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Other ways of replenishing the English vocabulary

Word-composition (compounding)

Word building (continued). Conversion. Substantivation

LECTURE 2

2.1. Word building (continued). Conversion. Substantivation. The process of coining new words in a different part of speech and with a different distribution characteristic but without adding any derivative element, so that the basic form of the original and the basic form of the derived word are homonymous, is called conversion. In other words, it is the formation of a new word through changes in its paradigm.

The question of conversion has, for a long time, been a controversial one in several aspects. The very essence of this process has been treated by a number of scholars (e. g. H. Sweet, R. Stevenson)), not as a word-building act, but as a mere functional change. From this point of view the word hand in Hand me that book is not a verb, but a noun used in a verbal syntactical function, that is, hand {me) and hands (in She has small hands) are not two different words but one. Hence, the case cannot be treated as one of word-formation for no new word appears.

Many linguists paid attention to this linguistic phenomenon suggesting various terms (zero derivation (H.Marchland), root formation, functional shift or functional change) and various interpretations of such coinages. Thus, according to E. Kruisinga and M. Biese, conversion takes place whenever a word takes on a function which is not its basic one. R.Zandvoort makes distinction between complete (the converted word takes the adjuncts and grammatical endings proper to that part of speech) and partial conversion (the converted word takes only some characteristics of the other part of speech so that it really belongs to two parts of speech at the same time).O.Jesperson doesn’t distinguish between such cases. Calling words related through conversion grammatical homophones.

In E.S.Kubryakova’s scholarly accounts transpositions in word-making are shown with a significant attention to the morphological surrounding of the underlying and derivative stems. She emphasizes that conversion in English bears immediate relevance to the issue of interparadigmatic homonymy as a result of the fact that the root, the stem and the grammatical form of the word may be identical in sound.

According to this functional approach, conversion may be regarded as a specific feature of the English categories of parts of speech, which are supposed to be able to break through the rigid borderlines dividing one category from another thus enriching the process of communication not by the creation of new words but through the sheer flexibility of the syntactic structures.

Nowadays this theory finds increasingly fewer supporters, and conversion is universally accepted as one of the major ways of enriching English vocabulary with new words. One of the major arguments for this approach to conversion is the semantic change that regularly accompanies each instance of conversion. Normally, a word changes its syntactic function without any shift in lexical meaning. (e. g. both in yellow leaves and in The leaves were turning yellow the adjective denotes color; yet, in The leaves yellowed the converted unit no longer denotes color, but the process of changing color, so that there is an essential change in meaning).

The change of meaning is even more obvious in such pairs as hand > to hand, face > to face, to go > a go, to make > a make, etc.

The other argument is the regularity and completeness with which converted units develop a paradigm of their new category of part of speech. As soon as it has crossed the category borderline, the new word automatically acquires all the properties of the new category, so that if it has entered the verbal paradigm, it is now regularly used in all the forms of tense and it also develops the forms of the participle and the gerund. Such regularity can hardly be regarded as indicating a mere functional change which might be expected to bear more occasional characteristics. The completeness of the paradigms in new conversion formations seems to be a decisive argument proving that here we are dealing with new words and not with mere functional variants. The data of most modern English dictionaries confirm this point of view: they all present converted pairs as homonyms, i. e. as two words, thus supporting the thesis that conversion is a full-scale word-building process.

Conversion is not only a highly productive but also a particularly English way of word-building. Its overwhelming productivity is considerably encouraged by certain features of the English language in its modern stage of development. The analytical structure of Modern English greatly facilitates processes of making words of one category of parts of speech from words of another. So does the simplicity of paradigms of English parts of speech. A great number of one-syllable words is another factor in favor of conversion, for such words are naturally more mobile and flexible than polysyllables.

The two categories of parts of speech especially affected by conversion are nouns and verbs. Verbs made from nouns are the most numerous amongst the words produced by conversion: e. g. to hand, to back, to face, to eye, to mouth, to nose, to dog, to wolf, to monkey, to can, to coal, to stage, to screen, to room, to floor, to blackmail, to blacklist, to honeymoon, to towel, to tattoo, and very many others.

