Onomatopoeia. has always been the object of special attention and received different names: blends, fusions, telescoping

Blending

has always been the object of special attention and received different names: blends, fusions, telescoping, portmanteau words, contamination. Blends are words that combine two words including sometimes letters or sounds in common as a connecting element. In such a word the final part of the first IC may be missing and the second constituent is presented by a stem of which the initial part is missing:

motel – motor + hotel, cinemactress – cinema + actress,

fruice – fruite + juice, smog – smoke + fog.

The word snob which is defined in modern dictionaries as a person who pays too much respect to social position or wealth, or who despises persons of lower social position. It originates from sine nobilitate, written after a name in the registry of fashionable English schools (Iton, Harrow, etc.) to indicate that the bearer did not belong to nobility. The word was introduced to the literary tradition by W.M. Thackeray.

There are two types of blends: the additive and the restrictive. In the first type the components are synonymous and complete each other: brunch = breakfast + lunch, tranceiver = transmitter and receiver. In the second type the first element modifies the second: positrone = positive + electrone.

Blends play a considerable role in building neologisms, thus they constitute 4,8 % of new words in the Barnhart dictionary Ist.-ed, 8 % - in the II-nd edition. The most productive is final clipping of the 1-st component:

Europlug – European plug – электровилка, применяемая во всех странах Европы; cigaretiquette – cigarette + etiquette; workaholic – work + alcoholic – трудоголик; kidvid = kid + video – детские телевизионные программы; disohol = diesel + alcohol – смесь дизельного топлива и этилового спирта; slimnastics = slim + gymnastics.

Blends reflect the tendency towards univerbalization and rationalization of the language, their motivation is not always clear; they are domineering in advertising, mass media, colloquial speech, trade and marketing.

Adidas = Adi + Dassler – основатель компании

dancercise = dance + exercise

jazzercise = jazz + exercise.

Other examples are:

cottoncracy, cottonopolis, porkopolis, churchianity, anonymuncul, subtopia, dixiecrat, wegotism, Trumanburger.

(sound imitation)

When we speak of motivated words in English first of all we mention words motivated with reference to extra-linguistic reality i.e. those which reflect natural sounds: ding, bang, babble, moo, crash, etc. We name an action or a thing by reproducing a sound associated with it (these are not real sounds – different languages have different sounds to represent reality: чирикать – churrup, twitter (E), pépier (F), zwitschern (G).

It is possible to distinguish onomatopoeic words into those produced by human-beings for expressing feelings: giggle, grunt, whisper, chatter, those, produced by animals, birds and insect: buzz, cuckoo, new, roar, hiss, honk, those imitating sounds of nature and the objects of the sounding world: whip, splash, tinkle, buzz, crash. Very often onomatopoeic words develop transferred meanings; thus roar can be applied to a loud-mouthed person, whine is not only a long complaining cry or a high-pitched sound made by a miserable dog but also a human complaint esp. about trivial things. The metaphorical possibilities here are unbounded.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11