Lexical abbreviations

Lexical abbreviaion 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 from the full form of the word. For exemple: 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.

Lexical abbreviaion does not change the part-of-speech meaning, it produces words belonging to the same part of speech as the primary words. For exemple: professor is a noun, prof is also a noun.

Abbreviated are usually nouns, verbs and adjectives. Pronouns, numerals, interjections, conjunctions are, as a rule, not abbreviated.

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: disco, expo, intro etc.

If the beginning of the word is clipped we have apheresis: chute – parachute, versity – university, copter – helicopter etc.

Sometimes the middle of the word is clipped, such abbreviations are called syncope: mart – market, fanzine – fan magazine etc.

We may also have a combination of apocope with apheresis, when the beginning and the end of the word are clipped: tec – detective, van – avanguard etc.

2. There are also secondary ways of wordbuilding in English: sound interchange, stress interchange, sound imitation, blending, back formation. These ways of wordbuilding are not productive in Modern English.

Sound interchange is the way of wordbuilding when some sounds are changed to form a new word. For exemple: strike – stroke, sing – song, blood – to bleed, hot – to heat etc. It was productive in Old English and can be met in other Indo-European languages.

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. For exemple: to conflict – conflict, to export – export, to accent – accent etc. However, this is not regular. There are borrowed nouns and verbs with the stress on the first syllable. For exemple: focus, exile, preface, program, triumph etc. There are also a large group of loan words that retain the stress on the second syllable both in verbs and nouns. For exemple: advance, escape, attack, defeat, concern, amount, research etc.

Sound imitation is the way of wordbuilding when a word is formed by imitating different sounds. There are some semantic groups of words formed by means of sound imitation:

-sounds produced by human beings: to whisper, to giggle, to sneeze etc,

-sounds produced by animals: to hiss, to bark, to moo, to buzz etc,

-sounds produced by nature: to tinkle, to ding-dong, to buble, to splash etc.

Blends are words formed from a word-group or two synonyms. In blends two ways of wordbuilding are combined: abbreviation and composition. To form a blend we clip the end of the first component and the beginning of the second component. For exemple: smog is formed from smoke + fog, slanguage is formed from slang + language, gasohol is formed from gasoline + alcohol.

Mostly blends are formed from a word-group. For exemple: cinemaddict (cinema addict), dramedy (drama comedy), magalog (magazine catalogue), slimnastics (slimming gymnastics) etc.

Back formation 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 language as a result of misunderstanding the structure of a borrowed word. 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, teach – teacher. So when the French word beggar was borrowed into English the final syllable ar was pronounced in the same way as the English -er. Soon Englishmen formed the verb beg by dropping the end of the noun. Other exemples are: to accreditate (accreditation), to bach (bachelor), to collocate (collocation), to compute (computer), to televise (television) etc.

Lecture # 6

Meaning of a word.

1. The linguistic science at ptesent is not able to put forward a definition of meaning which is conclusive. But the fact is that the very function of the word as a unit of communication is made possible by its possessing a meaning. So, among the various characteristics of the word the meaning is the most important.

Generally speaking meaning can be more or less described as a component of the word through which a concept is communicated. Concepts are mental phenomena.

To explain what the meaning is scientists use a triangle.

By referent we understand objects, qualities, actions, abstract notions denoted by the word. By symbol is meant the word. Thought or reference is concept. The dotted line suggests that there is no immediate relation between word and referent. It is established only through the concept.

The mechanism by which concepts, that is mental phenomena, are converted into words, that is linguistic phenomena, and the reverse process by which a heard or a printed word is converted into a mental picture are not yet understood.

The branch of linguistics which specialises in the study of meaning is called semantics. This term is ambiguous. It can stand for the espressive aspect of language in general and for the meaning of particular words. That is why very often the study of meaning of words is called semasiology.

2. The modern approach to semantics or semasiology is based on the assumption that the meaning of the word presents a structure which is called the semantic structure of the word. When analysing the semantic structure of a word, it is necessary to distinguish between two levels of analysis.

On the first level the semantic structure of a word is treated as a system of meanings. For exemple, the semantic structure of the noun fire can be presented in the following way:

As we see, meaning 1 dominates over meanings 2, 3, 4, 5. Meaning 1 is called the main meaning, meanings 2, 3, 4, 5 are called secondary meanings. All the meanings, main and secondary ones, may be associated with each other very differently. They may be associated through the main meaning or through one of the secondary meanings or else through all meanings. But some semantic structures are arranged on a different principle. For exemple, in the semantic structure of the word dull it is not possible to find the main meaning which organizes secondary meanings. The centre holding together the semantic structure of this word is not one of the meanings but a certain component that can be easily singled out within each separate meaning. And this brings us to the second level of analysis of the semantic structure of a word.

