Word compositionmay be looked upon as the most ancient way of word building. The result of this process is creation of compound words.
Compound words are such words, which consist of at least two stems. These stems are free morphemes. But it is impossible to insert any element between these two stems.
postman post/man
But what stem is the main?
The word, which form changes, is the main word ()
The peculiarity of English compounds
The English language is very rich in compounds. But it is possible to single out three features which differentiate compounds from other words:
1. Most of the English compounds have no connecting element.
The greatest part of the English compounds consists of 2 members. Three member compounds are very rare.
2. But for the English language is very typical to have the whole phrases as the attributes, written with dash.
Letthesleepingdoglie. , - ,
I don t like your let-the-sleeping-dog-lie attitude to life. . let - the - sleeping - dog - lie .
I dont remember the girl-you-have-been-dancing-with s name. (.)
Classification of the English compounds.
1) structure
They may be subdivided into compounds with connecting element and without; consisting of two members and compounds having more than two elements.
The problems of meaning
Speaking about nature of meaning changes we cant help noticing the connection between the old meaning and the new one. This connection may be based on similarity and association by similarity leads to metaphorical usage of words. And here we come across to stylistic devices which we call metaphor and metonymy.
the leg of the table
the foot of the mountain - dead metaphors
the mouth of the river
He plays football like a devil.
He is a devil on a football field.
Compounds are words produced by combining two or more stems which occur in the language as free forms. They may be classified proceeding from different criteria:
according to the parts of speech to which they belong;
according to the means of composition used to link their ICs together;
according to the structure of their ICs;
according to their semantic characteristics.
Most compounds in Modern English belong to nouns and adjectives. Compound verbs are less frequent; they are often made through conversion (N -> V pattern). Compound adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions and prepositions are rather rare. The classification of compounds according to the means of joining their
ICs together distinguishes between the following structural types:
juxtapositional (neutral) compounds whose ICs are merely placed
one after another: classroom, timetable, heartache, whitewash,
hunting-knife, weekend, grey-green, <deep-blue, H-bomb, U-turn,
etc.;
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morphological compounds whose ICs are joined together with a
vowel or a consonant as a linking element, e.g.: gasometer, handicraft, electromotive, Anglo-Saxon, sportsman, saleswoman, etc.;
syntactic compounds (integrated phrases) which are the result of the
process of semantic isolation and structural integration of free word-
groups, e.g.: blackboard (<black board), highway (<high way), forget-
me-not, bulls-eye, up-to-date, son-in-law, go-between, know-all, etc.
The classification according to the structure of immediate constituents
():
1. compounds, consisting of simple stems: film-star;
compounds, where at least one of the constituents is a derived stem: chain-smoker;
compounds, where at least one of the constituents is a clipped stem: math-mistress.
The subgroup will contain abbreviations like: H-bag (handbag), Xmas (Christmas).
Compounds, where at least one of the constituents is a compound stem: wastepaper-basket.
15) Morphemic meaning (differential meaning, distributional meaning, changes of meaning - results of changes as narrowing or extending of meaning; metaphorical adding to meaning, metonymy); causes of changes: linguistic and extra linguistic causes
Meaning and Definition on Morphemic
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest component of word, or other linguistic unit, that has semantic meaning. The term is used as part of the branch of linguistics known as morpheme-based morphology. A morpheme is composed by phoneme(s) (the smallest linguistically distinctive units of sound) in spoken language, and by grapheme(s) (the smallest units of written language) in written language.
The concept of word and morpheme are different, a morpheme may or may not stand alone. One or several morphemes compose a word. A morpheme is free if it can stand alone (ex: "one", "possible"), or bound if it is used exclusively alongside a free morpheme (ex: "im" in impossible). Its actual phonetic representation is the morph, with the different morphs ("in-", "im-") representing the same morpheme being grouped as its allomorphs.
The word "unbreakable" has three morphemes: "un-", a bound morpheme; "break", a free morpheme; and "-able", a free morpheme. "un-" is also a prefix, "-able" is a suffix. Both "un-" and "-able" are affixes.
The morpheme plural-s has the morph "-s", /s/, in cats (/kÃts/), but "-es", /ɨz/, in dishes (/dɪʃɨz/), and even the voiced "-s", /z/, in dogs (/dÉÉ¡z/). "-s". These are allomorphs.