Nouns are frequently made from verbs: do (e. g. This is the queerest do I've ever come across. Do – event, incident), go (e. g. He has still plenty of go at his age. Go – energy), make, run, find, catch, cut, walk, worry, show, move, etc.

Verbs can also be made from adjectives: to pale, to yellow, to cool, to grey, to rough (e. g. We decided to rough it in the tents as the weather was warm), etc.

Other parts of speech are not entirely unsusceptible to conversion as the following examples show: to down, to out (as in a newspaper heading Diplomatist Outed from Budapest), the ups and downs, the ins and outs, like, n. (as in the like of me and the like of you), to ooooh and aaaah, the whys and wherefores, etc.

There are certain regularities in conversion associations. For instance, in the group of verbs made from nouns some of the regular semantic associations are as indicated in the following list:

1. The noun is the name of a tool or implement, the
verb denotes an action performed by the tool: to hammer, to nail, to pin, to brush, to comb, to pencil.

2. The noun is the name of an animal, the verb denotes
an action or an aspect of behavior considered typical
of this animal: to dog, to wolf, to monkey, to ape, to
fox, to rat.
Yet, to fish does not mean "to behave like a
fish" but "to try to catch fish". The same meaning of
hunting activities is conveyed by the verb to whale and
one of the meanings of to rat; the other is "to turn in­
former, squeal (sl.)"

3. The name of a part of the human body — an action performed by it: to hand, to leg (sl.), to eye, to elbow, to shoulder, to nose, to mouth. However, to face does not imply doing something by or even with one's face but turning it in a certain direction. To back means either "to move backwards" or, in the figurative sense, "to support somebody or something".

4. The name of a profession or occupation – an activity typical of it: to nurse, to cook, to maid, to groom.

5. The name of a place – the process of occupying
the place or of putting smth/smb. in it (to room, to
house, to place, to table, to cage)-

6. The name of a container – the act of putting
smth. within the container (to can, to bottle, to
pocket).

7. The name of a meal — the process of taking it (to lunch, to supper).

8. Acquisition or addition of the object – to fish.

Nouns converted from verbs (deverbal nouns) denote:

1. instance of the action: to jump (v) – jump (n); to move (v) – move (n);

2. agent of the action: to help (v) – help (n); to switch (v) – switch (n);

3. place of action: to drive (v) – drive (n); to walk (v)-walk (n);

4. object or result of the action: to peel (v) – peel (n); to find (v) – find (n).

Deverbal nouns are quite frequent in prepositional nominals and separable adverbs (e.g. beyond help. Beyond repair, beyond cure, at a gulp, in the know, in the long run).

The question whether such cases when words with an adjective stem have the paradigm of a noun should also be classified as conversion is rather popular nowadays (e.g. a private, a group of privates). Other examples of words that are completely substantivized (i.e. may have the plural form or be used in the possessive case) are captive, conservative, intellectual, professional, grown-up, adult, mild, naïve, neutral, relative, male, female, criminal, radical, etc.

There is no unanimous opinion about the above group. Some scientists (e.g. E. Kruisinga) accept substantivation of adjectives as a variant of conversion.

Others (e.g. I.P. Ivanova) regard substantivation as different from conversion because in it a new word arises gradually so that a word already existing in the language eventually acquires a new syntactic function and changes its meaning as a result of a gradual process of isolation.

From I.V. Arnold’s point of view, two kinds of solution are possible: a) the case of complete substantivation belongs to conversion; b) the cases of partial substantivation (i.e. when a substantivized adjective or participle denotes a group/a class of people: the elderly, the deaf, the French, the wounded, the successful, the accused, the rich, etc.) – don’t. Such words do not acquire a new paradigm, being only employed with the definite article and possessing a collective meaning. At the same time preserving certain properties of adjectives (for example, they can be modified by adverbs)

 

2.2. Word-composition (compounding). This type of word-building, in which new words are produced by combining two or more stems, is one of the three most productive types in Modern English, the other two being conversion and affixation. Compounds, though certainly fewer in quantity than derived or root words, still represent one of the most typical and specific features of English word-structure.

