for Automated School System).

Some scientists unite groups b) and c) into one group which they call

acronyms.

Some initialisms can form new words in which they act as root morphemes

by different ways of wordbuilding:

a) affixation, e.g. AWALism, ex-rafer, ex- POW, to waafize, AIDSophobia

etc.

b) conversion, e.g. to raff, to fly IFR (Instrument Flight Rules),

c) composition, e.g. STOLport, USAFman etc.

d) there are also compound-shortened words where the first component is

an initial abbreviation with the alphabetical reading and the second one is

a complete word, e.g. A-bomb, U-pronunciation, V -day etc. In some cases

the first component is a complete word and the second component is an

initial abbreviation with the alphabetical pronunciation, e.g. Three -Ds

(Three dimensions) - стереофильм.

Abbreviations of words

Abbreviation of words consists in clipping a part of a word. As a result

we get a new lexical unit where either the lexical meaning or the style is

different form the full form of the word. In such cases as »fantasy» and

«fancy», «fence» and «defence» we have different lexical meanings. In such

cases as «laboratory» and «lab», we have different styles.

Abbreviation does not change the part-of-speech meaning, as we have it

in the case of conversion or affixation, it produces words belonging to

the same part of speech as the primary word, e.g. prof is a noun and

professor is also a noun. Mostly nouns undergo abbreviation, but we can

also meet abbreviation of verbs, such as to rev from to revolve, to tab

from to tabulate etc. But mostly abbreviated forms of verbs are formed by

means of conversion from abbreviated nouns, e.g. to taxi, to vac etc.

Adjectives can be abbreviated but they are mostly used in school slang and

are combined with suffixation, e.g. comfy, dilly, mizzy etc. As a rule

pronouns, numerals, interjections. conjunctions are not abbreviated. The

exceptions are: fif (fifteen), teen-ager, in one’s teens (apheresis from

numerals from 13 to 19).

Lexical abbreviations are classified according to the part of the word

which is clipped. Mostly the end of the word is clipped, because the

beginning of the word in most cases is the root and expresses the lexical

meaning of the word. This type of abbreviation is called apocope. Here we

can mention a group of words ending in «o», such as disco (dicotheque),

expo (exposition), intro (introduction) and many others. On the analogy

with these words there developed in Modern English a number of words where

«o» is added as a kind of a suffix to the shortened form of the word, e.g.

combo (combination) - небольшой эстрадный ансамбль, Afro (African)

-прическа под африканца etc. In other cases the beginning of the word is

clipped. In such cases we have apheresis , e.g. chute (parachute), varsity

(university), copter (helicopter) , thuse (enthuse) etc. Sometimes the

middle of the word is clipped, e.g. mart (market), fanzine (fan magazine)

maths (mathematics). Such abbreviations are called syncope. Sometimes we

have a combination of apocope with apheresis,when the beginning and the end

of the word are clipped, e.g. tec (detective), van (avanguard) etc.

Sometimes shortening influences the spelling of the word, e.g. «c» can

be substituted by «k» before «e» to preserve pronunciation, e.g. mike

(microphone), Coke (coca-cola) etc. The same rule is observed in the

following cases: fax( facsimile), teck (technical college), trank

(tranquilizer) etc. The final consonants in the shortened forms are

substituded by letters characteristic of native English words.

SECONDARY WAYS OF WORDBUILDING

SOUND INTERCHANGE

Sound interchange is the way of word-building when some sounds are

changed to form a new word. It is non-productive in Modern English, it was

productive in Old English and can be met in other Indo-European languages.

The causes of sound interchange can be different. It can be the result of

Ancient Ablaut which cannot be explained by the phonetic laws during the

period of the language development known to scientists., e.g. to strike -

stroke, to sing - song etc. It can be also the result of Ancient Umlaut or

vowel mutation which is the result of palatalizing the root vowel because

of the front vowel in the syllable coming after the root ( regressive

assimilation), e.g. hot - to heat (hotian), blood - to bleed (blodian) etc.

In many cases we have vowel and consonant interchange. In nouns we have

voiceless consonants and in verbs we have corresponding voiced consonants

because in Old English these consonants in nouns were at the end of the

word and in verbs in the intervocal position, e.g. bath - to bathe, life -

to live, breath - to breathe etc.

