Лексикологія англійської мови

1. Lexical meaning of the word.

Semasiology (Lexical Semantics) is a branch of Linguistics/Lexicology which studies the nature
of lexical meaning.
Lexical Meaning [according to Ferdinand de Saussure (Referential Approach)] is defined as the
correlation among 3 points of the Triangle of Reference.
1. Referent is any object, notion, situation, quality or action denoted by a word.
2. Concept is the reflection of the essential features of the Referent in the human consciousness.
3. Sign (the verbal sign i.e. word) — is the material representation of a concept.
The connection between the Sign and the Referent is arbitrary.
Lexical Meaning [according to Leonard Bloomfield (Functional Approach)] is generated by the
context. The word is devoid of Lexical Meaning outside of the context. Functional Approach
exaggerates the role of the context informing the Lexical Meaning of the word.
Classification of Lexical Meaning:
I. Based on the Opposition of Lexical Meanings of the same word. Thus there are such
Oppositions:
1. Primary (etymological meaning) :: Secondary (derived from the primary meaning) e.g.
apple —fruit (PrM), the company (SM), Adam’s apple (SM); green — colour (PrM), vegetables
(SM),eco friendly(SM), inexperienced (SM);
2. Central (invariant) :: Peripheric (e.g. room — 1) space in general (PrM)), 2) enclosed area
in an apartment (SM), YET secondary meaning is Central nowadays)]
• CM is the most psychologically important meaning, understood without a context (e.g. room
— in the apartment, car — automobile);
• PM requires the context in order to be actualised (e.g. green energy, Adam’s apple);
3. Direct::Transferred
• DM denotes the Referent (e.g. face — a part of a human body);
• TM both denotes the Referent and characterises it on the basis of its association with
another Referent (e.g. face — front part of the watch(similarity in shape));
4. Usual(узуальное) ::Occasional(окказиональное)
• UM — is registered by the dictionary (e.g. there are many roses in the garden — flowers
(UM));
• OM is purely contextual and is not registered by the dictionary (e.g. She is a rose —
beautiful woman (OM));
Rose (flower) — primary, central, direct, usual;
Black days — secondary, peripheric, transferred, usual;

II. Based on the emotive component:

1. Nominative is the rational, logical component of Lexical Meaning. All the words have a
nominative meaning.
2. Connotative is additional, optional and makes up the irrational and illogical component of
Lexical Meaning. Connotation is liable to change, because it is context sensitive (sarcasm, irony)
and may change diachronically (e.g. nice — 1) stupid Llat. neseius) 2) good.
Types of Connotation:
• Emotive C. reveals the speaker’s attitude towards the Referent (e.g. Positive C. “darling,
sweetheart, brilliant, bright (idea)”, Negative C. (Pejorative, Derogatory) “awful, horrible,
disgusting, idiot”);
• Stylistic C. shows the sphere/register (e.g. neutral, formal. colloquial, poetic, scientific) in
which the word is used. It is usually marked in the dictionary entry (e.g. face — no stylistic
connotation, visage — poetic, mug — colloquial; finger — neutral, digit — scientific, phrasal
verbs
—colloquial);

2. Change of lexical meaning (extension, specialization, elevation, degradation).

Extention of meaning (or generalization, widening) is a semantic process when the word range
is extended. Most words begin as specific names for things. Often this precise denotation is
quickly lost and the word‘s meaning is extended and generalized. It is often due to contiguity of
form, position, colour and to the similarity of function. It includes not only the change from
concrete to abstract but also from specific to general.
e.g. salary (Lat.) – originally meant ‘sal’ (sal), then – a sum of money given to a soldier to buy
some salt with, then – a wage;
season (Lat.) – meant time for sowing seeds, then – a period of the year;
country – a small village, then – a state;
to fly – to move through the air with wings – any kind of movement in the air or outer space or
any very quick movement.
The scope of new notion is wider than that of the original one. A good example is the word
manuscript, a word that now refers to any author‘s copy whether written by hand or typed, but
originally meant only something handwritten.
Narrowing of meaning (or specialization) is a semantic process in which the word of wider
meaning acquires a narrower, specialized sense in which it is appliable only to some of the
objects it had previously denoted or a word of wider usage is restricted in its application and is
used only in special sense.
e.g. hound – a dog in general – a dog used for hunting and racing;
meat – food – flesh of animals and birds;
girl – child of any sex – a female child;
wife – a woman – a married woman;
voyage – a trip in general – a journey by sea.
Words used in specialized trades and occupations often lose their general meaning and take only
specialized. Slang and technical terms are well usually good illustrations of the process.
Elevation of meaning (or amelioration) is a semantic process in which a word denotes position
of greater importance. It is due to the social attitude of the speaker towards objects, persons,
phenomena. Elevated words acquire more positive, better meanings.
e.g. lord – loaf-ward – master – a person belonging to nobility;
marshal – horse servant – master of the horse – officer of the highest rank;
queen – a woman – the wife of a king;
minister – a servant – a member of the cabinet.
Some words have elevated their meanings through the association with aristocratic or town life.
e.g. knight – a boy, a servant – man of nobility.
Degradation of meaning (or pejoration) is a semantic process by which a word denotes
positions of less importance.
e.g. knave – a boy, a servant – a dishonest man;
villain – a farm servant – a wicked man;
boor – a peasant, tiler of the soil – a rough, ill mannered person.

