses that the paradigm plays a role in word-formation not only in the case of conversion but, for example, also in affixation, where, alongside the addition of an affix, a definite morphological marking of the derived word is likewise carried out. But the word-formation role of the paradigm here is obscured by the presence of special word-formation means. The difference of conversion in this respect lies only in the fact that this method of word-formation uses the paradigm as the sole means, without any other, specifically word-formation elements.
There is, however, an opinion that defining conversion through the sole word-formation means – the paradigm - is imprecise, since it fails to take into account the word-formation role of collocability, which is so necessary for identifying the grammatical class of a word in Modern English. It is precisely thanks to the combinability of a given word-form (for example, round, down, free, love, etc.) with other words in the sentence, thanks to the context, that its belonging to the class of nouns, or verbs, or adjectives, etc. is revealed. On this basis it is proposed to regard conversion not as a purely morphological method of word-formation, as is the case in A.I. Smirnitsky's concept, but as a morphological-syntactic method of word-formation, in which a word of one part of speech is formed from the stem or word-form of another, the sole word-formation means being the paradigm (or zero paradigm) of the word together with its combinability with other words.
However convincing the latter point of view may sound, it is nevertheless difficult to say unequivocally which of these two interpretations of conversion - the morphological or the morphological-syntactic – is the optimal solution to the problem of the essence of this method of word-formation. According to recent psycholinguistic experiments, informants who are native speakers of English perceive homonymous word-forms of the type round as belonging to a definite part of speech even out of context. The syntactic behavior of the word, which follows from its morphological properties, in that case turns out, in characterizing conversion, to be redundant information, although it is also true that units derived by conversion, like the secondary, transferred meanings of polysemous words, prove to be syntactically conditioned for the language community and require a definite context for correct recognition.
Numerous disagreements are also observed in defining the boundaries of conversion. The first set of them is connected with the different historical sources of the pairs of words that correlate in Modern English by conversion. Among all correlations by conversion of the type "verb – noun", 4.5% are pairs of the type love 'love' - love 'to love', harp 'harp' - harp.'to play the harp', going back to Old English lufu - lufian, hearp - hearpian, in which the verb was genetically formed from the noun by means of a specific word-formation suffix, and there was no homonymy of paradigms. 62% are actual formations by conversion of the type pencil 'pencil' - pencil 'to draw, to write down', hammer 'hammer' - hammer 'to hammer, to knock down', etc. The remaining 33.5% fall to the share of other processes (borrowings, phonetic changes, etc.). There was an opinion that only those words could be assigned to conversion which were formed by conversion precisely in that period of the English language when the verb and the noun were no longer distinguished by special word-formation affixes, i.e. pairs of the type pencil n - pencil v, while the pairs love v -'love n, harp n - harp v were not to be regarded as conversion. Genetic differences, important in describing the historical development of the language, all the more so when effaced and no longer felt in Modern English, cannot, as A.I. Smirnitsky notes, be made the basis for classifying phenomena that actually exist, for that would mean confusing the past with the present. Moreover, as A.I. Smirnitsky convincingly demonstrates, already in the Old English period both the 'noun lufu and the verb lufian had one and the same stem and differed only in their paradigms, i.e. they correlated with each other by conversion. The difference of Old English conversion was only the absence of homonymy, whereas for conversion in New English it is precisely the presence of homonymous forms that is typical. However, homonymy of forms is not an obligatory condition of conversion, for which the most essential point is a difference in paradigm, testifying to the formation of a new word.
Thus, formations of various epochs, arising as a result of processes that are sometimes qualitatively different, form in Modern English a unified word-formation system of words correlating by conversion, characterized by word-formation relations of the same type.
At the center of this system are the correlative pairs
A stylistic factor limiting the activity of conversion is a word's belonging to the layer of literary-bookish and elevated vocabulary. It should be noted, however, that the operation of all the aforementioned linguistic factors, whether favoring or hindering conversion, is regulated by the social need, felt by the language community, for creating one or another word, by the needs of communication. The presence in the language of already ready-made lexical units, as a rule suffixal derivatives (cf., e.g., the deadjectival verbs purify 'to purify', broaden 'to broaden', weaken 'to weaken', the deverbal nouns achievement 'achievement', creation 'creation', dependence 'dependence', the denominal verbs threaten 'to threaten', hospitalize 'to hospitalize' and others) determines the unnecessariness, the redundancy of possible formations by conversion, or, if they are created, a semantic peculiarity and difference of such derivatives from their suffixal correlates (cf., e.g., swimming 'swimming' – a swim 'a swim', building 'construction, building' – a build 'shape, style of a building; physique', etc.).
