What is considered to be a basis for creation new words
What is considered to be a basis for creation new words
Fill in the gaps in the following definitions
56. The conceptual content of a word is expressed in its … meaning
57. The emotional content of a word is expressed in its … meaning.
58. The relationships which are based on the interdependence of words within the vocabulary are called … relationships.
59. A word enters into … (linear) combinatorial relationships with other lexical units that can form its context, serving to identify and distinguish its meaning.
60. A … approach studies the language at the present stage of its development.
62. The system of grammatical forms characteristic of a word is called a … of a word.
63. ….. affixes serve to form different words.
64. A root morpheme is the … core of the word disregarding its grammatical properties.
Write the right answer on the following questions.
65. What do we call a stem, which is produced by means of affixation, shortening, conversion, abbreviation, back-formation?
66. What do we call the smallest indivisible meaningful component of the word?
67. What do we mean by the realization of concept or emotion by means of definite language system?
68. What is the branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of words and word equivalents?
69. What do we call a positional variant of a morpheme occurring in a specific environment and characterized by complementary distribution?
70. What is considered to be a basis for creation new words?
71. Define the type of transference of meaning in the following words: the neck of a bottle, a storm of indignation.
72. Define the type of transference of meaning in the following words: the hall applauded, the marble spoke.
73. How do we call words, which originate from the same etymological source, but differ in phonemic shape and in meaning?
74. What type of borrowings are these words: television, radio, football?
75. What type of borrowings are these words: wonder child, collective farm?
76. What do we call a morpheme, which contains the lexical core of a word?
77. What are affixes which take part in deriving new words?
78. How do we call a morpheme which may stand alone without changing its meaning?
79. What do we call affixes, which build different forms of one and the same word, serving to convey grammatical meaning?
80. What is the most essential means of human communication?
81. How do we call the relationships, which are based on the interdependence of words within «the vocabulary?
82. What approach studies the language at the present stage of its development?
83. How do we call a word, which has several meanings?
84. What do we call the system of grammatical forms characteristic of a word?
85. What form may stand alone without changing its meaning?
86. What form is always bound to something else and never occur alone?
87. What approach studies different historical changes of the vocabulary system?
88. What is a general property of matter?
89. How do we call the highest form of the reflection of the objective reality?
90. How do we call different combinatorial possibilities of words?
91. How do we call a type of word-building, in which new words are produced by combining two free sterns?
92. What kind of criterion seems to be sufficiently convincing in cases of distinguishing between a word and a word-group?
93. What leading semantic component in the semantic structure of a word expresses the conceptual content of a word?
94. What semantic component in the semantic structure of a word expresses the emotional content of a word?
95. How is traditionally termed the process of development of a new meaning (or a change of meaning)?
96. How do we call a type of word-building, in which part of the original word or word group is taken away?
97. How do we call abbreviated words which are read as the ordinary English words and sound like the English words (f.ex.:NATO, NOW)?
98.How do we call a type of word-building which denotes the derivation of new words by subtracting a real or supposed affix from existing words through misinterpretation of their structure (f.ex.: beggar, butler)?
99. How do we call words which are identical in sound and spelling, or, at
least, in one of these aspects, but different in their meaning?
100. How do we define words with the same denotative component, but differing in connotative components?
101. How do we define words in every language, which people avoid because
they are considered indecent, indelicate, rude or impolite?
103. What approach defines conversion as a formation of a new word by means of changing its paradigm?
104. What approach defines conversion as a kind of functional change, which implies that one and the same word can belong to several parts simultaneously?
105. What approach defines conversion as a process of coining a word of one part of speech from the stem or word form of another part of speech by means of changing its paradigm (if any) and environment characteristic of a word of a definite part of speech?
108. Write down the surname of a person who was the first to introduce the term «conversion».
109. Write down the surname of а рerson who pointed out the very important characteristic of the word, its indivisibility.
50% правильных ответов – «удовлетворительно».
80% правильных ответов – «хорошо».
Более 90% правильных ответов – «отлично».
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WORD-BUILDING SYSTEM IN ENGLISH
LECTURE 6
1. General notion.
3. Valency of word-building elements.
a) Ways of forming compounds;
b) Structural and semantic characteristics of compound words;
c) Derivational compounds.
Word building is one of the ways of vocabulary extension. It is coining new words from existing elements according to existing patterns. New words are formed for two main reasons:
1) when it is necessary to give a name to a new object or phenomenon;
2) when a new name is needed for a familiar thing whose old name has become too stale because of its frequent use.
There exist the following types of word building in Modern English:
— conversion (to orbit),
— back-formation (to enthuse),
— sound imitation (boom),
— sound interchange (break – breech).
Some linguists distinguish between word formation and word creation.
Word-formation includes derivation, conversion, and composition. Other types refer to word creation. In word formation a word-building rule is applied to a derivational base or bases, and affixes can be used (in the case of derivation and composition). Conversion is treated as zero derivation.
Word-building bases can be of 3 types:
— bases which coincide with stems of different degrees of complexity (simple, derivative, compound), e.g., dreamy, dreamily, daydreamer;
— bases which coincide with word forms, e.g., love-lost, good-looking;
— bases which coincide with word-groups, e.g., left-hander (from left hand).
The derivational base motivates the lexical meaning of the word. Word creation has no motivating base or derivative elements (e.g., D, lab, fruice), therefore it is considered to be a separate way of vocabulary extension. Some of the types of word-creation are rather productive in present-day English, such as blending, back-formation, shortening.