STRESS INTERCHANGE

Stress interchange can be mostly met in verbs and nouns of Romanic origin

: nouns have the stress on the first syllable and verbs on the last

syllable, e.g. `accent - to ac`cent. This phenomenon is explained in the

following way: French verbs and nouns had different structure when they

were borrowed into English, verbs had one syllable more than the

corresponding nouns. When these borrowings were assimilated in English the

stress in them was shifted to the previous syllable (the second from the

end) . Later on the last unstressed syllable in verbs borrowed from French

was dropped (the same as in native verbs) and after that the stress in

verbs was on the last syllable while in nouns it was on the first syllable.

As a result of it we have such pairs in English as : to af`fix -`affix, to

con`flict- `conflict, to ex`port -`export, to ex`tract - `extract etc. As

a result of stress interchange we have also vowel interchange in such words

because vowels are pronounced differently in stressed and unstressed

positions.

SOUND IMITATION

It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by imitating

different sounds. There are some semantic groups of words formed by means

of sound imitation

a) sounds produced by human beings, such as : to whisper, to giggle, to

mumble, to sneeze, to whistle etc.

b) sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, such as : to hiss, to

buzz, to bark, to moo, to twitter etc.

c) sounds produced by nature and objects, such as : to splash, to rustle,

to clatter, to bubble, to ding-dong, to tinkle etc.

The corresponding nouns are formed by means of conversion, e.g. clang (of

a bell), chatter (of children) etc.

BLENDS

Blends are words formed from a word-group or two synonyms. In blends two

ways of word-building are combined : abbreviation and composition. To form

a blend we clip the end of the first component (apocope) and the beginning

of the second component (apheresis) . As a result we have a compound-

shortened word. One of the first blends in English was the word «smog»

from two synonyms : smoke and fog which means smoke mixed with fog. From

the first component the beginning is taken, from the second one the end,

«o» is common for both of them.

Blends formed from two synonyms are: slanguange, to hustle, gasohol etc.

Mostly blends are formed from a word-group, such as : acromania (acronym

mania), cinemadict (cinema adict), chunnel (channel, canal), dramedy (drama

comedy), detectifiction (detective fiction), faction (fact fiction)

(fiction based on real facts), informecial (information commercial) ,

Medicare ( medical care) , magalog ( magazine catalogue) slimnastics

(slimming gymnastics), sociolite (social elite), slanguist ( slang

linguist) etc.

BACK FORMATION

It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by dropping the

final morpheme to form a new word. It is opposite to suffixation, that is

why it is called back formation. At first it appeared in the languauge as a

result of misunderstanding the structure of a borrowed word . Prof.

Yartseva explains this mistake by the influence of the whole system of the

language on separate words. E.g. it is typical of English to form nouns

denoting the agent of the action by adding the suffix -er to a verb stem

(speak- speaker). So when the French word «beggar» was borrowed into

English the final syllable «ar» was pronounced in the same way as the

English -er and Englishmen formed the verb «to beg» by dropping the end of

the noun. Other examples of back formation are : to accreditate (from

accreditation), to bach (from bachelor), to collocate (from collocation),

to enthuse (from enthusiasm), to compute (from computer), to emote (from

emotion) to reminisce ( from reminiscence) , to televise (from television)

etc.

As we can notice in cases of back formation the part-of-speech meaning

of the primary word is changed, verbs are formed from nouns.

SEMANTIC CHANGES

The meaning of a word can change in the course of time. Changes of

lexical meanings can be proved by comparing contexts of different times.

Transfer of the meaning is called lexico-semantic word-building. In such

cases the outer aspect of a word does not change.

The causes of semantic changes can be extra-linguistic and linguistic,

e.g. the change of the lexical meaning of the noun «pen» was due to extra-

linguistic causes. Primarily « pen» comes back to the Latin word «penna» (a

feather of a bird). As people wrote with goose pens the name was

transferred to steel pens which were later on used for writing. Still later

any instrument for writing was called « a pen».

On the other hand causes can be linguistic, e.g. the conflict of synonyms

when a perfect synonym of a native word is borrowed from some other

language one of them may specialize in its meaning, e.g. the noun «tide» in

Old English was polisemantic and denoted «time», «season», «hour». When the

French words «time», «season», «hour» were borrowed into English they

ousted the word «tide» in these meanings. It was specialized and now means

«regular rise and fall of the sea caused by attraction of the moon». The

meaning of a word can also change due to ellipsis, e.g. the word-group «a

train of carriages» had the meaning of «a row of carriages», later on «of

carriages» was dropped and the noun «train» changed its meaning, it is used

now in the function and with the meaning of the whole word-group.