The semantic peculiarity of derivatives by conversion becomes at the same time the most important indicator of their derived character and a criterion for determining the direction of word-formation derivation. Since the word-formation processes taking place in conversion have no special morphological markers of any kind, and formation is possible both of verbs from nouns and of nouns from verbs, establishing the direction of the relations of word-formation derivedness in conversion, which, owing to their unmarked character, are termed semantic, or internal, derivation, – is far from an idle question. It is resolved with the help of a number of criteria proposed by A.I. Smirnitsky, P.A. Soboleva, H. Marchand, among which, as noted earlier, the criterion of content is the most significant. Thus, it is quite common to establish the direction of internal derivation by revealing the semantic dependence of one word on another. If, for its semantic analysis, a word, for example the verb saw 'to cut with a saw', requires the inclusion of the semantic components of another word, in our example the noun saw 'a saw: a steel toothed blade (or disc)', this testifies to the semantic dependence of this verb and, accordingly, to its derived character. In the same way, the verb knife 'to cut with a knife' is naturally described through the noun, whereas the noun knife does not require, for its semantic analysis, reference to the verb knife. Semantic dependence is in many cases intuitively felt by native speakers, and therefore identifying the derivative in many pairs by conversion presents no serious difficulties. Native speakers also readily perceive the more complex structure of the semantics of a derived word, for example the verb pen 'to write, to compose', which includes both the meaning of objectness, inherited by it from the base noun pen 'a pen', and the meaning of processuality. The more complex semantic structure of the verb pen as compared with the noun pen, in which the meaning of the root morpheme denoting an object merges with the general, categorial meaning of nouns - the meaning of objectness - can likewise be used as an indicator of the internal derivedness of the verb (this criterion is known as the criterion of semantic opposition, or contrast, which arises between the lexical meaning of the root morpheme and the lexico-grammatical meaning of the stem in derived words and is absent in the base words).
Both of the criteria described, however, are difficult to apply in identifying the derived word in pairs of the type answer 'answer' – answer 'to answer', work 'work' - work 'to work'. In such cases, recourse is had to the analysis of systemic relations, determining the derived/non-derived character of a word by the derivedness/non-derivedness of analogous semantic formations, synonyms, antonyms. Semantically, love 'love' and love 'to love' stand in the same relations as hatred 'hatred' and hate 'to hate'. This semantic ' analogy allows the noun love to be considered derived from the verb. Morphologically marked derivatives agitation 'agitation', excitement 'excitement' serve as a "hint" of the derivedness of the synonymous noun fuss 'a nervous, agitated state'. The principle of systemicity also underlies the word-formation criterion and the criterion of typical semantic connections, or the criterion of the semantic model.
The word-formation criterion is based on the interrelation of words within a word-formation cluster and on taking into account the derived character of first-degree derivatives in the word-formation cluster. If the overwhelming majority of them are denominal derivatives, then the noun that correlates by conversion with the verb in this cluster is non-derived (e.g., awe 'awe, admiration' is a simple word, while the verb awe 'to awe' is derived, as suggested by the denominal character of the other derivatives awesome, aweless, awful in this cluster). If, however, all or most of the first-degree derivatives are deverbal in character, then the simple word in this cluster is the verb, while the derived one – is the noun (e.g., float 'to float on the surface' – floatage, floatation, floater, floatable, float, etc.). Unfortunately, the range of application of this criterion is limited by the number of well-developed word-formation clusters within which words correlating by conversion are found. No such limitations apply to the criterion of typical semantic relations by conversion, the essence of which is that the marking feature of the derivative is its meaning. The point is that nouns and verbs derived by conversion develop specific types of meaning. Denominal verbs, for example, are characterized by the following meanings:
Deverbal nouns formed by conversion are characterized by the following system of meanings:
Deadjectival verbs, as a rule, have the meaning "to become) or to be as denoted by the base adjective" (loose 'to loosen', equal. 'to equal', dim 'to dim', yellow 'to yellow, to turn yellow' and others).
Evidently, owing to the range of word-formation meanings inherent in derivatives by conversion, this method of word-formation is closely intertwined with affixation, forming together with it complementary subsystems.
