Classification of compounds in the English and Ukrainian languages

Relations between components:

Coordinative (bye-bye)

Subordinate (stone-deaf, age-long)

The part of speech to which the compound belongs:

Compound nouns (bedroom)

Compound verbs (to house-keep)

Compound adjectives (snow-white)

The type of composition:

Syntactic (blue-bell, blacklist)

Asyntactic (red-hot, pale-blue)

The type of connection:

Rigidly fixed (doorstep, babysitter)

With a linking element (speedometer, spokesman)

The type of components of the compound:

Compounds proper (looking-glass)

Derivational compounds (long-legged)

Correlation between compounds and free phrases:

Adjectival-nominal (snow-white)

Verbal-nominal (bottle-opener)

Nominal (horse-race)

Verbal-adverbal (a breakdown)

32.

S h o r t e n i n g .Distinctionshouldbemadebetweenshorten-”ing

whichresultsinnew l e x i c a l itemsand a specifictypeofshortening

properonlytowrittenspeechresultinginnumerous g r a p h i c a l abbreviations

whichareonlysignsrepresentingwordsandword-groupsofhighfrequency

ofoccurrenceinvariousspheresofhumanactivityasforinstance,

RDforRoadandStforStreetinaddressesonenvelopesandinletters; tu

fortube, aerforaerialinRadioEngineeringliterature, etc. Englishgraphical

abbreviationsincluderathernumerousshortened‘variantsofLatinand

Frenchwordsandword-groups, e.g.: i.e. (L. idest) —‘thatis’; R.S.V.P.

(Fr. —Repondezs'ilvousplait) —‘replyplease’, etc.

Transformationsofword-groupsintowordsinvolvedifferenttypes

oflexicalshortening: ellipsisorsubstantivisation, initialletterorsyllable

abbreviations (alsoreferredtoasacronyms), blendings, etc.

Acronymsandletterabbreviationsarelexicalabbreviations

of a phrase. Therearedifferenttypesofsuchabbreviationsand

thereisnounanimityofopinionamongscholarswhetherallofthemcan

beregardedasregularvocabularyunits. Itseemslogicaltomakedistinction

betweenacronymsandletterabbreviations. Letterabbreviationsare

merereplacementsoflongerphrasesincludingnamesofwell-knownorganisations

ofundeniablecurrency, namesofagenciesandinstitutions,

politicalparties, famouspeople, namesofofficialoffices, etc. Theyarenot

spokenortreatedaswordsbutpronouncedletterbyletterandas a rule

possessnootherlinguisticformspropertowords. Thefollowingmay

serveasexamplesofsuchabbreviations: CBW= chemicalandbiological

warfare, DOD= DepartmentofDefence (oftheUSA)

Acronymsareregularvocabularyunitsspokenaswords. They

areformedinvariousways:

1) fromtheinitiallettersorsyllablesof a phrase( NATO,UNESCO)
2) Acronymsmaybeformedfromtheinitialsyllablesofeachwordof

thephrase, e.g. Interpol= inter/nationalpol/ice
3) Acronymsmaybeformedby a combinationoftheabbreviationof

thefirstorthefirsttwomembersofthephrasewiththelastmemberundergoing

nochangeatall, e.g. V-day= VictoryDay
Blendingsaretheresultofconsciouscreationofwordsbymerging

irregularfragmentsofseveralwordswhichareaptlycalled“splinters.”(smog–smoke+fog)
Clippingreferstothecreationofnewwordsbyshortening a word

oftwoormoresyllables (usuallynounsandadjectives) withoutchanging

itsclassmembership (doc)

33.
TherearecasesinthehistoryoftheEnglishlanguagewhen

a wordstructurallymorecomplexservedastheoriginalelementfrom

which a simplerwordwasderived. Thosearecasesoftheprocesscalled

back-formation (orback-derivation) 1, cf. beggar—tobeg; editor—to

edit; chauffeur—tochauffandsomeother

Sound-interchange (distinctive stress)

aswellasstress-interchangeinfacthasturnedinto a meansofdistinguishing

primarilybetweenwordsofdifferentpartsofspeechandas

suchisratherwide-spreadinModernEnglish, e.g. tosing—song, to

live—life, strong—strength, etc. Italsodistinguishesbetweendifferent

word-forms, e.g. man—men, wife—wives, toknow—knew, to

leave—left, etc.

Sound-interchangefallsintotwogroups: vowel-interchangeandconsonant-

interchange.
Bymeansofvowel-interchangewedistinguishdifferentpartsof

speech, e.g. full—tofill, food—tofeed, blood—tobleed, etc. In

somecasesvowel-interchangeiscombinedwithaffixation, e.g. long—

length, strong—strength, broad—breadth, etc.
Thetypeofconsonant-interchangetypicalofModernEnglishistheinterchange

of a voicelessfricativeconsonantin a nounandthecorresponding

voicedconsonantinthecorrespondingverb, e.g. use—touse, mouth

—tomouth, house—tohouse, advice—toadvise, etc.

34.

Wordsofnativeoriginconsistforthemostpartofveryancientelements—

Indo-European, GermanicandWestGermaniccognates. Thebulk

oftheOldEnglishword-stockhasbeenpreserved, althoughsomewords

havepassedoutofexistence. Whenspeakingabouttheroleofthenative

elementintheEnglishlanguagelinguistsusuallyconfinethemselvestothe

smallAnglo-Saxonstockofwords, whichisestimatedtomake 25—30%

oftheEnglishvocabulary.

Toassignthenativeelementitstrueplaceitisnotsoimportantto

countthenumberofAnglo-Saxonwordsthathavesurviveduptoour

days, astostudytheirsemanticandstylisticcharacter, theirword-building

ability, frequencyvalue, collocability.

AlmostallwordsofAnglo-Saxonoriginbelong

toveryimportantsemanticgroups. They

includemostoftheauxiliaryandmodal

verbs(shall, will, must, can, may, etc.), pronouns (I, you, he, my, his,

who, etc.), prepositions(in, out, on, under, etc.), numerals(one, two,

three, four, etc.) andconjunctions(and, but, till, as, etc.). Notionalwords

ofAnglo-Saxonoriginincludesuchgroupsaswordsdenotingpartsofthe

body(head, hand, arm, back, etc.), membersofthefamilyandclosest

relatives(farther, mother, brother, son, wife), naturalphenomenaand

planets(snow, rain, wind, sun, moon, star, etc.), animals(horse, cow,

sheep, cat), qualitiesandproperties(old, young, cold, hot, light, dark,

long), commonactions(do, make, go, come, see, hear, eat, etc.), etc.

Mostofthenativewordshaveundergonegreatchangesintheirsemantic

structure, andas a resultarenowadayspolysemantic, e.g. thewordfinger

doesnotonlydenote a partof a handasinOldEnglish, butalso 1) the

partof a glovecoveringoneofthefingers, 2) a finger-likepartinvarious

machines, 3) a handof a clock, 4) anindex,