Lecture 6. Shortening and Minor Types of Word- Formation1.Shortening 2. Back-formation 3. Sound imitation 4. Sound gradation 5. Stress interchange

1. Shortening "...the English language tending to monosyllabism turns a zoological garden into a zoo..., popular concerts into pops..." (Ch. Bally, Swiss linguist) Shortening is reduction of a word to one of its parts as a result of which the new form acquires some linguistic value of its own. It presupposes subtraction of parts of the words so that the word becomes curtailed and as a result shorter than its prototype. Various language units can be shortened: single lexemes (ad < advertisement, phone < telephone, etc.), word combinations (MP < Member of Parliament, zoo < zoological garden, etc.) and sentences (IOU < I owe you, WYSIWYG <What you see is what you get).

Shortened words clipped words blends acronyms Clipping or curtailment is curtailing (cutting off) a part of a polysyllabic word so that the word is reduced to one or rarely to two syllables. Clipped words coexist with their prototypes, i.e. the original words which were clipped (e.g., lab < laboratory), however, they are used independently of the prototypes and even can differ in meaning and the semantic structure from them.

The word exam 'testing of knowledge or ability (of students, candidates)' is monosemantic but its prototype has more than one meaning: examination 1) minute inspection; 2) testing of knowledge or ability (of students, candidates); 3) questioning by a lawyer in a law court and other meanings. In some cases the meanings of clipped words divert from the meanings of prototypes (cf., bus < omnibus, story < history). Phonetically the clipped part of the word does not change but there might be changes in spelling in some examples: bike < bicycle, mike < microphone, dub < double. The curtailed words are often homonymous: demo for democracy and demonstration, vet for veteran and veterinary, nat for national, native, natural. Clipping might be combined with affixation: granny < clipping of grandmother + -y. It should be noted that the clipped variants are informal words used mostly in colloquial discourse. They are also frequent in newspapers and magazines.

Clipped words are classified according to what part of the word is clipped: 1) Final clipping (apocope) in which the beginning of the prototype is retained: ad < advertisement, lab < laboratory, lib < liberation, coke < coca-cola, ed < editor, resp < respectively, dif < difference, etc. To this type belong the bulk of clipped words. It can be accounted for by the fact that the beginning of the word is easier recognized, it is more informative as it usually coincides with the root morpheme.

2) Initial clipping ( aphaeresis [ə'f ɪ ər ɪ s ɪ s]) means retaining of the final part of the prototype. Here belong the words phone < telephone, copter < helicopter, cello < violoncello, roo < kangaroo, chute < parachute, which have the same meaning as their prototypes, and the words more firmly established as separate lexical units which developed the meanings different from their prototypes: cute 'sharp-witted, (U.S.) attractive' < acute 'keen, sharp, quick', fend 'ward off, repel' < defend 'keep safe, protect', story 'account of an incident' < history 'continuous record of events', tend 'watch over' < attend 'give care and thought to', sport 'amusement, fun' < disport (arch. relaxation, pastime). Cases of initial clipping are less numerous than final clipping. Initial and final clipping may be combined so that only the middle part of the word is retained which is also a rare case as in the words: flu < influenza, tec < detective, frig/fridge < refrigerator.

3) Medial clipping (syncope) is curtailing middle parts of the words: fancy < fantasy, ma'am < madame, maths < mathematics, specs < spectacles. There are many examples of medial clipping when only the first and the last letters are left: bk < book, ft < foot, rm < room, pd < paid, etc. Some examples of words curtailed in the middle are used only in writing: Mr < Mister, Mrs < Mistress, Ms < Miss & Mistress, Rd < Road. Cases of medial clipping are also few.

Acronyms (graphical abbreviations, initial abbreviations) are shortened words formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts of a complex lexical unit. To acronyms refer the cases of shortening of word combinations, phrases: BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), VIP (very important person), JFK (John Fitzgerald Kennedy) etc. Abbreviations of simple and compound words (mkt - market, fwd - forward, km - kilometre, TV - television, MS - manuscript, TB - tuberculosis, ET or Et - extraterrestrial), sentences (IOU - I owe you, WYSIWYG < What you see is what you get) are limited in number.

According to the ways the acronyms are pronounced they are subdivided into two subgroups: 1) The acronyms which can be read as though they were ordinary English words according to the norms of the English language: UNO ['junou] - United Nations Organization, UNESCO [ju'neskou] – United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, NATO ['neitou], UFO ['jufou] - unidentified flying object, SALT [so:lt] - Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.

2) The acronyms with alphabetic reading: COD ['si:'ou'di:] - cash on delivery, EEC ['i:'i:'si:] - European Economic Community, SOS ['es'ou'es] - save our souls. There are distinguished the so-called initial-syllable abbreviations combining the features of acronyms and clippings: nylon (New York + London), and the words where the first component is one letter and the second one is a root word, combining features of an acronym and a compound word: V-day (Victory day), A-bomb (atomic bomb), H-bag (holiday bag), T- shirt (tennis shirt), etc.

