Content

Chapter 1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION, DEFINITIONS, TERMINOLOGY........................................ Word, word-form, lexeme............................................. Morpheme, morph........................................................ Bound / free.................................................................. Root, stem, base............................................................ Inflection. Derivation.................................................... Class-maintaining. Class-changing.............................. Chapter 2 DERIVATION BY AFFIXATION...................................... The origin of prefixes and suffixes............................... Prefixes / negative prefixes........................................... Prefixes other than negative.......................................... Suffixation.................................................................... Noun - forming suffixes............................................... Adjective - forming suffixes......................................... Verb - forming suffixes................................................ Other suffixes............................................................... Chapter 3 CONVERSION...................................................................... Preliminary conclusions................................................ Assets and liabilities of English.................................... Words and word-formation........................................... Several classifications of conversion............................ Chapter 4 COMPOUNDING.................................................................. Compound nouns.......................................................... Compound adjectives.................................................... Compound verbs........................................................... Chapter 5 MINOR MEANS OF WORD FORMATION...................... Clipping or Contraction................................................ Abbreviation / Acronyms.............................................. Deflection..................................................................... Back-formation............................................................. Reduplication................................................................ Chapter 6 SEMANTIC AND OTHER RELATIONS BETWEEN WORDS............................................................. Polysemy or plurality of meaning................................. Homonymy................................................................... Synonymy..................................................................... Antonyms..................................................................... Bibliography...........................................................................

Chapter I
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GENERAL INTRODUCTION, DEFINITIONS, TERMINOLOGY LEXICOLOGY (< Gr. lexicon / lexicos = word, Gr. logos = science of, teaching) is a branch of linguistics which studies the vocabulary of a language. Depending on the way the study of words is performed as well as on the periods of time implied lexicology may be: synchronical (i.e. it describes Modern and Contemporary English vocabulary, dealing with the various problems of the English language at a given moment - present - of its development) and diachronical (i.e. it offers explanations on a historical basis to certain synchronical aspects that cannot be understood without a historical approach). The alternation between the synchronical and diachronical planes is inevitable, and the fact is reflected in the sections of which descriptive lexicology is made up: lexical units, sources of the vocabulary, word formation, words and meanings, changes of meanings, semantic relations between words, lexical strata, lexicography etc. Although lexicology has its own definite range of problems, it cannot be separated from phonetics and grammar, any single word may be studied from various viewpoints: phonetic, grammatical, lexical and stylistic. In its turn, grammar may be interested in a word, morphologically and syntactically. Phonetics considers the word from the point of view of its pronunciation, analysing the sounds of which it is made up. Lexicology is interested in the etymology of a word, in its homonymy as a noun, verb etc., in the affixes it may get (inflectional or word-forming etc.). The stylistic approach aims to establish whether a certain word in a certain context is formal, familiar, colloquial, archaic etc. THE NATURE OF THE LEXICON/VOCABULARY The term "lexicon" is known in English from the early 17-th century when it referred to a book containing a selection of a language's words and meanings arranged in alphabetical order. The term comes from the GR. LEXIS = word. Especially in linguistics it refers to the total stock of meaningful units in a language - not only the words and idioms, but also the parts of words which express meaning, such as the affixes (prefixes, infixes and suffixes). The study of the lexicon implies: how words are formed, how they have developed over time, how they are used now, how they relate in meaning to each other, how they are handled in dictionaries. The terms lexicology, lexicologist,lexicography, lexicographer, all coming from Greek are related and mean, in turn, the science of words, the specialist dealing with words and their characteristics concerning etymology, WF, meaning etc, the science of making dictionaries and, finally, the specialist in making dictionaries. In English dictionaries the head-words (HW) are traditionally called words, i.e. units of meaning. The term WORD covers most instances, but at a careful look something more subtle emerges. (Details on the lexeme and word form are given below). David Crystal agrees with the terminology given belowbut he adds some new examples, which, he says, should be analysed as follows: It was raining cats and dogs. Any English speaker understands that the previous unit should not be taken literally and the meaning the speaker wanted to pass over is that the action of raining is very heavy(ily)/aggressive(ly)/ etc., i.e 'cats and dogs' stands for an adjective or an adverb. Usually this unit is referred to as an idiom, but an idiom is larger than a word.
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Other examples, e.g. Come in!/ Get out!/ Look out! These are units of meaning which are larger than a single word, but such phrases hardly seem to have enough "meat" (=substance) to be called idioms. THE BASIC LINGUISTIC UNIT - THE WORD The basic linguistic unit with which lexicology operates is the WORD - "an element of human speech to which a meaning is attached, which is apt to be used grammatically, and which can be understood by a human collectivity constituted in a historical community". (Leon Levichi, Lexicologie, page 13, Editura Didactic i Pedagogic, Bucureti 1970). This is ONE definition. There are many definitions but none covers everything. A WORD is not the same thing in all languages - see Eskimo, Turkish, even Latin, where whole sentences are one word. To cover such cases, "a word" is what native speakers consider a word is (Matthews, 1972), but such a definition would not be of any great value in linguistic analysis (i.e. in Eskimo the rules for the formation of words are identical with the rules for the formation of sentences). Therefore, our purposes will be best served if we consider lexicology in terms applied to Indo-European languages and to a large degree to English alone. Lexically and grammatically, the structure of a word may be analysed in connection with such categories as morphemes, roots, stems, bases etc. Word, word-form, lexeme Let us consider the following sentence (demonstration taken from Laurie Bauer, English WordFormation, pages 11, 12): This hunter shoots big game. The speaker who does not understand the verb in this sentence and looks it up in the dictionary would expect to find all the information necessary for the interpretation of not only shoot, but also of shooting and shot. Shoot just happens to be the key member of the inflectional paradigm in which shoots occurs. When the word shoot is talked about in this sense, it refers not to the particular shape that a word has on a particular occasion, but to all the possible shapes that the word can have. For this sense of "word" the term LEXEME is used. The words shoot, shoots, shooting, shot are all subsumed under the lexeme shoot, and, yet, each comprises not only the lexeme shoot, but also the representations of the various inflectional categories attached to the lexeme for use in an utterance on a particular occasion. When it is not the lexeme that is under consideration, but the particular shape that a word has on a particular occasion, the term WORD-FORM is used. WORD-FORMS have phonological and orthographic shape, while a LEXEME is a much more abstract unit. In the light of this new terminology, the word-form shot is a form of the lexeme shoot. LEXEMES occur in a more metaphorical sense, since actual occurrences in speech or writing always have phonic or orthographic form, the items that occur are word-forms and the word-forms represent lexemes. The Grammatical Word (the morpho-syntactic word). The word-form shot represents two grammatical words: the past tense and the past participle that are both in the paradigm of the lexeme shoot. In discussion of word-formation (WF) it is frequently not clear whether it is the lexeme or the word-form that is involved in a given process. Not only is it frequently difficult to
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make a principled decision in this respect, but in many cases it is theoretically unimportant whether it is a word-form or a lexeme which is involved (though the distinction may be crucial on other occasions). Laurie Bauer deliberately uses the term WORD in a vague sense, situating it between word-form and lexeme. Morpheme, morph Morphology - as a sub-branch of linguistics deals with the internal structure of word-forms. The basic units of analysis recognized in morphology are MORPHEMES (i.e. the minimal unit of grammatical analysis ) e.g. un - touch - able - s. MORPHEMES are abstract elements of analysis and what actually occurs is a phonetic/ orthographic form which realizes the morpheme. The realized form is called a MORPH, e.g. in the previous example un - touch - able - s are MORPHS, each representing a MORPHEME. So, a MORPH can be defined as a segment of a word-form which represents a particular morpheme (Lyons, 1968, Matthews 1974, 1983 ). Was is a morph and a word-form (at the same time) which represents the morpheme [be] + [past tense] [sg.] Bound / free A MORPH that can occur in isolation is termed a FREE MORPH, while a morph that can occur only in a word-form in conjunction with at least one other morph is termed a BOUND MORPH.

E .g . u n - to u c h - a b le - s fre e m o rp h b o u n d m o rp h s

b le n d - e r - s free m o rp h b o u n d m o rp h s

BOUND MORPHS which do not realize analysable lexemes are called AFFIXES. AFFIXES: according to their attachment place to a word, affixes fall into 3 classes, of which INFIXES do not exist either in English or in Romanian; English linguists argue upon the status of certain 4-letter words that are introduced within a word (only in spoken English), a linguistic fact that amounts to actual swearing (e.g. un-bloody-distinguish, dis-f.ing-charge etc.). It is not our intention here to argue whether such instances are instances of infixation or not. These unanalysable lexemes are called with one general term affixes: .prefixes placed before a base; .suffixes placed after a base; .infixes placed inside a base (but not in standard English). PREFIXATION is always derivational while SUFFIXATION can be both derivational (in word-formation) and inflectional (grammar), i.e. prefixational derivation belongs exclusively to the field of WF while suffixation is partly an instance of grammar (inflectional suffixes) and partly belongs to WF (derivational morphology). Root, stem, base

In order to distinguish between derivational and inflectional morphology the learner needs to understand the terms root, stem and base, as a first step to achieving a good performance in WF in English, i.e. these three terms are used to designate that part of a word that remains when the affixes have been removed. However, there are distinctions between the three terms. According to Lyons and Matthews these terms can be described as follows: A ROOT - is a form which is not further analysable, either in terms of derivational or inflectional morphology. In the example un - touch - able - s the root is touch while un- , -able, -s are affixes. But in arm - chair or wheel - chair there are only two roots which are put together and the resulting word is a compound. A STEM - is of concern only when dealing with inflectional morphology. A STEM can be simple or complex. What remains when inflectional affixes are removed is called a STEM.
E .g .

u n to u c h a b le - s a s te a m in fle c tio n a l e n d in g

w h ile in

w h e e lc h a ir - s in fle c tio n a l e n d in g

tw o - ro o t s te m

A BASE - is any form to which any kind of affixes can be added, i.e. any ROOT or STEM can be termed a BASE. A derivationally analysable form to which derivational affixes are added can only be referred to as a BASE. For example, touchable - can act as a base for prefixation > untouchable. But here, touchable cannot be referred to as a root because it is analysable in terms of derivational morphology, nor as a stem, since it is not the adding of inflectional affixes which is in question. The term BASE is therefore more frequently used.
w o rd - fo rm u n to u c h a b le s s te m /b a s e u n to u c h a b le a n a ly s a b le b a s e to u c h a b le u n a n a ly s a b le ro o t / b a se to u c h in fle c tio n a l s u f f ix - s w o rd - fo rm to u c h e d ro o t/s te m /b a s e to u c h in f le c tio n a l s u ffix - ed

d e r iv a tio n a l a ff ix ( p r e fix ) un d e r iv a tio n a l s u ff ix - a b le