Productivity is the ability of a word-building type (or a pattern, or an affix) to coin new words at a given period of language history. The degree of productivity is seen in the ability of a word-building type, or a pattern in this type, or a word-building element to coin new words for one occasion – the so-called nonce words.
2. Affixation (Derivation)
Affixation is coining new words by means of adding suffixes and prefixes to the word-building base, or the stem. It falls into suffixation and prefixation.
Suffixation. Derivational suffixes may be characterized from different points of view: their origin, part-of-speech, meaning, productivity, ability to join particular stems (valency), etc.
As for the origin of suffixes, there are native and borrowed suffixes.
Speaking about part of speech characteristics of suffixes one should remember that each part of speech has its own set of suffixes, for example:
According to their ability to form new words in present-day English suffixes are classified into:
— productive, e.g., -er (packer), -ing (doing), -ful (roomful), -able (get-at-able), etc.
— non-productive, e.g., -th(death), -hood(chidhood), -some(tiresome), etc.
Some non-productive suffixes can become productive again, e.g., -dom(slavedom).
Prefixes are characterized from the point of view of their origin, part-of-speech, meaning, valency, too.
The native prefixes are un-, under-, over-, mis-, re-. The borrowed prefixes are: trans-, ex-, super-, sub-, со-, e.g., transatlantic, ex-wife, super-star, submarine, co-ed.
Prefixes can be polysemantic or homonymous, too. E.g., dis— has two meanings: negative, e.g., advantage – disadvantage and reversative, e.g., qualify – disqualify. The prefix a- may be used to form statives, e.g., abroad, asleep; its homonym has a negative meaning, e.g., amoral.
Valency of Word-Building Elements.
It is one of the most essential characteristics of word-building. Valency is defined as the ability of a linguistic unit to be combined with other linguistic units of the same order. Here we can speak of the valency of affixes and stems.
Some constraints are imposed by linguistic norm, by usage, though it is difficult to explain their reasons. For example, it is difficult to explain the rule choosing the prefix un— or in-, e.g., inadequate, but unattractive; unimportant, but impossible; also, unjust, but injustice, though unfaithful and unfaithfulness. The last case is rather regular, but unaccountable.
It is also difficult to explain some variant forms, which are possible in some cases but impossible in others, e.g., debarkation and debarkment are variants, but demarcation has no variant like debarkment.
Composition is forming new words by combining stems so that the whole is characterized by formal and semantic unity. This word-building type is productive in nouns and adjectives. Composition in verbs and in other parts of speech is very rare. Most polyradical verbs are the result of conversion (to honeymoon, to blacklist) or of back-formation (to typewrite was formed from typewriter or typewriting).
a) Ways of Forming Compounds.
From the point of view of the ways of combining stems compound words fall into:
1) words formed by means of mere juxtaposition of stems (e.g., sitting-room, seashore);
The actual process of building compounds may take two forms:
1) Compound words can be built spontaneously according to productive patterns of the time, e.g., peace-fighter (Noun stem + Noun stem), runaway (V stem +Adj. stem), age-long (Noun stem + Adj. stem), etc.;
2) Compound words can be formed by means of a gradual process of semantic and structural isolation and fusion of free word-groups, e.g., lily-of-the-valley, brother-in-law, highway. Most of these compounds are nouns with the structure Adj. Stem + Noun stem, e.g., bluebell, blackboard.
b) Structural and Semantic Characteristics of Compound Words.
Compound words acquire structural and semantic integrity. They are spelt solidly or with a hyphen, they have unity of stress and structural cohesion, which ensures their structural integrity and distinguishes them from word groups. Compare: a blackboard and a black board. Compound words express one single notion, too, unlike similar phrases, e.g., a blackbird and a black bird.
From the morphological point of view compound words may consist of simple stems (sunflower), a simple stem and a derived stem (shop assistant), two derived stems (walkie-talkie, opener-upper). There are also compounds with a compound stem (aircraft-carrier).
Compound words may consist of stems of different parts of speech. For example, compound nouns may have the following structure:
N stem + N stem (toothache),
Ger. stem + N stem (cloakroom),
V stem + N stem (cutthroat),
Adj. stem + N stem (bluebell),
V stem + Adv. stem (breakdown) and so on.
According to relations between the constituents compound words fall into syntactic and asyntactic ones. The structural patterns of syntactic compounds correspond to the current syntactic patterns (e.g., hothouse = Adj. + N); the structural pattern of asyntactic ones does not (e.g., sky-blue – N + Adj.).
From the point of view of the degree of independence of their stems compound words are classified into the coordinative and the subordinate types. In coordinativecompounds both the IC’s are equally important, e.g., fighter-bomber, actor-manager. Here belong reduplicative compounds, e.g., fifty-fifty, compounds with rhyme and ablaut germination, e.g., zig-zag, helter-skelter, and additive compounds, e.g. kitchen-diner, Afro-American. In subordinate compounds one constituent is the structural and semantic centre, and the other is subordinated to it, e.g., popcorn, blackberry. It is in most cases the last IС that is this structural and semantic centre.
