Lexicology Lecture 9 Word-Building (Minor ways)

1. Shortening Minor Ways of English Word-Building

Shortening
Minor Ways of
English WordBuilding

2. Outline:

V.
Main ways of modern English word building
IV.4. Shortening / Curtailment / Contraction
IV.4.1. Semantic criterion
IV.4.1.1. Graphical shortenings
IV.4.1.2. Lexical shortenings
IV.4.2. Formal criterion
IV.4.2.1. Abbreviations / Initialisms
IV.4.2.1.1. Alphabetical abbreviations / Alphabetisms
IV.4.2.1.2. Acronymic abbreviations / Acronyms
IV.4.2.2. Clippings
V.
The minor productive ways of modern English word building
V.1. Blending / Telescoping / Contamination / Fusion
V.2. Reduplication
VI.
The non-productive ways of modern English word building
VI.1. Back-Formation / Reversion
VI.2. Sound-imitation / Echoism / Onomatopoeia
VI.3. Sound interchange and Distinctive stress

3. V. Main ways of modern English word building IV.4. Shortening / Curtailment / Contraction

Reduction of root words and multi-part compounds bordering on phrases.
Characteristic of informal speech and general and professional slang.
Has been in existence in English since the XIIth century:
among < OE onmang < on|gemang < "in the crowd /company (of)";
secg “hero, warrior” < gārseċġ “sword”
1839 – an article in the New York “Evening Tatler”: OK (‘all correct’), PDQ (pretty
damn quick), GT (gone to Texas)
Comes and goes in waves: productive in the XXth and XXst centuries.
Extra-linguistic causes: tempo of life and social identity.
Linguistic causes: demand of rhythm; monosyllabic words in English; and style
concision.
Confusion and ambiguousness: fps – feet / frames per second; PD – partial
delivery, police department; postal district,; program director; public domain, paid.

4. IV.4.1. Semantic criterion IV.4.1.1. Graphical shortenings

Only the form is changed; the same meaning as in the full-form prototypes: St. – street; Mr - Mister,
Mrs – Missis, Ms.
Abbreviations of Latin origin: Latin words are shortened, the corresponding English equivalents are
pronounced in the full form:
e.g. (exampli gratia), p.m. (post meridiem; post mortem); i. e. (id est), AD (anno Domini) etc.
Semantic groups of Graphical shortenings :
O a) days of the week: Mon., Tue.
O b) months: Apr., Aug.
O c) counties in the UK and states in the USA: Yorks - Yorkshire, Berks – Berkshire, Ala - Alabama,
Alas – Alaska
O d) address: Mr, Mrs, Ms etc.
O e) military ranks and titles: col. - colonel, sgt – sergeant, Dr.
O f) scientific degrees: B.A. - Bachelor of Arts, D.M. – Doctor of Medicine, Dr. Habil. – Doctor habilitatus
O g) units of time, length, weight: f. / ft - foot/feet, sec. - second, in. - inch, mg. - milligram.
Federal Bureau of Investigation ?
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome ?
light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation ?

5. IV.4.1. Semantic criterion IV.4.1.2. Lexical shortenings

Acquire specific sound form and meaning.
fan 1889, AmE < fanatic "insane person"< L fanaticus "mad, enthusiastic,
inspired by a god, furious, mad" or < fancy < mid-15c. fantsy "inclination,
liking" < a middle-clipping of fantasy.
Modification of form on the basis of analogy: man, pan, tan.
Just 1 meaning of the prototype is retained: exam, phone, natch, nabe
O
Ina is a bad girl so, natch, ends up in prison.
O
He went solo after the Boston band's 1989 breakup and began entertaining
tykes in his Brooklyn nabe.
O
The consultation subjected the patient to a thorough examination.

6. IV.4.2. Formal criterion Abbreviation : Clipping IV.4.2.1. Abbreviations / Initialisms

Pass from written speech into oral.
May be presented by graphic shortenings: PhD, H.C.
May present bordering case between graphical and lexical abbreviations: J.V., BBC.
IV.4.2.1.1. Alphabetical Abbreviations/ Alphabetisms
The vast majority of abbreviations.
Pronounced as a succession of alphabetical readings of letters; impossible to pronounce them
like a word, or their unlikeliness to the English word: SMS, MP, DJ .
UK, USA, BA, UN, VIP.
SOS / S.O.S. - NOT an initialism for "save our ship /souls”.
Bordering case between graphical and lexical abbreviations.
Full forms of compounds > shortened form of pronouncing: BBC.
Contracted shortened neutral compounds: A-bomb, V-Day.
Specifically English.
A marginal case between composition and contraction.