Inflection and Derivation The definitions of LEXEME, ROOT and STEM have presupposed a definition of INFLECTION. Theoretically, definitions of inflections presuppose a definition of LEXEME and we become circular. The risk of circularity could be avoided, however, when all the characteristics of inflectional morphology are considered. Inflection In 1977, Lyons states that inflection produces from the stem (or stems) of a given lexeme all the word-forms of that lexeme which occur in syntactically determined environments. There are though several restrictions:
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1. inflection involves relatively few variables in a closed system (Strang, 1968) - e.g. the category of number in English - singular and plural, i.e. there are only two variables and no extra-variable can be added to the list without radically changing the whole system. This is what Strang means by a closed system. 2. commutability is defined as substitutability within a syntagmatic frame. If a series of parallel word-forms are considered in isolation from their syntactic environment, and a given prefix can be replaced by one or more other suffixes wherever it occurs, then it can be said to be highly commutable within the word-form. For example, in a series of word-forms like: bangs, calls, covers, loves, walks, the [s] is commutable with [0] (i.e. present tense but not 3rd person singular), [-ing], and [-ed] but not with [-let] and [-ish] though these affixes can be added to some of the bases. On the other hand, in any given sentence, the possibility of commuting the affixes which are highly commutable within the word-form will tend to be low. For example, in I am covering the wall with paint the [-ing] cannot commute with [-s], [-ed], [0]. So, inflection can be said to be characterized by high commutability within the word-form but low commutability within the sentence (Bazell, 1953). This criterion will provide a cline (ansamblu de caracteristici morfologice) of inflectionally marked forms rather than a yes/no answer to the question whether a given affix is inflectional. 3. Morphs whose form is specified by rules of agreement are inflectional see the agreement in English (here the term covers both concord* and government**). *Concord is the system whereby two or more lexemes are obligatorily marked for the same morphological categories to show a specific syntactic relationship between the two elements (Laurie Bauer, page 24) - typical examples: the agreement between adjectives and nouns for number, gender, case in many Indo-European languages; or the agreement between subject and its verb in English and Romanian etc. **Government is the system whereby one element in a sentence determines which morpheme is added to another element (Laurie Bauer, page 24). Typical examples: the agreement between the case of a noun and the preposition which precedes it, or between a verb and its in/direct object in languages like German, Latin, Romanian, Russian etc. E.g. Ei au luptat contra dumanului; I gave it to one of the boys who came yesterday. However, not all the morphemes which are generally taken to be inflectional mark agreement. For example, the category of tense is usually taken to be inflectional but, except in cases where the sequence of tense rules apply it does not generally mark agreement. Similarly, the genitive in This is that girl's boat. 'S does not really mark agreement, although it does mark syntactic function and the same is true with the comparative in a sentence like: She is taller than her brother. Although this criterion fails to include all the morphemes which are generally considered inflectional, it apparently excludes morphemes generally considered derivational. NOTE - to distinguish between derivational and inflectional elements found together the learner should know that the derivational element is usually more intimately connected to the root: in untouchables, -able is closer to the root touch than s, which is an inflectional suffix; or in booklets, developments etc. However, if this is true in English, it is not necessarily so in other languages, like in German for instance: Klei - der - chen (little clothes) where -er is an inflectional suffix marking the plural and -chen which is a derivational suffix for diminutive. Or, Bch - er chen (little books, booklets) etc. Derivation

Derivation is the morphological process that results in the formation of new lexemes (Lyons, 1977). It is characterized by low commutability within the word-form, but a few kinds of derivation are characterized by low commutability within the sentence (e.g. feminine forms in -ess in English). A TEST FOR DERIVATION (Martinet, 1960; Matthews, 1974) - if a form including affixes can be replaced in some of its occurrences in sentences by a simple root form, then that form shows derivation rather than inflection. E.g. frustration and writer in: Frustration / Pain made him stop writing his book. The writer / The boy received a well-earned prize. Frustration and writer can be replaced by pain and boy, respectively. So, frustration and writer are definitely instances of derivation, whereas kisses in: He always kisses his mother good night. can not be replaced by a simple root form and must be considered an instance of inflection. Unfortunately, this criterion does not work in highly inflected languages, because in such languages it is rarely possible to have a simple root form as a word-form. This criterion is not even satisfactory in English! In a sentence like: They always kissed their mother good night. it is possible to replace the form kissed with the simple root kiss and, yet, one cannot say that kissed is an example of derivational morphology. Two other CRITERIA ought to be mentioned: 1. In derivation there are likely to be large numbers of unpredictable gaps in the system while inflection is much less likely to have such unpredictable gaps. E.g. regress, confess, caress regression, confession, but *caression does not exist; on the other hand, there is session but not the verb *sess which could have been its base. There are other gaps in inflectional paradigms but these are rarer. E.g. verbal forms that are not found in all persons and tenses (see the modal verbs in English - they do not have infinitive or present/past participles). 2. The products of inflectional morphology are semantically regular, whereas the products of derivational morphology tend not to be. E.g. the relationship between the stem and the inflected form in the pairs car/cars, girl/girls, shoe/shoes is consistent whereas the relationship between the base and the derived form in impress/impression, meaning "result of imposing something on something else", profess/profession, suppress/suppression is not semantically consistent. However, a number of processes which are usually considered to be derivational do display semantic regularity: e.g. the formation of the adjectives in -able from transitive verbs (cap - able of being V-ed): exploitable, deliverable, operable, closable, openable (Thomson, 1975). Sometimes one or more derivational processes may apply to forms containing more than one root: e.g. strongheadedness, short-sightedness, school-masterish, superhighway etc. The Concepts of Class-maintaining and Class-changing As far as the concepts of class-changing and class-maintaining are concerned, they are not absolute, but it can be stated that in English prefixation is typically class-maintaining, i.e. prefixes
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do not change the morphological category/class of the word (although there are exceptions, e.g. danger n. > en/danger vb., courage n. > encourage, friend n. > befriend), e.g. important adj. understand vb. pronunciation n. reliable adj. unimportant adj. misunderstand vb. mispronunciation n. unreliable adj.

while derivational suffixation is typically class-changing (though there are exceptions: child childhood etc. to be seen later). E.g. beauty n. colour n. tolerate vb. use n.
child n.

beautify vb. colourful adj. tolerance n. useless adj.

childish/ly adv.

General Comment on Morphology and One of the Possible Classifications

One part of morphology is the inflectional morphology, an important part of it and is frequently referred to as grammar. Every language is characterized by its grammar and important grammar differences between languages make them part of distinct families of languages. Grammar is also defined as that part of morphology that deals with forms of individual lexemes. This part of morphology is not treated in this work, accidental references are possible when the main subject of the present book requires it. Another important part of morphology is that dealing with the formation of new words, in other words it deals with the formation of new lexemes. Word formation (WF) is common to all languages but the means may be different or in varying proportion to one another, e.g. conversion in English is more strongly represented and is more productive than in any Romance language, Romanian included.

WORD-FORMATION (deals with the formation of new lexemes): MAJOR MEANS OF WF DERIVATION (one root) a. Prefixation b. Suffixation suffixes proper zero suffix - CONVERSION; CONVERSION - as a particular case of derivation COMPOUNDING (more than one root); MINOR MEANS OF WF: blending; clipping (front, mid and back) acronyms etc. back-formation reduplications The results of derivation are called derivatives: tolerant/ly, writ/er,widely, symmetrical etc Compounding produces compounds: butterfly, armchair,whitewash, blackboard, wheel-chair etc.
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Compounding + Derivation produces complex forms: long-legged, blue-eye/d, school-master/ish, shortsighte/ed/ness, narrow-mind/ed/ness etc. While grammar deals with inflectional morphology, lexicology is interested in the enrichment of the vocabulary, etymology, word-formation etc., all connected with words and their way in the language. The vocabulary or the lexicon of a language acquires new items from other languages (borrowings or loans) but the language itself is also able to produce new words, operating with its own material, in accordance with general rules that have been functioning in the language for centuries.

Chapter II DERIVATION BY AFFIXATION One of the most important means of WF, if not the most important one, is derivation by affixation. The special case of derivation by 0 derivation, also called CONVERSION, will be treated in another chapter of this book, as it has become so productive in Modern English that it is considered separately from its starting form. Derivation is defined as a major means of WF in which certain morphological classes (mainly nouns, adjectives and verbs) get affixes (prefixes and/or suffixes), the resulting products preserving their morphological class (prefixation) or changing it (suffixation). Aderivation is a very complex process which needs to be approached from various angles. According to Ioana tefnescu : Affixation rules are operations that produce new words by applying to an already existing word; they are regular rules that build potential complex words on the pattern of actual word. Words produced by affixation rules are morphologically complex; in terms of internal structural properties, words produced by affixation rules contain a STEM and an AFFIX. The stem can be a simple word (i.e. red-ness, un-happy etc.) or it can be a word containing other affixes (i.e. puri/fy - purification, spirit/ual - spiritualize etc.). An affix is always a bound morpheme which does not exist independently of the word-formation rule that attaches it. An affixation rule applies to a BASE-word and attaches to it an AFFIX. Both the base

and the affix must have certain characteristics to be able to combine. Mainly, these specifications are the following: 1. phonological properties; 2. morphological properties; 3. syntactic properties (not to be discussed here); 4. sense properties. THE ORIGIN OF PREFIXES AND SUFFIXES Diachronically speaking there are: native prefixes and suffixes that have developed out of independent words, i.e. a-, be-, fore-, mis-, un-, or -dom, -hood etc; prefixes and suffixes that are due to a clipping process, .e.g. mini- < miniature or -burger < hamburger etc.; prefixes and suffixes that came into language by borrowing, i.e. -age, -ance, -ity etc. PREFIXES NEGATIVE PREFIXES Negative prefixes are the following: non-, un-, in-, dis-, de-, mal-, mis-, generally derived from adjectives expressing negative or undesirable qualities. A - a negative prefix meaning without; it is mostly productive in scientific language and attaches to Adjectives e.g. amoral, apolitical, aphasic, atemporal etc. ANTI- (< Greek anti - counter, against ) means against whatever the base noun denotes; it is usually attached to nouns and the prefix is stressed. Nouns e.g. anti-creator, anti-God, anti-creation, anti-matter, anti-proton, anti-Bonapartist, anti-communist, anti - administration, anti-trust, anti-war etc. COUNTER- (< Fr. contre) applies mainly to verbal bases to form negative verbs; the meaning is converse action to the action denoted by the verbal base; generally the prefix is stressed. Verbs e.g. counter/act, counter/balance, counter/point, counter/attack, couter/change, counter/ weigh etc. counter/attract, counter/march,

Nouns - counter/nouns can be obtained by further derivation or conversion from counter/verbs, e.g. counter/action, counter/attack, counter/balance, counter/change, counter/march, counter/ demonstration, or by attaching the prefix to other nouns, e.g. counter/part, counter/propaganda, counter/ espionage etc. counterintelligence,

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DE- is most productive with verb bases ending in: -ize, -ify, -ate, but it can also be attached to other verb bases which do not have a characteristic verbal ending, Verbs e.g. de/oxidize, de/carbonize, de/localize, de/militarize, de/sensitize, etc de/populate, de/contaminate, de/segregate, de/limitate, etc de/gasify, de/code, de/compose, Nouns e.g. de/moralization, de/mobilization, de/cortication, de/calcification, de/magnetization, de/personalization, de/contamination, declassification, de/centralization, de/militarization, de/activation, de/canonize, de/magnetize, de/mobilize, de/materialize, de/corticate, de/activate, de/colorate, de/calcify, de/vitrify, de/cipher, de/compress etc. de/moralize, de/centralize, de/personalize, de/nuclearize, de/capsulate, de/capitate, de/lineate, de/electrify, de/classify etc. de/value,

de/frosting, de/coding, de/ciphering, de/composition, de/compression, de/briefing etc. DIS - generally combines with Romance elements; DIS - is related to the French DES - which, in its turn, is connected to the negative D-. The fact that DIS - and D - are historically connected can be easily verified in the existence of parallel derivatives in dis - and de -, e.g. debar / disbar and even unbar. It is a fairly productive prefix which does not have variants; it is always pronounced [dis-] whether it precedes a vowel or a consonant; the pronunciation *[diz] is unacceptable; it chiefly attaches to: Verbs e.g. dis/arrange, dis/connect, dis/entangle, dis/integrate, dis/place, Nouns e.g. dis/colouration, dis/entanglement, dis/integration, dis/band, dis/continue, dis/infect, dis/order, dis/prove, dis/connection, dis/order, dis/placement etc. dis/colour, dis/embark, dis/inherit, dis/people, dis/unite etc. dis/embarkment, dis/infection,

