Реферат: Modern English Word-Formation

C H A P T E R    I

The ways in which new words are formed, and thefactors which govern their acceptance into the language, are generally takenvery much for granted by the average speaker. To understand a word, it is notnecessary to know how it is constructed, whether it is simple or complex, thatis, whether or not it can be broken down into two or more constituents. We areable to use a word which is new to us when we find out what object or notion itdenotes. Some words, of course, are more ‘transparent’ than others. Forexample, in the words unfathomableand indescribable we recognize thefamiliar pattern of negative prefix + transitive word + adjective-formingsuffix on which many words of similar form are constructed. Knowing thepattern, we can easily guess their meanings – ‘cannot be fathomed’ and ‘cannotbe described’ – although we are not surprised to find other similar-lookingwords, for instance unfashionable andunfavourable for which this analysiswill not work. We recognize as ‘transparent’ the adjectives unassuming and unheard-of, which taking for granted the fact that we cannot use assuming and heard-of. We accept as quite natural the fact that although we canuse the verbs to pipe, to drum and to trumpet, we cannot usethe verbs to piano and to violin.

But when we meet new coinages, like tape-code, freak-out, shutup-nessand beautician, we may not readily beable to explain our reactions to them. Innovations in vocabulary are capable ofarousing quite strong feelings in people who may otherwise not be in the habitof thinking very much about language. Quirk<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[1]quotes some letter to the press of a familiar kind, written to protest about‘horrible jargon’, such as breakdown,‘vile’ words like transportation, andthe ‘atrocity’ lay-by.

Many linguists agree over the fact that the subject ofword-formation has not until recently received very much attention fromdescriptive grammarians of English, or from scholars working in the field ofgeneral linguistics. As a collection of different processes (compounding,affixation, conversion, backformation, etc.) about which, as a group, it isdifficult to make general statements, word-formation usually makes a briefappearance in one or two chapters of a grammar. Valerie Adams emphasizes twomain reasons why the subject has not been attractive to linguists: itsconnections with the non-linguistic world of things and ideas, for which wordsprovide the names, and its equivocal position as between descriptive andhistorical studies. A few brief remarks, which necessarily present a muchover-simplified picture, on the course which linguistics has taken in the lasthundred years will make this easier.

The nineteenth century, the period of great advancesin historical and comparative language study, saw the first claims oflinguistics to be a science, comparable in its methods with the naturalsciences which were also enjoying a period of exciting discovery. These claimsrested on the detailed study, by comparative linguists, of formalcorrespondences in the Indo-European languages, and their realization that suchstudy depended on the assumption of certain natural ‘laws’ of sound change. AsRobins<span Times New Roman",«serif»; mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:RU;mso-fareast-language: RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[2]

observes in his discussion of the linguistics of thelatter part of the nineteenth century:

Thehistory of a language is traced through recorded variations in the forms andmeanings of its words, and languages are proved to be related by reason oftheir possession of worlds bearing formal and semantic correspondences to eachother such as cannot be attributed to mere chance or to recent borrowing. Ifsound change were not regular, if word-forms were subject to random,inexplicable, and unmotivated variation in the course of time, such argumentswould lose their validity and linguistic relations could only be establishedhistorically by extralinguistic evidence such as is provided in the Romancefield of languages descended from Latin.

The rise and development in the twentieth century ofsynchronic descriptive linguistics meant a shift of emphasis from historicalstudies, but not from the idea of linguistics as a science based on detailedobservation and the rigorous exclusion of all explanations depended onextralinguistic factors. As early as 1876, Henry Sweet had written:

Beforehistory must come a knowledge of what exists. We must learn to observe thingsas they are, without regard to their origin, just as a zoologist must learn todescribe accurately a horse or any other animal. Nor would the mere statementsthat the modern horse is a descendant of a three-toed marsh quadruped beaccepted as an exhausted description… Such however is the course beingpursued by most antiquarian philologists.<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[3]

The most influential scholar concerned with the newlinguistics was Ferdinand de Saussure, who emphasized the distinction betweenexternal linguistics – the study of the effects on a language of the historyand culture of its speakers, and internal linguistics – the study of its systemand rules. Language, studied synchronically, as a system of elements definablein relation to one another, must be seen as a fixed state of affairs at aparticular point of time. It was internal linguistics, stimulated by deSaussure’s works, that was to be the main concern of the twentieth-centuryscholars, and within it there could be no place for the study of the formationof words, with its close connection with the external world and itsimplications of constant change. Any discussion of new formations as such meansthe abandonment of the strict distinction between history and the present moment.As Harris expressed in his influential StructuralLinguistics<span Times New Roman",«serif»; mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language: RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[4]:‘The methods of descriptive linguistics cannot treat of the productivity ofelements since that is a measure of the difference between our corpus and somefuture corpus of the language.’ Leonard Bloomfield, whose book Language<span Times New Roman",«serif»; mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language: RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[5]

was the next work of major influence after that of de Saussure, re-emphasizedthe necessity of a scientific approach, and the consequent difficulties in theway of studying ‘meaning’, and until the middle of the nineteen-fifties,interest was centered on the isolating of minimal segments of speech, thedescription of their distribution relative to one another, and theirorganization into larger units. The fundamental unit of grammar was not theword but a smaller unit, the morpheme.

