Дипломная работа: Minor Types of Lexical Opposition (Shortened Words)
3)They may be combined with derivational affixes and also be used in compounding, e. g. Y. С L.-er— 'member of the Y.C.L.'; M. P.-ess—'woman-member of Parliament'; hanky from handkerchief, nighttime from nightdress (with the diminutive suffix -ie); radar man—операторрадиолокационойстанции, etc.
4)Clipped words are characteristic of colloquial speech. The number of clipped words used in everyday speech is rather considerable and newly clipped words keep entering the vocabulary.
In the course of time many clipped words find their way into the literary language losing their stylistic coloring, though not infrequently they still preserve the stamp of colloquial words and, as a result, are restricted in use.
The term blending is used to de-§ 39. Blending signage the method of merging parts of words (not morphemes) into one new word; the result is a blend, also known as a portmanteau word. The noun smog is an example in point. It is composed of the parts of the nouns smoke and fog (smoke-Hog). Thus blending is in fact compounding by means of clipped words. The result of blending is an unanalyzed, simple word, for the parts of words blended by the word-coiner (for instance, sin and go in smog) are not morphemes at all in terms of the English language. Therefore a blend is perceived as a simple word unless speakers have received the extra-linguistic information about its composition. Many blends are short-lived. A fair proportion, however, have become established in the vocabulary, e. g. clash—clap H-crash or dash; flush = flash blush; brunch—breakfast-Ь lunch; 5language=slang-language; amaze smoke haze, etc. In most cases blends belong to the colloquial layer of words sometimes bordering on slang, e. g. amaze, brunch, language, politician pollute politician—грязныйполитикан, etc. There are numerous blends, however, in the terminological sector of the vocabulary, e.g. recon=radar beacon—радиолокационныймаяк; transceiver = transmitter-receive—приемное-передающаястанция; transistor=transfer resistor—транзистор, etc.
In considering the diachronic and the formation synchronic approach to language study (see 'Introduction', § 2) reference was made, in particular, to the verb to beg derived from the noun beggar borrowed from Old French. The noun beggar was later presumed to have been derived from a shorter word on the analogy of the derivative correlation of the "speak—speaker" type. This process of word-formation is called backformation (or back-derivation) and has diachronic relevance only. It does not affect the derivative correlation for present-day speakers who do not feel any difference between the relationship "speak— speaker", on the one hand, and "beg—beggar", on the other. Examples of backformation are numerous: to burgle from burglar; to edit from editor; to enthuse from enthusiasm; to sculpt from sculptor, to liaise from liaison, etc. At the present time backformation combined with conversion seems to be active in the formation of verbs from compound nouns mostly of a terminological character, e.g. to blood-transfuse from blood-trans fusion — переливаниекрови; to rush-develop from rush-development — быстроепроявлениепленки; to finger-print from finger-printing — взятиеотпечатковпальцев; to baby-sit from baby-sitter= приходящаяняня, etc.
Sound-interchange is the gradation of e.g. Sound- and stress- sounded occupying one and the same interchange. Place in the sound-form of one and the same morpheme in various cases of its occurrence. Both sound and stress-interchange may be regarded as ways of forming words only diachronically because in Modern English not a single word can be coined by changing the root-vowel of a word or by shifting the place of the stress. Sound-interchange as well as stress-interchange is absolutely non-productive and in fact has turned into a means of distinguishing between different words, primarily between words of different parts of speech and as such is rather wide-spread in Modern English, e.g. to sing—song, to live—life, to breathe—breath, etc. It also distinguishes between different word-forms, e.g. man—men, wife—wives, to know—knew, to leave—left, etc.
Sound-interchange naturally falls into two groups: vowel-interchange and consonant-interchange.
By means of vowel-interchange we distinguish different parts of speech, e.g. full—to fill, food—to feed, blood-to bleed, etc. In some cases vowel-interchange is combined with affixation, e.g. long—length, strong—strength, broad— breadth; nature—natural, nation—national, etc. Intransitive verbs and corresponding transitive ones with a causative meaning also display vowel-interchange, e.g. to rise—to raise, to sit—to set, to He—to lay, to fall—to fell.
The type of consonant-interchange typical of Modern English is the interchange of a voiceless fricative consonant in a noun and the corresponding voiced consonant in the corresponding verb, e.g.: use—to use, mouth—to mouth, house-to house, advice—to advise, etc.