From the point of view of their motivation compounds may be non-idiomatic and idiomatic. Non-idiomatic compounds are morphologically motivated; their meanings are derived from the meanings of constituent stems and the word-building pattern (e.g., classroom, schoolboy). Idiomatic compounds are not motivated morphologically; they may be motivated semantically, e.g., slowcoach, or demotivated, e.g., hangover.
In exocentric compounds there is no semantic centre – there is no determinatum, but the whole word is its specific description. The name of the referent is only implied, it is outside the word, and it can be explicated by transforming the compound into a phrase, e.g., a scarecrow is ‘the object to scare birds away’.
Semantic relations between the stems of compound nouns and adjectives are quite numerous and variegated. For example, the word-building pattern Noun stem + Noun stem can have the following meanings, representing the relations between the IC’s:
For more details see the textbooks by I.V.Arnold, R.S.Ginzburg.
Note: It is difficult to draw a line of demarcation between compound words and corresponding phrases. The criteria for that are formal unity (one primary stress, solid or hyphenated spelling, fixed order of morphemes) and semantic unity (one notion is expressed). But there exist a lot of borderline cases, e.g., there may be 3 ways of spelling: matchbox, match-box and match box. In many cases not all the formal criteria are fulfilled, e.g., in compound adjectives there are two primary stresses: ‘sky-‘blue.
c) Derivational Compounds.
There is a particular word-building pattern in English, which combines derivation (affixation) and composition. In this case two stems are combined but the unity of the word is ensured by the derivational suffix, which refers to the whole, but not to the stem to which it is added. E.g., long—legged, shortsighted, go-getter, do-gooder.
This process, which is also called phrasal derivation, is rather productive.
Conversion is a specifically English type of word building determined by the structure of English, its analytical character, scarcity of inflections, abundance of mono- and disyllabic words in different parts of speech. Cf.: net (n), get (v), wet (adj.).
Mostly mono- and disyllabic root words are converted, e.g., to box, to eye, etc. But there is a marked tendency to convert words of a more complex structure, e.g., to nightwatch, to X-ray, to petition, etc.
Most of compound words are verbs formed from nouns (to fox, to hammer, to phone), from adjectives (to dry, to yellow), from adverbs (to up, to out), from other parts of speech (to but, to yes), from interjections (to encore), even from phrases (to my-friend). Nouns are also easily formed from different parts of speech (a try, a find – from verbs, a sweet – from adjectives, ups and downs – from adverbs, encore – from interjections, etc.).
Adjectives are obviously not formed from nouns by means of conversion, because nouns can perform the syntactic function of an attribute, e.g., a stone wall, a gold ring. Stone and gold are nouns in the function of an attribute, but not adjectives for several reasons: they can’t be used predicatively, and they can be modified by other adjectives but not by adverbs, e.g., a solid gold ring, a natural stone wall.
Semantic relations between original and converted words are heterogeneous. But some types of relations may be classified and the meaning of the converted word can be predicted. For example, deverbal nouns can have the meaning of result (a catch, a find) or an act (a try, a go); denominal verbs can have instrumental meaning (to radio, to hammer), or agentival meaning «in a manner characteristic of» (to crowd, to dog, to nurse), or locative meaning of container «to put in a container» (to can, to bottle).
Historical background of conversion.
Conversion appeared in Middle English together with and as a result of levelling and loss of endings in words of changeable parts of speech. This process resulted in the appearance of a lot of pairs of words of the same stem belonging to different parts of speech but having no indication of their part of speech belonging. E.g., OE lufu > love (n), OE lufian > love (v). By analogy other con-elations were easily formed in speech, e.g., to tiptoe, to button, to father, etc. In present-day English it is among the most productive types of word building.
Shortening falls into clipping (curtailment, contraction, or shortening proper) and acronymy (initial abbreviation). Clippings are derived from single words (e.g., mike from microphone); acronyms are derived from phrases (e.g., MP from Member of Parliament). Though some clippings can be due to ellipsis of phrases, too (pub from public house).
It consists in taking away any part of the word. The remaining part, which may be neither a morpheme nor even a syllable, acquires all the characteristic of the word: formal and semantic unity (semantic integrity), formal and semantic variation, grammatical paradigm and syntactic use. E.g., Tony spoke with the vet’s wife. Vet is a usual word with all its characteristics.
Structural and morphological characteristics of clippings.
There are three structural types of clipping with respect to the position of the clipped part of the word:
1. initial clipping, or apheresis. The initial part of the word is taken away, e.g., history > story;
2. medialclipping, or syncope. The middle part is taken away, e.g., spectacles > specs;
3. finalclipping, or apocope. The end of the word is taken away, e.g., demonstration > demo.
There may be mixed types of clipping, e.g., detective > tec (initial + final clipping). There may be also some changes in the remaining part of the word: pronunciation may change, e.g., laboratory > lab; or spelling may change, e.g., microphone > mike.
Clipping is a source of new morphemes. Clipped words often serve as word building bases, e.g. taxi is a clipping of taximeter cab. This new stem is a base for taxicab, taxi—driver, taxi—man, to taxi.
Clipping is often combined with derivation (e.g., comfy from comfortable, hanky from handkerchief) and composition (e.g., lab-assistant, go-getter).
Semantic peculiarities of clippings.
Polysemantic words are usually clipped in one meaning, but they may further develop new meanings. Compare fantasy and fancy, history and story. Homonymy among clippings is rather frequent, e.g., vac – 1. vacation, 2. vacuum cleaner.
Stylistic peculiarities of clippings.