The next major change of emphasis in linguistics wasmarked by the publication in 1957 of Noam Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures<span Times New Roman",«serif»; mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language: RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[6].As Chomsky stated it, the aim of linguistics was now seen to be ‘to makegrammatical explanations parallel in achievement to the behavior of the speakerwho, on the basis of a finite and accidental experience with language canproduce and understand an indefinite number of new sentences’<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[7]

.The idea of productivity, or creativity, previously excluded from linguistics,or discussed in terms of probabilities in the effort to maintain the view oflanguage as existing in a static state, was seen to be of central importance.But still word-formation remained a topic neglected by linguists, and forseveral good reasons. Chomsky made explicit the distinction, fundamental tolinguistics today (and comparable to that made by de Saussure between langue, the system of a language, and parole, the set of utterances of thelanguage), between linguistic competence, ‘the speaker-hearer’s knowledge ofhis language’ and performance, ‘the actual use of language in concretesituations’<span Times New Roman",«serif»; mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language: RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[8].Linked with this distinction are the notions of ‘grammaticalness’ and‘acceptability’; in Chomsky’s words, ‘Acceptability is a concept that belongsto the study of competence’<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[9].A ‘grammatical’ utterance is one which may be generated and interpreted by therules of the grammar; an ‘acceptable’ utterance is one which is ‘perfectlynatural and immediately comprehensible… and in no way bizarre or outlandish’<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[10].It is easy to show, as Chomsky does, that a grammatical sentence may not beacceptable. For instance, this is thecheese the rat the cat caught stole appears ‘bizarre’ and unacceptablebecause we have difficulty in working it out, not because it breaks anygrammatical rules. Generally, however, it is to be expected thatgrammaticalness and acceptability will go hand in hand where sentences areconcerned.

The ability to make and understand new words isobviously as much a part of our linguistic competence as the ability to makeand understand new sentences, and so, as Pennanen<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[11]points out, ‘it is an obvious gap in transformational grammars not to have madeprovision for treating word-formation.’ But, as we have already noticed, we mayreadily thing of words, like to pianoand to violin, against which we caninvoke no rule, but which are definitely ‘unacceptable’ for no obvious reason.The incongruence of grammaticality and acceptability that is, is far greaterwhere words are concerned than where sentences are concerned. It is so great,in fact, that the exercise of setting out the ‘rules’ for forming words has sofar seemed to many linguists to be out of questionable usefulness. Theoccasions on which we would have to describe the output of such rules as ‘grammaticalbut non-occurring’<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[12]

are just too numerous. And there are further difficulties in treating new wordslike new sentences. A novel word (like handbookor partial) may attract unwelcomeattention to itself and appear to be the result of the breaking of rules ratherthan of their application. And besides, the more accustomed to the word webecome, the more likely we are to find it acceptable, whether it is‘grammatical’ or not – or perhaps we should say, whether or not is was‘grammatical’ at the time it was firstformed, since a new word once formed, often becomes merely a member of aninventory; its formation is a historical event, and the ‘rule’ behind it maythen appear irrelevant.

What exactly is a word? From Lewis Carroll onwards,this apparently simple question has bedeviled countless word buffs, whetherthey are participating in a game of Scrabble or writing an article for the WordWays linguistic magazine. To help the reader decide what constitutes a word, A.Ross Eckler<span Times New Roman",«serif»; mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language: RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[13]suggests a ranking of words in decreasing order of admissibility. A logical wayto rank a word is by the number of English-speaking people who can recognize itin speech or writing, but this is obviously impossible to ascertain.Alternatively, one can rank a word by its number of occurrences in a selectedsample of  printed material. H. Kuceraand W.N. Francis's Computational Analysis of Present-day English<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[14]

is based on one million words from sources in print in 1961. Unfortunately, themajority of the words in Webster's Unabridged<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[15]do not appear even once in this compilation – and the words which do not appearare the ones for which a philosophy of ranking is most urgently needed.Furthermore, the written ranking will differ from the recognition ranking;vulgarities and obscenities will rank much higher in the latter than in theformer.

A detailed, word-by-word ranking is an impossibledream, but a ranking based on classes of words may be within our grasp. RossEckler<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[16]proposes the following classes: (1) words appearing in one more standardEnglish-language dictionaries, (2) non-dictionary words appearing in print inseveral different contexts, (3) words invented to fill a specific need andappearing but once in print.

Most people are willing to admit as words alluncapitalized, unlabeled entries in, say, Webster's New InternationalDictionary, Third Edition (1961). Intuitively, one recognizes that words becomeless admissible as they move in any or all of three directions: as they becomemore frequently capitalized, as they become the jargon of smaller groups(dialect, technical, scientific), and as they become archaic or obsolete. Theseclasses have no definite boundaries – is a word last used in 1499 significantlymore obsolete than a word last used in 1501? Is a word known to 100,000chemists more admissible than a word known to 90,000 Mexican-Americans? Eachlinguist will set his own boundaries.

The second class consists of non-dictionary wordsappearing in print in a number of sources. There are many non-dictionary wordsin common use; some logologists would like to draw a wider circle to includethese. Such words can be broadly classified into: (1) neologisms and commonwords overlooked by dictionary-makers, (2) geographical place names, (3) givennames and surnames.

