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English Word-Building Techniques

This document outlines exercises for a practical English class on word-building in the English language. It discusses various processes of word formation like compounding, conversion, shortening, blending, back-formation, and sound changes. Students are asked to complete exercises analyzing compounds, commenting on derived verbs, explaining blends, supplying full state names for abbreviations, and more. The exercises are meant to illustrate different word-building processes in English.

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Анастасия Сошникова
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437 views2 pages

English Word-Building Techniques

This document outlines exercises for a practical English class on word-building in the English language. It discusses various processes of word formation like compounding, conversion, shortening, blending, back-formation, and sound changes. Students are asked to complete exercises analyzing compounds, commenting on derived verbs, explaining blends, supplying full state names for abbreviations, and more. The exercises are meant to illustrate different word-building processes in English.

Uploaded by

Анастасия Сошникова
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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10 points

Practical Class 2-3

Word-Building of the English Language. Primary and Secondary Ways of the English
Word-Building.

1. Composition as a word-building act. Peculiarities of English compounds.


2. The role of conversion in present-day English.
3. Shortening. Its structural, semantic and stylistic peculiarities.
4. Minor types of the English Word-building:
a) Sound interchange in English.
b) The source of stress interchange in English words.
c) Sound imitation as a means of coining new lexical units.
d) The process of blending.
e) Back-formation.

Answer the following questions:

1. What are the peculiarities of the English word-building system?


2. Which type of word-building is considered to be particularly English?
3. How can you distinguish between a compound and a free word-group?
4. Which secondary ways of the English word-building are still productive and which are
not? Provide examples
5. Do the following practical assignments:

Exercise 1.

Analyse the structure of the following compounds and classify them into coordinative and
subordinative, syntactic and asyntactic:

bookbinder, doorbell, key-note, knife-and-fork, hot-tempered, dry-clean, care-free, policy-maker,


mad-brained, five-fold, two-faced, body-guard, do-it-yourself, boogie-woogie, оfficer-director,
driver-collector, building-site.

Exercise 2.

Comment on the formation of the words given below:

to burgle, to springclean, to typewrite, to beg, to note.

Exercise 3.

Explain the formation of the following blends:

flush, glaze, good-bye, electrocute, pomato, twirl, dollarature, cablegram, galumph, frutopia
drink.

Exercise 4.

Give verbs corresponding to the nouns that have been underlined. Compare the place of the stress
in the noun and the verb.
1. He looked up; all among the trees he saw moving objects, red like poppies, or white like May-
blossoms. 2. I am not sure that I can define my fears: but we all have a certain anxiety at present
about our friends. 3. Accent is the elevation of the voice which distinguishes one part of a word
from another. 4. Her conduct was deferential.

Exercise 5.

Abbreviate the following nouns to the first syllable.

Mitten, doctor, grandmother, cabriolet, public, house, gymnasium, proprietor, fraternity,


laboratory, margarine, sister, mathematics, trigonometry, veterinary, gladiolus.

Exercise 6.

Comment on the way the underlined words are formed.

1. After dinner, the woman cleared the table. 2. Finally, to quiet him, she said uneekly, she hadn't
really meant it. 3. The differences are now being narrowed 4. Her face, heated with his own
exertions, chilled suddenly. 5. Warmed by the hot tea, he warmed to the argument. 6. She came
dressed up to the nines. 7. A win in this match is a must. 8. Turn your ought into shalls.

Exercise7

Supply the corresponding full names for the given abbreviations of American state (e.g. Colo -
Colourado) and so:

Ala., Cal., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Kan., Ken., Md., N.D., NJ, NY, Oreg., S.C., Tex.

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