At the second level of analysis each separate meaning may be represented as sets of semantic components. These components are not part of the vocabulary but rather theoretical elements. The study of semantic components of each separate meaning is the aim of componential analysis. Componential analysis is one of the modern methods of semantic research.

Thus, the semantic structure of the word is not just a system of meanings, for each separate meaning is subject to further subdivision and possesses an inner structure of its own. The semantic structure of a word should be investigated at both levels: the level of different meanings and at the level of semantic components within each separated meaning. For the words with one meaning the first level is excluded.

Semantic components may be of different types. The leading semantic component in the semantic structure of a word is called denotative or referential component. The denotative component expresses the conceptual content of a word. For exemple, the denotative component of the English verbs to glare, to glance, to look is to look. But in such a way the meanings of these verbs will be described only partially and incompletely. To have a full picture of the meaning of each verb, it is necessary to add some other semantic components. They are called connotative components or just connotations.

Then the verb to glare may be described as the denotative component to look + a connotative component steadily, lastingly + a connotative component in anger, rage, etc. The connotative component steadily, lastingly introduces connotation of duration. The connotative component in anger, rage, etc. introduces emotive connotation.

The verb to glance consists of the denotative component to look and a connotative component briefly, passingly. The connotative component introduces connotation of duration.

The verb to look has only the denotative component look.

So, the word may have no connotation, one connotation or several connotations. Connotations may be of different types: emotive, evoluative, stylistic, of duration, of cause, of manner. We shall discuss them while speaking about synonymy.

3. It is generally known that most words have several meanings. A word possessing several meanings is called polysemantic. The ability of words to have more than one meaning is described by the term polysemy. Polysemy is not an anomaly. Most English words are polysemantic. The expressive resources of a language depend on the degree to which polysemy has developed in the language. One may think that if there is a need to apply to one word several meanings, it means that the language lacks in words. But it is exactly the opposite. If each word is capable to convey more than one concept, for exemple, two concepts, then the expressive potential of the whole vocabulary of any language increases twofold. A well-developed polysemy is not a drawback but an advantage in a language.

On the other hand, the number of sound combinations that human speech organs can produce is limited. At a certain stage of language development the production of new words by morphological means becomes limited. Polysemy becomes important in providing the means for enriching the vocabulary.

The system of meanings of a polysemantic word develops gradually, mostly over the centuries. The complicated process of polysemy development involve both the appearance of new meanings and the loss of old ones. The general tendency with English vocabulary at the modern stage of its history is to increase the total number of its meanings.

5. Linguistic literature abounds in classifications of types of lexical meaning. The following classification reflects relationships existing between different meanings of a word at the same period of time. For example, the word screen is in its direct meaning when it names a piece of furniture used to hide something or protect somebody. The meaning is figurative when the word is applied to anything which protects by hiding, as in smoke screen. We define this meaning as figurative comparing it to the first that we call direct. The meaning a piece of furniture of the word screen is at the same time the main meaning of this word. The main meaning is that which possesses the highest frequency at the present stage of vocabulary development. All the other meanings of the word screen are secondary meanings. The meaning a piece of furniture is concrete in comparison with the abstract meaning the word screen has in the following combinations: screen actor, screen star, screen version etc.

The meanings can be classified not only by comparing them inside the semantic structure of the word but according to the style and sphere of language in which they may occur. All the meanings are classified into stylistically neutral and stylistically coloured. Stylistically coloured meanings may be subdivided into bookish and colloquial. Bookish ones may be general, poetical, scientific. Colloquial ones may be literary colloquial, familiar colloquial, slang.

From a historical point of view the meaning may be:

-etymological, that is the earliest known meaning,

-archaic, that is the meaning superseded at present by a newer one but still remaining in certain collocations;

-obsolete, that is gone out of use;

-present-day meaning, that is the most frequent in the present-day language;

-original meaning serving as basis for the derived ones.

Certain meanings can be realized only in a given phraseological unit, they are called phraseologically bound meanings and they are opposed to free meanings.

Prototypical meaning is believed to be readily translatable into other languages. Peripheral meanings are least translatable.

It is very important to underline that one and the same meaning can at once belong, in accordance with different points, to different groups of meanings.

Lecture # 7

Semantic changes