Dmitri Borgmann<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[17]points out that the well-known words uncashed,ex-wife and duty-bound appear in no dictionaries (since 1965, the first ofthese has appeared in the Random House Unabridged). Few people would excludethese words. Neologisms present a more awkward problem since some may be soephemeral that they never appear in a dictionary. Perhaps one should readPope's dictum «Be not the first by whom the new are tried, nor yet thelast to lay the old aside.»

Large treasure-troves of geographic place names can befound in The Times Atlas of the World<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[18](200,000 names), and the Rand McNally Commercial Atlas and Marketing Guide<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[19]

(100,000 names). These are not all different, and some place names are alreadydictionary words. All these can be easily verified by other readers; however,some will feel uneasy about admitting as a word the name, say, of a smallAlbanian town which possibly has never appeared in any English-language textoutside of atlases.

Given names appear in the appendix of manydictionaries. Common given names such as Edward or Cornelia ought to beadmitted as readily as common geographical place names such as Guatemala, butthis set does not add much to the logological stockpile.

Family surnames at first blush appear to be on thesame footing as geographical place names. However, one must be careful aboutsources. Biographical dictionaries and Who's Who are adequate references, butone should be cautious citing surnames appearing only in telephone directories.Once a telephone directory is supplanted by a later edition, it is difficult tolocate copies for verifying surname claims. Further, telephone directories arenot immune to nonce names coined by subscribers for personal reasons. A goodindex of the relative admissibility of surnames is the number of people in theUnited States bearing that surname. An estimate of this could be obtained fromcomputer tapes of the Social Security Administration; in 1957 they issued apamphlet giving the number of Social Security accounts associated with each ofthe 1500 most common family names.

The third and final class of words consists of noncewords, those invented to fill a specific need, and appearing only once (orperhaps only in the work of the author favoring the word). Few philologistsfeel comfortable about admitting these. Nonce words range from coinages byJames Joyce and Edgar Allan Poe (X-ing a Paragraph) to interjections in comicstrips (Agggh! Yowie!). Ross Eckler and Daria Abrossimova suggest thatmisspellings in print should be included here also.

In the book “Beyond Language”, Dmitri Borgmannproposes that the philologist be prepared to admit words that may never haveappeared in print. For example, Webster's Second lists eudaemony as well as theentry «Eudaimonia, eudaimonism, eudaimonist, etc.» From this heconcludes that EUDAIMONYmust existand should be admitted as a word. Similarly, he can conceive of sentencescontaining the word GRACIOUSLY'S(«There are ten graciously's in Anna Karenina») and SAN DIEGOS(«Consider the luster that the San Diegos of ournation have brought to the US»). In short, he argues that these wordsmight plausibly be used in an English-language sentence, but does not assertany actual usage. His criterion for the acceptance of a word seems to be itsphilological uniqueness (EUDAIMONYis a shortword containing all five vowels and Y).

The available linguistic literature on the subjectcites various types and ways of forming words. Earlier books, articles andmonographs on word-formation and vocabulary growth in general used to mentionmorphological, syntactic and lexico-semantic types of word-formation. Atpresent the classifications of the types of word-formation do not, as a rule,include lexico-semantic word-building. Of interest is the classification ofword-formation means based on the number of motivating bases which manyscholars follow. A distinction is made between two large classes ofword-building means: to Class I belong the means of building words having onemotivating base (e.g. the noun doeris composed of the base do- and thesuffix -er), which Class II includesthe means of building words containing more than one motivating base. They areall based on compounding (e.g. compounds letter-opener,e-mail, looking-glass).

Mostlinguists in special chapters and manuals devoted to English word-formationconsider as the chief processes of English word-formation affixation,conversion and compounding.

Apart from these, there is a number of minor ways offorming words such as back-formation, sound interchange, distinctive stress,onomatopoeia, blending, clipping, acronymy.

Some of the ways of forming words in present-dayEnglish can be restored to for the creation of new words whenever the occasiondemands – these are called productiveways of forming words, other ways of forming words cannot now produce newwords, and these are commonly termed non-productive or unproductive. R. S. Ginzburg gives the example of affixation havingbeen a productive way of forming new words ever since the Old English period;on the other hand, sound-interchange must have been at one time a word-buildingmeans but in Modern English (as we have mentioned above) its function isactually only to distinguish between different classes and forms of words.

It follows that productivity of word-building ways,individual derivational patterns and derivational affixes is understood astheir ability of making new words which all who speak English find nodifficulty in understanding, in particular their ability to create what arecalled occasional words or nonce-words<span Times New Roman",«serif»; mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language: RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[20] (e.g. lungful (of smoke), Dickensish(office), collarless (appearance)).The term suggests that a speaker coins such words when he needs them; if onanother occasion the same word is needed again, he coins it afresh. Nonce-wordsare built from familiar language material after familiar patterns.Dictionaries, as a rule, do not list occasional words.

The delimitation between productive and non-productiveways and means of word-formation as stated above is not, however, accepted by alllinguists without reserve. Some linguists consider it necessary to define theterm productivity of a word-building means more accurately. They hold the viewthat productive ways and means of word-formation are only those that can beused for the formation of an unlimited number of new words in the modernlanguage, i.e. such means that “know no bounds” and easily form occasionalwords. This divergence of opinion is responsible for the difference in thelists of derivational affixes considered productive in various books on Englishlexicology.

