Lexicology in theory, practice and tests Study guide Recommended by the Academic Council of Sumy State University Sumy Sumy State University 2015

Some of the ways of forming words in modern English can be resorted to for the creation of new words whenever the occasion demands – these are called prоduсtive ways of forming words, other ways of forming words cannot now produce new words, and these are mostly termed non-productive or unproductive. For example, affixation has been a productive way of forming words ever since the Old English period; on the other hand, sound-interchange must have been at one time a word-building means but in Modern English its function is actually only to distinguish between different classes and forms of words.

Consequently, productivity of word-building ways is considered to be the ability of making new words which all who speak English find no difficulty in understanding, in particular their ability to create what are called occasional words. The term suggests that a speaker coins such words when he needs them; if on another occasion the same word is needed again, he coins it afresh. The following words may serve as illustration: (his) collarless (appearance), a lungful (of smoke), a Dickensish (office), to unlearn (the rules), etc.

Three degrees of productivity are distinguished for derivational patterns and individual derivational affixes: l) highly-productive, 2) productive or semi-productive and 3) non-productive.

Most linguists consider as the chief processes of English word-formation affixation, conversion and compounding. Besides, these a number of minor ways of forming words such as back-formation, reduplication, sound interchange, distinctive stress, sound imitation, blending, clipping and acronymy are traditionally also referred to word-formation.

We proceed from the understanding of word-formation and the classification of word-formation types as found in A. I. Smirnitskiy’s book on English Lexicology. Word-formation is the system of derivative types of words and the process of creating new words from the material available in the language after certain structural and semantic formulas and patterns. For instance, the noun driver is formed after the pattern v+-er, i. e. a verbal stem + the noun-forming suffix -er. The meaning of the derived noun driver is related to the meaning of the stem drive- “to direct the course of a vehicle” and the suffix -er meaning “an active agent”: a driver is “one who drives” (a carriage, motorcar, railway engine, etc.). Likewise compounds resulting from two or more stems joined together to form a new word are also built on quite definite structural and semantic patterns and formulas, for instance adjectives of the snow-white type are built according to the formula п+а, etc. It can easily be observed that the meaning of the whole compound is also related to the meanings of the component parts.

In conformity with structural types of words described above the following two types of word-formation may be distinguished, word-derivation and word-composition (or compounding). Words created by word-derivation have only one derivational base and one derivational affix, e. g. cleanness (from clean), to overestimate (from to estimate), chairmanship (from chairman), etc. Some derived words have no derivational affixes, because derivation is achieved through conversion, e. g. to paper (from paper), a fall (from to fall), etc. Words created by word-composition have at least two bases, e. g. lamp-shade, ice-cold, looking-glass, daydream, speedometer, snow-white, flowerbed, etc.

Within the types, further distinction may be made between the ways of forming words. The basic ways of forming words in word-derivatiоn, for instance, are affixation and conversion.

Affixation is one of the most productive ways of word-building throughout the history of English. It consists in adding an affix or affixes to the stem. Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation.

Suffixation is the most common type of affixation. In suffixation, the affix is added to the end of the base. For example, the suffix-ness is added to the adjective fond to form the noun fondness; the suffix -s is added to the noun car to produce the plural of the noun – cars. In most languages, suffixation is the most widespread form of affixation. In languages such as Turkish and Finnish, it is the only type of affixation.

The main function of suffixes in Modern English is to form one part of speech from another; the secondary function is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. (e. g. “educate” is a verb, “education” is a noun, and “music” is a noun, “musicdom” is also a noun).

There are different classifications of suffixes:

1. Part-of-speech classification. Suffixes derive a certain part of speech, therefore one should distinguish noun-forming, adjective-forming, numeral-forming, verb-forming and adverb-forming suffixes.

Noun-forming suffixes: -age (bondage, breakage, mileage, vicarage); -ance/-ence (assistance, reference); -ant/-ent (disinfectant, student); -dom (kingdom, officialdom, freedom); -ее (employee); -eer (profiteer);-er (writer, type-writer); -ess (actress, lioness); -hood (manhood); -ing (building, meaning, washing); -ion/-sion/-tion/-ation (rebellion, tension, creation, explanation); -ism/-icism (heroism, criticism); -ist (novelist, communist); -ment (government, nourishment); -ness (tenderness); -ship (friendship); -(i)ty (sonority).