3. Transfer of lexical meaning.

What is known in linguistics as transferred meaning is practically the interrelation between two
types of lexical meaning: dictionary and contextual. The contextual meaning, as has been pointed
out, will always depend on the dictionary (logical) meaning to a greater or lesser extent. When
the deviation from the acknowledged meaning is carried to a degree that it causes an unexpected
turn in the recognized logical meanings, we register a stylistic device.
The transferred meaning of a word may be fixed in dictionaries as a result of long and frequent
use of the word other than in its primary meaning. In this case we register a derivative meaning
of the word. The term transferred is meant to point to the process of the formation of the
derivative meaning. Hence the term transferred should be used, to our mind, as a lexicographical
term signifying diachronically the development of the semantic structure of the word. In this case
we do not perceive two meanings.
When, however, we perceive two meanings of the word simultaneously, we are confronted with
a stylistic device in which the two meanings interact.
The relation between the dictionary and contextual logical meanings may be maintained along
different lines: on the principle of affinity, on that of proximity, or symbol — referent relations,
or on opposition. Thus the stylistic device based on the first principle is metaphor, on the
second, metonymy and on the third, irony.

4. Metaphor and metonymy.

Metaphor

According to I.R.Galperin,the term 'metaphor', as the etymology of the word reveals, means
transference of some quality from one object to another.Also the term has been known to
denote the transference of meaning from one word to another.

A metaphor states A is B

A figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between Two unlike things that
actually have something in common. A metaphor expresses the unfamiliar (the tenor) in terms of
the familiar (the vehicle).When Neil Young sings, "Love is a rose", "rose" is a vehicle for
"love",the tenor.

One of the prominent examples of a metaphor in English literature is the All the world's
stage monologue from As you like it:

Ex:All the world's stage,

And all the men and women merely players,

They have their exits and their entrances

Metaphors classified according to its degree and

unexpectedness: trite(dead) and geniune(original). Dead metaphors are fixed in dictionaries.
they often sound banal like cliches:

Ex:to burn with desire;a flight of imagination; legs of the table; winter comes.

Original metaphors are not registered in dictionaries. they are created by the speaker's/writer's
imagination and sound fresh and unexpected

Ex:Some books are to be tasted, others swallowed, and some few to be chewed and
digested.; The house was a white elephant but he couldn’t conceive of his father in a smaller
place. - describes the size and enigma of the house.

Prolonged or sustained metaphors.: if a sentence contains a group of metaphors; consists of

principal(the central image of sustained metaphor) and contributory images(the other words
which bear reference to the central image)
Ex.Mr . Pickwick bottled up his vengeance and corked it down. The verb to bottle up is
explained in dictionaries as follows ‘to keep in check’,’conceal,restrain,repress.The metaphor in
the word can hardly be felt.But it is revived by the direct meaning of the verb ‘to cork
down’.This context refreshes the almost dead metaphor and gives it a second life.Such
metaphors are called sustained or prolonged.

Metaphors are used to help us understand the unknown, because we use what we know in
comparison with something we don't know to get a better understanding of the unknown.

Metonymy

A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely
associated (such as "crown" for "royalty").

Trite (fixed) metonymy represents derivative logical meaning of a word and is fixed in
dictionaries. ▲ Nothing comes between me and my Calvins (Calvin Klein Jeans). Contextual
m. – unexpected substitution of one word to another. ▲ She married into conversation > very
talkative man.

The examples below include both the metonymy and the possible words for which the
metonymy would fill in:

 Crown - in place of a royal person

 The White House - in place of the President or others who work there
 The White House asked the television networks for air time on Monday night.
 The suits - in place of business people
 Dish - for an entire plate of food
 Cup - for a mug
 The Pentagon - to refer to the staff
 The restaurant - to refer to the staff

5. Ambiguity of lexical meaning.

Lexical ambiguity is the presence of two or more possible meanings for a single word. It's also
called semantic ambiguity or homonymy. It differs from syntactic ambiguity, which is the
presence of two or more possible meanings within a sentence or sequence of words.
Lexical ambiguity is sometimes used deliberately to create puns and other types of wordplay.
According to the editors of the MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences, "True lexical
ambiguity is typically distinguished from polysemy (e.g., 'the N.Y. Times' as in this morning's
edition of the newspaper versus the company that publishes the newspaper) or from vagueness
(e.g., 'cut' as in 'cut the lawn' or 'cut the cloth'), though the boundaries can be fuzzy."
Examples and Observations