Nevertheless, recent investigations seem to prove thatproductivity of derivational means is relative in many respects. Moreover thereare no absolutely productive means; derivational patterns and derivationalaffixes possess different degrees of productivity. Therefore it is importantthat conditions favouring productivity and the degree if productivity of aparticular pattern or affix should be established. All derivational patternsexperience both structural and semantic constraints. The fewer are theconstraints, the higher is the degree of productivity, the greater is thenumber of new words built on it. The two general constraints imposed on allderivational patterns are: the part of speech in which the pattern functionsand the meaning attached to it which conveys the regular semantic correlationbetween the two classes of words. It follows that each part of speech ischaracterized by a set of productive derivational patterns peculiar to it.Three degrees of productivity are distinguished for derivational patterns andindividual derivational affixes: (1) highlyproductive, (2) productive or semi-productive and (3) non-productive.

R. S. Ginzburg<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[21]says that productivity of derivational patterns and affixes should not beidentified with the frequency of occurrence in speech, although there may besome interrelation between then. Frequency of occurrence is characterized bythe fact that a great number of words containing a given derivational affix areoften used in speech, in particular in various texts. Productivity ischaracterized by the ability of a given suffix to make new words.

In linguistic literature there is anotherinterpretation of derivational productivity based on a quantitative approach. Aderivational pattern or a derivational affix are qualified as productiveprovided there are in the word-stock dozens and hundreds of derived words builton the pattern or with the help of the suffix in question. Thus interpreted,derivational productivity is distinguished from word-formation activity bywhich is meant the ability of an affix to produce new words, in particularoccasional words or nonce-words. For instance, the agent suffix –er is to be qualified both as aproductive and as an active suffix: on the one hand, the English word-stockpossesses hundreds of nouns containing this suffix (e.g. writer, reaper, lover, runner, etc.), on the other hand, the suffix–er in the pattern v + –er<span Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family:«Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type: symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings">à

N is freely used to coin anunlimited number of nonce-words denoting active agents (e.g. interrupter, respecter, laugher, breakfaster,etc.).

The adjective suffix –ful is described as a productive but not as an active one, forthere are hundreds of adjectives with this suffix (e.g. beautiful, hopeful, useful, etc.), but no new words seem to bebuilt with its help.

For obviousreasons, the noun-suffix –th in termsof this approach is to be regarded both as a non-productive and a non-activeone.

Now let us consider the basic ways of forming words inthe English language.

Affixationis generally defined as the formation of words byadding derivational affixes to different types of bases. Derived words formedby affixation may be the result of one or several applications ofword-formation rule and thus the stems of words making up a word-cluster enterinto derivational relations of different degrees. The zero degree of derivationis ascribed to simple words, i.e. words whose stem is homonymous with aword-form and often with a root-morpheme (e.g. atom, haste, devote, anxious, horror, etc.). Derived words whosebases are built on simple stems and thus are formed by the application of onederivational affix are described as having the first degree of derivation (e.g.atomic, hasty, devotion, etc.).Derived words formed by two consecutive stages of coining possess the seconddegree of derivation (e.g. atomical,hastily, devotional, etc.), and so forth.

In conformity with the division of derivationalaffixes into suffixes and prefixes affixation is subdivided into suffixation and prefixation. Distinction is naturally made between prefixal andsuffixal derivatives according to the last stage of derivation, whichdetermines the nature of the immediate constituents of the pattern that signalsthe relationship of the derived word with its motivating source unit, e.g. unjust (un– + just), justify (just + –ify), arrangement (arrange + –ment), non-smoker (non– + smoker). Wordslike reappearance, unreasonable,denationalize, are often qualified as prefixal-suffixal derivatives. R. S.Ginzburg<span Times New Roman",«serif»; mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language: RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[22] insiststhat this classification is relevant only in terms of the constituent morphemessuch words are made up of, i.e. from the angle of morphemic analysis. From thepoint of view of derivational analysis, such words are mostly either suffixalor prefixal derivatives, e.g. sub-atomic= sub– + (atom + –ic), unreasonable =un– + (reason + –able), denationalize = de– + (national + –ize), discouragement= (dis– + courage) + –ment.

A careful study of a great many suffixal and prefixalderivatives has revealed an essential difference between them. In ModernEnglish, suffixation is mostly characteristic of noun and adjective formation,while prefixation is mostly typical of verb formation. The distinction alsorests on the role different types of meaning play in the semantic structure ofthe suffix and the prefix. The part-of-speech meaning has a much greatersignificance in suffixes as compared to prefixes which possess it in a lesserdegree. Due to it, a prefix may be confined to one part of speech as, for example,enslave, encage, unbutton, or mayfunction in more that one part of speech as over–in overkind, overfeed, overestimation.Unlike prefixes, suffixes as a rule function in any one part of speech often forming a derived stem of a different partof speech as compared with that of the base, e.g. careless – care; suitable – suit, etc. Furthermore, it is necessaryto point out that a suffix closely knit together with a base forms a fusionretaining less of its independence that a prefix which is as a general rulemore independent semantically, e.g. reading– ‘the act of one who reads’; ‘ability to read’; and to re-read – ‘to readagain’.