DYS a formal prefix, mainly used in medical language, meaning abnormal, diseased, unpleasant; see also MAL -. It attaches to Nouns e.g. dysentery dyspepsia dyspnoea dysfunction dystrophy dystocia dyslexia dysmenorrhaea dysuria etc.
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IN- is less productive than UN- because certain phonological operations are required when the base begins in l-, m-, p-, r- . IN- and its allomorphs (or variants) usually attach to: IN - becomes: IL- before / l /, IM- before the labials / m, p / IR- before / r / . Adjectives e.g. inaccessible, inarticulate, inconstant, indecorous, insoluble, insufferable etc.

inadequate, incomplete, incorrect, ineffectual, inseparable,

inapt, inconceivable, indecisive, inexcusable, insignificant,

For reasons of euphony, the prefix cannot attach to words beginning in in-, the prefix un- being used instead. e.g. inhabitable > uninhabitable and not *ininhabitable, or intelligible > unintelligible. Phonological variants, as the ones mentioned above, appear in words like: illegal, illegible, illicit, illimitable, illogical etc. immaterial, immovable, impalpable, impractical, impersonal, imprudent irrational, irreducible, irrefutable, irrelevant, irreparable, irrelevant etc. Nouns e.g. inadequacy, indecisiveness, insignificance, illiteracy, impartiality, irregularity, incompleteness, independence, illegibility, immortality, improbability, irregularity, etc illegitimate, illiterate, immortal, impartial, improbable, irrevocable, irregular, irreplaceable,

incorrectness, insolubility, illegitimacy, immovability, imprudence,

MAL - (< Fr. mal) it has partly a negative meaning and, partly, a disqualifying meaning. According to Marchand, in English, it is mainly used with the second meaning. Although it is not very productive in English, it is worth remembering that it attaches mainly to nouns and verbs; the mal /nouns were mostly borrowed from French and, later on, by back-clipping the corresponding mal/verb(s) have been obtained. Nouns e.g. mal/government, mal/formation, mal/assimilation, Verbs e.g. mal/govern, mal/adaptation, mal/construction, mal/practice etc. mal/adapt, mal/conduct, mal/adjustment, mal/conduct,
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mal/form, mal/assimilate, Adjectives e.g. mal/adroit, mal/ adjusted,

mal/construct, mal/practise etc. mal/odorous, mal/formed etc.

mal/adjust, mal/content,

Adjectives of this type were borrowed as such from French. MIS - the meaning is badly, wrongly; it usually attaches to verbs and nouns and is stressed in most instances; e.g. Verbs e.g. mis/advise, mis/calculate, mis/carry, mis/conduct, mis/conceive, mis/do, mis/inform, mis/interpret, mis/place, mis/pronounce, mis/understand etc. Nouns - e.g. the mis/nouns can be obtained by conversion or further derivation of the mis/verbs; sometimes verbal forms in -ing may function as nouns: mis/advice, mis/calculation, mis/carriage, mis/conduct, mis/conception, misgoverning, mis/information, mis/interpretation, mis/pronunciation etc. NON - is a fairly productive prefix, and usually attaches to: Adjectives: e.g. non-active, non-breakable, non-stop, non-essential, non-Euclidian, non-nuclear, Some of these adjectives combine with other negative prefixes, special productivity in English today; Nouns e.g. non-combustion, non-producer, non-subscriber,
non-member,

non-efficient, non-human, non-logical etc. but NON- has simply acquired a

non-demand, non-novel, non-entity,

non-cooperation,

non-believer, non-resident, non-existence,

non- etc.

UN- a very productive prefix, usually attaches to: Adjectives < verbs, i.e. past and present participles and also adjectives ending in -able/ible, -al, -ly, -ful, -ive, -ous, -ic, -y, -like: e.g. unabbreviated, unattached, unborn, unbroken, unburied, uncontrolled, unconfirmed, undignified, undone, unfulfilled, uninhabited, unmarried, unmarked, unlit, unread, unsuspected, unverified, unwritten etc. unassuming, unerring, unresisting, untiring, unacceptable, undeserving, unhesitating, unsatisfying, unyielding etc. unaccountable, unending, unknowing, unthinking, unadaptable,
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unadvisable, unconquerable, undistinguishable, unphilosophical, unconstitutional, unessential, unscholarly, unfatherly, ungentlemanly etc. unaggresive, unimaginative, unrepresentative, unreflective etc. ungracious, unambitious, unreligious, unscientific, uneconomical, unpatriotic, uneasy, unsavory,

unwearable, undeniable, undrinkable etc. unbiblical, uneconomical, unessential etc. unbrotherly, unfriendly, unattractive, un-inventive, unresponsive, unscrupulous, unpretentious, unsuspicious etc. unartistic, unenthusiastic, unromantic, unhealthy, unparliamentary,

unavoidable, unedible, uncritical, unemotional, unearthly, ungodly, uncommunicative, unproductive, uncreative, unambiguous, unprosperous, undiplomatic, unheroic, unhistoric etc. unlucky, unworthy etc.

unbusinesslike, unladylike, unmanlike, unwarlike, unsportsmanlike etc. It is interesting to remark that there are some negative UN-adjectives which do not have corresponding un-negated forms; the un-negated forms have become archaic or unrecognizable, i.e. unrelenting (nenduplecat, nempcat; aspru, sever), unabashed (mndru, trufa, orgolios; arogant), unexampled (neasemuit, fr egal, unic), unprecedented (fr precedent, neasemuit), uncouth (necivilizat, needucat; barbar, slbatic; scandalagiu; stngaci) unkempt (zbrlit, vlvoi; nengrijit, leampt). There are a few UN-derived adjectives formed from simple-base adjectives, i.e. a prefix added to a short adjective of native origin, but it is neither a question of shortness nor of native or foreign origin that explains the phenomenon. A derivative like *ungood is blocked by the existence of the antonym bad. The pairs happy - unhappy, tidy - untidy, wise - unwise are justified by the fact that not happy does not mean unhappy. While not happy simply expresses the absence of happiness (but the subject may not be unhappy), unhappy is the antonym of happy (a definitely negative form). Verbs, e.g. unbend, unchain, unhinge, unpeople, unsaddle, unbutton, unfix, unlink, unplug, unscrew, uncage, unfold, untie, unquote, unseal,
14

unstrap, unzip etc.

unstring,

unwrap,

In point of their semantics, the negative derivatives imply the existence of a former state characterized by whatever the base verb designates, thus, to unpack an object entails a prior state at which it was true of the object that it was packed.
PREFIXES OTHER THAN NEGATIVE

AERO AFTER AGRO ALL ANTE ANTHROP(O) AQUA ARCH ASTR(O) AUDIO AUTO BE not productive in contemporary English. It was attached to verbs, nouns and adjectives (see verb-forming prefixes). The present and past participles of the newly-formed verbs can be used as adjectives, e.g. becalmed, bereaved betrothed bedraggled besotted bewildered bewitched beloved bemused bejewelled bewigged bespectacled bewitching begrudging bequeathing etc. BI BIO CARDIO CENT CHRONO CIRCUM CO CON COL, COM, COR CONTRA COUNTER CROSS CRYPTO DECA DECI DEMI DERM DOUBLE DOWN

EXTRA - means beyond the limits set by the adjectival root/base; additional when it attaches to nouns,
15

 Adjectives e.g. extracellular, extramural, extraregular, Nouns e.g. extra money,

extrajudiceal, extralegal, extramarital, extraordinary, extra-terrestrial etc. extra personnel, extra coffee etc.

FORE- means before; it attaches mainly to verbs and nouns as well as to deverbal adjectives: Verbs e.g. fore/bode, fore/doom, fore/see, fore/tell, Nouns e.g. fore/noon, fore/court, fore/foot, fore/knowledge, Adjectives (only deverbal ones) e.g. fore/cited, fore/going, fore/told etc. fore/cast, fore/hand, fore/stall, fore/warn, etc fore/arm, fore/father, fore/front, fore/sight, fore/dated, fore/gone, foreclose, fore/know, fore/wear,

fore/closure, fore/finger, fore/ground, fore/head, etc fore/feeling, fore/handed,

IN- means into; it is not very productive and is mainly attached to adjectives, nouns and verbs, e.g. ingoing, ingrowing, ingulf, ingurgitate, inhabit, inlet, insight, inhale, ingraft etc. MAXI- means larger than normal; at the speakers' will it can attach to any noun to show that it is larger than normal Nouns e.g. maxitaxi, maxidress, maxiskirt etc. MINI - means very small miniature; it attaches to: Nouns e.g. miniskirt, minicar, minibus, minibook etc.

miniphone,

OUT - means out of, go beyond; be better than ; it is the opposite of in = into and can affect verbs and nouns only, Verbs e.g. out/live, out/class, out/fight, out/stretch etc. Nouns e.g. out/law, out/line, out/shine, out/flow, out/pour, out/growth, out/post etc. out/grow, out/face, out/run, out/let,

16

OVER - means above, beyond, in excess, exaggerated; it is very productive and can attach to verbs, nouns and adjectives. Verbs e.g. over/develop, over/bid, over/buy, over/do, Nouns e.g. over/abundance, over/draft, over/plus, Adjectives e.g. overbearing, overcareful, overcritical etc. over/balance, over/boil, over/come, over/react, over/coat, over/lap, over/charge etc. overblown, over/due, over/bear, over/burden, over/charge, over/drink etc. over/dose, over/capitalization, overbold, overcautious,

PRE - means before, and is very productive in modern English, particularly in formal language and in the scientific style; it attaches to: Adjectives e.g. precalculated, precapitalist, pre-Christian, pre-classical, predominant etc. Verbs e.g. preconceive, predefine, predestinate, predetermine, predispose, pre-establish, pre-exist, prefabricate etc. Nouns e.g. preconception, pre-conquest, predestination, predetermination, predisposition, pre-election, preheating etc. RE- means back, again, i.e. the repetition of the base, it is very productive and attaches to: Verbs e.g. react, re-read, re-write, reanimate, re-annex, re-appear, reassert, recall, recommence, recombine, re-marry etc. Nouns e.g. reanimation, rearrangement, recharge, reproduction etc. SUB- means under; it is quite productive and mainly attaches to: Adjectives e.g. subconscious, subcortical, subhuman, submarine, subterranean etc. Verbs e.g. subdivide, submerge, subvert etc. Nouns e.g. subcommittee, subcontinent, subdialect, subordinate etc.