Adjective-forming suffixes: -able/-ible/-uble (unbearable, audible, soluble); -al (formal); -ic (poetic); -ical (ethical); -ant/-ent (repentant, dependent); -ary (revolutionary); -ate/-ete (accurate, complete); -ed/-d (wooded); -ful (delightful); -an/-ian (African, Australian); -ish (Irish, reddish, childish); -ive (active); -less (useless); -like (lifelike); -ous/-ious (tremendous, curious); -ly (manly); -some (tiresome); -y (cloudy, dressy).

Numeral-forming suffixes: -fold (twofold); -teen (fourteen); -th (seventh); -ty (sixty).

Verb-forming suffixes: -ate (facilitate); -fy/-ify (terrify, speechify, solidify); -er (glimmer); -en (shorten); -ise/-ize (equalise); -ish (establish).

Adverb-forming suffixes: -ly (coldly); -ward/-wards (upward, northwards); -wise (likewise).

2. Origin of suffixes. From the etymological point of view suffixes are subdivided into two main classes: native and borrowed. By native suffixes we shall mean those that existed in English in the Old English period or were formed from Old English words: -dom, -hood, -lock, -ward, -y, -less, -like, -ship, -th, -ful, -some, -teen, -wise, e. g. childhood, boyhood, freedom, wisdom, etc. The suffixes of foreign origin are classified according to their source into Latin (-able/-ible, -ant/-ent), French (-age, -ance/-ence, -ancy/-ency, -ard, -ate, -sy), Greek (-ist, -ism, -ite), etc. It should be kept in mind that many of the borrowed suffixes are international and occur not only in English but in several other European languages as well.

3. Productivity. Suffixes are classified into productive (e. g. -er, -y, -ize, -ness, -less, etc.) and non-productive (e. g. -th, -hood, -en, -ous, etc.).

4. Semantic classification. Suffixes changing the lexical meaning of the stem can be subdivided into groups, e. g. noun-forming suffixes can denote: a) the agent of the action, e. g. -er (experimenter), -ist (taxist), -ent (student), b) nationality, e. g. -ian (Russian), -ese (Japanese), -ish (English), c) collectivity, e. g. -dom (moviedom), -ry (peasantry), -ship (readership), -ati (literati), d) diminutiveness, e. g. -ie (horsie), -let (booklet), -ling (gooseling), -ette (kitchenette), e) quality, e. g. -ness (copelessness), -ity (answerability).

5. Lexico-grammatical character of the stem. Suffixes which can be added to certain groups of stems are subdivided into: a) suffixes added to verbal stems, such as: -er (commuter), -ing (suffering), -able (flyable), -ment (involvement), b) suffixes added to noun stems, such as: -less (smogless), -ful (roomful), -ism (adventurism), -ster (pollster), -ish (childish), c) suffixes added to adjective stems, such as: -en (weaken), -ly (pinkly), -ish (longish), -ness (clannishness).

Suffixes can be polysemantic, such as: -er can form nouns with the following meanings: agent, doer of the action expressed by the stem (speaker), profession, occupation (teacher), a device, a tool (transmitter). While speaking about suffixes we should also pay attention to compound suffixes which are added to the stem at the same time, such as -ably, -ibly, (terribly, reasonably), -ation (adaptation from adapt).

Prefixation is the formation of words by means of adding a prefix to the stem. Prefixes are more independent than suffixes. Prefixes can be classified according to the nature of words in which they are used: prefixes used in notional words and prefixes used in functional words. Prefixes used in notional words are proper prefixes which are bound morphemes, e. g. un-(unhappy). Prefixes used in functional words are semi-bound morphemes because they can be separate words, e. g. over- (overhead). The main function of prefixes in English is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech.

Prefixes can be classified according to different principles:

1. Origin of prefixes: a) native (Germanic), such as: over-, un-, under-, etc. b) Romanic, such as: in-, de-, ex-, re-, etc. c) Greek, such as: sym-, hyper-, etc.