Among the semantic criteria used to determine the direction of derivation in conversion, one should also mention the criterion of restricted use, which can also be interpreted as a criterion of frequency. A word that is less common than the correlated unit belonging to another part of speech is the derived one. For example, the verb author 'to be the author' is characterized by a more restricted sphere of use than the noun author 'author', and is accordingly formed from the latter. In the same way, the verbs waterproof 'to treat with a waterproof coating', copyright 'to secure copyright for' and others are derivatives, being less frequent than the correlated nouns. If one member of a pair occurs only in a particular form, while the other is not subject to such restrictions (e.g., the verb neighbour 'to be adjacent to, to border on' is used almost exclusively in the form of Participle I), then it, too, is a derivative.
The presence of stylistic markers (e.g., the verbs hunger 'to starve', thirst 'to feel thirst' belonging to literary vocabulary) likewise points to the derived status of a member of a correlative pair, if the other member is neutral and of common use.
The branching of a word's semantic structure may be a further indication of its non-derived character. Semantically derived words and the bases from which they are formed are not, as a rule, equivalent. The semantic structure of the derivative is in most cases simpler, and this simplicity may serve as a criterion of derivation in pairs of words correlated by conversion, as, for example, in the case of convert 'a person who has gone over from one party to another' and convert 'to change, to convert to another faith, fin. to convert, law to alter the legal character of property' and others.
Alongside semantic criteria for determining internal derivation, formal ones are also used. Thus, since most words containing the suffixes -ment and -ion in their various forms are used only as nouns, it may be concluded that verbs whose structure contains these morphemes are derived from nouns (e.g., document 'to supply with documents', probation 'to be on probation' and others). The complex morphological composition of nouns, for which formation by compounding is highly characteristic, testifies to their primary character and to the secondary character of the correlated verbs (cf. snowball 'snowball', snowball 'to throw snowballs', sideslip 'a skid;
sideways slip', sideslip 'to sideslip; to skid' and others.).
The most significant of the criteria listed, however, are the semantic ones, and it is precisely on these that we rely in identifying the semantics of a verb or noun derived by conversion.
One of the most ancient and, apparently, universal ways of word-formation is compounding. It is no accident, therefore, that scholars have taken a constant interest in the problems of compounding in general, and in English studies in particular, all the more so since this method of generating words, already active in Old English, has not lost its productivity today: more than a third of all new formations in present-day English are compound words. However, despite numerous studies, many problems of compounding, including fundamental ones, remain unresolved to this day. Without listing the whole range of problematic issues of compounding, let us indicate the main ones. This is, first of all, the problem of identifying, or defining, the compound word and its boundaries. for the English language, complicated by the poverty of the morphological paradigms of English words, the problem of the typology of compound words, their semantics and syntax.
The process of compounding is nothing other than the juxtaposition of two stems, as a rule homonymous in English with word-forms. For example, headache 'headache', blackboard 'blackboard', makepeace 'peacemaker' etc. Since the norms of present-day English permit the combination of words possessing the same lexico-grammatical characteristics as the stems joined in compounding, it is extremely difficult to determine in which cases we are dealing with a compound word and in which with a word-combination. Cf. running water 'water supply' and running water 'flowing water', dancing-girl 'dancing-girl (professional dancer)' and dancing girl 'a girl who is dancing' and many others.
By now a whole series of criteria has been developed for distinguishing compound words from word-combinations. The phonetic criterion is based on the fact that compound words, as a rule, are characterized by a single stress, or one primary and one secondary stress, in contrast to word-combinations, which are typically marked by equal stress on both components. Thus, by analysing stress it becomes possible to determine the status of the combination /laughing /boys 'laughing boys' as a word-combination, and /laughing gas 'laughing gas' as a compound word. However, exceptions to the rule are fairly frequent (e.g.,/easy-going 'calm, relaxed'; /man-/made 'artificial, made by human hands'), moreover, in word-combinations, for logical purposes, often only one component turns out to be stressed, which considerably complicates the application of the phonetic criterion.
Morphological criteria for determining a compound word have become widespread, above all the criterion of its integral (one-piece) formation as opposed to the separate formation of a word-combination. Morphologically, the combination of components making up a compound whole is formed as a single unit and has a single paradigm. In other words, inflectional suffixes are added to the whole complex as such, rather than to its separate parts, when forming this or that grammatical form. (e.g., the plural of nouns – shipwreck 'shipwreck' – shipwrecks; weekend 'weekend' – weekends and others). Structural integrity, fusion, and functional indivisibility distinguish a compound word from word-combinations, where each member of the combination is separately formed and retains its independence (cf. age-long 'centuries-old' and ages ago 'a very long time ago'). For the English language, however, the application of this criterion is hindered by the poverty of morphological paradigms and the absence of morphological markers in most word-forms of words belonging to many parts of speech.