subcutaneous, suburban, subordinate, subcontract,

17

ULTRA- means, extreme, beyond limits; it is productive in scientific language, or of educated people; it attaches to: Adjectives e.g. ultrahigh, ultramarine, ultramodern, ultra-red, ultrarevolutionary, ultra-rich, ultrashort, ultraviolet, ultrasonic etc. Nouns e.g. ultramicroscope, ultrasound, ultramicrobalace, ultranationalism, ultrastructure, ultravirus etc. UNDER - means below, sometimes the opposite of over; it can attach to verbs, nouns and adjectives: Verbs e.g. under/charge, under/estimate, under/nourish, Nouns e.g. under/clothing, under/exposure, under/taking etc. Adjectives
e.g. under/clad, under-developed,

under/cut, under/feed, under/take, under/development, under/growth,

underinflated,

under/go, under/line, under/evaluate etc. under/estimation, under/payment,

underpaid, etc

VERB-FORMING PREFIXES BE unproductive in contemporary English. It attaches t Verbs (transitive and intransitive), to make them assume one of the following meanings: all over, all round; thoroughly, excessively; e.g. beset besmear belabour berate besiege bemoan beseech bestow behold bequeath bewail bestride befit beget beguile bespeak besprinkle etc. Adjectives > transitive verbs e.g. befool befoul becalm Nouns > verbs with the meaning affect with; treat as; covered with; e.g. befriend befog bejewel begrudge behead bedevil bedew begrime bemire besmirch bespatter betoken betroth bewitch bewig etc. NOTE: there are BE + base words which have completely different meanings, e.g. become begone belay befall behave believe beware begin belong etc.
18

EN - a prefix meaning to put into..., to confer a certain character, to encircle. It is one of the few class-changing prefixes in English. It attaches to nouns generating verbs having the meaning/s mentioned above. Nouns verbs, e.g. encourage, encage, enclose, endanger, enable, encase, encrust, endear etc. enact, enchain, endamage,

Suffixation
Suffixes are mainly class-changing affixes; however, there are suffixes that do not change the morphological class of the word; they are attached to e.g. concrete nouns abstract nouns, or proper nouns common nouns etc. NOUN-FORMING SUFFIXES Proper noun-forming suffixes: proper noun + - SON (= son of), e.g. Richardson, Williamson, Robertson, Stevenson etc. proper/common noun + -TOWN, generating names of towns; it is very productive and is used in all countries where English is a native tongue, e.g. Georgetown, Jamestown, Capetown etc. proper/common noun + -BURG(H)/BOROUGH (of Germanic origin): e.g. Edinburgh, Scarborough, Johannesburg, Gainsborough etc. proper/common noun + -CHESTER, -CESTER, -CASTER (< Lat. castrum): e.g. Manchester, Lancaster, Chichester, Rochester, Leicester, Dorchester etc. proper noun + -SHIRE: e.g. Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cheshire, Warwickshire etc. Iceland, Finland etc.

proper/common noun + -LAND (= \ar[, \inut, comitat): e.g. England, Scotland, Ireland, II. Common noun suffixes -ER is a very productive suffix, usually attached to:

verbs. Tthe resulting nouns denoting the doer of the action designated by the base.
19

e.g.

learn/er, command/er, write/writer, stop/per, dig/ger, sing/er, sail/er (= ship) etc. There are also two allomorphs (= variants ): -OR, and -AR, e.g. survive/survivor, credit/creditor, exhibit/exhibitor, act/actor, generate/generator, create/creator, beg/beggar, sail/sailor (the man), register/registrar etc. nouns to denote the class of individuals professionally connected with what is expressed by the nominal base, e.g. bottle/bottler, girdle/r, glove/r, needle/r, purse/r, rope/r, tile/r, garden/er, jewel/ler etc. Proper / comon nouns to denote the inhabitant of the place the noun base denotes, e.g. e.g. London/er, Dublin/er, New-York/er, New-Zealand/er; cottage/r, highland/er, mid-eastern/er, village/r, southern/er, western/er, island/er etc. Along with -ER there are also other suffixes having the same function, i.e. -IST (botanist, humourist), -(I)AN (proletarian, Alaskan, Corsican, Canadian, American) and -ITE (Manhattenite, Brooklynite, Settleite). The productiveness of the suffix shows in the fact that it can also attach to numerals as in to produce nouns , e.g. fiver (a banknote of 5 dollars), niner, tenner (a class at 9 or at 10 o'clock) etc. -EER - someone/something connected to the noun base. The nature of the connection is occupational, e.g. pamphlet/eer, profit/eer, tacket/eer, bascket/eer, vacation/eer, auction/eer etc. This suffix is not very productive. -EE - the person who suffers the action designated by the base verb. It can attach only to transitive verbs that take animate direct object nouns, e.g. employ/ee, asign/ee, grant/ee, refer/ee, trust/ee, transfer/ee, monin/ee, train/ee, evacu/ee, divorc/ee etc. -ANT. It is equivalent of -EE. It attaches to do the action designated by the base verb, e.g. attend/ant, depend/ant, consult/ant, There is an allomorph -ENT, e.g. resid/ent, adher/ent, verbs to make up nouns denoting objects/persons who inhabit/ant, contamin/ant, refer/ent, defend/ant, pollut/ant, solv/ent, occup/ant, cool/ant etc. oppon/ent etc.

-ISM produces abstract nouns from proper/common noun bases, the resulting noun denoting a system, a principle, a doctrine. Attached to adjectives it creates nouns denoting a system founded on the quality denoted by the adjective. propre/common noun bases, e.g. Calvinism, Aristotelism, Gibbonism, Leninism, Euphuism; Platonism, Petrarchism,
20

paganism, impressionism, adjectives e.g. Christianism, idealism, imperialism,

protestantism, defetism, Wesleyanism, nationalism etc.

behaviourism, egoism,

expressionism, favouritism, heroism etc.

Catholicism, Cartesianism, Existentialism, realism, communism, federalism,

-IST is not very productive in Modern English. The nouns it generates are agentive nouns // this suffix rivals the suffix -ER being mainly attached to Latin and Greek nominal bases e.g. anatomist, alchemist, archaeologist, botanist, economist, physicist, psychiatrist, pianist, caricaturist, cartoonist, novelist, parachutist, linguist, latinist etc. -ITE - it attaches to nominal bases, generating a noun denoting a person belonging to or following the base noun; the base noun can be either a proper or a common noun, e.g. Wagnerite, Darwinite, Ruskinite, Stalinite, Pre-Raphaelite, Johnsonite, suburbanite, cityite, beachite (fan of beach sports) etc. -ATION - attaches to verb bases > deverbal abstract nouns that have, in point of meaning, both active and abstract meaning. It also has a number of allomorphs: -ITION, -TION, -ION, -UTION. But not all instances of orthographic -ION are to be taken as instances of the suffix, e.g. accordion, ganglion, onion, companion, million etc. -ATION attaches to verbs ending in -ify, -ize, -ate and some unsuffixed verbs: e.g. edify/edification, justify/justification, certify/certification, glorify/glorification, pacify/pacification, ratify/ratification, simplify/simplification, modify/modification, verify/verification, identify/identification, magnify/magnification etc. organize/organization, authorize/authorization, formalize/formalization, pulverize/pulverization, brutalize/brutalization, civilize/civilization, colonize/colonization, familiarize/familiarization, centralize/centralization, christianize/christianization, fertilize/fertilization etc. contemplate/contemplation, create/creation, altercate/altercation, modulate/modulation, translate/translation, accumulate/accumulation, situate/situation, educate/education, saturate/saturation, consternate/consternation, administrate/administration, affiliate/affiliation etc. accuse/accusation, damn/damnation, inform/information, restaure/restauration, tempt/temptation, relax/relaxation, derive/derivation, quoto/ quotation, affirm/affirmation, affect/affection, adapt/adaptation, annex/annexation, explore/exploration, exult/exultation, starve/starvation, expect/expectation, etc ALLOMORPHS mainly attach to Latinate bases, e.g.: -TION requires certain phonological adjustments when attached to verbs ending in: -sume: e.g. consume/consumption, resume/resumption, presume/presumption, assume/assumption etc. -duce:
21

e.g.

deduce/deduction, induce/induction, -ceive: e.g. conceive/conception, receive/reception etc. -scribe: e.g. describe/description, others: e.g. redeem/redemption, -ITION, -UTION e.g. add/addition, repeat/repetition, revolve/revolution, solve/solution etc.

reduce/reduction, introduce/introduction, deceive/deception, prescribe/prescription etc. absorb/absorption, define/definition, imbibe/imbibition; resolve/resolution,

seduce/seduction, reproduce/reproduction etc. perceive/perception,

destroy/destruction etc. compete/competition, dissolve/dissolution,

-ION - several consonantic changes occur with the allomorph -ION, e.g. permit/permission, digest/digestion, connect/connection, decide/decision, concede/concession, retain/retention, preventprevention, coerce/coercion, submerse/submersion, disperse/dispersion, adhere/adhesion, rebel/rebellion, revise/revision, percuss/percussion, admonish/admonition, commune/ communion etc. -MENT - closely rivals -ATION. The meaning of the -MENT nouns is: act of X-ing; state of being X-ed; concrete place connected with X; it attaches to Romance (frequently to verbs beginning in en- or em-) or native (frequently to verbs beginning in be-) verb bases to make up abstract nouns, e.g. achieve/achievement, advance/advancement, agree/agreement, appoint/appointment, commence/commencement, judge/judgement, assess/assessment, manage/management, treat/treatment, abandon/abandonment, amuse/amusement, assort/assortment, engage/engagement, involve/involvement, equip/equipment, state/statement etc. or acknowledge/acknowledgement, amaze/amazement, better/betterment, fit/fitment , settle/settlement, fulfil/fulfillment, catch/catchment, puzzle/puzzlement, ship/shipment etc. endow/endowment, enhance/enhancement, embezzle/embezzlement, engulf/engulfment, enlighten/enlightenment, enlist/enlistment, embark/embarkment, embarrass/embarrassment, embody/embodiment etc. or besiege/besiegement, benight/benightment, besought/beseechment, bereave/bereavement, beguile/beguilement, belittle/belittlement, bewilder/bewilderment etc. Attention! There is a fairly large class of NOUN-VERB pairs that display the form X - ment, e.g. ornament, implement, complement, fragment, ferment, torment, segment, augment, sediment, regiment, compliment, experiment etc. There are also 75 nouns ending in -ment which do not have corresponding verbs, e.g. element, pigment, garment, monument etc.

22

-AL - it attaches to Romance and native verbal bases > abstract nouns, e.g. arrive/arrival, refuse/refusal, aquit/ acquittal, reverse/reversal, deny/denial, recit/recital, remove/removal, survive/survival, try/trial, approve/approval, dispose/disposal, propose/proposal, receive/receival, renew/renewal, revive/revival, betray/betrayal, dismiss/dismissal etc. -NESS - it is very productive in Modern English usually attaches to both native and loan bases: adjectival bases > abstract nouns, e.g. bitter/bitterness, bright/brightness, clean/cleanness, cool/coolness, drunk/ drunkenness, even/evenness, good/goodness, greed/greediness, hard/hardness, idle/idleness, thick/thickness, big/bigness, dull/ dullness, deaf/deafness, common/commonness, kind/kindness, ready/readiness, etc composite nouns, e.g. wrongheadedness, kindheartedness, levelheadedness, shortsightedness, straightforwardness, tongue-tiedness etc. participial adjectives, e.g. drunkenness, lovingness, ashamedness, knowingness, devotedness, unexpectedness; shockingness, willingness etc.