Prefixationis the formation of words with the help of prefixes.The interpretation of the terms prefix and prefixation now firmly rooted inlinguistic literature has undergone a certain evolution. For instance, sometime ago there were linguists who treated prefixation as part ofword-composition (or compounding). The greater semantic independence ofprefixes as compared with suffixes led the linguists to identify prefixes withthe first component part of a compound word.

At present the majority of scholars treat prefixationas an integral part of word-derivation regarding prefixes as derivationalaffixes which differ essentially both from root-morphemes and non-derivationalprepositive morphemes. Opinion sometimes differs concerning the interpretationof the functional status of certain individual groups of morphemes whichcommonly occur as first component parts of words. H. Marchand<span Times New Roman",«serif»;mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[23],for instance, analyses words like tooverdo, to underestimate as compound verbs, the first component of whichare locative particles, not prefixes. In a similar way he interprets words likeincome, onlooker, outhouse qualifyingthem as compounds with locative particles as first elements.

R. S.Ginzburg<span Times New Roman",«serif»; mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language: RU;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[24]states there are about 51 prefixes in the system of Modern Englishword-formation.

Unlike suffixation, which is usuallymore closely bound up with the paradigm of a certain part of speech, prefixationis considered to be more neutral in this respect. It is significant that inlinguistic literature derivational suffixes are always divided intonoun-forming, adjective-forming and so on; prefixes, however, are treateddifferently. They are described either in alphabetical order or sub-dividedinto several classes in accordance with their origin,. Meaning or function andnever according to the part of speech.

Prefixes may be classified on different principles.Diachronically distinction is made between prefixes of native and foreignorigin. Synchronically prefixes may be classified:

(1)<span Times New Roman""> 

According to the class of words they preferably form.Recent investigations allow one to classify prefixes according to thisprinciple. It must be noted that most of the 51 prefixes of Modern Englishfunction in more than one part of speech forming different structural andstructural-semantic patterns. A small group of 5 prefixes may be referred toexclusively verb-forming (en–, be–, un–,etc.).

(2)<span Times New Roman""> 

As to the type of lexical-grammatical character of thebase they are added to into: (a) deverbal, e.g. rewrite, outstay, overdo, etc.; (b) denominal, e.g. unbutton, detrain, ex-president, etc.and (c) deadjectival, e.g. uneasy,biannual, etc. It is interesting that the most productive prefixal patternfor adjectives is the one made up of the prefix un– and the base built either on adjectival stems or present andpast participle, e.g. unknown, unsmiling,untold, etc.

(3)<span Times New Roman""> 

Semanticallyprefixes fall into mono– and polysemantic.

(4)<span Times New Roman""> 

As to the generic denotational meaning there aredifferent groups that are distinguished in linguistic literature: (a) negativeprefixes such as un–, non–, in–, dis–,a–, im–/in–/ir– (e.g. employment <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family:«Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language: EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings">àunemployment, politician <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family: «Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings">ànon-politician, correct <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family: «Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings">àincorrect,advantage <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings">àdisadvantage, moral <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family: «Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings">àamoral,legal <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings">àillegal, etc.); (b) reversative of privative prefixes, suchas un–, de–, dis–, dis– (e.g. tie <span Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family:«Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type: symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings">àuntie,centralize <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings">àdecentralize, connect <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family: «Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings">àdisconnect, etc.); (c) pejorative prefixes, such as mis–, mal–, pseudo– (e.g. calculate <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family:«Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language: EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings">àmiscalculate, function <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family: «Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings">àmalfunction, scientific <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family: «Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings">àpseudo-scientific, etc.);(d) prefixes of time and order, such as fore–,pre–, post–, ex– (e.g. see <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family:«Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language: EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings">àforesee,war <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings">àpre-war,Soviet <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings">àpost-Soviet, wife <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family: «Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings">àex-wife, etc.); (e) prefix of repetition re– (e.g. do <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family:«Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language: EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings">àredo, type<span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings">àretype, etc.); (f) locative prefixes such as super–, sub–, inter–, trans– (e.g. market<span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family:«Times New Roman»; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings">àsupermarket, culture <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family: «Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings">àsubculture, national <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family: «Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings">àinternational, Atlantic <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family: «Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings">àtrans-Atlantic, etc.).

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When viewed from the angle of their stylisticreference, English prefixes fall into those characterized by neutral stylistic reference and those possessing quite a definite stylistic value.As no exhaustive lexico-stylistic classification of English prefixes has yetbeen suggested, a few examples can only be adduced here. There is no doubt, forinstance, that prefixes like un–, out–,over–, re–, under– and some others can be qualified as neutral (e. g. unnatural, unlace, outgrow, override, redo,underestimate, etc.). On the other hand, one can hardly fail to perceivethe literary-bookish character of such prefixes as pseudo–, super–, ultra–, uni–, bi– and some others (e. g. pseudo-classical, superstructure,ultra-violence, unilateral, bifocal, etc.).

Sometimes one comesacross pairs of prefixes one of which is neutral, the other is stylisticallycoloured. One example will suffice here: the prefix over– occurs in all functional styles, theprefix super– is peculiar to thestyle of scientific prose.