A distinguishing feature of a compound word as opposed to a word-combination may be the impossibility of modifying its components. Retaining the integrity and unity of its components, a compound word, for example grass-green 'green as grass', cannot combine with adverbs, although such combinability is typical of adjectives (cf. very green grass 'very green grass' and others). Moreover, in the example given, an indicator of its word-like status may also be the order of the components, which is unusual for word-combinations of an adjective with a noun. However, syntactic parameters too (the possibility/impossibility of combinations with words of certain parts of speech, a fixed sequence of components) do not always unambiguously resolve the problem of distinguishing a compound word from a word-combination, since the combinability of the components of word-combinations may also be restricted, and likewise the sequence of the components may coincide (cf. blue-stocking 'bluestocking, a pedantic woman' and blue stocking 'a blue stocking', round-fish 'commercial round fish' and round fish 'a round fish' etc.).
The integrity of a compound word as a lexical unit finds expression in the more or less firm, permanent semantic connection between its components, which becomes the foundation for the semantic criterion of distinguishing compound words from word-combinations with full derivability and transparency of their meanings. On the basis of this criterion, railway 'railway', slow-coach 'a slow-moving' dull-witted person', know-all 'a know-all' and others are undoubtedly compound words. They possess a certain separateness, achieved as a result of the fusion of the meanings of their constituent elements, in relation to those elements. But the semantic criterion, too, is no less vulnerable than the one named earlier, since it is difficult, and even impossible, to formulate the principles and degree of separateness required for a compound word to come into being.
It is also difficult to draw a boundary between compound words and phraseological word-combinations, many of which are characterized by the semantic fusion of their components and, correspondingly, by lexical integrity.
Recently, under the influence of formalized descriptions of language, another criterion has come into active use – the orthographic criterion, the essence of which lies in treating any complex written solidly or with a hyphen as a compound word, and a complex whose components are written separately as a word-combination. Unfortunately, the correlation between the integrity of a multi-component word and its solid spelling is not absolute, not to mention the numerous intermediate cases whose spelling varies. Thus, complexes with the first components well-, ill- (for example, ill-advised 'unwise', ill-affected 'disaffected', well-dressed 'well dressed', well-aimed 'accurate') are written separately in 34% of cases, and with a hyphen in 66%. Inconsistency of spelling is observed even within one and the same complex, as is the case, for example, with man-made 'artificial, made by human hands' (6% – separate spelling, 82% – hyphenated spelling, 12% – solid spelling).
Thus, not a single criterion provides a solid basis for identifying compound words. Moreover, even the use of the entire available apparatus, applying phonetic, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and orthographic criteria, does not solve the problem of the opposition compound word – word-combination, which is especially difficult for the English language, where, as has been pointed out, there is no clear-cut opposition "stem – word" and where the use of a noun in the function of a prepositive attribute (the construction stone wall) is widespread. Determining whether, in the case of a given combination, we are dealing with a complex consisting of two substantival stems, and accordingly a compound word, or whether we have before us a combination of two nouns, or (such a view also exists) whether this is a combination of an adjective derived from a noun by conversion and a noun, and accordingly a formation of the type A + N, still remains an unresolved problem to this day.
The second part of the problem of identifying compound words and defining the boundaries of compounding in present-day English is the question of distinguishing compound words from derivatives that arose not through compounding but in the course of other derivational processes, yet which include at least two stems in their morphological structure.
An undoubted achievement of the theory of English compounding is the now well-established understanding that the status of a derived unit as a compound word must be determined on the basis of its derivational history. Integrally formed, structurally fused lexical units that function as independent units and consist of several stems occurring in the language as free forms (such is the definition of a compound word given by I.V. Arnold) are not necessarily compound words, since their formation is not always the result of compounding. Such units may arise as a result of some other derivational processes. Such are, for example, schoolmasterish 'masterly, pedagogic', handcuff 'to put handcuffs on', blackguard 'to swear, to abuse', blackmail 'to blackmail', floodlight 'to illuminate with floodlights', factfind 'to investigate the facts' and others. The last derivational step that gave rise to precisely these units, rather than to their base words, is not an act of compounding, but of affixation (schoolmaster + -ish — schoolmasterish), conversion (handcuff, blackmail), or back-formation (floodlight, factfind). Accordingly, these words, which contain two root morphemes in their composition, can be regarded as compound only at the morphemic level; at the derivational level of analysis they are not.