Its great productivity explains the fact that it can form abstract nouns from a number of other parts of speech than adjectives, e.g. oneness (cardinal numeral), muchness, suchness (qualifiers), otherness, whatness, nothingness, sameness (pronouns). Its meaning, constant in all stages of the language has been state characterized by the property X. -ITY - forms abstract nouns from adjectival bases; the meaning is "state or quality characterized by X"; -ITY is rival to -NESS, but because the suffix modifies the base stress pattern it is less productive than -NESS and, therefore, the -ITY derivatives are less in number than the -NESS ones. It attaches to adjectives ending in: -able: e.g. implacable/implacability, impeccable/impeccability, capable/capability, agreeable/agreeability, respectable/respectability, excitable/excitability, presentable/presentability, accountable/accountability, visible/visibility, compatible/compatibility, invincible/invincibility etc. -ic (not many): e.g. eccentric/eccentricity, electric/electricity, authentic/authenticity, elastic/elasticity, domestic/domesticity, public/publicity, atomic/atomicity etc. -al: e.g. bestial/bestiality, liberal/liberality, virtual/virtuality, fatal/fatality, brutal/brutality, causal/causality, technical/technicality, abnormal/abnormality, formal/formality, original/originality, equal/equality etc. -ous: e.g. curious/curiosity, fabulous/fabulousity, luminous/luminosity etc.
23

-ITY attachment sometimes triggers truncation of the -OUS morpheme in the adjectival bases that contain it, e.g. various/variety, simultaneous/simultaneity, voracious/voracity, hilarious/hilarity, atrocious/atrocity, assiduous/assiduity, credulous/credulity etc. The -ITY derivational suffix also produces another type of variation of the base, phonological this time, consisting in the modification of the base vowel or diphthong into another sound or sounds in the derived word, e.g. [ei] > [] profane [pr'fein] profanity [pr'fniti] [u] > [] verbose [v:bous] verbosity [v:'bsit[ai] > [i] sterile ['stirail] sterility [ste'rilit[i:] > [e] obese ['bi:z] obesity ['besiti] serene [si'ri:n] serenity [se'reniti] [au] > [ ] profound [pr'faund] profoundity [pr'fnditi] There are cases in which -NESS and -ITY derivatives are available for the same base adjective, e.g. entire - entireness - entirety fatal - fatalness - fatality inextricable - inextricableness - inextricability odd - oddness - oddity sincere - sincereness - sincerity agreeable - agreeableness - agreeability honourable - honourableness - honourability profitable - profitableness - profitability impossible - impossibleness - impossibility It is obvious that, in time, one or the other of the alternative forms will gain supremacy over the other, although the process may take some time yet. Till then, the learners of English are advised to follow their intuition or take the advise of a native speaker (whose intuition may not be better but is that of a native's). -DOM forms abstract nouns, mostly from other common nouns. The base can be both animate and inanimate. The meaning is "domain of" or "condition characterized by X". e.g. king/dom, spinster/dom, duke/dom, sheriff/dom, savage/dom, saint/dom, rebel/dom, beggar/dom, scholar/dom etc. ("realm, territory, region") The suffix is very productive. It is Germanic in origin. -HOOD forms abstract nouns from other nouns. The meaning is "state characterized by X". e.g. childhood, maidenhood, monkshood, priesthood, widowhood, brotherhood, menhood, neighbourhood, womanhood, boyhood, parenthood, motherhood, babyhood, masterhood etc. Some of the -HOOD nouns have come to develop a second sense, i.e. "collectivity characterized by X": e.g. brotherhood, maidenhood, manhood, priesthood, sisterhood, ladyhood etc. -SHIP applies to nouns base to form abstract nouns. It denotes "status or condition characterized by X".

24

e.g. etc.

friendship, companionship,

lordship, doctorship,

ladyship, kinship,

championship, membership, craftsmanship

-ERY applies to nominal bases to produce nouns with the meaning: 1. place of activity e.g. swanery, swihery, goosery, hennery, pigeonry, cattery, rabbitry, wihery, shrubbery, nunnery, smithery, brewery, bakery, grocery, bindery etc. 2. behaviour characteristic of X e.g. buggery, devilry, harlotry, foolery, savagery, witchery, bigotry, buffoonery, pedantry, snobbery, trickery, charlatanry, slavery etc. 3. collectivity of XE e.g. weaponry, rocketry, pottery, jewellery, saddlery, balladry, archery, papistry, peasantry, yeomanry, machinery, ancestry etc. An allomorph is -Y for the nouns ending in -er. e.g. robbery, printery, beggany, trickery, pottery, boilery, brewery, bakery, bindery etc. Some nouns whose last letter is t / d / n trigger the allomorphy of the suffix: sophist/ry, tenant/ry, bigot/ry, pedant/ry, jesuit/ry, summit/ry, chemistry, artist/ry; husbandry, legendary, balladry, ribald/ry, jewellery, rivalry, devilry; masonry, charlatanry, weaponry, pigeonry. Adjective-forming suffixes -AL operates on noun bases to produce adjectives. Its meaning is "property denoted by X". Sometimes the attachment triggers a shift of stress. e.g. occident/al, architectur/al, basal, causal, consonantal, constitutional, continental, cultural, dialectal, documental, elemental, feudal, fictional, global, hormonal, incidental, suicidal, seasonal, environmental etc. An allomorph is -IAL, its attachment also triggers a change of the base vowel: e.g. professor/professorial, manager/managerial, editor/editorial, equator/equatorial, matter/material, proverb/proverbial, monitor/monitorial, habit/habitual, conspirator/conspiratorial etc. When the base ends in [t] or [s], the attachment of the suffix -IAL produces [l]. e.g. confident/confidential, president/presidential, provident/providential, prudent/prudential, diference/diferential, essence/essential, existence/existential, reference/referential, residence/residential, substance/substantial, circumstance/circumstantial etc. The suffix -AL is of Latin Origin. The Greeko-Latin -icus was adapted to -IC in Modern English. -AL and -IC are, sometimes, rival suffixes. Both forms co-exist:
25

e.g. poetic/al, tragic/al, grammatic/al, comic/al, theoretic/al, though the longer form is preferred.

mathematic/al, tactic/al, pedagogic/al, identic/al,

analytic/al, geographic/al,

There was, at the beginning, indiscriminate co-existence of two synonymous adjectives; but language does not have two words for one and the same notion. What happens in a case oh clash of two synonymous words is: 1. either one of the forms is dropped, or 2. it acquires a specific meaning, that distinguishes it from its rival. In the present case the result is a compromise: the language has shown a tendency to throw out one member (usually the -IC form) from common usage; on the other hand, it was often retained the second member in a specific sense (especially in scientifique terminology). Thus, botanical, geographical, theological, theoretical are commonly used, the counterparts in -IC are maintained only in long established names as: Botanic Gardens, Geographic Magazine. Then, economical means "characterized by X" = thrifty, while economic has been specialized to refer to that "which belongs to the science of economics". This characterizes the general tendency of differentiation: adjectives in -IC are notionally connected with whatever the base noun denotes; the -ical are secondary derivates. This will partly explain why they have a remoter semantic relation to the base noun (e.g. a "thing is historic if it is or makes history itself, it is historical if it belongs to what narrates or deals with history, so books on history are historical while the events are historic; a sound is metallic as it is like metal; an engineer is electrical, the current is electric; similarly the pairs: comic / comical, identic / identical, poetic / poetical / psychic / psychical, theoretic / theoretical etc.) When the word is in wider use the adjective in -ICAL is used: e.g. analytical, biblical, chemical, clinical, critical, geometrical, periodical, surgical, theatrical, theoretical, typical are more frequent than their unextended counterparts. But such words as: aesthetic, angelic, apologetic, artistic, dramatic, dynamic, pathetic, static are the ones commonly used. -IC applies to noun bases to produce adjectives. The noun bases can be both animate and inanimate; proper and common nouns e.g. Celtic, Finnic, Germanic, Teutonic, Icelandic, Platonic, Socratic, Miltonic, Byronic, daemonic, oratoric, totemic, harmonic, lunatic, anabiotic, basic, parasitic, anaemic etc. A number of noun bases ending in a vowel have the consonants n, t inserted before -IC e.g. drama/dramatic, charisma/charismatic, schema/schematic, Pluto/Plutonic, dogma/dogmatic, aroma/aromatic etc. These is also a subclass of noun bases ending in -m (that double the consonant) that need the -t: epigram/epigrammatic, problem/problemmatic, emblem/emblemmatic, axiom/axiommatic, phlegm/phlegmatic, or pleura/pleuritic, spleen/splenitic but also spenic. Other examples of -IC adjectives, in all these instances the base nouns undergo certain changes: drop the final -e, truncation etc.
26

e.g. scene/scenic, linguistics, dynamics, heresy/heretic, democracy/democratic,

base/basic, phonetics, mathematics etc.

cycle/cyclic, semantics, tectonics,

lunacy/lunatic, diplomacy/diplomatic etc.

aristocracy/aristocratic,

Sometimes, the adjectives in -IC are direct borrowings from Greek: e.g. characteristic, heuristic, dramatic, charismatic, paradigmatic etc.

anaemic,

-OUS attaches to the noun bases adjectives, meaning "characterized by X to a large extent". e.g. cavern/ous, danger/ous, riot/ous, burden/ous, poisson/ous, odor/ous, villain/ous, hazard/ous, cancer/ous, glammour/ous, marvell/ous, murder/ous etc. Morphological adjustments are sometimes necessary: e.g. courage/courageous, harmony/harmonious, advantage/advantageous etc.

Truncation rules must be applied: 1. -ity / + ous e.g. ambiguity/ambiguous, assiduity/assiduous, credulity/credulous, notoriety/notorious, prosperity/prosperous, sonority/sonorous; 2. -ty / ous e.g. ondacity/ondacious, voracity/voracious, precocity/precocious, hilarity/hilarious, ferocity/ferocious, vivacity/vivacious; 3. -y / ous e.g. blasphemy/blasphemous, monotony/monotonous, andogy/andogous, synchrony/synchronous, homology/homologous, adultery/adulterous etc. Certain ??? borrowing through French: e.g. contagion/contagious, caution/cautious, ostentation/ostentatious, oblivion/oblivious, infection/infectious etc. But poison/ous. precaution/precautious, suggestion/suggestious,

This suffix has been very productive; it attaches to Germanic, Latin, French bases and also serves to adopt Greek adjectives whose ending did not fit the English pattern, thus, andogos - andogous. -ABLE attaches to: verb bases adjectives; noun bases adjectives. In fact, what we have here, are two different suffixes. The concrete evidence is the fact that denominal adjectives always take nominal ending -NESS and never -ITY, e.g. fashionableness, sizableness, while deverbal adjectives show no real preference, e.g. acceptability acceptableness, movability - movableness etc. The meanings are also different: deverbal adjectives: "capable of being X-ed";
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 denominal adjectives: "characterized by X". This difference in meaning shows up in cases in which a form of X-able can be derived from homophonous noun / verb pairs, e.g. fashionable which may be either deverbal or denominal has two sense: 1) in fashion and 2) capable of being fashioned; similarly, sizable: 1) of great size and 2) capable of being sized. to verbs adjectives; the meaning is: a) active: fit for X-ing or b) passive: capable of being X-ed. The attachment of the prefix UN- is a productive pattern with -ABLE derived adjectives. e.g. (un)acceptable, agreeable, (un)changeable, damnable, (un)deceivable, (un)desirable), determinable, (un)favourable, measurable, (un)reasonable, (un)profitable, (un)tolerable, (un)dependable, disposable, laughable, (un)reliable, unaccountable, unthinkable, unbearable, unavoidable, removable etc. Truncation may occur in -ATE verbs, but there are cases when it does not: e.g. tolerate/tolerable, irritate/irritable, negotiate/negotiable, demonstrate/demonstrable, communicate/communicable. But, truncation does not occur when -ATE is not a morpheme: e.g. inflate/inflatable, debate/debatable, dilate/dilatable, relate/relatable, translate/translatable etc. With other -ATE verb truncation is optional: cultivate - cultivable - cultivatable educate - educable - educatable irrigate - irrigable - irrigatable navigate - navigable - navigatable demonstrate - demonstrable - demonstratable separate - separable - separatable Allomorphs of the suffix -IBLE, as in: discern/discernible, corrupt/corruptible, convert/convertible.

