Classification of word-building means

As the aim of our work is to investigate the problem of neologisms, and ways of their forming, we will overview the word-building means. At first we will tackle the problem of various classifications of word-formation, linguists used to mention morphological, syntactic and lexico-semantic types of word-formation. At present the classification of the types does not, as a rule, include lexico-semantic word-building. Of interest is the classification of word-formation means based on the number of motivating bases, which many scholars follow. A distinction is made between two large classes of word-building means:

To Class I belong the means of building words having one motivating base. To give an English example, the noun CATCHER is composed of the base CATCH – and the suffix – ER, through the combination of which it is morphologically and semantically motivated.

The basic means in word-derivation are affixation and conversion. Derived words usually consist of a root and an affix, which in their turn fall into prefixes which proceed the root in the structure of the word (re-write, mis-pronounce) and suffixes which follow the root (teach-er, dict-ate). Derived words are extremely popular in the English vocabulary. Successfully competing with this structural type is the so-called root word which has only a root morpheme in its structure. This type widely represented by a great number of words belonging to the original English word stock or to earlier borrowings (house, book, work), and in Modern English, has been greatly enlarged by the type of word building, called conversion (pale, adj. – to pale, v; to find, v- a find, n.) Conversion sometimes is referred to as an affixless way of word-building or even affixless derivation. Conversion is a process of creating a new word from some existing one or by changing the category of a part of speech, the morphemic shape of the original word remaining unchanged. The new word has a meaning which differs from that of the original one though it can more or less be easily associated with it. It has also a new paradigm peculiar to its new category as a part of speech (nurse, n. – to nurse, v).

Class II includes the means of building words containing more than one motivating base. Needless to say, they are all based on compounding (country-club, door – hande).

This type of word building, in which new words are produced by combining two or more stems, is one of the most productive types in Modern English, the other two are 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. Compounds are not homogeneous in structure. Traditionally three types are distinguished: neutral, morphological, syntactic. In neutral compounds the process of compounding is relized without any linking elements, by a mere juxtaposition of two stems (shop-window, bedroom, tallboy). Morphological compounds are fewer in number. This type is not productive and it is repersented by words in which two componding stems are combined by a linking vowel or consonant (Anglo – Saxon, statesman, handiwork) (16, p. 105) In syntactic compounds we find a feature of a 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, prepositions, as in lily-of-the-alley, good-for-nothing. Syntactical relations and grammatical patterns current in present-day English can be traced in the structures of such compound nouns as pick-me-up, know-all, whodunit. In this group of compounds, we find a great number of neologisms, and whodunit is one of them. The structure of most compounds is transparent, and it is clear that the origin of these words is a simple word combination.

Most linguists in special chapters and manuals devoted to English word-formation consider as the chief processes af English word formation affixation, conversion and compounding. Apart from these a number of minor ways of forming words such as back-fomation, sound interchange, distinctive stress, sound imitation, blending, clipping and acronymy are traditionally referred to Word-formation. (26, p. 108)

Some minor types of word-formation can not belong neither to word derivation nor to compounding, as some words while shortening, for example, can have two bases, e.g. V-day, some can have one, e.g. lab. The same reason can be applied to other minor types. We will not be strict and consider them as minor word building means.

Shortenings are produced in two different ways. The first is to make a new word form a syllable (rarer two) of the original word. The latter may lose its beginning (as in phone made from telephone), its ending (as in hols – holydays, ad – advertisement) or both the beginning and ending (as in flu-influenza). The second way of shortening is to make a new word form the initial letters (similar to acronimy) of a word group: U.N.O. from the United Nations Organization. This type is called initial shortenings and found not only among colloquialisms and slang. So, g.f. is a shortened word made from the compound girlfriend.

As a type of word-building shortening of spoken words, also called clipping or curtailment, is recorded in the English language as far back as the 15 century. It has grown more and more productive ever since. This growth becomes especially marked in many European languages in the 20^th century, and it is a matter of common knowledge that this development is particularly intense in English.

Shortenings of spoken words or curtailment consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts (whether or not this part has previously been a morpheme), as a result of which the new form acquires some linguistic value of its own.

Newly shortened words appear continuously: this is testified by numerous neologisms, such as demo form demonstration: frog or fridge from refrigerator; trank from tranquilizer. Many authors are inclined to overemphasize the role of «the strain of modern life» as the mainspring of this development. This is, obviously, only one of reasons, and the purely linguistic factors should not be overlooked. Among the major forces are the demands of rhythm, which are more readily satisfied when the words are monosyllabic.