Acronyms function along with their prototypes, they are considered to be not the variants of words or phrases but full- fledged lexical units.   Abbreviations receive the plural and Possessive case inflections: MPs disagree with the Prime-minister.   Doubling is a peculiar way of expressing plural in acronyms: pp - pages, cc - chapters, Il - lines.   They can serve as derivational bases for affixal derivatives: exMP, MPess, radarman;   Undergo conversion: Why don't you come up and P.G. with me? P.G. is an acronym for paying guest;   Can be a part of a compound word as in the above examples: V-day, H-bomb, etc.   Some of the acronyms lost their motivation and are perceived as non-derived simple words: laser - light amplification by stimulating emission of radiation.

Like in a case of clipping there are also homonymous acronyms: DJ 1) dinner jacket, 2) disc jockey; MP 1) Member of Parliament, 2) Military Police; COD l) Cash on Delivery, 2) Concise Oxford Dictionary; g.f. 1) girlfriend, 2) grandfather. – Who’s the letter from? – My g. f. – Didn’t know you had girlfriends. A nice girl? – Idiot! It’s from my grandfather!

[p ɔː t'mæntəu] Blends (portmanteau [p ɔː t'mæntəu] words) The term is created by L.Carroll. Humpty Durnpty, a character of "Alice in Wonderland" says to Alice: 'You see it's like a portmanteau – there are two meanings packed up into one word." Words consisting of shortened parts of two derivational bases: the first constituent part of a blend represents a base whose final part is curtailed, the second part of it is made of a base whose initial part is missing. The process of coining such words is called blending or telescoping because words seem to slide into one another like sections in a telescope. The best known example is the word smog which was formed from sm(oke) + (f)og.

I.V.Arnold distinguishes two types of blends: 1) The additive type which is transformable into a phrase consisting of the corresponding stems of derivational bases combined by the conjunction and: smaze < smoke and haze, brunch < breakfast and lunch, mimsy < miserable and flimsy, transistor < transfer and resist(or), camcorder < camera and recorder, Oxbridge < Oxford and Cambridge. 2) The restrictive type is transformable into an attributive phrase where the first element serves as modifier of the second: motel < motorist's hotel, bit < binary digit, positron < positive electron, telecast < television broadcast. There are also blends formed by joining together two initial syllables: Interpol < International police, modcons < modern conveniences.

2. Back formation (back derivation, disaffixation) is the process of coining verbs by curtailing of a real or supposed suffix from corresponding nouns as in the following examples: to beg < beggar, to burgle < burglar, to sculpt < sculptor, to cobble < cobbler. Back derivation is determined by a diachronic analysis. In modern English back formation is rather active, e.g.: to televise < television, to lase < laser, to enthuse < enthusiasm, to automate < automation. Productive is back formation from compound words: to typewrite < typewriter, to baby-sit < baby-sitter. to housekeep < housekeeping, to air-condition < air- conditioner, to proof-read < proof-reading, etc. It can be accounted for by the fact that first is created the name for a certain new object like air-conditioner or typewriter and then the verb is coined by back formation.

3. Sound imitation (onomatopoeia Gr. onoma 'name‘, poeia 'creation‘) is naming of an action or thing by a more or less exact reproduction of a sound associated with it. The onomatopoeic words are phonetically motivated. Onomatopoeic words reproduce many sounds of living and lifeless nature, the sounds accompanying certain processes and actions. First of all, a lot of onomatopoeic verbs are imitations of sounds produced by animals: beasts, birds, insects: buzz, hiss, bark, cackle, croak, crow, quack, grunt, honk, howl, moo, mew etc. Some birds got their names by the sounds they produce, e.g. a cuckoo, a crow, humming-bird. Many onomatopoeic words are imitations of the sounds produced by human beings in the process of communication and expressing their states or emotions: whisper, chatter, murmur, mutter.

4. Sound interchange is an opposition in which words or word forms are differentiated due to an alternation in the phonemic composition of the root. The change may affect the root vowel, as in food n : : feed v; or root consonant as in speak v : : speech n; or both, as for instance in life n : : live v. It may also be combined with affixation: strong a : : strength n; or with affixation and shift of stress as in 'democrat : : de'mocracy. The process is not active in the language at present, and oppositions like those listed above survive in the vocabulary only as remnants of previous stages. It may signal the non-identity of words belonging to different parts of speech: full a : : fill v; food n : : feed v; or to different lexico-grammatical sets within the same part of speech: lie : : lay, sit : : set, rise : : raise.

5. Stress interchange. Some disyllabic nouns and verbs of Romanic origin have a distinctive stress pattern. Thus, 'conduct n ‘behaviour’ is forestressed, whereas con'duct v ‘to lead or guide (in a formal way)’ has a stress on the second syllable. Other examples are: accent, conflict, contest, contract (extract), contrast, convict, digest, essay, export (import, transport), increase, insult, object (subject, project), perfume, permit, present, produce, progress, protest, rebel, record, survey, torment, transfer etc. Examples of words of more than two syllables are very few:‘ attribute n : : a'ttribute v. Historically this is probably explained by the fact that these words were borrowed from French where the original stress was on the last syllable. Thus, ac'cent comes through French from Latin ac'centus. Verbs retained this stress all the more easily as many native disyllabic verbs were also stressed in this way: be’come, be'lieve, for'bid, for'get, for'give. A similar phenomenon is observed in some homographic pairs of adjectives and verbs, e.g. ‘absent a : : ab’sent v; ‘frequent a : : fre'quent v; ‘perfect a : : per'fect v; ‘abstract a : : ab’stract v.