There are also cases when both -ABLE and -IBLE forms are possible: divide - divisible - dividable extend - extensible - extendable defend - defensible - defendable perceive - perceptible - perceivable deride - derivible - deridable to noun bases adjectives with the meaning "characterized by X". The pattern exists though loans from French such as: charitable, comfortable, favourable, honourable, profitable, reasonable, treasonable etc. Based on this pattern other denominal adjectives are explained: seasonable, meritable, leisurable, actionable, siz(e)able, knowledgeable, reputable, pleasurable, serviceable, fissionable, objectionable, saleable etc.

measurable, fashionable, creditable, palatable,

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-IAN - applies to noun bases to produce adjectives; -AN - denotes "belongingness to X" -N - reduction of the suffix with -ia ending nouns - mainly to proper names, but to - common nouns, as well (less) e.g. Addison/ian, Byron/ian, Milton/ian, Nelson/ian, Tennyson/ian, Ruskin/ian, Shakespeare/ian, Spenser/ian, Kant/ian, Boston/ian, Australia/n, Austria/n, Bohemia/n, Albania/n, Romania/n, Elisabeth/an, America/n and mammalian, reptilian, logician, musician Verb-forming suffixes -IZE attaches to: adjective bases verbs. The meaning is "cause X". The rule is very productive and applies to several classes of adjectives, i.e. adjective ending in: -al, -ic, -an, -ar: e.g. tranquil/tranquilize, natural/naturalize, equal/equalize, spiritual/spiritualize, social/socialize, civil/civilize, fertil/fertilize, formal/formalize human/humanize, foreign/foreignize, American/americanize, republican/republicanize, urban/urbanize, christian/christianize, polar/polarize, circular/circularize, familiar/familiarize, popular/popularize, nuclear/nuclearize, secular/secularize, tender/tenderize etc. public/publicize, politic/politicize, gallic/gallicize, dogmat(ic)/dogmat(ic)ize, dramat(ic)/dramat(ic)ize, hypnot(ic)/hypnot(ic)ize, systemat(ic)/systemat(ic)ize. noun bases denominal verbs. The rule is very productive although semantically less coherent than the -IZE attachment to adjectives (see above) ("cause to X", "make X", "subject to special treatment or process connected with X", impregnate or treat with X"). Truncation, various changes may occur in the process: harmony/harmonize, martyr/martyrize, scandal/scandalize, tyranny/tyrannize, apology/apologize, critic/criticize, signal/signalize, legitimate/legitimize, magnet/magnetize, emphasis/emphasize, standard/standardize, summary/summarize. -IFY attached to nouns verbs; meaning "cause something to X". e.g. carbon/carbonify, gas/gasify, stone/stonify, steel/steelify, glory/glorify, lady/ladify, beauty/beautify, code/codify. But also: qualify, amplify, pacify, lignify. Other suffixes -ESS gender forming suffix. It attaches to masculine nouns denoting professions the feminine. Truncation and other graphic rules must be sometimes observed: e.g. waiter/waitress, actor/actress, steward/stewardess, poet/poetess, heir/heiress, host/hostess, shepherd/shepherdess etc.
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-ESE - adjective forming suffix = the origin of a person etc. It may denote a style. If attaches to proper/common nouns: e.g. Vietnam/Vietnamese, China/Chinese, Verona/Veronese, Japan/Japanese, Johnson/Johnsonese, selegraphese, journalese. -LING - a pejorative suffix. It usually attaches to adjectives nouns having a derogatory connotation: underling - func\ion[ra] fondling - favorit, r[sf[\at nestling - pui de pas[re hireling - mercenar; tic[los, jigodie, lichea; cal de @nchiriat weakling - persoan[ pl[p`nd[ / debil[; mol`u; persoan[ influen\abil[; c`rp[; debil mintal duckling - r[\u]c[ princeling - prin\i]or -ANCE / ENCE attaches to verbs nouns denoting processes: e.g. continue/continuance, accept/acceptance, appear/appearance, prefer/preference, clear/clearance, acquaint/acquaintance, assist/assistance, confer/conference, inferit/inferitance, resemble/resemblance. -ISH attaches to nouns adjectives = denoting "a quality characteristic of X"; attaches to adjectives adjectives denoting "almost X". e.g. boy/boyish, child/childish, fever/feverish, fool/foolish, girl/girlish, man/mannish, woman/womanish, rude/rudish colours: black/blackish, green/greenish, grey/greyish, white/whitish, yellow/yellowish, round/roundish propre nouns: Pole/Polish, Scot/Scotish, Sweed/Sweedish, Spain/Spainish -ED / -ING - deverbal adjectives: not here. -LY / -Y - attached to: nouns, denote the quality characteristic of the respective noun manly, friendly, brotherly, deathly, earthly, ghostly, heavenly, kingly, motherly, sisterly, soldierly, wornanly, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly etc. windy, rainy, dirty, noisy, breezy, chilly, foamy, foxy, frosty, gloomy, inky, moody, peppery, rocky, salty, sweaty, weedy. adjectives adverbs of manner.

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-FUL - attached to nouns adjectives denoting the quality characteristic of the noun to which it is attached e.g. beauty/beautiful, help/helpful, peace/peaceful, use/useful, care/careful, spite/spiteful, rue/rueful, shame/shameful etc. -LET attaches to nouns diminutives: e.g. booklet, leaflet, fruitlet, featherlet, budlet. However, this suffix does not seem to be very productive in language at present, probably because of the limited use of diminutives by the speakers of English. -IE / -Y/ -EY attaches to nouns (terms of endearment) e.g. birdie, grannie, doggy,

daddy, mummy,

ladie.