16)Semasiological problems (figurative meanings of words, primary meanings)+examples! Free combinations of words (ex: "long grass")
Semasiological problems
Discussing the problems of Semasiology, we should keep in mind that we can analyze words syntagmatically in the context and paradigmatically out of the context.
to swim
It presupposes nouns which indicates some quality of water in which we can swim.
to swim in the sea/river etc.
But when these norms are broken, we come across metaphorical usage:
toswiminbliss ,
In the second combination the rules of agreement are brokenbecause a bliss is an abstract noun. So this phrase acquired metaphorical meaning to be absolutely happy. This set expression is emotionally coloured and very expressive.
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17) Derivational basis, derivative structure of the word
DERIVATIONAL COMPOUNDS
Derivational compounds or compound-derivatives like long-legged do not fit the definition of compounds as words consisting of more than one free stem, because their second element (-legged) is not a free stem. Derivational compounds are included in this chapter for two reasons: because the number of root morphemes is more than one, and because they are nearest to compounds in patterns. Derivational compounds or compound-derivatives are words in which the structural integrity of the two free stems is ensured by a suffix referring to the combination as a whole, not to one of its elements: kind-hearted, old-timer, schoolboyishness, teenager. In the coining of the derivational compounds two types of word-formation are at work. The essence of the derivational compounds will be clear if we compare them with derivatives and compounds proper that possess a similar structure. Take, for example, brainstraster, honeymooner and mill-owner. The ultimate constituents of all three are: noun stem + noun stem+-er. Analysing into immediate constituents, we see that the immediate constituents (ICs) of the compound mill-owner are two noun stems, the first simple, the second derived: mill+owner, of which the last, the determinatum, as well as the whole compound, names a person. For the word honeymooner no such division is possible, since *mooner does not exist as a free stem. The ICs are honeymoon+-er, and the suffix -er signals that the whole denotes a person: the structure is (honey+moon)+-er. The process of word-building in these seemingly similar words is different: mill-owner is coined by composition, honeymooner by derivation from the compound honeymoon. Honeymoon being a compound, honeymooner is a derivative. Now brains trust a group of experts is a phrase, so brainstruster is formed by two simultaneous processes by composition and by derivation and may be called a derivational compound. Its ICs are (brains+ trust)+-r1. The suffix -er is one of the productive suffixes in forming derivational compounds. Other examples of the same pattern are: backbencher an M.P. occupying the back bench, do-gooder (ironically used in AmE), eye-opener enlightening circumstance, first-nighter habitual frequenter of the first performance of plays, go-getter (colloq.) a pushing person, late-comer, left-hander left-handed person or blow. Nonce-words show some variations on this type. The process of their formation is clearly seen in the following examples: "Have you ever thought of bringing them together? "Oh, God forbid. As you may have noticed, I'm not much of a bringer-together at the best of times. (Plomer) "The shops are very modern here, he went on, speaking with all the rather touchy insistence on up-to-dateness which characterises the inhabitants of an under-bathroomed and over-monumented country (Huxley). Another frequent type of derivational compounds are the possessive compounds of the type kind-hearted: adjective stem+noun stem+ -ed. Its ICs are a noun phrase kind heart and the suffix -ed that unites the elements of the phrase and turns them into the elements of a compound adjective. Similar examples are extremely numerous. Compounds of this type can be coined very freely to meet the requirements of different situations. Very few go back to Old English, such as one-eyed and three-headed, most of the cases are coined in Modern English. Examples are practically unlimited, especially in words describing personal appearance or character: absent-minded, bare-legged, black-haired, blue-eyed, cruel-hearted, light-minded, ill-mannered, many-sided, narrow-minded, shortsighted, etc. The first element may also be a noun stem: bow-legged, heart-shaped and very often a numeral: three-coloured. The derivational compounds often become the basis of further derivation. Cf. war-minded:: war-mindedness; whole-hearted:: whole-heartedness:: whole-heartedly, schoolboyish:: schoolboyishness; do-it-yourselfer:: do-it-yourselfism. The process is also called phrasal derivation: mini-skirt>mini-skirted, nothing but>nothingbutism, dress up>dressuppable, Romeo-and-Julietishness, or quotation derivation as when an unwillingness to do anything is characterised as let-George-do-it-ity. All these are nonce-words, with some ironic or jocular connotation.