Clipping is typical of colloquial speech, and clippings, especially the latest ones, are stylistically coloured as colloquial. E.g., exam, pro, dip, dorm. Most of the earliest clippings have become stylistically neutral, e.g., fend, strange, storyformed fromdefend, estrange, history.
Only initial letters of the phrase are left which may be pronounced in two ways:
2. according to the rules of reading (AIDS, UNO, UNESCO).
How new words are born
English speakers already have over a million words at our disposal – so why are we adding 1,000 new ones a year to the lexicon? And how?
One of the many recent additions to the Oxford English Dictionary. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
One of the many recent additions to the Oxford English Dictionary. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A s dictionary publishers never tire of reminding us, our language is growing. Not content with the million or so words they already have at their disposal, English speakers are adding new ones at the rate of around 1,000 a year. Recent dictionary debutants include blog, grok, crowdfunding, hackathon, airball, e-marketing, sudoku, twerk and Brexit.
But these represent just a sliver of the tip of the iceberg. According to Global Language Monitor, around 5,400 new words are created every year; it’s only the 1,000 or so deemed to be in sufficiently widespread use that make it into print. Who invents these words, and how? What rules govern their formation? And what determines whether they catch on?
Shakespeare is often held up as a master neologist, because at least 500 words (including critic, swagger, lonely and hint) first appear in his works – but we have no way of knowing whether he personally invented them or was just transcribing things he’d picked up elsewhere.
It’s generally agreed that the most prolific minter of words was John Milton, who gave us 630 coinages, including lovelorn, fragrance and pandemonium. Geoffrey Chaucer (universe, approach), Ben Jonson (rant, petulant), John Donne (self-preservation, valediction) and Sir Thomas More (atonement, anticipate) lag behind. It should come as no great surprise that writers are behind many of our lexical innovations. But the fact is, we have no idea who to credit for most of our lexicon.
If our knowledge of the who is limited, we have a rather fuller understanding of the how. All new words are created by one of 13 mechanisms:
1 Derivation
The commonest method of creating a new word is to add a prefix or suffix to an existing one. Hence realisation (1610s), democratise (1798), detonator (1822), preteen (1926), hyperlink (1987) and monogamish (2011).
2 Back formation
The inverse of the above: the creation of a new root word by the removal of a phantom affix. The noun sleaze, for example, was back-formed from “sleazy” in about 1967. A similar process brought about pea, liaise, enthuse, aggress and donate. Some linguists propose a separate category for lexicalisation, the turning of an affix into a word (ism, ology, teen), but it’s really just a type of back formation.
3 Compounding
The juxtaposition of two existing words. Typically, compound words begin life as separate entities, then get hitched with a hyphen, and eventually become a single unit. It’s mostly nouns that are formed this way (fiddlestick, claptrap, carbon dating, bailout), but words from other classes can be smooshed together too: into (preposition), nobody (pronoun), daydream (verb), awe-inspiring, environmentally friendly (adjectives).
4 Repurposing
Taking a word from one context and applying it to another. Thus the crane, meaning lifting machine, got its name from the long-necked bird, and the computer mouse was named after the long-tailed animal.
5 Conversion
Taking a word from one word class and transplanting it to another. The word giant was for a long time just a noun, meaning a creature of enormous size, until the early 15th century, when people began using it as an adjective. Thanks to social media, a similar fate has recently befallen friend, which can now serve as a verb as well as a noun (“Why didn’t you friend me?”).
6 Eponyms
Words named after a person or place. You may recognise Alzheimer’s, atlas, cheddar, alsatian, diesel, sandwich, mentor, svengali, wellington and boycott as eponyms – but did you know that gun, dunce, bigot, bugger, cretin, currant, hooligan, marmalade, maudlin, maverick, panic, silhouette, syphilis, tawdry, doggerel, doily and sideburns are too? (The issue of whether, and for how long, to retain the capital letters on eponyms is a thorny one.)
7 Abbreviations
An increasingly popular method. There are three main subtypes: clippings, acronyms and initialisms. Some words that you might not have known started out longer are pram (perambulator), taxi/cab (both from taximeter cabriolet), mob (mobile vulgus), goodbye (God be with you), berk (Berkshire Hunt), rifle (rifled pistol), canter (Canterbury gallop), curio (curiosity), van (caravan), sport (disport), wig (periwig), laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation), scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus), and trump (triumph. Although it’s worth noting that there’s another, unrelated sense of trump: to fabricate, as in “trumped-up charge”).
8 Loanwords
Foreign speakers often complain that their language is being overrun with borrowings from English. But the fact is, English itself is a voracious word thief; linguist David Crystal reckons it’s half-inched words from at least 350 languages. Most words are borrowed from French, Latin and Greek; some of the more exotic provenances are Flemish (hunk), Romany (cushty), Portuguese (fetish), Nahuatl (tomato – via Spanish), Tahitian (tattoo), Russian (mammoth), Mayan (shark), Gaelic (slogan), Japanese (tycoon), West Turkic (horde), Walloon (rabbit) and Polynesian (taboo). Calques (flea market, brainwashing, loan word) are translations of borrowings.
9 Onomatopeia
The creation of a word by imitation of the sound it is supposed to make. Plop, ow, barf, cuckoo, bunch, bump and midge all originated this way.