 "You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little
note on the windscreen; it said, 'Parking Fine.' So that was nice."(English comedian Tim
Vine)
 "'Do you believe in clubs for young people?' someone asked W.C. Fields. 'Only when
kindness fails,' replied Fields."(Quoted by Graeme Ritchie in "The Linguistic Analysis of
Jokes")
  "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside it's too hard to read."(Groucho
Marx)
 The rabbi married my sister.
 She is looking for a match.
 The fisherman went to the bank.
 "I have a really nice stepladder. Sadly, I never knew my real ladder."(English comedian
Harry Hill)

6. Polysemy. Homonymy.

The problem of polysemy is mainly the problem of interrelation and interdependence of the
various meanings of the same word. Polysemy viewed diachronically is a historical change in the
semantic structure of the word resulting in disappearance of some meanings (or) and in new
meanings being added to the ones already existing and also in the rearrangement of these
meanings in its semantic structure. Polysemy viewed synchronically is understood as coexistence
of the various meanings of the same word at a certain historical period and the arrangement of
these meanings in the semantic structure of the word.

Polysemy - the fact of having more than one meaning: Polysemy occurs when a word form
carries more than one meaning. English has a very large stock of word forms, so its lexicon is
relatively free of polysemy compared with many languages.

Polysemy is exemplified by words like "run" and "set" each of which has a very large number of
senses, many of which seem unrelated.

Modern English is exceptionally rich in homonymous words and word-forms. It is held that
languages where short words abound have more homonyms than those where longer words are
prevalent. Therefore it is sometimes suggested that abundance of homonyms in Modern English
is to be accounted for by the monosyllabic structure of the commonly used English words.

When analysing different cases of homonymy we find that some words are homonymous in all
their forms, i.e. we observe full homonymy of the paradigms of two or more different words,
e.g., in seal1 — ‘a sea animal’ and seal2 — ‘a design printed on paper by means of a stamp’.

Homonyms are words that sound alike but have different semantic structure. The problem of
homonymy is mainly the problem of differentiation between two different semantic structures of
identically sounding words.

Homonymy may be described as the sameness of form associated with the difference of
meaning. Homonyms are words identical in sound and/or in spelling but different in meaning.
The intense development of homonymy in English is due to the monosyllabic character of its
vocabulary and the analytical structure of the English language. Different sources of homonymy
in English may by subdivided into two main groups: 1) homonymy which developed due to
convergent sound development (etymological, or heterogeneous homonyms); 2) homonymy
which developed from polysemy through divergent sense development. In other terms this case
is called disintegration or split of polysemy (semantic or homogeneous homonyms). The
majority of homonyms in English are etymologically different.

The traditional classification of homonyms recognizes: perfect homonyms, or homonyms proper,

homophones, homographs. Besides the traditional classification of homonyms there are other
ways of classifying homonyms. 1. All the cases of homonymy may be divided into full
homonymy, or the homonymy of words having identical paradigms, and partial homonymy, or
the homonymy of word-forms. 2. According to Professor Smirnitsky’s classification all
homonyms may be divided into lexical homonyms which differ only in lexical meaning; lexico-
grammatical homonyms which differ both in lexical and in grammatical meanings; grammatical
homonyms which differ only in grammatical meaning. 3. Homonyms belonging to one and the
same part of speech are called simple. Complex homonyms are those belonging to different parts
of speech.

One of the most debatable problems in Semasiology is the demarcation line between polysemy
and homonymy, i.e. between different meanings of a polysemantic word and the meanings of
different homonymous words.

To solve the problem a number of criteria may be applied: etymological and semantic criteria
and the formal criteria of distribution, spelling and pronunciation. Sometimes only the
combination of several criteria may solve the problem. Besides, linguists try to develop new
more efficient criteria and methods of differentiating homonymy and polysemy.

7. Borrowed elements in English.

the borrowed stock of words (70-75%) – words taken over from other languages and modified
in phonetic shape, spelling, paradigm or / and meaning according to the standards of the English
language.

Motivation for borrowing a word:

-to fill a gap in the vocabulary, e.g. butter (Latin), yogurt (Turkish), whisky (Scottish
Gaelic), tomato (Nahuatl /’na: watl/ - the Aztec language), sauna ( /’so:nə/ Finnish) etc.;
-to represent the same concept in a new aspect, supplying a new shade of meaning or a different
emotional colouring, e.g. cordial (Latin), a desire (French), to admire (Latin) etc.;

-prestige, e.g. picture, courage, army, treasure, language, female, face, fool, beef (Norman
French); in many cases these fashionable words simply displaced their native English
equivalents, which dropped out of use.

The term source of borrowing is applied to the language from which the loan word was taken
into English.