2. Semantic classification: a) prefixes of negative meaning, such as : un- (unfree), in- (invaluable), non- (nonformals), etc, b) prefixes denoting repetition or reversal actions, such as: dis- (disconnect), de- (decolonize), re- (revegetation), c) prefixes denoting time, space, degree relations, such as: d), pre- (pre-election), inter- (interplanetary), hyper- (hypertension), ex- (ex-student) over- (overdrugging), etc.

un-, over-, under-, -tion, -ment, -ance, -th, -hood, -en, -ous, -er, re-, -y, -ize, -ness, -less, anti-, co-, ex-, extra-, ultra-, -ing, -ion, -pre-, sub-, mis-, -ful, -able, -ish, sub-, -like, -ly, -dom, -ee, -ism, -ist, -ed, -ive, in-, im-, -ibly, inter-, hyper-, non-, -ly, dis-, il-, -al.

1. Between 7.30 and 8.30 every morning except Sundays, Johnnie Butt made the round of the village of Chipping Cleghorn on his bicycle, whistling vociferously through his teeth. 2. He alights at each house or cottage to shove though the letter box such morning papers as had been ordered by the occupants of the house in question from Mr. Totman, stationer, of the High Street. 3. When you turn on your wireless in the evening it will be the Idylls of the King you will hear and not interminable Trollope. 4. But was there a note of wariness – or did he imagine it? 5. Rather stupid really, you know, but full of cupidity and probably extremely credulous. 6. “No-no, I suppose not”, said Mrs. Bantry doubtfully. 7. “I did not dream it”, said Mrs. Bantry firmly. 8. So well ordered was her prim spinster’s life that unforeseen telephone calls were a source of vivid. 9. Her herbaceous borders are simply marvelous – they make me green with envy. 10. She went on hopefully. 11. Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardship which I had undergone I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the base hospital at Peshavan. 12. I was dispatched, accordingly, in the troopship “Orontes”, and landed a month later on Portsmouth jelly, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it. 13. There I stayed for some time at a private hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had, considerably more freely than I ought. 14. I should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits. 15. I am not strong enough yet to stand much noise or excitement. 16. That’s why I want you to come and help me to find out who did it and unravel the mystery and all that. 17. Colonel Bantry was shooed back into the dining-room rather like a recalcitrant hen. 18. Slack he had never much taken to – an energetic man who belied his name and who accompanied his bustling manner with a good deal of disregard for the feelings of anyone he did not consider important. 19. She stopped, and made a slight insignificant gesture of helplessness. 20. This statement received more incredulity than any other. 21. “You wish, Aunt Letty, to disguise your intelligent anticipation?” – Patrick reassure her. 22. The only incongruous note was a small silver vase with dead violets in it on the table. 23. Phillipa Haymes was too wooden for Rosalind, her fairness and her impassivity were intensely English. 24. But that may be just prejudice on my part. 25. It is not easy to express the inexpressible, he answered with laugh. 26. “You are to be congratulated”, – I remarked. 27. Sometimes he spent his days at the laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting-rooms, and occasionally in long walks. 28. He was extraordinarily generous, spontaneous, rather Quixotic.

Behave – misbehave, calculate – miscalculate, watery – waterish, inform – misinform, loving – lovely – lovable, lead – mislead, delightful – delighted, pronounce – mispronounce, pleasant – pleased, agree – disagree, appear – disappear, appoint – disappoint, colourful – coloured, tasty – tasteful, shortened – shortish, starry – starred, bored – boring.

centre: central, centralism, centralize, centralization, centring, centric, centrical, centricity, centricalness, centrically, centrally;

beauty: beautiful, beautifully, beautify, beautician, beauteous, beauteously, beauteousness, beautification, beautifier;

man: manful, manfully, manfulness, mandom, manhood, manlike, manly, mannish, mannishness, manned, manliness;

woman: womanly, womanfully, womanize, womanhood, womanish, womanishly, womanishness, womanlike, womanliness;

absorb: absorbed, absorbedly, absorbable, absorbency, absorbent, absorption, absorptive, absorptiveness, absorptivity, absorbingly, absorbing.