10 Reduplication
The repetition, or near-repetition, of a word or sound. To this method we owe the likes of flip-flop, goody-goody, boo-boo, helter-skelter, picnic, claptrap, hanky-panky, hurly-burly, lovey-dovey, higgledy-piggledy, tom-tom, hip hop and cray-cray. (Willy-nilly, though, came to us via a contraction of “Will he, nill he”.)
11 Nonce words
Words pulled out of thin air, bearing little relation to any existing form. Confirmed examples are few and far between, but include quark (Murray Gell-Mann), bling (unknown) and fleek (Vine celebrity Kayla Newman).
12 Error
Misspellings, mishearings, mispronunciations and mistranscriptions rarely produce new words in their own right, but often lead to new forms in conjunction with other mechanisms. Scramble, for example, seems to have originated as a variant of scrabble; but over time, the two forms have taken on different meanings, so one word has now become two. Similarly, the words shit and science, thanks to a long sequence of shifts and errors, are both ultimately derived from the same root. And the now defunct word helpmeet, or helpmate, is the result of a Biblical boo-boo. In the King James version, the Latin adjutorium simile sibi was rendered as “an help meet for him” – that is, “a helper suitable for him”. Later editors, less familiar with the archaic sense of meet, took the phrase to be a word, and began hyphenating help-meet.
13 Portmanteaus
Compounding with a twist. Take one word, remove an arbitrary portion of it, then put in its place either a whole word, or a similarly clipped one. Thus were born sitcom, paratroops, internet, gazunder and sexting. (Note: some linguists call this process blending and reserve the term portmanteau for a particular subtype of blend. But since Lewis Carroll, who devised this sense of portmanteau, specifically defined it as having the broader meaning, I’m going to use the terms willy-nilly.)
The popularity of the various methods has waxed and waned through the ages. For long periods (1100-1500 and 1650-1900), borrowings from French were in vogue. In the 19th century, loanwords from Indian languages (bangle, bungalow, cot, juggernaut, jungle, loot, shampoo, thug) were the cat’s pyjamas. There was even a brief onslaught from Dutch and Flemish.
But today, when it comes to word formation, there’s only one player in town: the portmanteau. Is this a bodacious development – or a disastrophe? I’ll get the debate rolling tomorrow.
This article was amended on 8 February 2016 to remove an incorrect reference to Oxford Dictionaries Online.
What is considered to be a basis for creation new words
Words like gadget, blimp, raunchy, scam, nifty, zit, clobber, boffin, gimmick, jazz and googol have all appeared in the last century or two with no apparent etymology, and are more recent examples of this kind of novel creation of words. Additionally, some words that have existed for centuries in regional dialects or as rarely used terms, suddenly enter into popular use for little or no apparent reason (e.g. scrounge and seep, both old but obscure English words, suddenly came into general use in the early 20th Century).
Sometimes, if infrequently, a «nonce word» (created «for the nonce», and not expected to be re-used or generalized) does become incorporated into the language. One example is James Joyce’s invention quark, which was later adopted by the physicist Murray Gell-Mann to name a new class of sub-atomic particle, and another is blurb, which dates back to 1907.
Sometimes these adoptions have come by a circuitous route (e.g. the word orange originated with the Sanskrit naranj or naranga or narangaphalam or naragga, which became the Arabic naranjah and the Spanish naranja, entered English as a naranj, changed to a narange, then to an arange and finally an orange; the word garbage came to English originally from Latin, but only arrived via Old Italian, an Italian dialect and then Norman French). Sometimes the tortuous route and degrees of filtering through other languages can modify words so much that their original derivations are all but indiscernible (e.g. both coy and quiet come from the Latin word quietus; sordid and swarthy both come from the Latin sordere; entirety and integrity both derive from the Latin integritas; salary and sausage both originate with the Latin word sal; grammar and glamour are both descended from the same Greek word gramma; and gentle, gentile, genteel and jaunty all come from the Latin gentilis; etc). Since the expansion of global trade, and particularly since British colonialism opened up rich new sources (see the page on Late Modern English), a huge number of words have been adopted into English from a great diversity of different languages. In a reverse process, many English words have also been adopted by other countries (see the section on Reverse Loanwords in English Today). |
However, the sheer variety and number of possible affixes in English can lead to some confusion. For instance, there is no single standard method for something as basic as making a noun into an adjective (-able, -al, -ous and -y are just some of the possibilities). There are at least nine different negation prefixes (a-, anti-, dis-, il-, im-, in-, ir-, non- and un-), and it is almost impossible for a non-native speaker to predict which is to be used with which root word. To make matters worse, some apparently negative forms do not even negate the meanings of their roots (e.g. flammable and inflammable, habitable and inhabitable, ravel and unravel). Some affix additions are surprisingly recent. Officialdom and boredom joined the ancient word kingdom as recently as the 20th Century, and apolitical as the negation of political did not appear until 1952. Adding affixes remains the simplest and perhaps the commonest method of creating new words. |
Leaving aside the common English practice of contracting multiple words like do not, you are, there will and that would into the single words don’t, you’re, there’ll and that’d, there are many other examples where multiple words or phrases have been contracted into single words (e.g. daisy was once a flower called day’s eye; shepherd was sheep herd; lord was originally loaf-ward; fortnight was fourteen-night; etc). Acronyms are another example of this technique. While most acronyms (e.g. USA, IMF, OPEC, etc) remain as just a series of initial letters, some have been formed into words (e.g. laser from light amplification by stimulated emmission of radiation, radar from radio detection and ranging); quasar from quasi-stellar radio source; scuba from self-contained underwater breathing apparatus; etc). |