The term origin of borrowing refers to the language to which the word may be traced.

paper < Fr papier < Gr papyros ‘paper made of papyrus stalks’

umbrella < It ombrella < L umbra ‘shade, shadow’ (cf. Ukr. парасоля).

Translation loans (calques) are compound words or expressions formed from the elements
existing in the English language according to the patterns of the source language; such loans
came in handy when original words were hard to reproduce.

G Umgebung – E environment

Modern English names of the days of the week were also created on the pattern of Latin words
as their literal translations and are the earliest examples of calques; have become regularly
capitalised since the 17th c .

Monday (O.E. mōnan-dæʒ) < L. Lunae dies ‘day of the moon’;

Tuesday (O.E. tiwes-dæʒ) < L. Martis dies (Tiw – a Teutonic God corresponding to Roman
Mars);

The term semantic loans is used to denote the development in an English word of a new
meaning due to the influence of a related word in another language.

pioneer ‘one who goes before’ ← ‘a member of the young communist organisation’;

dream ‘joy, music’ (O.E.) ← ‘a vision during sleep’ (Sc.);

Types of borrowed elements in the English vocabulary. Etymological doublets, hybrids,

international words, and folk etymology.

Etymological doublets are pairs of words of the same language which share the same
etymological basis but have entered the language through different routes; often diverge in
current meaning and usage. They may result from:

-shortening: defence – fence, appeal – peal; history – story;

-stressed and unstressed position of one and the same word: of – off, to – too;

-borrowing the word from the same language twice, but in different periods: jail (Par. Fr.) –
goal (Norm. Fr.);
 -development of the word in different dialects or languages that are historically descended from
the same root: to chase (Northern Fr) – to catch (Central Fr); chart – card; channel (Fr)
– canal (L); senior (L) – sir (Fr).

Hybrids are words made up of elements from two or more different languages.

Patterns of hybrids:

native affix (prefix or suffix) + borrowed stem: befool, besiege, beguile; graceful, falsehood,
rapidly;

borrowed affix + native stem: drinkable, starvation, wordage; recall, embody, mishandle;

borrowed affix + borrowed stem + native affix: discovering;

native affix + native stem + borrowed affix: unbreakable.

The term folk (false, popular, etymythology) etymology (from German Volksetymologie) refers to
erroneous beliefs about derivation and the consequent changes to words.

Sources of folk etymology:

reasonable interpretations of the evidence that happen to be false, e.g. cockroach (as if
from cock + roach or caca ‘excrement’) < Sp. cucaracha ‘chafer, beetle’ < cuca ‘kind of
caterpillar’;

urban legends, e.g. a rule of thumb ‘rough measurement’ is mistakenly thought to refer to an old
English law under which a man could legally beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb
(though no such law ever existed);

racism and slavery, e.g. picnic as a shortening for pick a nigger is erroneously thought to refer
to an outdoor community gathering during which families ate from box lunches while a
randomly-chosen Afro-American was hanged for the diners’ entertainment.

8. Word-building system in English.

Word-formation is a branch of Lexicology which studies the process of building new words,
derivative structures and patterns of existing words. Two principle types of word-formation are
distinguished: word-derivation and word-composition. It is evident that word-formation proper
can deal only with words which can be analyzed both structurally and semantically. Simple words
are closely connected with word-formation because they serve as the foundation of derived and
compound words. Therefore, words like writer, displease, sugar free, etc. make the subject matter
of study in word-formation, but words like to write, to please, atom, free are irrelevant to it.

