Ivan Franko National University

of Lviv

Lexicology

Hryhorii Kochur Department of translation

studies and contrastive linguistics
Nadiia Andreichuk, professor
[email protected]
 Lecture 5

Categories and types of

present-day English
word-formation (part 2)
...the game is to say something new
with old words

 Ralph Waldo Emerson (1849)
 Plan
 1. Compounding
1.1. Formal characteristics
1.2.The treatment of compounds.
1.3. Types of compounds
 2. Shortening and its types
 3. Reduplicatives
 Compounding: productivity

 one of the most productive means of word-

formation both in English and in Ukrainian
 is characterized by the ease with which
compound words are formed when need
arises without becoming permanent units of
the vocabulary
 can be studied both diachronically and
synchronically
 Compounding: tasks of research

 1)the principal features of compounds

which distinguish them from other
linguistic units;
 2) the semantic structure of compound
words;
 3) the principles of classification
 Ф
DEFINITION

 A compound: something consisting of

two or more different parts
 In Lexicology:
a lexical unit consisting of more than
one stem and functioning both
grammatically and semantically as a
single word.
 Aspects and structural types

 ASPECTS
 1) structural;
 2) semantic;
 3) functional

 STRUCTURAL TYPES:
 neutral
 morphological
 syntactic
 neutral compounds

 the process of compounding is realized without any

linking element (juxtaposion of two stems).
 E.g. shop-window, sunflower, bedroom.
 There are three types of neutral compounds:
 a) simple neutral compounds: they consist of
affixless stems e.g. brainstorm, deadline;
 b) derivational compounds: contain affixes,
absent-mindedness, golden-haired, honey-mooner;
 c) contracted compounds: have a shortened stem
in their structure: TV-set, T-shirt
 Morphological compounds

 few in number
 non-productive
 two stems are combined by a linking vowel or
consonant: Anglo-Saxon, handiwork, spokesman
 syntactic compounds

 formed from segments of speech preserving in

their structure numerous traces of syntagmatic
relations typical of speech:
 lily-of the valley, Jack-of-all-trades, mother-in-
law
 Semantic aspects of compounds

 refers to the issue of correlation of the separate

meanings of the constituent parts and the
actual meaning of the compound. In other
words
 can the meaning of a compound word be
regarded as the sum of its constituent
meanings?
 examples

 classroom, evening-gown, sleeping-car

(we can speak about the sum of constituent
meanings),
 blackboard, football, chatterbox (we can
trace some change in meaning, but the meaning
of the components is still transparent)
 Ladybird, tallboy, bluestocking (meaning
of the compounds does not correspond to the
separate meanings of constituent parts)
 In Ukrainian

 1. Stem-combining with the help of

interfixes о, е (доброзичливий,
працездатний) or without them
(триповерховий, всюдихiд);
 2. Word-combining or juxtaposition
(Lat. juxta - near, positio - place) -
combining several words or word-forms in
one complex word (хата-лабораторiя,
салон-перукарня)
 Number of stems involved

 In principle any number of bases may be

involved, but in English except for a
relatively minor class of items (normally
abbreviated) compounds usually comprise
two stems only, however internally
complex each may be
 type of stems

 Compounding can take place within any of

the word classes, but:
 with very few exceptions, the resulting
compound word in English is a noun, a
verb or an adjective
 In Ukrainian this list includes nouns,
adjectives and adverbs
cohesion and integrity of a compound

 The structural cohesion and integrity of

a compound may depend upon:
 unity of stress,
 solid or hyphenated spelling,
 semantic unity,
 unity of morphological and syntactic
functioning
 or, more often, upon the combined effect of
several of these factors
 Formal aspects

 In English there are three forms of compound words:

 the closed form, in which the words are melded
together, such as firefly, secondhand, softball,
childlike, crosstown, redhead, keyboard, makeup,
notebook;
 the hyphenated form, such as daughter-in-law,
master-at-arms, over-the-counter, six-pack, six-
year-old, mass-produced;
 and the open form, such as post office, real estate,
middle class, full moon, half sister, attorney
general.
 Formal aspects

 Modifying compounds
are often hyphenated to
avoid confusion. The
New York Public
Library's Writer's
Guide points out that an
old-furniture salesman
clearly sells old furniture,
but an old furniture
salesman would be an
old man.
 Formal aspects

 Not the same ambiguity about a used car dealer.