When dealing with words of long duration, one will also note that a high percentage of English shortenings is involved into the process of loan word assimilation. Monosyllabism goes farther in English than in any other European language, and that is why shortened words sound more like native ones than their long prototypes.

The other word building means can be called: blends, blendings, fusions or portmanteauwords. The process of formation is called telescoping, because the words seem to slide into one another like sections of a telescope. Blends may be defined as formations that combine two words and include the letters or sounds they have in common as a connecting element.

The analysis into immediate constituents is helpful so far as it permits the definition of a blend as a word with the first constituent represented by a stem whose final part may be missing, and the second constituent by a stem of which the initial part is missing. The second constituent, when used in a series of similar blends may turn into a suffix. A new suffix – on is, for instance, well under way in such terms as nylon, rayon, silon, formed from the final element of cotton.

Depending upon prototype phrases with which they can be correlate two types of blends can be distinguished. One may be termed additive, the second, restrictive. (17, p. 76) The respective type is transformable into an attributive phrase where the first element serves as modifier of the second: cine (matographic pano) rama – cinerama. Other examples are: medicare – medical care, telecast – television broadcast.

Both types involve the sliding together not only of sound but of meaning as well. Yet the semantic relations, which are at work are different. The additive type is transformable into a phrase consisting of the respective complete stems combined with the conjunction and, e.g. smog – smoke and fog ‘a mixture of smoke and fog’. The elements may be synonymous, belong to the same semantic field or at least be members of the same lexico-grammatical class of words: French + English=Frenglish.

Blends, although not very numerous altogether, seem to be on the rise, especially in terminology and also in trade advertisements.

Another way of forming new words is acronymization, as for this process, we can say, that, because of ever closer connection between the oral and the written forms of the language it is sometimes difficult to differentiate clippings formed in oral speech from graphical abbreviations. They are becoming more employed in oral speech and widely used in conversation.

During World War I and after it the custom became very popular not only in English-speaking countries, but in other parts of the world as well, to call countries, governmental, social, military, industrial and trade organizations and officials not only by their full titles but by initial abbreviations derived from writing. Later the trend became even more pronounced; e.g. the USSR, the U.N.O., MP. The tendency was to omit fullstops between the letters: GPO (General Post Organization). Some abbreviations nevertheless appear in both forms: EPA and E.P.A. (Environmental Protection Agency). Such words formed from the initial letter of each of the successive parts of a phrasal term have two possible types of orthoepic correlation between written and spoken forms.

Ifthe abbreviated written form lends itself to be read as though it were an ordinary English word and sounds like an English word, it will be read like one. The words thus formed are called acronyms (from GREEK acros – ‘end’ +onym ‘name’). This way of forming new words is becoming more and more popular in almost all fields of human activity, and especially in political and technical vocabulary: U.N.O., also UNO (ju:nou) – United Nations Organization, NATO – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, SALT – Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. The last example shows that acronyms are often homonymous to ordinary words: sometimes intentionally chosen so as to create certain associations. Thus, for example, the National organization for Women is called NOW. Typical of acronymic coinages in technical terminology are JATO, laser, radar.

Acronyms present a special interest because they exemplify the working of the lexical adaptive system. (17, p. 143)

As for semantic word – building, we can say, that it is any change in word – meaning, for instance the word bench – ‘a long seat of wood or stone’; ‘a carpenter table’. The majority of the linguists, however, understand this process only as a change in the meaning of a word that may result in the appearance of homonyms, as is the case with flower – «a blossom» and flour– : the fine meal», «powder made form wheat and used for making bread», etc. The application of the term word-formation to the appearance of homonyms due to the development of polysemy seems to be debatable for the following reasons:

As semantic change does not, as a rule, lead to the inroduction of a new word into the vocabulary, it can scarcely be regarded as a word-building means (neither can we consider the process a word-building means even when an actual enlargment), the vocabulary does come about through the appearance of a pair of homonyms. Actually, the appearance of homonyms is not a means of creating new words, but it is the final result of a long and laborious process of sense-development. Furthermore, there are no patterns after which homonyms can be made in the language. Finally, diverging sense-development results in a semantic isolation of two or more meanings of a word, whereas the process of word-formation proper is characterized by a certain semantic connection between the new word and the source lexical unit. For these reasons diverging sense-development leading to the appearance of two or more homonyms should be regarded as a specific channel through which the vocabulary of a language is replenished with new words and should not be treated on a par with the processes of word-formation, such as affixation, conversion and composition.