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Prefixes may be also classified as to thedegree of productivity into highly-productive,productive and non-productive.

Suffixationis the formation of words with the helpof suffixes. Suffixes usually modify the lexical  meaning of the base and transfer words to adifferent part of speech. There aresuffixes however, which do not shift words from one part of speech intoanother; a suffix of this kind usually trans­fers a word into a differentsemantic group, e. g. a concrete noun becomes an abstract one, as is the casewith child—childhood, friend—friendship,etc.

Chains of suffixes occurring in derivedwords having two and more suffixal morphemes are sometimes referred to inlexicography as com­pound suffixes: –ably= –able + –ly (e. g. profitably,unreasonably) –ical–ly = –ic + –al + –ly (e. g. musically, critically); –ation = –ate + –ion (e. g. fascination,isolation) and some others.Compound suffixes do not always present a mere succession of two or moresuffixes arising out of several consecutive stages of derivation. Some of themacquire a new quality operating as a whole unit. Let us examine from this pointof view the suffix –ation in wordslike fascination, translation, adaptation and the like. Adaptation looks atfirst sight like a parallel to fascination,translation. The latter howeverare first-degree derivatives built with the suffix –ion on the bases fascinate–,translate–. But there is no baseadaptate–, only the shorter base adapt–.Likewise damnation, condemnation,formation, information and manyothers are not matched by shorter bases ending in –ate, but only by still shorter ones damn–, condemn–, form–, inform–. Thus, the suffix –ation is a specific suffix of a compositenature. It consists of two suffixes –ateand –ion, but in many cases functionsas a single unit in first-degree derivatives. It is referred to in linguisticliter­ature as a coalescent suffix or a group suffix. Adaptation is then aderi­vative of the first degree of derivation built with the coalescent suffixon the base adapt–.

Of interest is also the group-suffix –manship consisting of the suffixes –manand –ship. It denotes a superior quality, ability of doing some­thing toperfection, e. g. authormanship,quotemanship, lipmanship, etc.

It also seems appropriate to make severalremarks about the morpho­logical changes that sometimes accompany the processof combining der­ivational morphemes with bases. Although this problem has beenso far insufficiently investigated, some observations have been made and somedata collected. For instance, the noun-forming suffix –ess for names of female beings brings about a certain change in thephonetic shape of the correlative male noun provided the latter ends in –er, –or, e.g. actress (actor), sculptress (sculptor), tigress (tiger), etc. Itmay be easily observed that in such cases the sound [∂] is contracted in the feminine nouns.

Further, there are suffixes due to whichthe primary stress is shifted to the syllable immediately preceding them, e.g. courageous (courage), stability (stable),investigation (investigate), peculiarity(pecul­iar), etc. When added to a base having the suffix –able/–ible as its com­ponent, the suffix –itybrings about a change in its phonetic shape, name­ly the vowel [i] isinserted between [b] and [l], e. g. possible<span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family:«Times New Roman»; color:black;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings">à

  possibility, changeable <span Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family:«Times New Roman»;color:black; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings">à  changeability,etc. Some suffixes attract the primarystress on to themselves, there is a secondary stress on the first syllable inwords with such suffixes, e. g. 'employ'ee(em'ploy), govern'mental (govern), 'pictu'resque (picture).

There are different classifications ofsuffixes in linguistic literature, as suffixes may be divided into severalgroups according to different principles:

(1)<span Times New Roman"">

The first principle of classificationthat, one might say, suggests itself is the part of speech formed. Within thescope of the part-of-speech classification suffixes naturally fall into severalgroups such as:

a)<span Times New Roman"">    

noun-suffixes, i.e. those forming oroccurring in nouns, e. g. –er, –dom,–ness, –ation, etc. (teacher,  Londoner, freedom, brightness, justi­fication, etc.);

b)<span Times New Roman"">   

adjective-suffixes, i.e. those forming oroccurring in adjectives, e. g. –able,–less, –ful, –ic,  –ous, etc. (agreeable, careless, doubtful, poetic,courageous, etc.);

c)<span Times New Roman"">    

verb-suffixes, i.e. those forming oroccurring in verbs, e. g. –en, –fy, –ize(darken, satisfy, harmonize, etc.);

d)<span Times New Roman"">   

adverb-suffixes, i.e. those forming oroccurring in adverbs, e. g. –ly, –ward(quickly, eastward, etc.).

(2)<span Times New Roman"">

Suffixes may also be classified intovarious groups according to the lexico-grammatical character of the base theaffix is usually added to. Proceeding from this principle one may dividesuffixes into:

a)<span Times New Roman"">    

deverbal suffixes (those added to theverbal base), e. g. –er, –ing, –ment,–able, etc. (speaker, reading,agreement, suitable, etc.);

b)<span Times New Roman"">   

denominal suffixes (those added to the nounbase), e. g. –less, –ish, –ful, –ist,–some, etc. (handless, childish,mouthful, violinist, trouble­some,  etc.);

c)<span Times New Roman"">    

de-adjectival suffixes (those affixed tothe adjective base), e. g. –en, –ly,–ish, –ness, etc. (blacken, slowly,reddish, brightness, etc.).