1. Word-derivation
Speaking about word-derivation we deal with the derivational structure of words which basic
elementary units are derivational bases, derivational affixes and derivational patterns.
A derivational base is the part of the word which establishes connection with the lexical unit
that motivates the derivative and determines its individual lexical meaning describing the difference
between words in one and the same derivative set. For example, the individual lexical meaning of
the words singer, writer, teacher which denote active doers of the action is signaled by the lexical
meaning of the derivational bases: sing-, write-, teach-.
Structurally derivational bases fall into 3 classes:
1. Bases that coincide with morphological stems of different degrees of complexity, i.e.,
with words functioning independently in modern English e.g., dutiful, day-dreamer.
Bases are functionally and semantically distinct from morphological stems. Functionally
the morphological stem is a part of the word which is the starting point for its forms:
heart-hearts; it is the part which presents the entire grammatical paradigm. The stem
remains unchanged throughout all word- forms; it keeps them together preserving the
identity of the word. A derivational base is the starting point for different words (heart –
heartless - hearty) and its - derivational potential outlines the type and scope of existing
words and new creations. Semantically the stem stands for the whole semantic structure of
the word; it represents all its lexical meanings. A base represents, as a rule, only one
meaning of the source word.
2. Bases that coincide with word-forms, e.g., unsmiling, unknown. The base is usually
represented by verbal forms: the present and the past participles.
3. Bases that coincide with word-groups of different degrees of stability, e.g., blue-eyed,
empty-handed. Bases of this class allow a rather limited range of collocability, they are
most active with derivational affixes in the class of adjectives and nouns (long-fingered,
blue-eyed).
Derivational affixes are Immediate Constituents of derived words in all parts of speech.
Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding derivational affixes to different
types of bases. Affixation is subdivided into suffixation and prefixation. In Modern English
suffixation is mostly characteristic of nouns and adjectives coining, while prefixation is mostly
typical of verb formation.
A derivational pattern is a regular meaningful arrangement, a structure that imposes rigid
rules on the order and the nature of the derivational base and affixes that may be brought together to
make up a word. Derivational patterns are studied with the help of distributional analysis at
different levels. Patterns are usually represented in a generalized way in terms of conventional
symbols: small letters v, n, a, d which stand for the bases coinciding with the stems of the
respective parts of speech: verbs, etc. Derivational patterns may represent derivative structure at
different levels of generalization:
 at the level of structural types. The patterns of this type are known as structural
formulas, all words may be classified into 4 classes: suffixal derivatives (friendship),
prefixal derivatives (rewrite), conversions (a cut, to parrot) V⮊N, compound words
(music-lover).
 at the level of structural patterns. Structural patterns specify the base classes and
individual affixes thus indicating the lexical-grammatical and lexical classes of derivatives
within certain structural classes of words. The suffixes refer derivatives to specific parts of
speech and lexical subsets. V+ -er = N (a semantic set of active agents, denoting both
animate and inanimate objects - reader, singer); N + -er = N (agents denoting residents or
occupations - Londoner, gardener). We distinguish a structural semantic derivational
pattern.
 at the level of structural-semantic patterns. Derivational patterns may specify semantic
features of bases and individual meaning of affixes: N + -y=A (nominal bases denoting
living beings are collocated with the suffix meaning "resemblance" - birdy, catty; but
nominal bases denoting material, parts of the body attract another meaning “considerable
amount” - grassy, leggy).
The basic ways of forming new words in word-derivation are affixation and conversion.
Affixation is the formation of a new word with the help of affixes (heartless, overdo). Conversion is
the formation of a new word by bringing a stem of this word into a different paradigm (a fall from
to fall).
 2. Affixation
Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding derivational affixes to
different types of bases. Affixation includes suffixation and prefixation. Distinction between
suffixal and prefixal derivates is made according to the last stage of derivation, for example, from
the point of view of derivational analysis the word unreasonable - un + (reason- + -able) is qualified
as a prefixal derivate, while the word discouragement - (dis-+-courage) +-ment is defined as a
suffixal derivative.

Suffixation is the formation of words with the help of suffixes. Suffixes usually modify the
lexical meaning of the base and transfer words to a different part of speech.
Suffixes can be classified into different types in accordance with different principles.
According to the lexico-grammatical character suffixes may be: deverbal suffixes, e.d., those
added to the verbal base (agreement); denominal (endless); deadjectival (widen, brightness).
According to the part of speech formed suffixes fall into several groups: noun-forming
suffixes (assistance), adjective-forming suffixes (unbearable), numeral-forming suffixes (fourteen),
verb-forming suffixes (facilitate), adverb- forming suffixes (quickly, likewise).
Semantically suffixes may be monosemantic, e.g. the suffix -ess has only one meaning
"female" - goddess, heiress; polysemantic, e.g. the suffix -hood has two meanings "condition or
quality" - falsehood and "collection or group" - brotherhood.
According to their generalizing denotational meaning suffixes may fall into several groups:
the agent of the action (baker, assistant); collectivity (peasantry): appurtenance (Victorian,
Chinese); diminutiveness (booklet).

Prefixation is the formation of words with the help of prefixes. Two types of prefixes can be
distinguished: 1) those not correlated with any independent word (un-, post-, dis-); 2) those
correlated with functional words (prepositions or preposition-like adverbs: out-, up-, under-).
Diachronically distinction is made between prefixes of native and foreign origin.
Prefixes can be classified according to different principles.
According to the lexico-grammatical character of the base prefixes are usually added to, they
may be: deverbal prefixes, e.d., those added to the verbal base (overdo); denominal (unbutton);
deadjectival (biannual).
According to the part of speech formed prefixes fall into several groups: noun-forming
prefixes (ex-husband), adjective-forming prefixes (unfair), verb-forming prefixes (dethrone),
adverb-forming prefixes (uphill).
Semantically prefixes may be monosemantic, e.g. the prefix -ex has only one meaning
"former" - ex-boxer, polysemantic, e.g. the prefix -dis has four meanings "not" disadvantage and
"removal of" to disbrunch.
According to their generalizing denotational meaning prefixes may fall into several groups:
negative prefixes - un, non, dis, a, in (ungrateful, nonpolitical, disloyal, amoral, incorrect);
reversative prefixes - un, de, dis (untie, decentralize, disconnect); pejorative prefixes mis, mal,
pseudo (mispronounce, maltreat, pseudo-scientific); prefix of repetition (redo), locative prefixes -
super, sub, inter, trans (superstructure, subway, intercontinental, transatlantic).