The root words may be run together with no separation (as in the examples above), or they may be hyphenated (e.g. self-discipline, part-time, mother-in-law) or even left as separate words (e.g. fire hydrant, commander in chief), although the rules for such constructions are unclear at best. During the English Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution, compounding classical elements of Greek and Latin (e.g. photograph, telephone, etc) was a very common method of English word formation, and the process continues even today. A large part of the scientific and technical lexicon of English consists of such classical compounds. Sometimes words or phonemes are blended rather than combined whole, forming a «portmanteau word» with two meanings packed into one word, or with a meaning intermediate between the two constituent words (e.g. brunch, which blends breakfast and lunch; motel, which blends motor and hotel; electrocute, which blends electric and execute; smog, which blends smoke and fog; guesstimate, which blends guess and estimate; telethon, which blends telephone and marathon; chocoholic, which blends chocolate and alcoholic; etc). Lewis Carroll was perhaps the first to deliberately use this technique for literary effect, when he introduced new words like slithy, frumious, galumph, etc, in his poetry in the 19th Century. |
Some words have changed their meanings many times. Nice originally meant stupid or foolish; then, for a time, it came to mean lascivious or wanton; it then went through a whole host of alternative meanings (including extravagant, elegant, strange, slothful, unmanly, luxurious, modest, slight, precise, thin, shy, discriminating and dainty), before settling down into its modern meaning of pleasant and agreeable in the late 18th Century. Conversely, silly originally meant blessed or happy, and then passed through intermediate meanings of pious, innocent, harmless, pitiable, feeble and feeble-minded, before finally ending up as foolish or stupid. Buxom originally meant obedient to God in Middle English, but it passed through phases of meaning humble and submissive, obliging and courteous, ready and willing, bright and lively, and healthy and vigorous, before settling on its current very specific meaning relating to a plump and well-endowed woman. Some words have become much more specific than their original meanings. For instance, starve originally just mean to die, but is now much more specific; a forest was originally any land used for hunting, regardless of whether it was covered in trees; deer once referred to any animal, not just the specific animal we now associate with the word; girl was once a young person of either sex; and meat originally covered all kinds of food (as in the phrase “meat and drink”). Some words came to mean almost the complete opposite of their original meanings. For instance, counterfeit used to mean a legitimate copy; brave once implied cowardice; crafty was originally a term of praise; cute used to mean bow-legged; enthusiasm and zeal were both once disparaging words; manufacture originally meant to make by hand; awful meant deserving of awe; egregious originally connoted eminent or admirable; artificial was a positive description meaning full of skilful artifice; etc. A related category is where an existing word comes to be used with another grammatical function, often a different part of speech, a process known as functional shift. Examples include: the creation of the nouns a commute, a bore and a swim from the original verbs to commute, to bore and to swim; the creation of the verbs to bottle, to catalogue and to text from the original nouns bottle, catalogue and text; the creation of the verbs to dirty, to empty and to dry from the original adjectives dirty, empty and dry, etc. Modern language purists often condemn such developments, although they have occurred throughout the history of English, and in some cases may even reclaim the original sense of a word (e.g. impact was originally introduced as a verb, then established itself predominantly as a noun, and has only recently begun to be used a verb once more).
There are many more words, often in quite common use, that have arisen over time due to mishearings (e.g. shamefaced from the original shamefast, penthouse from pentice, sweetheart from sweetard, buttonhole from button-hold, etc). Mrs. Mapalprop, a character in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s 1775 play «The Rivals», was famous for her «malapropisms» like illiterate, reprehend, etc, but these never gained common currency. Likewise, it seems unlikely that «Bushisms» (named for US President Bush’s unfortunate tendency to mangle the language) like misunderestimate, or Sarah Palin’s refudiate will ever become part of the everyday language, although there are many who would argue that they deserve to. Many misused words (as opposed to newly-coined words) have, for better or worse, become so widely used in their new context that they may be considered to be generally accepted, particularly in the USA, although many strict grammarians insist on their distinctness (e.g. alternate to mean alternative, momentarily to mean presently, disinterested to mean uninterested, i.e. to mean e.g., flaunt to mean flout, historic to mean historical, imply to mean infer, etc). |
More often, though, a new word for a different part of speech is derived form an older form (e.g. laze from lazy, beg from beggar, greed from greedy, rove from rover, burgle from burglar, edit from editor, difficult from difficulty, resurrect from resurrection, insert from insertion, project from projection, grovel from groveling, sidle from sideling or sidelong, etc). |
Examples include boo, bow-wow, tweet, boom, tinkle, rattle, buzz, click, hiss, bang, plop, cuckoo, quack, beep, etc, but there are many many more. Some words, like squirm for example, are not strictly onomatopoeic but are nevertheless imitative to some extent (e.g like a worm) |
Many terms for political, philosophical or religious doctrines are based on the names of their founders or chief exponents (e.g. Marxism, Aristotelianism, Platonic, stoic, Christianity, etc). Similarly, many scientific terms and units of measurement are named after their inventors (e.g. ampere, angstrom, joule, watt, etc). Increasingly, in the 20th Century, specific brand names have become generalized descriptions (e.g. hoover, kleenex, xerox, aspirin, google, etc). Sometimes, portmanteau words (see Fusing and Compounding Words above) may be produced by joining together proper nouns with common nouns, such as in the case of gerrymandering, a word combining the politically-contrived re-districting practices of Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry with the salamander-shaped outline one of the districts he created. Комплект тестовых заданий