Chapter III CONVERSION Four terms are mainly used in literature to designate the same process: conversion, zero derivation, root formation and functional change, each with its own drawbacks. CONVERSION seems widely misleading as actually nothing is converted: the original word continues its existence alongside the new one. ZERO DERIVATION is also tricky since, we have to accept the zero affix concept and, secondly, it would not account for cases like: advice - advise, use - to use, breath - to breathe, cases in which "something" that is not just "nothing" does happen! ROOT FORMATION is a term not always suitable since the process can involve not only root words but also words containing affixes, compounds, phrases etc. FUNCTIONAL CHANGE accepting this term one must admit that one and the same word can belong to several parts of speech simultaneously and this would entail the necessity of altering the existing: classifications into parts of speech. According to Valerie Adams "when a word which has hitherto functioned as a member of one class undergoes a shift which enables it to function as a member of another, we have what is traditionally called CONVERSION. Is the result of such a shift two words, one derived from the other, or one word with extended functions?" (Valerie Adams, An Introduction to Modern English Word Formation, page 16). Laurie Bauer says that "CONVERSION is the change in form-class of a form without any corresponding change of form" (Laurie Bauer, English Word Formation, page 32). To Jespersen, the relation between the noun water and the verb to water is "grammatical homonymy". Marchand (1969) speaks about the process of derivation by zero morpheme and hence, for his??/, conversion would be better termed "ZERO DERIVATION" because, he says, "conversion is a branch of derivation". Matthews (1972) also speaks of conversion as a means of word formation "involving zero operations".
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The theoretical implications of the two points of view are rather different and Gruber (1976), for example, argues that "to treat ordinary derivation and zero derivation differently in grammar is to lose a generalization, since both involve changes of form class, but claims that they only be treated the same way if a zero affix is permitted". Laurie Bauer, on the other hand, points out the theoretical dubiousness of speaking of zero affixes in language and prefers "the theoretical position enshrined in the term conversion, especially when this can be given a dynamic interpretation". It is not our purpose here to elucidate the implications of talking in terms of zero derivation or conversion; though none of the suggested terms is fully satisfactory, we shall use the term CONVERSION because it is the most largely accepted of all. The main reason for the widespread development of Conversion in present-day English is, no doubt, the absence of morphological elements serving as classifying signals, or, in other words, of formal signs serving to mark the parts of speech to which the word belongs. Examples in point are ROUND, HOLE, UP, DOWN that may be nouns verb, adjectives, adverbs, adverbial particles, interjections. Only the DISTRIBUTION of the word, and associated with distribution, CERTAIN ENDINGS (if there are any) can distinguish nouns from verbs; while with adjectives and adverbs distribution alone does the trick; a.s.o. As a type of word-formation conversion exists in many languages. That is specific for the English Vocabulary is not its mere presence but its outstanding productivity. Preliminary conclusions CONVERSION - as a specific type of word formation can and must be approached both synchronically and diachronically. The causes that made conversion so widely used are numerous and are to be approached historically. Of course, on a synchronic level, there is no difference between paper - to paper, cable - to cable and work - to work or sleep - to sleep, judge - to judge. While the first two cases are cases of conversion in the purest sense of the word, the following three examples have become homonymous after the loss of endings (work and sleep) or developed a unique form after having been brought on British soil (judge, borrowed from French). A major question that can never be fully answered is the following: Which of the forms was first? The noun or the verb? The adjective or the adverb? etc. A logical approach and our linguistic institution can solve most of the cases (Valerie Adams is of the same opinion) while some may have a historical explanation. Assets and liabilities of English CONVERSION was impossible or purely accidental in Old English because at that time it was a highly inflected language; we may assume that a certain superficial type of conversion was always possible e.g. any word can and could be used as a noun or noun equivalent in sentences like: "Drinkan" is a verb belonging to the strong conjugation. Mere a verb in the infinitive is used as a noun as a subject of the sentence. Any part of speech can be used: ?? as drinkan is used in the example above. Another phenomenon could be seen in Old English - the existence of pairs of words, usually a noun and a verb, very slightly different in form whose further evolution in the language resulted in homonymous pairs, such as: work - to work, sleep - to sleep, drink - to drink, anger - to anger, love - to love, blossom - to blossom, mind - to mind, name, to name, ship - to ship.
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Such pairs are perceived in Modern English as causes of sure conversation, which they are not; on the synchronic level it is unimportant whether two words belonging to different morphological classes have resulted from a convergent evolution - we may call the genetic pairs or grammatical homonymy - or are of the type cable - to cable, book - to book, cook - to cook, nail - to nail where it is clear that the noun existed first and then the verb appeared by conversion from the noun. This is what could be called genuine conversion. After 1966, in Early Modern English, pairs of almost identical words were borrowed from French, a noun and a verb, as juge n. and jugier vb.; the formal evolution of such pairs of words resulted, and very soon, in pairs of formally identical words, e.g. judge n. - to judge vb. Once again, what in Modern English seems conversion at its purest is, diachronically, only convergent evolution. Examples of the same kind are accord - to accord, account - to account, concern - to concern, distress - to distress. Once the inflections levelled and the means found, conversion has become an important means of forming new words; in its turn conversion has enhanced the process of simplification of the language. Here are some examples of conversion that are known to have occurred in the 15th 18th centuries: stream n. - to stream vb., rupture n. 1451 - to rupture vb. 1739, sack n. Mid. E. - to sack vb. Mid. E., sandwich n. 1762 - to sandwich vb. 1861, rumour n. Late Mid. E. - to rumour vb. Late Mid. E. In modern times conversion has reached a peak of productivity in English word formation because English is spoken by an immense number of people as a native language, as an official language in countries where the large number of native tongues spoken the territory would make communication impossible and, finally, as a language of communication between the various peoples of the world. A large host of reasons: economic, political, cultural, geographic, racial etc. make English the language of the world. The linguistic motivation is not to be ignored. In A History of the English Language two famous linguists, Albert C. Naugh and Thomas Cable, summarize what they call the "assets and liabilities" of English; among the assets they include: a cosmopolitan vocabulary, which, they say "means that English presents a somewhat familiar appearance to anyone who speaks either a Germanic or a Romance language. There are parts of the language which he feels he does not have to learn or learns with very little effort" (page 9); the inflectional simplicity: inflections in the noun have been reduced to a sign of the plural and a form of the possessive case; the inflection of the adjective has been completely eliminated except for the simple indication of the comparative and superlative degrees; the verb has lost practically all the personal endings; an almost complete abandonment of any distinction between the singular and the plural; the gradual discard of the subjunctive mood; the agreement is almost absent; the existence of the natural gender only; English has adopted natural in place of grammatical gender - a fact which is of an exceptional advantage over all other major European languages. Due to all the factors mentioned above English is nowadays widely spoken throughout the whole world. The impact of the non-native speakers on the vocabulary of English in particular is not to be disregarded. The grammar of the language is less affected and even if it is, the process is slow and superficial. The productivity of conversion in present-day English is greater in American English than in British English and affects a larger range of words (this aspect will be dealt with in the thesis proper when actually discussing the conversion of the various parts of speech). Newspapers, radio and television also contribute to the enriching of the vocabulary by conversion because this process is usual with short words, and KEEPS THEM SHORT! Conversion offers the shortest solutions for titles or advertisements.
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Derivation by affixation and compounding are two major means of word formation that can be accounted for by Tannenhaus's first principle, "the principle of the semantic gap", while CONVERSION along with clipping and acronyms satisfy the second principle, the minimax principle or the principle of least effort. Words and word-formation Any discussion on word formation makes two assumptions: that there are such things as words, and that at least some of them are formed. What is a word? the definition of the WORD has been, for a long time, a major problem for linguistic theory because, however the term word is defined, there are some items in some languages which speakers of those languages call "words" but which are not covered by the definition (L. Bauer, Words and Word Formation, page 8). Words are not identical linguistic realities in all languages (further details will be provided in the thesis). A WORD is a real linguistic reality that has an independent meaning. The particular form that a word has on a particular occasion is called WORD FORM. Conversion may affect both word forms, e.g. water n. - to water vb., but also unemployed vb. pp. - the unemployed n. The major means of word formation are: derivation, compounding and conversion; typically, derivation by affixation is subdivided into: derivation by prefixation, a means that is always classmaintaining and derivation by suffixation which is class-changing in most cases but can also be class-maintaining; in its turn, compounding can be class-changing or class-maintaining. With conversion the concept of class-changing, clas-maintaining is somewhat debatable, depending on whether we accept cases like proper names becoming common nouns as conversion or not; if we do, then other instances of the same kind may be added. If we accept sandwich - sandwich e.n. as a case of conversion, then we can say that conversion may be subdivided into: 1. pseudoconversion / internal conversion, including: common nouns proper nouns: Carpenter, Smith, Taylor etc. proper names common nouns, e.g. Boycott boycott, Lynch lynch, Macintosh macintosh, Sandwich sandwich etc. A. Laugh says there are about 50 common nouns of this kind in English. uncountable nouns countable, e.g. some tea two teas, some coffee two coffees etc. countable nouns countable, e.g. lamb (the animal) I'd like a slice of lamb. intransitive verbs transitive, e.g. He is running a horse in the Derby or The army flew the civilians to safety. non-gradable adjectives gradable e.g. She looks very French. New Zealanders are said to be more English than the English. Obviously this type of conversion of class-maintaining, and, consequently, we suggest calling it either pseudo-conversion or internal conversion, given the fact that some change does occur although the change does not involve the change of the morphological class: nouns remain nouns, verbs remain verbs etc. 2. conversion proper / external conversion should be applied to a case when "a word has hitherto functioned as a member of one class and undergoes a shift which enables it to function as a member of another (see Valerie Adams). E.g. nouns verbs, verbs nouns, adjectives verbs etc. water to water, coat to coat, to work work, to answer answer, clean to clean, dirty to dirty etc. Two words related by this type of word formation differ in terms of paradigm on the morphological level, and by their distribution in the sentence. E.g.:
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Adjective This is hard work. This is harder work than ... This is the hardest work I ever tried.

Adverb He worked hard. He worked harder. He worked hardest during his school vacation.

Several classifications of conversion According to the degree of completion of the process: 1. partial (e.g. the substantivization of adjectives) etc.; 2. total (e.g. noun - verb water - to water etc.) According to the complexity of the process: 1. simple/one-step conversion - in most cases, e.g. paper - to paper; 2. successive / chain / multi-step conversion, e.g. black adj. to black out vb. blackout n. Boycott p.n to boycott vb. boycott s. According to the type of the base: conversion may affect: 1. simple words, e.g. smoke n. to smoke vb., dust to dust vb., clean adj. to clean vb. 2. derivates, e.g. the writing, the unemployed etc. 3. compounds, e.g. lobby-display to lobby-display vb., press-agent n. to press-agent vb., weekend n. to weekend vb. etc. 4. phrases, e.g. a touch-me-not attitude, do-it-yourself group of cabins etc. 5. words resulting from minor means of word formation: acronyms / blends / clipping, e.g. radar n. to radar vb., laser n. to laser vb., transistor n. to transistor vb., brunsh n. to brunch vb., phone n. to phone vb., chute n. to chute vb. etc. According to the "purity" of the process: 1. without any formal changes / pure conversion: e.g. water n. to water vb., clean vb. 2. with certain changes: change of stress pattern: e.g. 'record n. to re'cord vb., 'abstract n. to abs'tract vb., re'bel vb., 'progress n. to pro'gress vb. etc. voicing of a consonant: e.g. shelf n. to shelve vb., half n. to halve vb. etc.

clean adj. to

'rebel n.

to

Should conversion be studied on a limited stock of words or not? Of course it could be, but we think that such a limitation might be tricky, even dangerous. In fact, the limitation of the word
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stock under study would only enable a statistical study and not the investigation of the process in its details.

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Chapter IV COMPOUNDING "The coining of new words proceeds by way of combining linguistic elements on the basis of a determinant/determinatum relationship. When two or more words are combined into a morphological unit on the basis just stated, we speak of a compound. In the system of languages to which English belongs the determinant usually preceeds the determinatum. The types which do not conform to this principle are either syntactical compounds (e.g. father-in-law) or loan compounds (e.g. MacDonald, Fitzgerald) with the "innerform" of a non-English language". (Hans Marchand, The Categories and Types of Present-Day English Word Formation, pag. 11, Munchen, 1969). Compounding, like derivation and conversion has been a productive WF-ing device since OE. Compounding can be seen by tracing the way a basic form is used throughout the lexicon, e.g. the following nouns are compounds of X + gn/gangan = go or X + gang = journey: ftergengness ciricgang forliggang gangewifre gangpytt hindergenga sgenga succession churchgoing adultry spider privy crab sea-goer

While the above-mentioned compounds are partly transparent, the next list inventories selfexplaining or transparent compounds, e.g. gdspel < gd = good + spel = tidings > gospel sunnandg < sunnan = suns + dg = day > Sunday stfcrft < stf = letters + crft = craft > grammar mynstermann < mynster = monastery + mann = man > monk frumweorc < frum = beginning + weorc = work > creation eorcrft < eor = earth + crft = craft > geometry rdfstnian < rd = cross + fstnian = fasten > crucify dgred < dg = day + red = red > dawn lehtft < leht = light + ft = vessel > lamp ttymbwltend < td = time + ymb = about + wltend = gaze > astronomer Compounding in Mid.E. produced words that are more recognizable to English-users of today, e.g. commander-in chief Frenchwoman heaven=sent laughing-stock pincushion pine-cone rosewood spoonwort In David Crystals Lexicon of the English Language a compound is defined as a unit of vocabulary which consists of more than one lexical stem. On the surface, there appear to be two (or more) lexemes present, but in fact the parts are functioning as a single item, which has its own meaning and grammar. So, armchair does not refer to an arm and a chair but to a single object. It
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is pronounced as a unit, with a single main stress, and is used grammatically as a unit its plural is armchairs not *armschairs. The unity of the armchair is also signalled by its orthography, but this is not a foolproof criterion. If the two parts are linked by a hyphen (like in flower-pot) or are printed without a space (like here), then there is no difficulty. But the form flower pot will also be found, and in such cases, to be sure we have a compound (and not just a sequence of two independent words), we need to look carefully at the meaning of the sequence and the way it is grammatically used (In American English hyphenation is less frequently used than in British English). Compounds are usually classified into types based on the kind of grammatical meaning they represent. Earthquake, e.g. can be paraphrased as the earth quakes, and the relation of earth to quake is that of subject to verb. Similarly, a crybaby is also a subject + verb (the baby cries), despite its back-to-front appearance. Scarecrow is verb + object (scares crows). Some involve slightly trickier grammatical relationships, such as playgoer, windmill, goldmill, goldfish, and homesick (page 129). Some of the chief grammatical relations involved are the following: NOUNS Subject + verb, e.g. sunrise, headache, hangman, popcorn, washing machine, working party, dancing girl etc. Verb + object, e.g. haicut, tax-payer, scarecrow, crime report, chewing gum, window-cleaner, sightseeing etc. Verb + adverbial of place, e.g. the names of the enclosed spaces in an appartment, like livingroom (live in a room), dining-room, bath-room, or one who goes to some place, like X + goer/runner/etc. playgoer (go to a play), home-runner etc. Verb + adverbial of time, e.g. X does/performs an action at a defined moment, like early-riser, late-comer, morning train etc. Subject + object, e.g. motorcycle, windmill, oil well, gaslight, doorknob, table leg, postman, chairperson etc. Subject + complement, e.g. (X is Y or X is like/for Y) oak tree, handyman, darkroom, flypaper, goldfish, birdcage, tissue paper, blackboard etc. ADJECTIVES Verb + object, e.g. man-eating, breathtaking, line-break etc. Verb + adverbial, e.g. law-abiding, handmade, typewritten, widespread etc. Verbless, e.g. homesick, camera-ready, rock-hard, Franco-German etc. Seemingly, a compound is not easy task to define and linguists are far from reaching a consensus in this respect. We can identify several criteria that may suggest whether a certain formation is a compound or not, but they may not be not enough to solve all the situations. See below some of these: 1. Both of the immediate constituents must be free forms; 2. Sometimes the stress can be a criterion: Bloomfield (1933) suggested that whenever we hear lesser stress or least stress upon a word which would always show stress in a phrase, we describe it as a compound member", e.g. 'blackbird (compound) = mierl (the stress falls on the first element) black 'bird = pasre neagr (the stress falls on the second element) Similarly, 'French teacher (compound) = one who teaches French French 'teacher = a teacher who is French OR
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'baby photographer (compound) = one who photographs babies baby 'photographer = a photographer who is a baby However, this criterion does not work in all cases as the stress may sometimes fall on both elements; see below: e.g. esy-ging, hgh-brn, mn-mde, grss-gren etc. 3. Spelling - (hyphenation) is not of much help either because compounds can be written as: one word (armchair, classroom); hyphenated (arm-chair, class-room); two words (revolving door, business administration). 4. Meaning endocentric they denote a sub-class of the items denoted by one of their elements, e.g. sea-bird, type-write, grass-green etc. In each of these cases the compound as a whole is a hyponym* of its main or head* element. exocentric denote something which is not a sub-class of either of the elements in the compound, i.e. they are not hyponyms of either of their elements, e.g. egg-head, high-brow, redskin, yellow-tail etc. copulative compounds denote an entity made up of the various parts listed in the form, e.g. Anglo-Saxon, Alsace-Loraine, Ribbentrop-Molotov, Franco-German etc. NOTES a HYPONYM is a word of more specific meaning than, and therefore implying or able to be replaced by, another more general or superordinate term (e.g. scarlet is the hyponym of red); a HYPERNYM is a word of more general meaning than, and therefore implied by or able replace another more specific term (a hyponym) (e.g. animal is a hypernym of lion and elephant) a HEAD. In a compound the head element is the element which a. determines the gender and declension/conjugation class of the whole compound; b. carries the inflectional endings which apply to the whole compound; c. denotes a superordinate of the whole compound; d. in English the HEAD element is almost always the righthand element in the coumpound. (OXFORD ENGLISH REFERENCE DICTIONARY)