 When compounded modifiers precede a noun, they
are often hyphenated: part-time teacher, fifty-yard-
wide field, fire-resistant curtains, high-speed chase.
When those same modifying words come after the
noun they are not hyphenated: a field fifty yards
wide, curtains that are fire resistant, etc
 Relations of the components

 In describing the structure of a compound we should

examine the relations of the members to each
other.
 Compounding associates stems drawn from the
whole lexicon in a wide range of semantic relations.
Although both bases in a compound are in principle
equally open, they are normally in a relation whereby
the first is modifying the second.
 In short, compounding can in general be viewed as
prefixation with open-class items. (A
Comprehensive grammar, p. 1568)
 the structure of a compound

This does not mean that a compound can be formed

by placing any lexical item in front of another. The
relations between items brought together in
compounding must be such that it is reasonable
and useful to classify the second element in
terms of the first. Such compounds are called
endocentric.
In exocentric compounds there is no semantic
center as in scarecrow (figure of a man in old
clothes set up to scare birds away from crops). Only
the combination of both elements names the referent.
Endocentric compounds
The semantic integrity of a compound

 is very often idiomatic in its character, so that the

meaning of the whole is not a mere sum of its
elements and the compound is often very different
in meaning from a corresponding syntactic group.
 e.g. a blackboard - a black board.
 In some cases the original motivation of the
idiomatic compound cannot be easily re-created.
 e.g. blackmail -getting money or some other profit
from a person by threats.
Exocentric compounds
 syntactic relations

 semantic connections within compounds can be

treated in terms of syntactic relations. Such mode of
presentation which (where possible) links
compounds to sentential or clausal paraphrases is
adopted by A Comprehensive Grammar,
H.Marchand.
 EXAMPLES: daydreaming and sightseeing which
can be analyzed in terms of their sentential
analogues:
 X dreams during the day, i.e. verb + adverbial
 X sees sights, i.e. verb + object
 Bahuvrihi componds

 The term “bahuvrihi” refers not to the pattern of

formation but to the relation such compounds have
with their referents.
 Neither constituent refers to the entity named but,
the whole refers to a separate entity (usually a
person) that is claimed to be characterized by the
compound, in its literal or figurative meaning.
 Bahuvrihi compounds

 a highbrow means ‘an intellectual’, on the basis of

the facetious claim that people of intellectual interest
and cultivated tastes are likely to have a lofty
expanse of forehead.
 Many bahuvrihi compounds are somewhat
disparaging (зневажливий) in tone and are used
chiefly in informal style. They are formed on one or
other of the patterns already described.
 e.g: birdbrain, egghead, hardback, loudmouth,
blockhead, butterfingers, featherweight.
 Ukrainian: твердолобий, криворукий.
 back-formation

 Speaking about compounding we should also

mention that a particularly productive type of back-
formation relates to the noun compounds in -ing and
-er. For example, the verbs: sleep-walk, house-keep,
dry-clean, sight-see.
 Shortening

 productive type of word-building

 involves the shortening of words and word-
groups
 Can be used in:
a) written speech (graphical abbreviation)
b) oral intercourse (lexical abbreviation)
 Clipping

 A new word is made from a syllable (rarer

two) of the original word
 1) words that are shortened at the end: apocope
[ə'pɔkəpɪ] (vet – veterinary, prep – preparatory)
 2) words that are shortened at the beginning:
aphaeresis [ə'ferɪsɪs] (phone – telephone, bus –
omnibus)
 3) words in which syllables or sounds are omitted
from the middle: syncope ['sinkəpi] (tec –
detective, specs – spectacles)
 Acronym

 A new word is made from the initial

letters of a word-group
 1) read as if it were an ordinary word (AIDS –
acquired immune deficiency syndrome)
 2) has the alphabetic reading (BBC – the
British Broadcasting Corporation; AD – anno
domini) – also called initialisms or
alphabetisms
 3) mixed type: CDROM - compact disc read-
only memory
 Abbreviation