Conversion is one of the most productive ways of modern English word-building. Conversion is sometimes referred to as an affixless way of word-building or zero-affixation. The term conversion first appeared in the book by Henry Sweet “New English Grammar” in 1891. It implies making a new word from some existing word by changing the category of a part of speech. The new word has a meaning different 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.

Not every case of noun and verb (or verb and adjective, or adjective and noun) is the result of conversion. There are numerous pairs of words, as drink – to drink, love – to love, work – to work which do not refer to conversion but coincide as a result of certain historical processes (dropping of ending, simplification of stems, etc.). The first cases of conversion, which were registered in the 14^th centure, imitated such pairs as love-to love, for they were numerous in the vocabulary and were subconsciously accepted by native speakers as one of the typical language patterns.

The two categories of parts of speech affected by conversion are nouns and verbs: a hand – to hand, a face – to face. Nouns are frequently made of verbs, e. g. He has still plenty of go at his age (go-energy). Converted nouns can denote: a) instant of an action e. g. a jump, a move, b) process or state e. g. sleep, walk, c) agent of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e. g. a help, a flirt, a scold, d) object or result of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e. g. a burn, a find, a purchase, e) place of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e. g. a drive, a stop, a walk. Many nouns converted from verbs can be used only in the Singular form and denote momentaneous actions. In such cases we have partial conversion. Such deverbal nouns are often used with such verbs as: to have, to get, to take etc., e. g. to have a try, to give a push, to take a swim.

Conversion is the main way of forming verbs in Modern English. Verbs can be formed from nouns of different semantic groups and have different meanings because of that. The meanings of the converted word and of the word from which it was made can be associated. These associations can be classified:

1. 
   The noun is the name of a tool, the verb denotes an action performed by this tool: to nail, to hammer, to pin, to comb, to pencil, to brush.
   
2. 
   The noun is the name of an animal, the verb denotes an action or aspect of behavior, considered typical of this animal: to dog, to rat, to wolf, to monkey.
   
3. 
   The noun – the name of a part of the human body, the verb – an action performed by it: to shoulder, to leg, to elbow, to hand.
   
4. 
   The noun denotes the name of a profession or occupation, the verb – activity typical of it: to nurse, to cook, to maid.
   
5. 
   The noun – the name of a place and the verb – the process of occupying the place or putting smth. or smb. in it: to room, to place, to cage.
   
6. 
   The noun – the name of a container, the verb – act of putting smth. within the container: to pocket, to can, to bottle.
   
7. 
   The noun – the name of a meal, the verb – the process of taking it: to lunch, to supper.
   
8. 
   The noun – the time, the verb can denote an action performed at this time: to winter, to week-end.
   

Verbs can also be made from adjectives: to yellow, to green, to pale, to cool, etc. In such cases they denote the change of the state, e. g. to tame (to become or make tame), to clean, to slim, etc.

The flexibility of the English vocabulary system makes a word formed by conversion capable of further derivation. For example, to view “to watch television” gives viewable, viewer, viewing.

Conversion may be combined with other word-building processes, such as composition. Attributive phrases like black ball, black list, pin point, stone wall form the basis of such firmly established verbs as blackball, blacklist, pinpoint, stonewall. The same pattern is much used in nonce-words such as to my-dear, to my-love, to blue-pencil.

1. If people only made prudent marriages, what a stop to population there would be! 2. She is more of a hindrance than a help. 3. We’ve had to slim down our holiday plans. 4. Mind you,’ he said, “I don't want to keep Negroes out of the hero business, but I'm damned it I want them to corner the market.” 5. Blinded by the steam, he had to fish around for the soap in his bath. 6. The worst of all University snobs are those unfortunates who go to rack and ruin from their desire to ape their betters. 7. I have a good mind to nail down the facts, then hold a press conference of my own and blow the whistle on the CIA. 8. A search of the attic brought some valuable antiques to hand. 9. Your letter is to hand. 10. I paper my room every year. 11. Who will dust all this furniture? 12. We decided to week-end somewhere in the country. 13. Where is the stop here? 14. “If anybody oranges me again tonight, I’ll knock his face off”. 15. Mrs. Carmody backed her car. 16. He has nosed out a perfect place for our camping holiday. 17. There are people from around here who could make a pretty decent guess. 18. Instead of putting your dime right in, you get a dial tone and make your call. 19. He reached for her again and Ollie Weeks said sharply: “Bud! Cool it! 20. His achievements pale into insignificance by the side of her victory. 21. Ollie agreed, and dropped an empty into the beer cooler. 22. He bears the rough well. 23. The platforms swarmed with office workers, and Dave had to shoulder his way through the crowd. 24. Down the road, in twos and threes, more people were gathering in for the day of marketing. 25. My thoughts have been much occupied with the ups and downs, the fortunes and misfortunes of married life.