7. IV.4.2. Formal criterion IV.4.2.1. Abbreviations / Initialisms IV.4.2.1.2. Acronymic abbreviations / Acronyms

The initial letters of each successive part in the
compound make a new word.
Appeared in English-speaking countries during
WWI.
UNESCO /juːˈneskəʊ/, OPEC /ˈəʊpek/, AIDS,
scuba

8. IV.4.2. Formal criterion IV.4.2.2. Clippings

Represented both by lexical shortenings: exam, natch, pub and graphical shortenings: St.,
Cambs., Tex, Mass.
The process of cutting off one ore more syllables of a word while producing a shorter word.
Comparatively new: since the 15th century.
Originates in oral speech and then pass into written discourse.
A new word is made from a syllable (rarer, two) of the original word / compound.
The forming syllables do not necessarily coincide with morphemes: his | to | ry > sto|ry.
The original word may lose its
a) beginning (fore-clipping, aph(a)eresis /əˈfɪərɪsɪs/): phone, fence; plane; cute, cello, story.
b) end (back clipping, apocope /əˈpɒkəpɪ/): ad, advert; demo; exam; gas.
c) middle (middle clipping, syncope /ˈsɪŋkəpɪ/): hols; props; maths; specs; fancy < fantasy;
mart; circs.
d) both the beginning and the end (complex clipping, fore-and-aft clipping): flu, fridge, Liz.
Retaining the sound -> graphical changes: dub < double, exhibish < exhibition, posish < position,
fridge < refrigerator; fax < facsimile; mike < microphone, Coke < coca-cola; trank < tranquilizer.
Complex word-building
Apocope + suffixation: mizzy < miserable; comphy; dilly < diligent; nightie < nightgown; divvy <
divide / dividend.
Ellipsis + apocope: pub < public house, perm < permanent wave.
Ellipsis + fore-and-aft clipping + affixation: soccer < association football.
The shortened forms are new roots: free morphemes and build new words: dubbing, n; demoversion, perm, v, lase, v.
Informal + professional slang.
Short forms and prototypes exist as synonyms (denote one concept) bike / bicycle or doublets
(denote different concepts): props; fax; fan; pants.

9. Punctuation with shortenings of all types

Tradition.
At first – with periods: U.N. – UN/ juː en/.
Periods are used
in curtailments that are lowercase: e.g., a.m., etc;
in mixed-case 2-3-letter curtailments: Dr., Inc., Ltd., Mon., Rev.,
Mr., Mrs.: Mr, Mrs – BrE;
and after each initial in a name: J. R. R. Tolkien).
Periods are not usually used:
for all-caps abbreviations NASA, BS, MBA;
for metric units: cm, kg;
for syllable clippings: gym

10.

V.
The minor productive ways of modern English word building
responsible for the appearance of about 22% of newly-appeared words within the last 30 years
V.1. Blending / Telescoping / Contamination / Fusion
Blend / fusion / porte-monnaie word.
Merging irregular fragments, “splinters” of several words:
Oat a morpheme boundary: transceiver < transmitter + receiver), glutose < glucose and fructose
Oat a syllable boundary like electrocute < electrically execute), polutician < pollute and politician)
Oanywhere: brunch < breakfast and lunch, ballute < balloon and parachute.
Overlapping of vowels, consonants and syllables or echo the word or word fragment it replaces.
Punning effect and a colloquial flavour: foolosopher; icecapade.
Can be met in terminology as a means of naming new things , and as trade names in advertisements.
bionics, from biology and electronics
botox, from botulinum and toxin
burble, from bubble and gurgle
democrazy, from democracy and crazy
diabesity, from diabetes and obesity
emoticon, from emotion and icon
endorphin, from endogenous and morphine
Eurasia, from Europe and Asia
jeggings, from jeans and leggings
Lenovo, from Legend and "novo" (Latin )
liger, from lion and tiger
lymon, from lime and lemon
Microsoft, from microcomputer and software
Netflix, from internet and flicks (slang for movie)
Pinterest, from pin and interest
Pokemon, from pocket and monster
Popsicle, from lollipop and icicle
Runglish, Spanglish
sitcom, from situational comedy
Tanzania, from Tanganyika and Zanzibar
travelogue, travel and monologue
Methods of blending:
the beginning of one word + the end of the other: bit < binary digit, futurama.
the beginnings of two words are combined: cyborg < cybernetic + organism, sysadmin < system administrator
Sometimes treated as a subtype of acronyms: Interpol = inter/national pol/ice.
Clipped shortened neutral compounds.