Thus, compound words include derivatives formed as a result of combining two source units (this process not being complicated by any other derivational operations). These are units of the type mailbag 'mailbag', pillow-case 'pillowcase', gunpowder 'gunpowder', fishing-net 'fishing net' and others. Compound words also include derivatives that arose as a result of an act of compounding accompanied at the same time by some other derivational process (affixation, conversion, etc.). These are words of the type blue-eyed 'blue-eyed', three-decker 'a three-decker (a three-deck vessel)', three-incher 'something three inches in size', four-wheeler 'a four-wheeled cab' etc.
Accordingly, the primary and most important typology of compound words, reflecting differences in derivational processes (pure compounding versus complicated compounding processes), is the classification of them into compounds proper and derivational compounds.
It might seem that distinguishing the two types of compound words mentioned above in present-day English, as well as differentiating them from other types of derivatives, for example suffixal ones, presents no particular difficulty. However, as the results of applying to compound words the method of synchronic reconstruction of the word-formation act, developed by E.S. Kubryakova, have shown, this is far from being the case. To which type of words – derivatives or compounds – do derivatives of the type top-hatted 'wearing a top hat', barnstormer 'a strolling actor' belong? And to which type of words – compounds or derivational compounds – should words of the type blood-letter 'one who lets blood', lemon-squeezer 'a device for squeezing lemons', bone-setter 'a bone-setter' be assigned, and as a result of which type of word-formation processes did they arise? In other words, did blood-letter, lemon-squeezer arise by analogy with other compound words, or is this a contraction of a syntactic construction – but which one? – letter of blood, squeezer of lemon or one who lets blood, a device for squeezing lemon, i.e. syntactic word-formation? The threefold aspect of one and the same derived unit is thus linked to three equally probable derivational paths of its generation and three sources of motivation. E.S. Kubryakova, who addressed this problem in English studies and defined it as the problem of equifinality, arrives at the following solution for it.
Alongside many derivatives whose status as compound, derivational-compound, or affixal units is clearly and unambiguously determined by establishing differences in their sources of motivation (cf. the compound words ice-cold 'cold as ice' – as cold as ice, camera-shy 'feeling awkward in front of a camera' – shy in front of a camera, fortune-hunter 'one who hunts for a fortune' – a hunter after a fortune, tailor-made 'made to order' – made by a tailor and others, the derivational compounds dark-haired 'dark-haired' – with dark hair, three-master 'a three-masted ship' – a ship with three masts etc., the affixal words great-coated 'wearing a greatcoat' – with a greatcoat, youth-hosteler 'one who stays at a youth hostel' - a young person who lives in a youth hostel and others), there also exist derivatives of the equifinal type (e.g., moon-shaped 'shaped like a moon' – having a moon shape, shaped like a moon), for which a rigid classification as compound or derivational-compound words is inexpedient. Such a classification would contradict the flexibility displayed by the language system in the process of creating new names, and would considerably simplify, and even distort, the real picture of the mechanisms of their formation.
The study of compound words on the basis of their derivational history, the comparison of compound words with their derivational sources, with their full definition, and, in general, the study of compounding, including compounding in the English language, from the standpoint of nominative activity and from the standpoint of the dynamics of word-formation processes, has made it possible to penetrate more deeply into the nature of this word-formation phenomenon, to see the causes determining the specific character of compound words and their semantics, and to determine more precisely the place of compound words and their function in the general system of the language.
At present it may be considered proven that compound words, which arise on the basis of syntactic constructions as a replacement for a syntactic whole, are nevertheless not equivalent to their sources of motivation. "A syntactic phrase is precise and unambiguous, – E.S. Kubryakova points out, – a compound word is indeterminate in its meaning" (7, 63). The essence of compounding, in her view, lies precisely in reflecting an unspecified type of connection between the entities denoted, simply in recording the presence of a connection between them. If, in the motivating word-combination or sentence, the type of connection between the denoted objects, phenomena, or features is specified and named by the predicate of the construction, then in the compound word it appears as a hidden component, which must be reconstructed, in order to understand the meaning of the compound word, on the basis of linguistic and extralinguistic experience. Thus, glass-house is both 'a glassworks', i.e. 'a building or factory where glass is produced', and 'a greenhouse, hothouse', i.e. 'a building, a house with a glass roof and walls for protecting plants from bad weather'. Potentially this word may also mean 'a house made of glass', and many other connections that may be established between the denoted phenomena in real life.
Indeterminacy, thus, is rooted in the very nature of the compound word and constitutes its distinctive feature in comparison with the construction that motivates it, in which not only the components are fixed, which subsequently function as the onomasiological basis and the onomasiological feature of compound words, but also the type of connection between them is precisely named. One and the same situation, when named by a compound word or by a syntactic construction, appears with a different degree of detail: in the compound word there occurs the elimination of what, in the opinion of the speaker, can easily be guessed by the listener.