There are some particular cases of consonant-interchange: [k]—[tj]: to speak—speech; to break—breach; [s]—[dj:] defense—to defend; offence—to offend; [sj—ft]: evidence-evident; importance—important; etc. Consonant-interchange may be combined with vowel-interchange, e.g. bath—to bathe; breath—to breathe; life—to live, etc.
Many English verbs of Latin-French origin are distinguished from the corresponding nouns by the position of stress. Here are some well-known examples of such pairs of words: 'export «—to export o; 'import n—to import v; 'conduct n—to conduct v; 'present n—to present v; 'contrast n— to contrast u; 'increase n—-to increase v, etc.
Stress-interchange is not restricted to pairs of words consisting of a noun and a verb. It may also occur between other parts of speech, for instance, between adjective and verb, cf. 'frequent adj—to frequent v, 'absent ad\— to absent v, etc.
Relationship Sound-interchange in English is often Between sound (stress)- combined with a difference only in the interchange paradigm. Hence the question arises and conversion. Of the relativistic between sound-interchange and conversion. To investigate the problem the following three types of relations should be distinguished:
1) Breath—to breathe
As far as cases of this type are concerned, sound-interchange distinguishes only between words; it does not differentiate word-forms of one and the same word. Consequently it has no relation to the paradigms of the words. Hence, cases of this type cannot be regarded as conversion.
2) Song—to sing
In the given example the vowel in song interchanges with three different vowels, the latter interchanging with one another in the forms of the verb to sing:[3]
Like the previous type, the words song—to sing is not related by conversion: song differs from to sing (sang, sung) not only in the paradigm, its root-vowel not occurring in the word-forms of the verb and vice versa.
3) House—to house
In such cases the type of sound-interchange used to distinguish the two words (verb and noun) is the same as that which distinguishes the word-forms of the noun, cf. house [haus]—houses [hauziz] and to house [hauz]. Consequently, the only difference between the two words lies in their paradigms, in other words, word-pairs like house—to house are cases of conversion. It is fairly obvious that in such cases as present—to present, accent—-to accent, etc. which differ in the position of stress the latter does not distinguish the word-forms within the paradigm of the two words. Thus, as far as cases of this type are concerned, the difference in stress is similar to the function of sound-interchange in cases like breath—to breathe. Consequently, cases of this type do not belong to conversion.
1. Shortening of words and word summary groups is typical of present-day English a one occurring in various spheres of oral and written intercourse. Graphical abbreviations are restricted in use to written speech. Lexical abbreviations and especially clippings are peculiar to the sphere of oral communication
2.The result of blending which is a compounding of clipped words is always a simple word. In most cases blends belong to the colloquial layer of words. There are, however, numerous blends in the terminological section of the vocabulary.
3.The process of back formation is of diachronic relevance only.
4.The function of sound-interchange and stress-inter change in Modern English is to distinguish between different words and word-forms. Sound-interchange is often accompanied by affixation.
The Main Part
1.2 SHORTENING OF SPOKEN WORDS
As a type of word-building shortening of spoken words, also called clipping or curtailment, is recorded in the English language as far back a& the 15th century.1 It has grown more and more productive ever since. This growth becomes especially marked in many European languages in the 20th century, and it is a matter of common knowledge that this development is particularly intense in English.
Newly shortened words appear continuously; this is testified by numerous neologisms, such as dub v, a cinema term meaning 'to make another recording of sound-track in a film in a different language' (from double); frig or fridge n from refrigerator; mike n from microphone; tellie, telly or T. V. n from television set; vacun from vacuum cleaner, etc.
Many authors are inclined to overemphasize the role of "the strain of modern life" as the mainspring of this development. This is, obviously, only one of the reasons, and the purely linguistic factors should not be overlooked. Among the major forces are the demands of rhythm, which are more readily satisfied when the words are monosyllabic.
When dealing with words of long duration, one will also note that a high percentage of English shortenings are involved into the process of loan word assimilation. Monosyllabic goes farther in English than in any other European language, and that is why shortened words sound more like native ones than their long prototypes. Curtailment may therefore be regarded as caused, partly at least, by analogical extension, i.e. modification of form on the basis of analogy with existing and widely used patterns. Thus, the three homonyms resulting from abbreviation of three different words, van 'a large covered vehicle', 'a railway carriage', the short for caravan (by aphesis1); van 'the front of an army', the short of vanguard which in its turn is a clipping of the French word avant-garde; and van — a lawn tennis term, the short for advantage, all sound quite like English words. Cf. ban n and v, can, fan, man, ran (Past Tense of run), tan, etc.