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18) Classification of morphemes (free, bound, semi-bound, pseudo morphemes, unique morphemes)
MORPHEMES. FREE AND BOUND FORMS. MORPHOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF WORDS. WORD-FAMILIES
If we describe a wrd as an autonomous unit of language in which a particular meaning is associated with a particular sound complex and which is capable of a particular grammatical employment and able to form a sentence by itself (see p. 9), we have the possibility to distinguish it from the other fundamental language unit, namely, the morpheme. A morpheme is also an association of a given meaning with a given sound pattern. But unlike a word it is not autonomous. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words, not independently, although a word may consist of a single morpheme. Nor are they divisible into smaller meaningful units. That is why the morpheme may be defined as the minimum meaningful language unit. The term morpheme is derived from Gr morphe form + -eme. The Greek suffix -erne has been adopted by linguists to denote the smallest significant or distinctive unit. (Cf. phoneme, sememe.) The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of form. A form in these cases is a recurring discrete unit of speech. A form is said to be free if it may stand alone without changing its meaning; if not, it is a bound form, so called because it is always bound to something else. For example, if we compare the words sportive and elegant and their parts, we see that sport, sportive, elegant may occur alone as utterances, whereas eleg-, -ive, -ant are bound forms because they never occur alone. A word is, by L. Bloomfields definition, a minimum free form. A morpheme is said to be either bound or free. This statement should b taken with caution. It means that some morphemes are capable of forming words without adding other morphemes: that is, they are homonymous to free forms. According to the role they play in constructing words, morphemes are subdivided into roots and affixes. The latter are further subdivided, according to their position, into prefixes, suffixes and infixes, and according to their function and meaning, into derivational and functional.affixes, the latter also called endings or outer formatives. When a derivational or functional affix is stripped from the word, what remains is a stem (or astern base). The stem expresses the lexical and the part of speech meaning. For the word hearty and for the paradigm heart (sing.) hearts (pi.)1 the stem may be represented as heart-. This stem is a single morpheme, it contains nothing but the root, so it is a simple stem. It is also a free stem because it is homonymous to the word heart. A stem may also be defined as the part of the word that remains unchanged throughout its paradigm. The stem of the paradigm hearty heartier (the) heartiest is hearty-. It is a free stem, but as it consists of a root morpheme and an affix, it is not simple but derived. Thus, a stem containing one or more affixes is a derived stem. If after deducing the affix the remaining stem is not homonymous to a separate word of the same root, we call it abound stem. Thus, in the word cordial proceeding as if from the heart, the adjective-forming suffix can be separated on the analogy with such words as bronchial, radial, social. The remaining stem, however, cannot form a separate word by itself, it is bound. In cordially and cordiality, on the other hand, the derived stems are free. Bound stems are especially characteristic of loan words. The point may be illustrated by the following French borrowings: arrogance, charity, courage, coward, distort, involve, notion, legible and tolerable, to give but a few.2 After the affixes of these words are taken away the remaining elements are: arrog-, char-, cour-, cow-, -tort, -volve, not-, leg-, toler-, which do not coincide with any semantically related independent words. Roots are main morphemic vehicles of a given idea in a given language at a given stage of its development. A root may be also regarded as the ultimate constituent element which remains after the removal of all functional and derivational affixes and does not admit any further analysis. It is the common element of words within a word-family. Thus, -heart- is the common root of the following series of words: heart, hearten, dishearten, heartily, heartless, hearty, heartiness, sweetheart, heart-broken, kind-hearted, whole-heartedly, etc. In some of these, as, for example, in hearten, there is only one root; in others the root -heart is combined with some other root, thus forming a compound like sweetheart. The root word heart is unsegmentable, it is non-motivated morphologically. The morphemic structure of all the other words in this word-family is obvious they are segmentable as consisting of at least two distinct morphemes. They may be further subdivided into: 1) those formed by affixation or affixational derivatives consisting of a root morpheme and one or more affixes: hearten, dishearten, heartily, heartless, hearty, heartiness; 2) compounds, in which two, or very rarely more, stems simple or derived are combined into a lexical unit: sweetheart, heart-shaped, heart-broken or3) derivational compounds where words of a phrase are joined together by composition and affixation: kind-hearted. This last process is also called phrasal derivation ((kind heart) + -ed)).There exist word-families with several tmsegmentable members, the derived elements being formed by conversion or clipping. The word-family with the noun father as its centre contains alongside affixational derivatives fatherhood, fatherless, fatherly a verb father to adopt or to originate formed by conversion. We shall now present the different types of morphemes starting with the root. It will at once be noticed that the root in English is very often homonymous with the word. This fact is of fundamental importance as it is one of the most specific