Лексикологія / Lecture4

Lecture 4.

NON-PRODUCTIVE TYPES OF WORD-FORMATION

1. Onomatopoeia.

2. Reduplication.

3. Reversion (back-formation).

4. Blending.

5. Sentence-condensation.

6. Sound and stress interchange.

BASIC NOTIONS OF THE LECTURE.

Non-productive types of word-formation include:

1. Onomatopoeia.

2. Reduplication.

3. Reversion (back-formation).

4. Blending.

5. Sentence-condensation.

6. Sound and stress interchange.

Onomatopoeia – formation of words from sounds that resemble those associated with the object or action to be made or that seem suggestive of its qualities.

E.g.: chatter, bubble, murmur, buzz, giggle, grumble, growl, shriek.

Sound-imitations of animals: to coo-coo, moo, bow-wow, cock-a-doodle-doo, neigh, oink.

Interjections: oh, ah, bang, hush, ouch, pooh.

Reduplication is formation of words by doubling a stem, either without any phonetic (bye-bye) or with a variation of the root-vowel or consonant (ping-pong, chit-chat) – gradational reduplication.

This type of word-formation is facilitated by the vast number of monosyllables. Most words made by reduplication represent informal groups: colloquialisms and slang.

E.g.: walkie-talkie (a portable radio), riff-raff (the worthless or disreputable element of society), chi-chi (sl. for chic).

Reversion (back-formation) – singling out of a stem from a word which wrongly regarded as derivative, on the analogy of the existing pairs.

E.g.: to beg from beggar

to burgle from burglar

to cobble from cobbler

to butle from butler

to baby-sit from baby-sitter

to force-land from forced landing

to straphang from straphanger

Blending is merging parts of words into one new word. The result is named a blend.

E.g.: smog – smoke+fog

brunch – breakfast+lunch

Laundromat – laundry+automat

Bisquick – bisquit+quick

Rosella – Rose+Bella

Sentence-condensation – substantivising of the phrase.

E.g.: forget-me-not, hide-and-seek, merry-go-round, kiss-me-in-the-ring.

Sound and stress interchange – gradation of sounds occupying one place in the same morpheme in various cases of its occurrence.

It is the way of forming new words only diachronically because in Modern English not a single word can be formed by changing of the root vowel of the word or by shifting the stress.

E.g.: food - to feed

blood – to bleed

to shoot – shot

to sing – song

There are 2 groups of sound interchange:

1. Vowel interchange: (foot – feet).

2. Consonant interchange: (use [jus] – to use [juz], believe – belief, half – halves).

Many English verbs of Latin and French origin are distinguished from nouns by the position of stress.

E.g.: to record – record, extract – to extract, expert – to expert.