Thus, as E.S. Kubryakova writes, "the difference between a compound word and the judgement that motivates it (or its semantic definition) consists, above all, in a different way of reflecting predication and in the conversion of actual predication into latent predication" (7, 67).
In light of this conclusion, the principle of the typological correlation between compound words and word-combinations, observed in present-day English, acquires a different interpretation. The regular, typological, structural-semantic interrelation of certain models of compound words with certain models of word-combinations (e.g., snow-white 'white as snow' – as white as snow, raindrop 'a drop of rain' – a drop of rain, cruelty-blind 'blind to cruelty' – blind to cruelty, blue-eyed 'blue-eyed' – with blue eyes and others) is regarded by many researchers of compounding as its foundation and the backbone of its systemic organization.
The essence of the correlation between compound words and word-combinations, however, lies not only in the dependence and obligatory interaction between the models of two different systems - compounding and word-combinations, which predetermines the structure and potential capacities of the compounding model, but also in the various ways of reflecting predication, in the various ways of naming one and the same situation, in the various onomasiological and communicative tasks of correlative compound words and word-combinations.
Undoubtedly, the type of connection in compound words differing in their morphological structure may be indicated with a greater or lesser degree of generalization. This becomes especially evident when comparing compound words with a verbal or deverbal component and compound words with substantival or adjectival constituents. In the English language, in which the second component of a compound word always functions as its onomasiological basis, while the role of the first is reduced to indicating the onomasiological feature, the composites opposed in terms of the degree of generalized expression of the connection turn out to be those formed according to the models n + (v + -er), n+(v + -ing) and n + n + -er, n + n; n + (v + -ed) and (n + n) + -ed and others. Cf., for example, piano-player 'a pianola', can-opener 'a tin-opener', shoemaker 'a shoemaker', piano-playing 'piano-playing', housekeeping 'housekeeping', book-binding 'bookbinding', daybreak 'daybreak' and toolbox 'a toolbox', moonlight 'moonlight', horsechestnut 'horse chestnut'; snow-covered 'snow-covered', frost-bitten 'frost-bitten' and life-sized 'life-size', waist-deep 'waist-deep', sky-blue 'sky-blue' and others.
Types of connections between components of a compound word that are nominal in character are far more diverse and reveal a correlation with the deep cases in Ch. Fillmore's case grammar. These may be relations of agentivity (watchdog 'a guard dog'), instrumental relations (air-brake 'an air brake'), locative relations (garden-party 'a garden party'), etc. Establishing them requires reconstructing the corresponding source of motivation of the compound word, and thereby reconstructing the predicate indicating the connection between the two nouns.
In compound words with a verbal or deverbal component, the type of connection, or predicate, is already indicated by the verbal stem itself, and what needs to be reconstructed is not the predicate itself but its actants, i.e. to establish to what extent these designations (play-goer 'a playgoer', sun-bather 'a sunbather' and others) are built on the indication of permanent or non-permanent features, of specific or non-specific reference, etc.
In this respect, semantic differences become explicable not only between different types of compound words, but also semantic differences between compounding and other methods of word-formation, in particular affixation.
A comparison of onomasiological categories in the sphere of compounding and affixation, carried out by V.G. Marina, made it possible to establish the diagnostic semantic features of each of these two leading methods of word-formation in present-day English. Let us recall that, following M. Dokulil, three types of onomasiological categories are distinguished in word-formation: transposition, as a result of which the source unit is converted into a unit of a different part of speech while retaining its lexical meaning, of the type добрый (kind) - доброта (kindness), ходить (to walk) - хождение (walking); modification, as a result of which the meaning of the source unit undergoes certain alterations, modifications, of the type учитель (teacher) –учительница (female teacher), синий (blue) – синеватый (bluish) etc., and mutation, leading to the formation, on the basis of the source unit, of a unit differing from it in its lexical and grammatical characteristics, of the type сушить (to dry) – сушилка (a dryer); веять (to winnow) – веялка (a winnower); торговать (to trade) – торговец (a trader) and others.
The system of compounding in present-day English is characterized, first, by the absence of compound words of the transpositional type, whereas in the system of affixation transposition is widespread, especially in the suffixal subsystem (cf. the suffixal types in -ment, -ing and others), and less so in prefixation (for example, unbutton 'to undo buttons').
