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e)preposition phraseological units, e.g. in the course of, on the stroke of;

f)interjection phraseological units, e.g. Catch me! Well, I never!

In I.V. Arnold classification there are also sentence equivalents: proverbs, sayings and quotations, e.g. The sky is the limit, What makes him tick, I am easy.

Proverbs are usually metaphorical, e.g. Too many cooks spoil the broth, while sayings are, as a rule, non-metaphorical, e.g. Where there is a will there is a way –

Кто хочет, тот добьется.

Lecture 6

Morpheme. Word-Structure

I.Morpheme

Morphemes are the smallest indivisible two-facet units composite words are made of, e.g. teach-er, kill-joy. A morpheme can occur in speach only as a constituent part of the word. It may have different phonetic variants (allomorphs): decision – attention; inactive – illegal. Its meaning varies too: childish – reddish; encircle – enrich.

Morphemes form an autonomous subsystem of language units. Each morpheme has its norm of combinability with certain other morphemes, cf.: breakage, develop-ment – break-ment, develop-age. Morphemes may be homonymous (motherly - quickly), synonymous (inactive - unhappy), antonymous (useful - useless).

Affixal morphemes carry lexical and grammatical meaning. Functional affixes belong to grammar, they build word-forms: ask-ed, long-er. Lexicology is mainly interested in derivational affixes, as they build words: boy-hood, boy-ish, boy-like. lexical morphology deals with two different problems: word-structure

(segmentation of words into morphemes) and word-formation (making new words with the help of morphemes).

II.Meaning in Morphemes

Lexical meaning of morphemes may be analysed into denotational and connotational components. The denotational meaning in affixes is more generalized than in root-morphemes, e.g. –er carries the meaning the doer of the action: reader, teacher, singer. All endearing and diminutive suffixes bear a heavy emotive charge: -ie (girlie, dearie); -ette (kitchenette). Many stylistically marked affixes are bookish or scientific: a- (amoral); -oid (rhomboid).

All suffixes and some prefixes possess grammatical (part-of-speech) meaning: -ness (emptiness) carries the nominal meaning of thigness. Rootmorphemes do not possess any grammatical meaning: in the root-morpheme man- (manly) there is no grammatical meaning of case and number observed in the word man.

Grammatical and lexical meaning in suffixes are blended: -er (teacher) carries the meaning thingness (noun) and the doer of the action.

In all polymorphemic words their constituent morphemes possess two more types of meaning: differential and distributional. Differential meaning distinguishes a word from all others containig identical morphemes: in the word teacher the root teach- differentiates it from other words beginning in teach (teaching). Distributional meaning is the meaning of the order and arrangement of the constituent morphemes: ring-finger, singer. A different arrangement of the same morphemes will change the meaning of the word or make the word meaningless: finger-ring, er-singer.

III.Classification of Morphemes

By the degree of their independence morphemes are classified into free and bound. Free morphemes may occur alone and coincide with word-forms or immutable words: at, by, water- (water, watery). Bound morphemes occur only in combination with other morphemes: dis- (dislike), -y (watery). Most roots are free but some are bound: cran- (cranberry). Affixes are always bound. Some morphemes occupy an intermediate position between free and bound:

1.semi-affixes: -man (postman), half- (half-eaten);

2.combining forms: tele- (television), graph (autograph);

By their frequency morphemes are classified into recurrent and unique. Recurrent morphemes are found in a number of words: sing-ing = sing- (singer, sing-song) + -ing (walking, drawing). Unique morphemes are found only in a given word: pock (pocket).

By their activity in the language affixes are subduvided into productive and non-productive. Productive affixes are used to build new words: -ism (escapism), - ize (nationalize). Non-productive affixes do not build new words: -th (growth), - ous (monotonous).

By their position in the word affixes are subdivided into prefixes and suffixes. A prefix stands before the root and modifies its lexical meaning: kind – unkind. In some cases it changes the word‘s grammatical or lexico-grammatical meaning: sleep (noun) – asleep (stative). A suffix follows the root, modifying its lexical meaning and changing the word‘s grammatical or lexico-grammatical meaning: appear (verb) – appearance (noun). The suffix renders a very general meaning and is often fused with the root semantically.

Lecture 7

Word-Building

I.Types of Word-Building

Word-building is one of the main ways of enriching vocabulary. There are four main ways of word-building in Modern English: affixation, composition, conversion, shortening. There are also secondary ways of word-building: soundinterchange, stress interchange, sound imitation, blends, back formation (disaffixation).

Sound-interchange is the way of word-building when some sounds are changed to form a new word, e.g. to strike – stroke, to sing – song.

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, e.g. accent

– to accent.

Sound imitation is the way of word-building when a word is built by imitating different sounds:

a)sounds produced by human beings: to whisper, to mumble;

b)sounds produced by animals, birds, insects: to moo, to hiss, to buzz;

c)sounds produced by nature and objects: to splash, to bubble, to clatter. Blends are words formed from a word-group or two synonyms, e.g. hustle

(hurry and bustle), cinemaddict (cinema addict).