(3)<span Times New Roman"">

A classification of suffixes may also bebased on the criterion of sense expressed by a set of suffixes. Proceeding fromthis principle suf­fixes are classified into various groups within the boundsof a certain part of speech. For instance, noun-suffixes fall into thosedenoting:

a)<span Times New Roman"">    

the agent of an action, e. g. –er, –ant (baker, dancer, defendant, etc.);

b)<span Times New Roman"">   

appurtenance, e. g. –an, –ian, –ese, etc. (Arabian,Elizabethan, Russian, Chinese, Japanese,etc.);

c)<span Times New Roman"">    

collectivity, e. g. –age, –dom, –ery (–ry), etc.(freightage, official­dom, peasantry, etc.);

d)<span Times New Roman"">   

diminutiveness, e. g. –ie, –let, –ling, etc. (birdie, girlie, cloudlet, squirreling,wolfing, etc.).

(4)<span Times New Roman"">

Still another classification of suffixesmay be worked out if one examines them from the angle of stylistic reference.Just like prefixes, suffixes are also characterized by quite a definitestylistic reference falling into two basic classes:

a)<span Times New Roman"">    

those characterized by neutral stylisticreference such as –able, –er, –ing, etc.;

b)<span Times New Roman"">   

those having a certain stylistic value suchas –old, –i/form, –aceous, –tron, etc.

Suffixes with neutralstylistic reference may occur in words of differ­ent lexico-stylistic layers.As for suffixes of the second class they are restricted in use to quitedefinite lexico-stylistic layers of words, in particular to terms, e.g. rhomboid, asteroid, cruci­form, cyclotron,synchrophasotron, etc.

(5)<span Times New Roman"">

Suffixes are also classified as to thedegree of their productivity.

Distinction is usually made between dead and living affixes. Dead affixes aredescribed as those which are no longer felt in Modern English as componentparts of words; they have so fused with the base of the word as to lose theirindependence completely. It is only by special etymological analysis that theymay be singled out, e. g. –d in dead, seed, –le, –l, –el in bundle, sail, hovel; –ock in hillock; –lock in wedlock; –t in flight, gift,height. It is quite clear thatdead suffixes are irrelevant to present-day English word-formation, they belongin its diachronic study.

Living affixes may beeasily singled out from a word, e. g. the noun-forming suffixes –ness, –dom, –hood, –age, –ance, as in darkness, freedom, childhood, marriage, assistance, etc. or theadjective-forming suffixes –en, –ous,–ive, –ful, –y as in wooden,poisonous, active, hopeful, stony, etc.

However, not all livingderivational affixes of Modern English possess the ability to coin new words.Some of them may be employed to coin new words on the spur of the moment,others cannot, so that they are dif­ferent from the point of view of theirproductivity. Accordingly they fall into two basic classes — productive andnon-productive word-building affixes.

It has been pointed outthat linguists disagree as to what is meant by the productivity of derivationalaffixes.

Following the firstapproach all living affixes should be considered productive in varying degreesfrom highly-productive (e. g. –er,  –ish, –less, re–, etc.) to non-productive (e. g. –ard, –cy, –ive, etc.).

Consequently it becomesimportant to describe the constraints imposed on and the factors favouring theproductivity of affixational patterns and individual affixes. The degree ofproductivity of affixational patterns very much depends on the structural,lexico-grammatical and seman­tic nature of bases and the meaning of the affix.For instance, the analysis of the bases from which the suffix –ize can derive verbs reveals that it ismost productive with noun-stems, adjective-stems also favour ifs produc­tivity,whereas verb-stems and adverb-stems do not, e. g. criticize (critic), organize (organ), itemize (item), mobilize(mobile), localize (local), etc.Comparison of the semantic structure of a verb in –ize with that of the base it is built on shows that the number ofmean­ings of the stem usually exceeds that of the verb and that its basicmeaning favours the productivity of the suffix –ize to a greater degree than its marginal meanings, e. g. to characterize — character, to moralize —moral, to dramatize — drama, etc.

The treatment of certainaffixes as non-productive naturally also de­pends on the concept ofproductivity. The current definition of non-pro­ductive derivational affixes asthose which cannot hg used in Modern English for the coining of new words israther vague and maybe interpret­ed in different ways. Following the definitionthe term non-pro­ductive refers only to the affixes unlikely to be used for theforma­tion of new words, e. g. –ous, –th,fore– and some others (famous, depth, foresee).

If one accepts the otherconcept of productivity mentioned above, then non-productive affixes must bedefined as those that cannot be used for the formation of occasional words and,consequently, such affixes as –dom,–ship, –ful, –en, –ify, –ate andmany others are to be regarded as non-productive.

The theory of relativeproductivity of derivational affixes is also corroborated by some otherobservations made on English word-form­ation. For instance, differentproductive affixes are found in different peri­ods of the history of thelanguage. It is extremely significant, for exam­ple, that out of the sevenverb-forming suffixes of the Old English period only one has survived up to thepresent time with a very low degree of productivity, namely the suffix –en (e. g. to soften, to darken, to whiten).

A derivational affix maybecome productive in just one meaning be­cause that meaning is specially neededby the community at a particu­lar phase in its history. This may be wellillustrated by the prefix de– in thesense of ‘undo what has been done, reverse an action or process’, e. g. deacidify (paint spray), decasualize (docklabour), decentralize (gov­ernment or management), deration (eggs and butter),de-reserve (medi­cal students), desegregate (coloured children), and so on.