There are some aspects of composition that present special interest.

The first is the structural aspect. Compounds are not homogeneous in structure. Traditionally three types are distinguished: neutral, morphological and syntactic.

In neutral compounds the process of compounding is realized without any linking elements, by a mere juxtaposition of two stems (e.g. blackbird, shop-window, sunflower, bedroom, tallboy, etc). There are three subtypes of neutral compounds depending on the structure of the constituent stems.

The examples above represent the subtype which may be described as simple neutral compounds: they consist of simple affixless stems.

Compounds which have affixes in their structure are called derived or derivational compounds (e.g. absent-mindedness, blue-eyed, golden-haired, broad-shouldered, lady-killer, film-goer, music-lover, honey-mooner, first-nighter, late-comer, newcomer, early-riser, evildoer). The productivity of this type is confirmed by a considerable number of comparatively recent formations, such as teenager, babysitter, strap-hanger, fourseater ("a car or a boat with four seats"), double-decker ("a ship or bus with two decks"). Numerous nonce-words are coined on this pattern which is another proof of its high productivity (e. g. luncher-out (a person who habitually takes his lunch in restaurants and not at home), goose-flesher (murder story) or attention getter, do-gooder, go-getter (a pushing person), left-hander, war-mindedness, do-it-yourselfism, dressuppable, whole-heartedly, etc.)

The third subtype of neutral compounds is called contracted compounds. These words have a shortened (contracted) stem in their structure (e.g. TV-set {-program, -show, -canal, etc.), V-day (Victory day), G-man (Government man "FBI agent"), H-bag (handbag), T-shirt, etc.)

Morphological compounds are few in number. This type is non-productive. It is represented by words in which two compounding stems are combined by a linking vowel or consonant, e. g. Anglo-Saxon, Franko-Prussian, handiwork, handicraft, craftsmanship, spokesman, statesman.

In syntactic compounds (the term is arbitrary) we once more find a feature of specifically English word-structure. These words are formed from segments of speech, preserving in their structure numerous traces of syntagmatic relations typical of speech: articles, prepositions, adverbs, as in the nouns lily-of-the-valley, Jack-of-all-trades, good-for-nothing, mother-in-law, sit-at-home. Syntactical relations and grammatical patterns current in present-day English can be easily traced in the structures of such compound nouns as pick-me-up, know-all, know-nothing, go-between, get-together, whodunit ( the last word (meaning "a detective story") was coined from the ungrammatical variant of the word-group who (has) done it).

In this group of compounds, once more, we find a great number of neologisms, and whodunit is one of them. Consider, also, the following fragment which makes a rich use of modern city traffic terms:

Randy managed to weave through a maze of one-way-streets, no-left-turns, and

no-stopping-zones... (From A Five-Color Buick by P. Anderson Wood)

Another focus of interest is the criteria for distinguishing between a compound and a word-combination. This question has a direct bearing on the specific feature of the structure of most English compounds which has already been mentioned: with the exception of the rare morphological type – they originate directly from word-combinations and are often homonymous to them: cf. a tall boya tallboy.

In this case the graphic criterion of distinguishing between a word and a word-group seems to be convincing, yet in many cases it cannot wholly be relied on. The spelling of many compounds, tallboy among them, can be varied even within the same book. In the case of tallboy the semantic criterion seems more reliable, for a compound expresses one concept while a word group conveys two or more concepts.

The phonetic criterion is convincingly applicable to many compound nouns. Compounds have three stress patterns: f) a high or unity stress on the first component (e.g. honeymoon, doorway); b) a double stress, with a primary stress on the first component and a weaker, secondary stress on the second one (e.g. washing-machine, a mad-doctor); c) both constituents have level stress (e.g. arm-chair, bottle-green).

Morphological and syntactic criteria can also be applied to compound words in order to distinguish them from word-groups: in word groups each of the constituents is independently open to grammatical changes; between the constituent parts of the word-group other words can be inserted while in compounds it is impossible.