3. Conversion
Conversion is a process which allows us to create additional lexical terms out of those that
already exist, e.g., to saw, to spy, to snoop, to flirt. This process is not limited to one syllable words,
e.g., to bottle, to butter, nor is the process limited to the creation of verbs from nouns, e.g., to up the
prices. Converted words are extremely colloquial: "I'll microwave the chicken", "Let's flee our
dog", "We will of course quiche and perrier you".
Conversion came into being in the early Middle English period as a result of the leveling and
further loss of endings.
 In Modern English conversion is a highly-productive type of word-building. Conversion is a
specifically English type of word formation which is determined by its analytical character, by its
scarcity of inflections and abundance of mono-and- de-syllabic words in different parts of speech.
Conversion is coining new words in a different part of speech and with a different distribution but
without adding any derivative elements, so that the original and the converted words are
homonyms.

Structural Characteristics of Conversion: Mostly monosyllabic words are converted, e.g.,

to horn, to box, to eye. In Modern English there is a marked tendency to convert polysyllabic words
of a complex morphological structure, e.g., to e-mail, to X-ray. Most converted words are verbs
which may be formed from different parts of speech from nouns, adjectives, adverbs, interjections.

Nouns from verbs - a try, a go, a find, a loss

From adjectives - a daily, a periodical
From adverbs - up and down
From conjunctions - but me no buts
From interjection - to encore

Semantic Associations / Relations of Conversion:

The noun is the name of a tool or implement, the verb denotes an action performed by the
tool, e.g., to nail, to pin, to comb, to brush, to pencil;
The noun is the name of an animal, the verb denotes an action or aspect of behavior
considered typical of this animal, e.g., to monkey, to rat, to dog, to fox;
When the noun is the name of a part of a human body, the verb denotes an action performed
by it, e.g., to hand to nose, to eye;
When the noun is the name of a profession or occupation, the verb denotes the activity typical
of it, e.g., to cook, to maid, to nurse;
When the noun is the name of a place, the verb will denote the process of occupying the place
or by putting something into it, e.g., to room, to house, to cage;
When the word is the name of a container, the verb will denote the act of putting something
within the container, e.g., to can, to pocket, to bottle;
When the word is the name of a meal, the verb means the process of taking it, e.g., to lunch,
to supper, to dine, to wine;
If an adjective is converted into a verb, the verb may have a generalized meaning "to be in a
state", e.g., to yellow;
When nouns are converted from verbs, they denote an act or a process, or the result, e.g., a
try, a go, a find, a catch.

4. Word-composition
Compound words are words consisting of at least two stems which occur in the language as
free forms.
Most compounds in English have the primary stress on the first syllable. For example, income
tax has the primary stress on the in of income, not on the tax.
Compounds have a rather simple, regular set of properties. First, they are binary in structure.
They always consist of two or more constituent lexemes. A compound which has three or more
constituents must have them in pairs, e.g., washingmachine manufacturer consists of
washingmachine and manufacturer, while washingmachine in turn consists of washing and
machine. Compound words also usually have a head constituent. By a head constituent we mean
one which determines the syntactic properties of the whole lexeme, e.g., the compound lexeme
longboat consists of an adjective, long and a noun, boat. The compound lexeme longboat is a noun,
and it is a noun because boat is a noun, that is, boat is the head constituent of longboat. Compound
words can belong to all the major syntactic categories:
 •Nouns: signpost, sunlight, bluebird, redwood, swearword, outhouse;
•Verbs: window shop, stargaze, outlive, undertake;
•Adjectives: ice-cold, hell-bent, undersized;
•Prepositions: into, onto, upon.

From the morphological point of view compound words are classified according to the
structure of immediate constituents:
•Compounds consisting of simple stems - heartache, blackbird;
•Compounds where at least one of the constituents is a derived stem chainsmoker, maid-
servant, mill-owner, shop-assistant;
•Compounds where one of the constituents is a clipped stem - V-day, A-bomb, Xmas, H-bag;
•Compounds where one of the constituents is a compound stem - wastes paper basket,
postmaster general.
•Compounds are the commonest among nouns and adjectives. Compound verbs are few in
number, as they are mostly the result of conversion, e.g., to blackmail, to honeymoon, to nickname,
to safeguard, to whitewash. The 20th century created some more converted verbs, e.g., to weekend,
to streamline, to spotlight. Such converted compounds are particularly common in colloquial speech
of American English. Converted verbs can be also the result of backformation. Among the earliest
coinages are to backbite, to browbeat, to illtreat, to housekeep. The 20th century gave more
examples to hitch-hike, to proof-read, to mass- produce, to vacuumclean.