Word-composition is another type of word-building. That is when new words are produced by combining two or more stems. This type of word-building is one of the three 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.

1. 
   According to the parts of speech compounds are subdivided into: a) nouns, such as: baby-moon, globe-trotter, b) adjectives, such as: free-for-all, power-happy, c) verbs, such as: to honey-moon, to baby-sit, to henpeck, d) adverbs, such as: downdeep, headfirst, e) prepositions, such as: into, within, f) numerals, such as: sixty-five.
   
2. 
   According to their structure compounds are subdivided into: a) compound words proper consisting of simple stems, e. g. bookshelf, snowwhite, tip-top; b) derivational compounds, where besides the stems we have affixes, e. g. chain-smoker, ear-minded, hydro-skimmer, c) compound words consisting of three or more stems, e. g. wastepaper-basket, newspaper-ownership, eggshell-thin, d) compound-shortened words, e. g. T-shirt, motocross, Eurodollar.
   
3. 
   According to the way components are joined together compounds are divided into neutral, morphological and syntactical (see Table 4).
   

Morphological compounds are few in number. This type is non-productive. Here two compounding stems are combined by a linking element: vowels “o” or “i” or the consonant “s”, e. g. Anglo-Saxon, statesman, craftsman, handiwork.

In syntactical compounds we see segments of speech such as articles, prepositions adverbs: good-for-nothing, mother-in-law, sit-at-home.
Table 4 ˗- Сlassification of compounds ассording to the linking elements
Сompounds

neutral

morphological

syntactic

contracted

simple neutral

derivational,

derived
e. g. music-lover,

blue-eyed

4. According to the correlations of the separate meanings of the constituent parts and the actual meaning of the compound we distinguish three groups (see Table 5):

a) Non-idiomatic compounds. Here the meaning can be described as the sum of their constituent parts: dancing-room, bedroom, class-room.

b) Idiomatic compounds. Here one of the components or both has altered its meaning: a blackboard is not necessarily black, football is not a ball but a game, a chatterbox is not a box but a person, and a ladykiller kills no one but is a man who fascinates women.

c) Highly idiomatic compounds whose meaning do not correspond to the separate meanings of their parts. Here the process of deducing the meaning is impossible, we must know the translation of the word: a ladybird is not a bird, but an insect, a tallboy is not a boy but a piece of furniture, a bluestocking is a person.
Table 5 ˗- Сlassification of compounds ассording to the correlation of meaning

Сompounds

highly idiomatic

idiomatic

non-idiomatic

5. According to the relations between the components compound words fall into: a) subordinative compounds where one of the components is the semantic and the structural centre and the second component is subordinate; these subordinative relations can be different: with comparative relations, e. g. honey-sweet, with limiting relations, e. g. knee-deep, with emphatic relations, e. g. dog-cheap, with objective relations, e. g. gold-rich, with cause relations, e. g. love-sick, with space relations, e. g. top-heavy, with time relations, e. g. spring-fresh, with subjective relations, e. g. foot-sore, etc. b) coordinative compounds where both components are semantically independent. It includes such compounds when one person (object) has two functions, e. g. secretary-stenographer, woman-doctor, etc. Such compounds are called “additive”. This group includes also compounds formed by means of reduplication, e. g. fifty-fifty, no-no, and also compounds formed with the help of rhythmic stems (reduplication combined with sound interchange) e. g. criss-cross, walkie-talkie.