Secondly, the system of compounding is characterized by a great diversity of modificational relations between the (especially nominal) components of compound words, as compared with the uniform character of modification in prefixal and suffixal derivatives of the modificational type. This fundamental difference between compounding and affixation reflects differences in their onomasiological functions: compounding is aimed at expressing, in names, various relations between objects, whereas the task of affixation is to designate as many objects as possible in terms of one and the same relation.
The third diagnostic feature of compounding is the special character of compound words of the mutational type, as compared with affixal derivatives of this type. Compound words are distinguished by figurativeness and expressiveness. Affixal words of the mutational type lack figurativeness and, as a rule, represent designations of phenomena of reality according to their principal features (for the given situation). Cf., for example, page-oner 'a front-page article, a well-known personality', rat-face 'a sly, cunning rogue', shadow-photograph 'an X-ray photograph' and unambitious 'unambitious', unanalytical 'unanalytical' etc.
Thus, compounding in present-day English is a special and distinctive method of word-formation, characterized by particular onomasiological and communicative tasks and functions, which determine the purpose, specificity, and place of compound words in the general system of the language.
Compound words, like words in general, are multi-aspect units. In accordance with the various properties of compound words, various classifications of them are possible. Taking into account the structure of the components of compound words yields, for example, the following structural classification:
a) compound words consisting of simple stems (heartache 'a heartache', blackbird 'a blackbird' and others);
b) compound words consisting of one simple and one derived stem (maid-servant 'a female servant', mill-owner 'a factory owner'.
c) compound words one of whose components – is an abbreviation (V-day 'Victory Day', A-bomb 'atomic bomb');
d) compound words one of whose components – is a compound stem (postmaster-general 'postmaster general').
+The structural classification of compound words, reflecting the patterns of word-composition in modern English, seems highly significant to us. It includes the following patterns:
Nouns
Adjectives
Even more important are the semantic classifications of compound words, which model their meanings, and mastering them helps in recognizing the hidden connection established between the components of a compound word. Since, as noted earlier, the type of connection in compound words with a second verbal or deverbal component is more or less clear, and is likewise fairly transparent in compound words with adjectival components, scholarly efforts are mainly directed at identifying the semantic patterns of compound words made up of two noun stems, where the connection takes a hidden, latent form. Based on research into the judgements that motivate compound words, the semantic connection between the components of compound words, which forms the basis of the semantic model, is described in the form of a list of predicates. The number of predicates characteristic of nominal-type compound words varies across different sources. The following predicates, however, make up the invariable core of the list:
Semantic modelling covers the overwhelming majority of compound words in modern English. Alongside them there is a certain residue of compound words whose meanings are difficult or altogether impossible to derive from the semantics of their constituents, owing to various semantic processes – reinterpretation, metaphorization, loss of the original meaning, etc., covering either the whole compound word or individual parts of it. For example: gate-crasher 'a spectator without a ticket, a "stowaway"', nightcap 'a cup of tea drunk at night; sport, the last match on a given day', hotdog 'a sausage', hotbed 'a hotbed (for plants)' and others.
The presence of idiomatic compound words, in our view, does not mean, however, that English compounding lacks patterns by which compound words with fairly predictable semantics are regularly formed. The ease with which new compound words and nonce words are formed and decoded – is convincing proof of this. (E.g., sleeplearner 'one who learns by the hypnopaedia method', moonwalker 'a lunar rover', crime-prevention 'the prevention of crime', etc.)
Affixation, conversion and compounding — are the main ways of forming words in modern English, represented by an extensive system of word-formation patterns. Alongside these patternable and most active methods of word-formation, there are other ways in which new words arise in the English language. These include, first and foremost, back-formation and shortening.
Back-formation (backformation, or backderivation) is the process of forming verbs by clipping a suffix from correlative nouns, such as burgle 'to commit burglary' from burglar 'a burglar, thief, robber', televise 'to show on television' from television 'television', etc. Formed by analogy with highly active suffixal patterns, these words serve, as it were, to fill gaps in a number of motivating bases. The presence of this analogy often promotes a reinterpretation of the semantic relations within motivating – motivated pairs, and at the synchronic level a verb formed on the basis of a noun, for example swindle 'to deceive, cheat, con' from swindler 'a swindler, a crook', is no longer perceived as the derived member but as the motivating one. A levelling of relations occurs in analogous pairs, and only a diachronic, historical analysis makes it possible to establish the original direction of derivation. In such cases back-formation becomes a historical phenomenon. However, such levelling does not occur in all pairs by any means. Thus, the verb burgle retains its semantic dependence, and accordingly its derived status, on the noun burglar, in the same way as televise does on television. On this basis, back-formation exists as a synchronic process, although one that is rather limited in its sphere of operation.