11. V. The minor productive ways of word-building V.2. Reduplication

Also viewed as a type of composition
Combines composition, echoism, sound interchange, and affixation .
Doubling a stem.
Facilitated in Modern English by a vast number of monosyllables.
Colloquialisms and slang: walkie-talkie; riff-raff; chi-chi; dilly-dally; harum-scaum.
Three types:
1) Exact reduplications: bonbon, bye-bye, choo-choo, chop-chop, chow-chow, fifty-fifty, go-go,
goody-goody, knock-knock, no-no, pee-pee, poo-poo, tut-tut.
Couscous < F < Ar kuskusū
2) Rhyming reduplications : boogie-woogie, bow-wow, easy-peasy, hocus-pocus, hotch-potch,
Humpty-Dumpty, mumbo-jumbo, okey-dokey, pall-mall, picnic, willy-nilly
Abracadabra < Aramaic formula "Abəra kaDavəra" "I would create as I spoke“.
3) Ablaut reduplications (with vowel gradation): bric-a-brac, chit-chat, criss-cross, ding-dong, flipflop, kitcat, kitty-cat, ping-pong, see-saw, tick-tock, zig-zag
a high front vowel + a low back vowel.
schm-reduplication (AmE from Yiddish): baby-shmaby; car-shmar.

12. VI. The Non-Productive Ways of Modern English Word Building VI.1. Back-Formation / Reversion / Regressive derivation Обратное

словообразование
The way of WB is based on analogy with the pattern ‘work, v – worker’.
French borrowings: beggar, burglar, cobbler - –er = beg, burgle, cobble
A verb produced from a noun by an affix subtraction: reversive / regressive derivative.
automate, aviate, baby-sit, back-form blood-transfuse, book-keep, brainwash, bulldoze, buttle,
caretake, diagnose, dishevel,
handwrite,
hard-boil,
manipulate,
moonlight
haze,
,
dry-clean, edit, enthuse, ept, force-land, gamble, greed,
housekeep,
peddle,
injure,
resurrect,
isolate
semantic,
,
kempt,
sightsee,
kidnap,
sleepwalk,
lase,
laze,
soft-land,
straphang, suckle , sunburn, swindle, typewrite
VI.2. Sound-imitation / Echoism / Onomatopoeia
Words made by imitating different kinds of sounds; motivated with reference to extra-linguistic reality.
Not real sounds that’s why in different languages they are different: OE beorcan
the sparrow chirp / chirrup – der Spatz zwitchert (G) - zvirbulis čivina (Lv)
Fall into groups according to the source of sounds.
Very expressive.
Easily participate in further WB and develop semantics.
Acquire figurative meanings.

13. VI. The Non-Productive Ways of Modern English Word Building VI.3. Sound interchange / gradation and Distinctive stress / Stress

interchange
Sound interchange / gradation
The gradation of sounds in one and the same place of one and same morpheme.
Historical umlaut (vowel mutation, i.e. a partial assimilation under the influence of a following vowel): live –
life, believe – belief, road - ride; tale – tell, breath – breathe, deep – depth, bath – bathe, strike – stroke,
whole – heal, wake – watch, lose-loss, wide – width, bite –bit, bear –burden; food – feed, full –fill, longlength, blood – bleed, etc.
Consonant interchange often happens in the phonetic surroundings
Stress interchange
Mostly met in verbs and nouns of Romance origin `accent - ac`cent
Borrowed French verbs had one syllable more than the corresponding nouns.
When assimilated in English, the stress was shifted to the previous syllable in the verbs (the second from the
end).
Later on the last unstressed syllable in verbs borrowed from French was dropped (the same as in native verbs):
`affix - af`fix, `conflict - con`flict, `export - ex`port, `extract - ex`tract, ‘frequent – fre’quent, ‘perfect –
per’fect, ‘conduct – con’duct, ’ impact – im’pact, ‘record – re’cord etc.
Stress interchange + vowel interchange.
But command / kəˈmɑːnd/, comment /ˈkɒment/

14. Home Assignment to Seminar 9:

Minor Ways
1. Учебник Антрушина Chapter 6, pp. 115120.
2. Ex.1 p. 120 ?? 7-8, Ex.ex. 8-11 pp. 125128.
3. L101: 4.2, 4.10, 4.12
4. Пособие к учебнику Chapter 3. (Quiz).