One more structural characteristic of compound words is classification of compounds

according to the type of composition. According to this principle two groups can be singled out:
•words which are formed by a mere juxtaposition without any connecting elements, e.g.,
classroom, schoolboy, heartbreak, sunshine;
•composition with a vowel or a consonant placed between the two stems. e.g., salesman,
handicraft.
Semantically compounds may be idiomatic and non-idiomatic. Compound words may be
motivated morphologically and in this case they are non-idiomatic. Sunshine the meaning here is a
mere meaning of the elements of a compound word (the meaning of each component is retained).
When the compound word is not motivated morphologically, it is idiomatic. In idiomatic
compounds the meaning of each component is either lost or weakened. Idiomatic compounds have a
transferred meaning. Chatterbox is not a box, it is a person who talks a great deal without saying
anything important; the combination is used only figuratively. The same metaphorical character is
observed in the compound slowcoach - a person who acts and thinks slowly.
The components of compounds may have different semantic relations. From this point of
view we can roughly classify compounds into endocentric and exocentric. In endocentric
compounds the semantic centre is found within the compound and the first element determines the
other as in the words filmstar, bedroom, writing-table. Here the semantic centres are star, room,
table. These stems serve as a generic name of the object and the determinants film, bed, writing give
some specific, additional information about the objects. In exocentric compound there is no
semantic centre. It is placed outside the word and can be found only in the course of lexical
transformation, e.g., pickpocket - a person who picks pockets of other people, scarecrow - an object
made to look like a person that a farmer puts in a field to frighten birds.

The Criteria of Compounds

As English compounds consist of free forms, it's difficult to distinguish them from phrases,
because there are no reliable criteria for that. There exist three approaches to distinguish compounds
from corresponding phrases:
Formal unity implies the unity of spelling
 solid spelling, e.g., headmaster;
 with a hyphen, e.g., head-master;
  with a break between two components, e.g., head master

Different dictionaries and different authors give different spelling variants.

Phonic principal of stress
Many compounds in English have only one primary stress.
All compound nouns are stressed according to this pattern, e.g., ice-cream, ice cream. The
rule doesn't hold with adjectives. Compound adjectives are double-stressed, e.g., easy- going, new-
born, sky-blue. Stress cannot help to distinguish compounds from phrases because word stress may
depend on phrasal stress or upon the syntactic function of a compound.

Semantic unity
Semantic unity means that a compound word expresses one separate notion and phrases
express more than one notion. Notions in their turn can't be measured. That's why it is hard to say
whether one or more notions are expressed. The problem of distinguishing between compound
words and phrases is still open to discussion.

According to the type of bases that form compounds they can be of:
1. compounds proper - they are formed by joining together bases built on the stems or on the
ford-forms with or without linking element, e.g., door-step;
2. derivational compounds - by joining affixes to the bases built on the word-groups or by
converting the bases built on the word-groups into the other parts of speech, e.g., long-
legged → (long legs) +-ed, a turnkey → (to turn key) + conversion. More examples: do-
gooder, week-ender, first-nighter, house-keeping, baby-sitting, blue-eyed blond-haired,
four-storied. The suffixes refer to both of the stems combined, but not to the final stem
only. Such stems as nighter, gooder, eyed do not exist.

Compound Neologisms
In the last two decades the role of composition in the word-building system of English has
increased. In the 60th and 70th composition was not so productive as affixation. In the 80th
composition exceeded affixation and comprised 29.5 % of the total number of neologisms in
English vocabulary. Among compound neologisms the two-component units prevail. The main
patterns of coining the two-component neologisms are Noun stem + Noun stem = Noun: Adjective
stem + Noun stem = Noun

There appeared a tendency to coin compound nouns where:

•The first component is a proper noun, e.g., Kirlian photograph – biological field of humans.
The first component is a geographical place, e.g., Afro-rock.
•The two components are joined with the help of the linking vowel -O- e.g., bacteriophobia,
suggestopedia.
•The number of derivational compounds increases. The main productive suffix to coin such
compound is the suffix -er - e.g., baby-boomer, all nighter.
•Many compound words are formed according to the pattern Participle 2 + Adv = Adjective,
e.g., laid-back, spaced-out, switched-off, tapped-out.
•The examples of verbs formed with the help of a post-positive –in work- in, die-in, sleep-in,
write-in.

Many compounds formed by the word-building pattern Verb + postpositive are numerous in
colloquial speech or slang, eg., bliss out, fall about/horse around, pig-out.