Министерство образования и науки Российской Федерации Федеральное государственное бюджетное образовательное учреждение «ДОНСКОЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ ТЕХНИЧЕСКИЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ» Кафедра Мировые языки и культуры Комплект тестовых заданий По дисциплине Б3.В. ОД.1.2 «Основы теории первого иностранного языка (лексикология)» (шифр дисциплины по учебному плану, название) По направлению 035700 Лингвистика (код, название без кавычек) TASK I. Match the correct definitions with the terms: 1) The branch of linguistics, dealing with causal relations between the language works and develops, on the one hand, and the facts of social life, on the other hand. 2) The general study of words and vocabulary, irrespective of the specific features of any particular language. 3) The description of the characteristic peculiarities in the vocabulary of a given language. 4) The branch of linguistics which is concerned with comparing grammatical, phonological and semantic peculiarities of the languages (mainly two languages are compared) 5) The branch of linguistics which discusses the origin of various words, their change and development, and investigates the linguistic and extra linguistic forces modifying their structure, meaning and usage. b) historical lexicology; d) contrastive lexicology; e) general lexicology. TASK II. Match each term with the correct definition on the right: 1) Word a) words that are made up of elements derived from two or more different 2) Consciousness b) the system of grammatical forms characteristic of a word; 3) Paradigm c) the fundamental unit of a language; it is a dialectical unity of form and content; 4) Hybrids d) the highest form of the reflection of the objective reality; 5) Valency e) different combinatorial possibilities of TASK III. Match each surname of a famous linguist with his contribution to linguistics: 1) L. Bloomfield a) suggested the distinction between a diachronic and a synchronic approach; 2) H. Sweet b) suggested a theory of opposition in 3) Ferdinand de Saussure c) defined a word as “the minimum 4) E. Sapir d) first suggested the analysis into 5) N. S. Trubetskoy e) pointed out the very important characteristic of the word, its indivisibility. TASK IV. Write whether this assumption is true or false: 1) The reflection of objective reality is selective. 2) The vocabulary of any language is a rigid, stable system. 3) All the aspects in language reality are interdependent and cannot be understood one without the other. 4) Without a basis of similarity no comparison and no opposition are possible. 5) A word is “the minimum sentence”. TASK V. Define the type of motivation in the following words. Write them out in three columns: 1) phonetical motivation; 2) morphological motivation; 3) semantic motivation. c) headache (anything or anyone very annoying); h) watchdog (a watchful human guardian); i) jacket (a protective cover for a book). j) headache (pain in the head) Fill in the gaps in the following definitions: iii. A root stem expresses the … and the part of speech meaning. iv. A … approach studies different historical changes of the vocabulary system. 5. … is a general property of matter. TASK I. Choose the best answer, A, B or C. 1.What do we mean by derived stem? a) A stem which is produced by means of affixation; b) A stem which is produced by means of shortening, conversion, compounding; c) A stem which is produced by means of affixation, shortening, conversion, abbreviation, backformation 2.What do we call a morpheme? a) the smallest divisible meaningless component of the word; b) the smallest indivisible meaningless component of the word; c) the smallest indivisible meaningful component of the word; 3.What do we mean by lexical meaning of a word? a)the situation in which a word is uttered; b. the realization of concept or emotion by means of definite language system; c. the relation between the object or notion named, and the name itself; 4. What is the branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of words and word equivalents? b) special lexicology; 5. What are allomorphs? a) words that are made up of elements derived from two or more different languages; b) a positional variant of a morpheme occurring in a specific environment and characterized by complementary distribution; 6.What types of stems do you know? a) root, derived, compound, compound-derived; b) simple, derived, compound; 7.What types of morphemes do you know? a) root and affixal; 8. What is considered to be a basis for creation new words? a) a root morpheme; c) a root morpheme and a stem; 9. What types of semantic components can be distinguished within the meaning of a word? a) denotative and connotative; b) direct and figurative; c) main and primary; 10. Define the type of transference of meaning in the following words: the tongue of a bell, a shadow of a smile? 11. Define the type of transference of meaning in the following words: the foot of a beg, to marry money? 12. How do we call words, which originate from the same etymological source, but differ in phonemic shape and in meaning? b) etymological doublets; c) international words; 13. What stages of assimilation do borrowings go through? a) the phonetic, the grammatical, the semantic; c) the phonetic, the grammatical; 14. What type of borrowings are these words: coca-cola, golf, antibiotic? b) etymological doublets; c) international words; 15.What type of borrowings are these words: masterpiece, collective farm? b) etymological doublets; c) international words; 16. What do we mean by root morpheme? a) A morpheme which contains the lexical core of a word; b) A morpheme which contains the lexical and the part of speech meaning; c) A morpheme which contains the part of speech meaning; 17. What are affixes which take part in deriving new words? a) affixes of high-frequency; b) productive affixes; 18. How do we call a form which may stand alone without changing its meaning? 19. What kind of meaning does the stem express? a) the lexical and the part of speech meaning; c) the part of speech meaning; 20. What do we mean by functional affixes? a) affixes which serve to form different words; b) affixes which build different forms of one and the same word, serving to convey grammatical meaning; c) affixes which function as bound forms; Fill in the gaps in the following definitions2. The conceptual content of a word is expressed in its … meaning 3. The emotional content of a word is expressed in its … meaning. 