Much more active, especially in written speech, is such a method of word-creation as abbreviation, or shortening.
The great variety and multiplicity of types of abbreviation, among which one can distinguish various types of initialisms (e.g., NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization 'the North Atlantic alliance, NATO', ABC – American Broadcasting Corporation 'the American Broadcasting Corporation, ABC'), clippings (e.g., lab – laboratory 'a laboratory', plane – airplane 'an airplane'), blends (e.g., navicert – navigation certificate 'a naval clearance certificate', smoke + fog-smog 'fog with smoke, smog', breakfast + lunch – brunch 'a late breakfast'), and the specific nature of their semantics, namely their equivalence to the semantics of the original, motivating names - all this has given rise to various approaches to the phenomenon of abbreviation, various definitions of its boundaries, and various classifications.
At the current stage of the development of linguistics, abbreviation is regarded as a complex system whose structure is determined by a particular inventory of building elements (abbreviational syllables, initials – letters and sounds) and by the rules governing their combination. In its procedural aspect, abbreviation is a process of creating units of secondary nomination with the status of a word, which consists in clipping any linear parts of the motivating source and which results in the appearance of a word whose form reflects some part or parts of the components of the original, motivating unit.
Such a broad definition of abbreviation unites within a single system phenomena that have often been kept separate from one another, and makes it possible to develop a general classification of abbreviations, which arises as a result of analysing the "traces" of the shortened units preserved in the structure of the abbreviation, correlating the abbreviation with its motivating source, and taking into account a whole range of structural characteristics of both the original unit and the unit obtained in the process of abbreviation. These include the following parameters: 1) the type of the original unit (a word, a word-combination, a set of words); the number of elements in the original name; the order in which they follow one another and its conformity with syntactic norms; 2) the type of the resulting abbreviatory sign (the linear extent of the "traces": an initial, a syllable, a word; the number of components retained within the shortening and their correspondence to the number of full words in the original word-combination); 3) the position occupied by the components of abbreviations in the words they originate from - initial, final, medial, initial and final; 4) the phonetic and graphic features of how abbreviations are formed; 5) the presence within them of elements that were absent from the structure of the original word or word-combination (e.g., an affix); 6) the way in which word fragments are joined in complex abbreviations – juxtaposition, overlap, and the embedding of parts of words.
The parameters named above, proposed by A.N. Eldyshev, formed the basis of the following structural classification of shortenings, in which he distinguishes three main structural types:
1) syllabic shortenings, which include a part or parts of only one word, no smaller than a two-phoneme syllable;
2) compound-syllabic shortenings, which include not only reduced parts of words, no smaller in linear extent than a two-phoneme syllable, but also, alongside them, complete words;
3) initial shortenings, which necessarily include the initial letters/sounds (initials) of the word or words of the word-combination being shortened.
Within the overall corpus of syllabic shortenings, which are formed by shortening part of a single word and which, after this operation, are represented by a syllable or a sequence of syllables, four subtypes are distinguished depending on which part of the word is clipped. These are final (crock from crocodile 'a crocodile'), initial (phone from telephone 'a telephone'), edge (tec from detective 'a detective') and medial (specs from spectacles 'spectacles') clippings of the source word. The most widespread are syllabic clippings formed by final, back-clipping, probably because the initial part of the word usually coincides with part of the root morpheme of the source word, and retaining it makes it possible to preserve the connection between the original, motivating unit and the abbreviation. Occasionally syllabic shortenings are formed on the basis of compound words and word-combinations. The latter are first subjected to ellipsis (public house → public → pub 'a pub, a bar').
Several subtypes are also distinguished among compound-syllabic shortenings. These are 1) compound-syllabic shortenings proper, which necessarily include an initial syllable or syllables (Interpol - International police 'the International Criminal Police Organization, Interpol'), and 2) blends, characterized by the presence within them of the final part of a word. Among blends, in turn, a distinction is drawn between abbreviations formed by attaching the final part of a word to the beginning of a word or to a whole word (Oxbridge from Oxford + Cambridge), and overlaps, formed by superimposing phonetically similar parts of clipped or whole words (bisalo from bison 'a bison' + buffalo 'a buffalo, a bison').
Abbreviations belonging to the class of initial shortenings are also varied. Depending on the features of their pronunciation, initial shortenings are divided into
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Часть 1 Ways of Forming Words in Modern English: Affixation, Compounding and Minor Types
Часть 2 Compounding - Ways of Forming Words in Modern English: Affixation,
Часть 3 Conclusions why is it needed and how to use it?
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