 The term is used for a shortened form of a

written word or phrase used in a text for
economy of space and effort
 Graphical: N.Y. – New York, ltd – limited
 Latin: i.e. – id est, cp. – comparare
 the use of initial abbreviations for famous person’
names: G.B.S. – George Bernard Shaw
 Journalistic abbreviations: FCPA - Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act, ПІК – Політика і культура
 Specifically English pattern

 Initial abbreviations in which the first element is a

letter and the second a complete word:
 A-bomb – atomic bomb
 H-hour – the time, usually unspecified, set for the
beginning of a planned attack (H – for hour)
 U can stand for upper classes: U-language, non-U
speakers
 facetious [fə'si:ʃəs] forms

 Particularly in electronic communication

 TGIF – Thank God It’s Friday
 BTW – By The Way
 TTYL – Talk to You Later
 IDK – I don’t Know
 HB2Y – Happy Birthday to You
 Gr8 – Great
 Have a look:
https://www.cknow.com/cms/articles/what-
are-electronic-communication-
acronyms.html
 Redundant acronym syndrome

 PIN number – personal identification

number
 ATM machine – Automatic Teller Machine
 Backronyms

 Not acronyms originally but interpreted as

such later
 Golf - Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden
(actually derived from a Scottish name for the
game gowf)
 SOS – chosen for its easy recognizability in Morse
code (…---…) was later interpreted as standing for
Save Our Souls (Ships)
 Blending (telescoping)

 A special type of compounding by means of merging

parts of words into one new word
 Terms used: blends, fusions, portmanteau
words, telescoped words
 E.g. smog (smoke + fog); slanguage (slang +
language); flurry (fly + hurry); drunch (drinks +
lunch)
 Telescopy involves words of different word classes
but nounal coinages are most frequent
 Structural types of blends

 1) the initial elements of one word and the

final elements of another: skort (skirt +
short)
 2) one notional word and the final elements
of another word: radiotricoan (radio +
electrician)
 3) the initial elements of one word and the
notional word: baskart (basket + cart)
 Types depending on the prototype phrases

 Additive – elements belong to the same

word class: Frenglish (French + English)
 Restrictive – the first element serves as the
modifier of the second: positron (positive +
electron)
 Blending is productive

 terminology: avionics (aviation + electronics)

 placenames: Calexico (California + Mexico)
 names of nations: Amerasian (American +
Asian)
 various shades of emotive colouring:
pollutician (pollute + politician);
paytriotism (pay + patriotism)
 Reduplicatives

 Some compounds have two or more constituents

which are either identical or only slightly different,
e.g. goody-goody (a self-consciously virtuous
person, informal).
 The difference between the two constituents may be
in the initial consonants, as in walkie-talkie, or in
the medial vowels, e.g. criss-cross.
 Most of the reduplicatives are highly informal or
familiar, and many belong to the sphere of child-
parent talk, e.g. din-din (dinner)
 Reduplicatives

 The most common uses of reduplicatives (sometimes

called ‘jingles’) are:
 [i] to imitate sounds, e.g. rat-a-tat [knocking on
door], tick-tock [of clock],
 ha-ha [of laughter], bow-wow [of dog]
 [ii] to suggest alternating movements, e.g. seesaw,
flip-flop, ping- pong.
 [iii] to disparage by suggesting instability, nonsense,
insincerity, vacillation (вагання) etc.: higgledy-
piggledy, hocus-pocus, wishy-washy, dilly-dally,
shilly-shally.
 [iv] to intensify, e.g. teeny-weeny, tip-top.
 Reduplicatives

 Easy-peasy – very easy

 Flim-flam - deceptive nonsense
 Skimble-skamble – senseless
 Hurly-burly – confusion, uproar
 Super-duper – of the great excellence, size,
effectiveness or impressiveness
 Rantum-scantum – careless, disorderly
 In connection with reduplication (Uk.: тихо-тихо,
ледь-ледь, думав-думав) Ukrainian linguists single
out such compounds as:
 synonymic unities, e.g. пане-брате, стежки-
доріжки, часто-густо;
 semantic unities, e.g. батько-мати, руки-ноги,
хліб-сіль, діди-прадіди;
 appositional unities, e.g. машина-амфібія,
дівчина-смуглянка.