features of the English language arising from its general grammatical system on the one hand, and from its phonemic system on the other. The influence of the analytical structure of the language is obvious. The second point, however, calls for some explanation. Actually the usual phonemic shape most favoured in English is one single stressed syllable: bear, find, jump, land, man, sing, etc. This does not give much space for a second morpheme to add classifying lexico-grammatical meaning to the lexical meaning already present in the root-stem, so the lexico-grammatical meaning must be signalled by distribution. In the phrases a mornings drive, a mornings ride, a mornings walk the words drive, ride and walk receive the lexico-grammatical meaning of a noun not due to the structure of their stems, but because they are preceded by a genitive. An English word does not necessarily contain formatives indicating to what part of speech it belongs. This holds true even with respect to inflectable parts of speech, i.e. nouns, verbs, adjectives. Not all roots are free forms, but productive roots, i.e. roots capable of producing new words, usually are. The semantic realisation of an English word is therefore very specific. Its dependence on context is further enhanced by the widespread occurrence of homonymy both among root morphemes and affixes. Note how many words in the following statement might be ambiguous if taken in isolation: A change of work is as good as a rest. The above treatment of the root is purely synchronic, as we have taken into consideration only the facts of present-day English. But the same problem of the morpheme serving as the main signal of a given lexical meaning is studied in etymology. Thus, when approached historically or diachronically the word heart will be classified as Common Germanic. One will look for cognates, i.e. words descended from a common ancestor. The cognates of heart are the Latin cor, whence cordial hearty, sincere, and so cordially and cordiality, also the Greek kardia, whence English cardiac condition. The cognates outside the English vocabulary are the Russian cep, the German Herz, the Spanish corazon and other words. To emphasise the difference between the synchronic and the diachronic treatment, we shall call the common element of cognate words in different languages not their root but their radical element. These two types of approach, synchronic and diachronic, give rise to two different principles of arranging morphologically related words into groups. In the first case series of words with a common root morpheme in which derivatives are opposable to their unsuffixed and unprefixed bases, are combined, f. heart, hearty, etc. The second grouping results in families of historically cognate words, f. heart, cor (Lat), Herz (Germ), etc. Unlike roots, affixes are always bound forms. The difference between suffixes and prefixes, it will be remembered, is not confined to their respective position, suffixes being "fixed after and prefixes "fixed before the stem. It also concerns their function and meaning. A suffix is a derivational morpheme following the stem and forming a new derivative in a different part of speech or a different word class, f. -en, -y, -less in hearten, hearty, heartless. When both the underlying and the resultant forms belong to the same part of speech, the suffix serves to differentiate between lexico-grammatical classes by rendering some very general lexico-grammatical meaning. For instance, both -ify and -er are verb suffixes, but the first characterises causative verbs, such as horrify, purify, rarefy, simplify, whereas the second is mostly typical of frequentative verbs: flicker, shimmer, twitter and the like. If we realise that suffixes render the most general semantic component of the words lexical meaning by marking the general class of phenomena to which the referent of the word belongs, the reason why suffixes are as a rule semantically fused with the stem stands explained. A prefix is a derivational morpheme standing before the root and modifying meaning, cf. hearten dishearten. It is only with verbs and statives that a prefix may serve to distinguish one part of speech from another, like in earth n unearth v, sleep n asleep (stative). It is interesting that as a prefix en- may carry the same meaning of being or bringing into a certain state as the suffix -en, f. enable, encamp, endanger, endear, enslave and fasten, darken, deepen, lengthen, strengthen. Preceding a verb stem, some prefixes express the difference between a transitive and an intransitive verb: stay v and outstay (sb) vt. With a few exceptions prefixes modify the stem for time (pre-, post-), place (in-, ad-) or negation (un-, dis-) and remain semantically rather independent of the stem. An infix is an affix placed within the word, like -n- in stand. The type is not productive. An affix should not be confused with a combining form. A combining form is also a bound form but it can be distinguished from an affix historically by the fact that it is always borrowed from another language, namely, from Latin or Greek, in which it existed as a free form, i.e. a separate word, or also as a combining form. They differ from all other borrowings in that they occur in compounds and derivatives that did not exist in their original language but were formed only in modern times in English, Russian, French, etc., f. polyclinic, polymer; stereophonic, stereoscopic, telemechanics, television. Combining forms are mostly international. Descriptively a combining form differs from an affix, because it can occur as one constituent of a form whose only other constituent is an affix, as in graphic, cyclic. Also affixes are characterised either by preposition with respect to the root (prefixes) or by postposition (suffixes), whereas the same combining form may occur in both positions. Cf. phonograph, phonology and telephone, microphone, etc.
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