Semantic changes have been classified by different scientists. The most

complete classification was suggested by a German scientist Herman Paul in

his work «Prinzipien des Sprachgeschichte». It is based on the logical

principle. He distiguishes two main ways where the semantic change is

gradual ( specialization and generalization), two momentary conscious

semantic changes (metaphor and metonymy) and also secondary ways: gradual

(elevation and degradation), momentary (hyperbole and litote).

SPECIALIZATION

It is a gradual process when a word passes from a general sphere to some

special sphere of communication, e.g. «case» has a general meaning

«circumstances in which a person or a thing is». It is specialized in its

meaning when used in law (a law suit), in grammar (a form in the paradigm

of a noun), in medicine (a patient, an illness). The difference between

these meanings is revealed in the context.

The meaning of a word can specialize when it remains in the general

usage. It happens in the case of the conflict between two absolute synonyms

when one of them must specialize in its meaning to remain in the language,

e.g. the native word «meat» had the meaning «food», this meaning is

preserved in the compound «sweetmeats». The meaning «edible flesh» was

formed when the word «food», its absolute synonym, won in the conflict of

absolute synonyms (both words are native). The English verb «starve» was

specialized in its meaning after the Scandinavian verb «die» was borrowed

into English. «Die» became the general verb with this meaning because in

English there were the noun «death» and the adjective «dead». «Starve» got

the meaning «to die of hunger» .

The third way of specialization is the formation of Proper names from

common nouns, it is often used in toponimics, e.g. the City - the business

part of London, Oxford - university town in England, the Tower -originally

a fortress and palace, later -a prison, now - a museum.

The fourth way of specialization is ellipsis. In such cases primaraly we

have a word-group of the type «attribute + noun», which is used constantly

in a definite situation. Due to it the attribute can be dropped and the

noun can get the meaning of the whole word-group, e.g. «room» originally

meant «space», this meaning is retained in the adjective «roomy» and word

combinations: «no room for», «to take room», «to take no room». The

meaning of the word «room « was specialized because it was often used in

the combinations: «dining room», «sleeping room» which meant «space for

dining» , «space for sleeping».

GENERALIZATION

It is a process contrary to specializaton, in such cases the meaning of a

word becomes more general in the course of time.

The transfer from a concrete meaning to an abstract one is most frequent,

e.g. «ready» (a derivative from the verb «ridan» - «ride») meant «prepared

for a ride», now its meaning is «prepared for anything». «Journey» was

borrowed from French with the meaning «one day trip», now it means «a trip

of any duration».

All auxiliary verbs are cases of generalization of their lexical meaning

because they developed a grammatical meaning : «have», «be», «do», «shall»

, «will» when used as auxiliary verbs are devoid of their lexical meaning

which they have when used as notional verbs or modal verbs, e.g. cf. «I

have several books by this writer» and «I have read some books by this

author». In the first sentence the verb «have» has the meaning «possess»,

in the second sentence it has no lexical meaning, its grammatical meaning

is to form Present Perfect.

METAPHOR

It is a transfer of the meaning on the basis of comparison. Herman Paul

points out that metaphor can be based on different types of similarity:

a) similarity of shape, e.g. head (of a cabbage), bottleneck, teeth (of a

saw, a comb);

b) similarity of position, e.g. foot (of a page, of a mountain), head (of

a procession);

c) similarity of function, behaviour e.g. a whip (an official in the

British Parliament whose duty is to see that members were present at the

voting);

d) similarity of colour, e.g. orange, hazel, chestnut etc.

In some cases we have a complex similarity, e.g. the leg of a table has a

similarity to a human leg in its shape, position and function.

Many metaphors are based on parts of a human body, e.g. an eye of a

needle, arms and mouth of a river, head of an army.

A special type of metaphor is when Proper names become common nouns, e.g.

philistine - a mercenary person, vandals - destructive people, a Don Juan -

a lover of many women etc.

METONYMY

It is a transfer of the meaning on the basis of contiguity. There are

different types of metonymy:

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