All this leads us to the conclusion that, in most cases, only several criteria (semantic, morphological, syntactic, phonetic, and graphic) can convincingly classify a lexical unit as either a compound word or a word group.

From the point of view of degree of semantic independence there are two types of relationships between the immediate constituents (ICs) of compounds: coordination and subordination. Accordingly compounds are subdivided into coordinative and subordinative.

In coordinative compounds the two ICs are semantically equally important (e.g. oak-tree, boyfriend, Anglo-American, etc.). The constituents belong to the same class and most frequently to the same semantic group, making quite a small group of words. They fall into three groups:

1. Additive compounds that are built on stems of the independently functioning words of the same part of speech. They denote a person and an object at the same time (e.g. Afro-Asian, secretary-stenographer, a queen-bee, etc).

2. Reduplicative compounds which are made up by the repetition of the same base (e.g. goody-goody, fifty-fifty, hush-hush, etc.)

3. Compounds formed by joining the phonetically variated rhythmic twin forms which either alliterate with the same initial consonant but vary the vowels (e.g. zig-zag, sing-song, etc.) or rhyme by varying the initial consonants (e.g. walkie-talkie, clap-trap, fuddy-duddy, hoity-toity, super-dooper, etc.)

Coordinative compounds of the last two subgroups are mostly colloquial and

marked by a heavy emotive charge, possessing a low degree of productivity. At the same time the words like gillyflower or sparrow-grass are not actually compounds at all, being cases of false-etymology, an attempt to find motivation for a borrowed word: gilly-flower from OFr giroglé, sparrow grass from Latin asparagus, May Day – an international radio signal from a ship or a plane, having nothing to do with the name of the month, but being a distortion of the French “m’aidez”(help me) and so is not a compound at all.

In subordinative compounds the components are neither structurally not semantically equal in significance but are based on the domination of the head-member which is, as a rule, the second IC. The second IC is the semantically and grammatically dominant part of the word, which preconditions the part-of-speech meaning of the whole compound (e.g. stone-deaf, a baby-sitter, somebody, etc.)

From the functional POV compounds are viewed as words of different parts of speech. It is the head-member of the compound (the second IC) that is indicative of the lexical and grammatical category the compound belongs to.

Compounds can be found in all parts of speech, but the bulk of compounds are nouns and adjectives. Compound nouns are subdivided into endocentric, when the notion is determined by one constituent, the second constituent expressing some additional information (e.g. playing-card, letter-paper) and exocentric, when combination of both elements names the notion (e.g. leather-head, dog-bee).

Compound nouns can be coined according to the following patterns:

N+N (e.g. night-club, airhostess, etc (this pattern is the most productive);

Adj + N (e.g. deadline, sweet-heart, etc.)

V + N (e.g. push-cart, fly-wheel, etc.)

Ving + N (e.g. living room, blotting paper);

N + V-ing (e.g. law-breaking, horseracing).

Compound adjectives are built up after such patterns:

N + A (e.g. show-white, sky-blue);

A + A (e.g. red-hot, social linguistic);

A + N-ed (e.g. long-legged, navy-eyed);

N + V-ed (e.g. crisis-ridden, hand-made)

N/A/Adv/Pron + V-ing (e.g. peace-making, joy-causing, easy-going, ever-lasting, self-denying)

Compound adverbs, pronouns, connectives are represented by an insignificant number of words (e.g. anything, inside, upright, somebody, otherwise, moreover, elsewhere, anything, by means of, etc.)

A very characteristic development of Modern English is in the growth of separable verbs of different types (the term suggested by W.N. Francis in his work “The structure of American English”). Coinages of this type have gradually transformed into very important elements of speech adding more idiomatic power to the language. Verbs of the type V + Prep function as simple ones except that they are separable. The most essential and typical in the class are verbs with postpositive particles away, back, down, in, off, on, out, up.

Formations of this kind are not recognized as single units by all grammarians. Some scholars call them verb-adverb combinations. Other terms are merged verbs, separable compounds, compound verbs, poly-word-word verbs.

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Practice 1 | Other ways of replenishing the vocabulary
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