4. The relationships which are based on the interdependence of words within the vocabulary are called … relationships. 5. A word enters into … (linear) combinatorial relationships with other lexical units that can form its context, serving to identify and distinguish its meaning. 6. A … approach studies the language at the present stage of its development. 8. The system of grammatical forms characteristic of a word is called a … of a word. 9. ….. affixes serve to form different words. 10. A root morpheme is the … core of the word disregarding its grammatical properties. Write the right answer on the following questions. 1. What do we call a stem, which is produced by means of affixation, shortening, conversion, abbreviation, back-formation? 2. What do we call the smallest indivisible meaningful component of the word? 3. What do we mean by the realization of concept or emotion by means of definite language system? 4. What is the branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of words and word equivalents? 5. What do we call a positional variant of a morpheme occurring in a specific environment and characterized by complementary distribution? 6. What is considered to be a basis for creation new words? 7. Define the type of transference of meaning in the following words: the neck of a bottle, a storm of indignation. 8. Define the type of transference of meaning in the following words: the hall applauded, the marble spoke. 9. How do we call words, which originate from the same etymological source, but differ in phonemic shape and in meaning? 10. What type of borrowings are these words: television, radio, football? 11. What type of borrowings are these words: wonder child, collective farm? 12. What do we call a morpheme, which contains the lexical core of a word? 13. What are affixes which take part in deriving new words? 14. How do we call a morpheme which may stand alone without changing its meaning? 15. What do we call affixes, which build different forms of one and the same word, serving to convey grammatical meaning? 16. What is the most essential means of human communication? 17. How do we call the relationships, which are based on the interdependence of words within «the vocabulary? 18. What approach studies the language at the present stage of its development? 19. How do we call a word, which has several meanings? 20. What do we call the system of grammatical forms characteristic of a word? 21. What form may stand alone without changing its meaning? 22. What form is always bound to something else and never occur alone? 23. What approach studies different historical changes of the vocabulary system? 24. What is a general property of matter? 25. How do we call the highest form of the reflection of the objective reality? 26. How do we call different combinatorial possibilities of words? 27. How do we call a type of word-building, in which new words are produced by combining two free sterns? 28. What kind of criterion seems to be sufficiently convincing in cases of distinguishing between a word and a word-group? 29. What leading semantic component in the semantic structure of a word expresses the conceptual content of a word? 30. What semantic component in the semantic structure of a word expresses the emotional content of a word? 31. How is traditionally termed the process of development of a new meaning (or a change of meaning)? 32. How do we call a type of word-building, in which part of the original word or word group is taken away? 33. How do we call abbreviated words which are read as the ordinary English words and sound like the English words (f. ex.:NATO, NOW)? 34.How do we call a type of word-building which denotes the derivation of new words by subtracting a real or supposed affix from existing words through misinterpretation of their structure (f. ex.: beggar, butler)? 35. How do we call words which are identical in sound and spelling, or, at least, in one of these aspects, but different in their meaning? 36. How do we define words with the same denotative component, but differing in connotative components? 37. How do we define words in every language, which people avoid because they are considered indecent, indelicate, rude or impolite? 39. What approach defines conversion as a formation of a new word by means of changing its paradigm? 40. What approach defines conversion as a kind of functional change, which implies that one and the same word can belong to several parts simultaneously? 41. What approach defines conversion as a process of coining a word of one part of speech from the stem or word form of another part of speech by means of changing its paradigm (if any) and environment characteristic of a word of a definite part of speech? 44. Write down the surname of a person who was the first to introduce the term «conversion». 45. Write down the surname of а рerson who pointed out the very important characteristic of the word, its indivisibility. Choose the best answer: (a)grammatical employment of linguistic units (b)various lexical means and stylistic devices (c)different properties of words and the vocabulary of a language a) phonetics and grammar b) phonetics, grammar, history of a language, stylistics and sociolinguistics c) literature, history and sociology a) emotive charge and imagery c) emotive charge, evaluation and expressiveness 4. Which meaning of the polysemantic adjective barbaric is its primary a) very cruel and violent b) primitive; unsophisticated c) uncivilized and uncultured b) homonyms proper 6. In the sentence ‘My auntie (uncle/cousin) has bought (purchased/ 7. The synonyms teenager (“someone who is between 13 and 19 years a) stylistic synonyms b) ideographic synonyms c) ideographic-stylistic synonyms a) the root, free morpheme + the root, bound morpheme b) the affixational, bound morpheme + the combining form which is a bound root c) the affixational, bound morpheme + the root, free morpheme a) polymorphic, monoradical, prefixo-radical-suffixal words b) monomorphic, prefixo-radical-suffixal words c) polymorphic, polyradical words 3. The structural class to which the derivational base of the adjective a) that coincide with word-forms b) that coincide with morphological stems c) that coincide with word-groups a) denominal suffix b) deverbal suffix c) noun-forming suffix b) place of the action c) action characteristic of the object a) of the Indo-European origin b) the English word proper c) of the Common Germanic origin,, 9. The origin and source of borrowing of the word carat “a unit of Источники информации:
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