ATTENTION: Apart from the principle types there are some minor types of modem word-
formation, i.d., shortening, blending, acronymy, sound interchange, sound imitation, distinctive
stress, back-formation, and reduplicaton.
 5. Shortening
Shortening is the formation of a word by cutting off a part of the word. They can be coined in
two different ways. The first is to cut off the initial/ middle/final part:
•Aphaeresis initial part of the word is clipped, e.g., history-story, telephone-phone;
•Syncope - the middle part of the word is clipped, e.g., madam- ma 'am; specs spectacles
•Apocope - the final part of the word is clipped, e.g., professor-prof, editored, vampire-vamp;
•Both initial and final, e.g., influenza-flu, detective-tec.
Polysemantic words are usually clipped in one meaning only, e.g., doc and doctor have the
meaning "one who practices medicine", but doctor is also "the highest degree given by a university
to a scholar or scientist".
Among shortenings there are homonyms, so that one and the same sound and graphical
complex may represent different words, e.g., vac - vacation/vacuum, prep-preparation/preparatory
school, vet-veterinary surgeon/veteran.

6. Blending
Blending is a particular type of shortening which combines the features of both clipping and
composition, e.g., motel (motor + hotel), brunch (breakfast + lunch), smog (smoke + fog), telethon
(television + marathon), modem, (modulator + demodulator), Spanglish (Spanish + English). There
are several structural types
of blends:
•Initial part of the word + final part of the word, e.g., electrocute (electricity + execute);
•Initial part of the word + initial part of the word, e.g., lib-lab (liberal + labour);
•Initial part of the word + full word, e.g., paratroops (parachute+troops);
•Full word + final part of the word, e.g., slimnastics (slim + gymnastics).

7. Acronymy
Acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of parts of a word or phrase, commonly
the names of institutions and organizations. No full stops are placed between the letters. All
acronyms are divided into two groups. The first group is composed of the acronyms which are often
pronounced as series of letters: EEC (European Economic Community), ID (identity or
identification card), UN (United Nations), VCR (videocassette recorder), FBI (Federal Bureau of
Investigation), LA (Los Angeles), TV (television), PC (personal computer), GP (General
Practitioner), TB (tuberculosis). The second group of acronyms is composed by the words which are
pronounced according to the rules of reading in English: UNESCO (United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization), AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), ASH
(Action on Smoking and Health). Some of these pronounceable words are written without capital
letters and therefore are no longer recognized as acronyms: laser (light amplification by stimulated
emissions of radiation), radar (radio detection and ranging).
Some abbreviations have become so common and normal as words that people do not think of
them as abbreviations any longer. They are not written in capital letters, e.g., radar (radio detection
and ranging), laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) yuppie, gruppie,
sinbads, dinkies.
Some abbreviations are only written forms but they are pronounced as full words, e.g., Mr,
Mrs, Dr. Some abbreviations are from Latin. They are used as part of the language etc. - et cetera,
e.g., (for example) - exampli gratia, that is - id est.

Acromymy is widely used in the press, for the names of institutions, organizations,
movements, countries. It is common to colloquial speech, too. Some acronyms turned into regular
words, e.g., jeep - came from the expression general purpose car.

There are a lot of homonyms among acronyms:

 MP - Member of Parliament/Military Police/Municipal Police
PC - Personal Computer/Politically correct

8. Sound-interchange
Sound-interchange is the formation of a new word due to an alteration in the phonemic
composition of its root. Sound-interchange falls into two groups: 1) vowel-interchange, e.g., food-
feed; in some cases vowel-interchange is combined with suffixation, e.g., strong-strength; 2)
consonant-interchange e.g., advice – to advise. Consonant-interchange and vowel-interchange may
be combined together, e.g., life-to live.
This type of word-formation is greatly facilitated in Modern English by the vast number of
monosyllabic words. Most words made by reduplication represent informal groups: colloquialisms
and slang, hurdy-gurdy, walkie-talkie, riff-raff chi-chi girl. In reduplication new words are coined
by doubling a stem, either without any phonetic changes as in bye-bye or with a variation of the
root-vowel or consonant as in ping-pong, chit-chat.

9. Sound imitation or (onomatopoeia)

It is the naming of an action or a thing by more or less exact reproduction of the sound
associated with it, cf: cock-a-do-doodle-do Kу-ka-pe-ky.
Semantically, according to the source sound, many onomatopoeic words fall into the
following definitive groups: 1) words denoting sounds produced by human beings in the process of
communication or expressing their feelings, e.g., chatter; 2) words denoting sounds produced by
animals, birds, insects, e.g., moo, buzz, 3) words imitating the sounds of water, the noise of metallic
things, movements, e.g., splash, whip, swing.

10. Distinctive stress

Distinctive stress is the formation of a word by means of the shift of the stress in the source
word, e.g., increase - increase.

11. Back-formation
Backformation is coining new words by subtracting a real or supposed suffix, as a result of
misinterpretation of the structure of the existing word. This type of word-formation is not highly
productive in Modern English and it is built on the analogy, e.g., beggar - to beg, cobbler - to
cobble, blood transfusion - to blood transfuse, babysitter - to baby-sit.