Furthermore, there arecases when a derivational affix being non­productive in the non-specializedsection of the vocabulary is used to coin scientific or technical terms. Thisis the case, for instance, with the suffix –ance which has been used to form some termsin Electrical Engineering, e. g. capacitance,impedance, reactance. The sameis true of the suffix –ity which hasbeen used to form terms in physics, and chemistry such as alkalinity, luminosity, emissivity and some others.

Conversion,one of the principal ways of forming words in Modern English is high­lyproductive in replenishing the English word-stock with new words. The termconversion, which some linguists find inadequate, re­fers to the numerous casesof phonetic identity of word-forms, primarily the so-called initial forms, oftwo words belonging to different parts of speech. This may be illustrated bythe following cases: work — to work; love— to love; paper — to paper; brief — to brief, etc. As a rule we deal with simple words, although there are a fewexceptions, e.g. wireless — to wireless.

It will be recalled that,although inflectional categories have been great­ly reduced in English in thelast eight or nine centuries, there is a cer­tain difference on themorphological level between various parts of speech, primarily between nounsand verbs. For instance, there is a clear-cut difference in Modern Englishbetween the noun doctor and the verb to doctor — each existsin the language as a unity of its word-forms and variants, not as one form doctor. It is true that some of the forms are iden­tical in sound, i.e.homonymous, but there is a great distinction between them, as they are bothgrammatically and semantically different.

If we regard suchword-pairs as doctor — to doctor, water —to water, brief — to brief fromthe angle of their morphemic structure, we see that they are all root-words. Onthe derivational level, however, one of them should be referred to derivedwords, as it belongs to a different part of speech and is understood throughsemantic and structural relations with the other, i.e. is motivated by it.Consequently, the question arises: what serves as a word-building means inthese cases? It would appear that the noun is formed from the verb (or viceversa) without any morphological change, but if we probe deeper into thematter, we inevitably come to the conclusion that the two words differ in theparadigm. Thus it is the paradigm that is used as a word-building means. Hence,we may define conversion as the formation of a new word through changes in itspara­digm.

It is necessary to callattention to the fact that the paradigm plays a significant role in the processof word-formation in general and not only in the case of conversion. Thus, thenoun cooker (in gas-cooker) is formed from the word to cook not only by theaddition of the suffix –er, but alsoby the change in its paradigm. However, in this case, the role played by theparadigm as a word-building means is less obvious, as the word-build­ing suffix–er comes to the fore. Therefore,conversion is characterized not simply by the use of the paradigm as aword-building means, but by the formation of a new word solely by means of changing its paradigm. Hence, the change ofparadigm is the only word-building means of con­version. As a paradigm is amorphological category conversion can be described as a morphological way offorming words.

Compoundingor word-compositionis one of the productive types of word-formation inModern English. Composition like all other ways of deriving words has its ownpeculiarities as to the means used, thenature of bases and their distribution, as to the range of application, thescope of seman­tic classes and the factors conducive to pro­ductivity.

Compounds, as has beenmentioned elsewhere, are made up of two ICs which are both derivational bases.Compound words are inseparable vocabulary units. They are formally andsemantically dependent on the constituent bases and the semantic relationsbetween them which mirror the relations between the motivating units. The ICsof compound words represent bases of all three structural types. The basesbuilt on stems may be of different degree of complexity as, for example, week-end,office-man­agement, postage-stamp, aircraft-carrier, fancy-dress-maker, etc. How­ever, this complexity ofstructure of bases is not typical of the bulk of Modern English compounds.

In this connection careshould be taken not to confuse compound words with polymorphic words ofsecondary derivation, i.e. derivatives built according to an affixal patternbut on a compound stem for its base such as, e. g. school-mastership ([n + n] + suf), ex-housewife (prf + [n + n]), toweekend, to spotlight ([n + n] + conversion).

Structurallycompound words are characterized by the specif­ic order and arrangement inwhich bases follow one another. The orderin which the two bases are placed within a compound is rigid­ly fixed inModern English and it is the second IC that makes the head-member of the word,i.e. its structural and semantic centre. The head-member is of basic importanceas it preconditions both the lexico-grammatical and semantic features of thefirst component. It is of inter­est to note that the difference between stems(that serve as bases in com­pound words) and word-forms they coincide with is most obvious in some compounds,especially in compound adjectives. Adjectives like long, wide, rich arecharacterized by grammatical forms of degrees of comparison longer, wider, richer. The corresponding stems functioningas bases in compound words lack grammatical independence and forms proper tothe words and retain only the part-of-speech meaning; thus com­pound adjectiveswith adjectival stems for their second components, e. g. age-long, oil-rich, inch-wide,do not form degrees of comparison as the compound adjective oil-rich does not form them the way the word rich does, but conformsto the general rule of polysyllabic adjectives and has analytical forms ofdegrees of comparison. The same difference be­tween words and stems is not sonoticeable in compound nouns with the noun-stem for the second component.

Phoneticallycompounds are also marked by a specific structure of their own. No phonemicchanges of bases occur in composition but the compound word acquires a newstress pattern, different from the stress in the motivating words, f

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