Backformation (disaffixation) is the way of word-building when a word is formed by dropping the final morpheme to form a new word, e.g. to bach (from bachelor), to televise (from television). The part-of-speech meaning of the primary word is changed, verbs are formed from nouns.

II.Affixation

Affixation has been one of the most productive ways of word-building throughout the history of English. It consists in adding an affix to the stem of a definite part of speech. Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation.

III.Suffixation

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 v – educatee n.

There are different classifications of suffixes.

1.Part-of-speech classification. Suffixes which can form different parts of speech are given here:

a)noun-forming suffixes: -er criticize, -ism ageism;

b)adjective-forming suffixes: –able breathable, -less symptomless, -ous prestigious;

c)adverb-forming suffixes: -ly singly, -ward tableward, -wise jet-wise;

d)numeral-forming suffixes: -teen sixteen, -ty seventy, -fold twofold.

2. 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: -er teacher, -ist taxist, -ent student;

b)nationality: –ian Russian, -ese Japanese, -ish English.

c)collectivity: -dom kingdom, -ry peasantry, -ship readership;

d)diminutiveness: -ie horsie, -let booklet, -ette kitchenette,

e)quality: -ness copelessness, -ity answerability;

f)feminine gender: -ess actress, -ine heroine, -ette cosmonette;

g)abstract notion: -hood childhood, -ness politeness, -ence/ance tolerance;

h)derogatory meaning: -ard drunkard, -ster gangster.

3. Lexico-grammatical character of the stem. Suffixes added to certain groups of stems are subdivided into:

a)suffixes added to verbal stems: -er commuter, -ing suffering;

b)suffixes added to noun stems: -less smogless, -ism adventurism;

c)suffixes adde to adjective stems: -en weaken, -ish longish.

4. Origin of suffixes.

a)native (Germanic) suffixes: -er teacher, -ful careful, -less painless, -ly swiftly, -dom, -ed, -en, -hood, -ing, -ish, -ness, -ship, -teen, -ty, -ward;

b)Romanic suffixes: -tion attention, -ment development, -able/-ible terrible, moveable, -age, -ard, ance/ence, -ate;

c)Greek suffixes: -ist taxist, -ism capitalism, -ize organize;

d)Russian suffixes: -nik filmnik.

a)simple: -er speaker, -ist taxist;

b)compound –ical, ironical, -ation formation, -manship sportsmanship, ably/ibly terribly, reasonably.

IV. Prefixation

Prefixation is the formation of words by means of adding a prefix to the stem. In English it is characteristic for forming verbs. The main function of prefixes in English is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech, e.g. happyunhappy, head – overhead. Prefixes can be classified according to different principles:

1. Semantic classification:

a) negative prefixes, e.g. in-, uninvaluable, unhappy;

b)prefixes denoting repetition or reversative actions: de-, re-, disdecolonize, revegetation, disconnect;

c)prefixes denoting time, space, degree relations: inter-, hyper-, ex-, pre-, over-

interplanetary, hypertension, ex-student, preelection, overdrugging.

2. Origin of prefixes:

a)native (Germanic): un-, over-, underunhappy, overfeed, undernourish;

b)Romanic: in-, de-, ex-, reinactive, ex-student, rewrite;

c)Greek: symsympathy, hyperhypertension.

3.The function of prefixes. According to their function prefixesmay be convertive and non-convertive:

a)convertive prefixes transfer derivatives to a different part of speech in comparison with their original stem: em-, debronze – to embronze, bus – to debus;

b)non-convertive prefixes: dis-, under-, unto agree - to disagree, to go – to

a)deverbal: rerewrite, overoverdo, outoutstay;

b)denominal: ex- ex-wife, ununbutton, dedetrain;

c)deadjectival: ininactive, ununeasy, biannual.

Lecture 8

Compounding. Conversion. Shortening

I.Composition. Compound words

Composition is the way of word-building when a word is formed by joining two or more stems to form one word. The structural unity of a compound word depends upon:

a)A unity of stress. As a rule, English compounds have one uniting stress, e.g. 'best-seller. We can also have a double stress in an English compound: 'blood-‚vessel. The main stress may be on the second component: ‚sky-'blue.

b)Solid or hyphenated spelling. Spelling in English compounds is not very reliable because they can have different spelling even in the same text, e.g. war-ship, blood-vessel can be spelt through a hyphen and also with a break. Insofar, underfoot can be spelt solidly and with a break.

c)Semantic unity. It is often very strong. in such cases we have idiomatic compounds where the meaning of the whole is not a sum of meanings of its components, e.g. to ghostwrite, skinhead, brain-drain. In nonidiomatic compounds semantic unity is not strong, e.g. airbus, astrodynamics.

d)Unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. They are used in a

sentence as one part of it and only one component changes grammatically: These girls are chatter-boxes.

There are two characteristic features of English compounds:

a)both components in an English compound can be used as words with a distinctive meaning of their own, e.g. a 'green-house and a 'green 'house;