COMPOUND NOUNS FORM PLURAL GENITIVE

1. noun + noun add add 's handbook, hazelnut, rainbow, bagpipe, schoolmaster, arrowhead, -(e)s to the to the sec. elem. bedfellow, bread-basket, wolf-dog, barmaid etc. sec. elem. 2. noun + man irregular see above shipman, postman, coachman, chairman, pressman etc.
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3. adjective + noun (stress on the adjective) blackbird, highland, holiday, quicksilver, Frenchman, gentleman, sweetheart, Scotsman, hothouse, madman, grandparent etc. 4. noun's + man = the man who "practices" that / a craft landsman, craftsman, kinsman, tradesman, herdsman, swordsman, gangsman, tribesman, guardsman, salesman, sportsman etc. Morpho-semantic subtypes: a) common nouns + noun, e.g. driver's seat, ladies'room, men's room, servant's quarters, guard's van etc. b) common nouns + noun (degree, licence, certificate etc.) bachelor's degree, doctor's degree, driver's licence, master's degree, teacher's certificate etc. c) proper noun's + noun Addison's disease, Bright's disease, Graves' disease, Parkinson's disease etc. 5. vb-ing + noun baking powder, writing table, closing time, darcing girl, drawing lesson, driving gloves, racing club, teaching profession, freezing point etc. 6. vb-stem + noun bakehouse, washday, crybaby, drawbridge, mincemeat, call girl, repair work, searchlight, spyhole, dance hall, pay day, push-button, hangman etc. 7. pronoun (all, he, she, self) + noun all-father, all-parent (religious context) he-wolf, she-wolf, selfmademan self-absorption, self-assurance, self-consciousness etc. 8. noun + vb-ing sunrising, childbearing, home-coming, leave-taking, book-selling, thank-offering, book-keeping, man-killing, table-turning, thoughtreading, night-flying etc. 9. noun + vb-stem (deverbal noun, e.g. noun obtained by conversion from verb), e.g. bellyache, daybreak, dogfight, nightfall, bloodshed, bloodcount, bookreview, haicut; birth control, arms control, baby care, word play; gold rush, table talk, water cure; fleabite, frostbite; busstop; finger print, foothold, instand, sidewalk etc. 1 noun + deverbal agent noun (-er) 0 watermaker, wrong doer, lawmaker, story-teller, grass-hopper, shoemaker, hairdresser, prize-fighter, taxpayer, skyscraper, woodcutter etc. 11 inversion compounds consul general, ambassador extraordinary, court martial, governor general, heir presumptive, knight errant etc. 12 reduplicative compounds tick-tack, choo-choo, thump-thump, tap-tap, bum-bum, hush-hush, etc. COMPOUND ADJECTIVES 1.

see 1 above irregular

see 1 see 1

see 1 see 1 no plural form see 1

sax. gen. - no see 4 a) see 4 a) see 1

see 1

see 1

see 1 see 1

see 1 see 4 a)

see 1 if countable see 1

see 4 a)

see 1

add -(e)s to the first element -

see 1 -

noun + adjective bloodthirsty, pound-foolish, night-blind, colour-blind, football-mad, carefree, dutyfree, waterproof, lightproof, homesick, watertight, trainsick, air sick etc.

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2. pronoun + adjective (self, all) self-assertive, self-conscious, self-evident, self-glorious, self-improvable, self-important, selfpleased, self-sufficient; all-fair, all-black, all-holy, all-complete, all-just etc. 3. adjective + adjective deaf-mute, Anglo-Saxon, politico-economic, icy-cold, lukewarm, dark blue, light green etc. 4. noun + vb-ing (present participle) heart-breaking, awe-inspiring, breath-taking, earth-shaking, freedom-loving, soul-destroying etc. 5. all/self + vb-ing (present participle) all-affecting, all-arranging, all-binding, all-destroying, self-boasting, self-destroying, selfgiving, self-killing, self-please etc. 6. adjective + vb-ing (present participle) easy-going, far-fetching, hard-working, high-flying, ill-judging, wide-spreading, good looking etc. 7. noun + vb-ed (past participle) man-made, house-made, frost-bitten, wind shake, awe-struck, god-forbidden, spellbound, horror-stricken, airborne, communist infiltrated, factory packed etc. 8. adjective + past participle clean-cut, clean-shaven, deep-seated, far fetched, far gone, fresh oiled, high strung, modern built, ready made, true born, widespread, new-found, soft-spoken, welldone, well-judged, fartravelled, short-lived, long-lived etc. 9. adjective + noun + ed blue-eyed, long-legged, short-sighted, large-windowed, red-skinned etc. COMPOUND VERBS Compound verbs usually result from nominal or adjectival compounds by conversion, e.g. nominal compounds: e.g. to spotlight, to handcuff, to outline, to cold-shoulder, to sandpaper, to fireproof, to blackmail, to daydream, to hero-worship, to watermark, to roller-skate, to weekend; e.g. noun/adjective + verb-stem: to shopwalk, to drywash, to ghostwrite, to copyread, to handpick, to playact, to double-park, to vacuum-clean, to housebreak, to brainwash etc.
etc.

Chapter V MINOR MEANS OF WORD FORMATION Clipping or Contraction = the partial reduction of a word. According to the part of the word that is dropped, we can speak of: 1. aphaeresis ['firisis] - aferez[, which is the reduction of the first part of a word: car < motor-car sample < example bus < omnibus plot < complot story < history change < exchange phone < telephone pen < fountain pen 2. syncope ['sikpi] = the reduction of the middle part of a word: captain [kptn] < Fr. capitaine or poetical: whoe'er < whoever; whate'er < whatever, ne'er < never; o'er < over; sometimes
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colloquial: ma'am < madam Grammatical syncopes imply the reduction of not: haven't, hasn't, isn't, shouldn't etc. 3. apocope ['pkpi] - the reduction of the last part of a word: exam < examination; Jap < Japanese; prep < preparatory; to demob < demobilization; lab < laboratory; doc < doctor etc. Abbreviation / Acronyms 1. initial letters read as a combination of alphabetic letters: e.g. B.A. ['bi: 'ei] = bachelor of arts; T.V., M.P. [em pi:] = member of parliament; VIP etc. 2. group of initials read as if it formed a word: e.g. radar (radio detecting & ranging), UNO ['ju:nou] = United Nations Organisation; UFO [ju:fou] = Unidentified Flying Object; laser (light amplifier of stimulated emition of radiation). e.g. Deflection = derivation based on vowel change in the root of a word: song - to song, loss - to lose, blood - to bleed, hot - heat, belief - to believe, food - to feed, width - wide. Deflection is not productive at present.

Back-formation = a part of a word is erroned by interpreted as a derivative suffix and is dropped: e.g. to beg < beggar; to pedle < pedlar; to hawk < hawker; to edit < editor; to televise < television; to burgle < burglar; to blood-transfuse < blood-transfussion; to baby sit < baby sitter etc. Reduplication = reduplicatives are based on phonetic patterns implying euphony and rhythm in language. In this sense, reduplication are closer to onomatopeic words than to compounds: 1. internal vowel alternation: e.g. chit-chat = gossip; clink-clank = jingle of words; dilly-dally = loiter, waste time; knick-knock = small article of ornament; mishmash = confused mixture; tick tack = sound of the clock, zig zag = series of sharp turns or angles etc. 2. rhyme-based coining: e.g. boogie-woogie = a certain style of playing blues; hocus-pocus = jugglery; hodge-podge = stew of various ingredients, medley; humdrum = boring; mumbo-jumbo = deliberate mystification; ram-jam = erammed full; tweeny-weeny = very small.

Chapter VI SEMANTIC AND OTHER RELATIONS BETWEEN WORDS A. Polysemy; B. Homonymy, complete, partial; homophones, homographs; C. Synonymy; D. Antonymy. Polysemy or plurality of meaning
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It is impossible for any language, no matter how rich, to have a separate word for every separate notion. The fact is that a new word is not always coined for every new notion. Very often a new notion is expressed by an old word which acquires a new meaning or a new shade of meaning. That is why most words have more than one meaning. Every notion is a complex of the most typical characteristic features of an item. It disregards the very specific features. One may view and the same item from various aspects and would like to stress one or another of its diverse peculiarities or links with other objects. Some specific features of a given extra-linguistic fact may become thus important because they, in their turn can be traced in other facts. So that these features will become the most typical and give rise to another notion. Let us take, for example, the word HEAD. Its first meaning given in Current English Dictionaries is "That part of the body above the neck". Obviously these features formed the notion. But the HEAD as an extra-linguistic fact has other specific features as for instance: it is the seat of the brain where all mental processes take place and also the seat of all centres which command every part of the human body. Also as far as its position goes, it is the topmost part of the body. On the basis of these latter features of the extra-linguistic item HEAD, it is related or shares them with other extra-linguistic facts which do not have anything to do with the human body. The commanding position of the head as the other parts of the body is the same as the commanding position of any other organism or enterprise. From here the notion of commanding position becomes important. Instead of coining a new word, the old word HEAD is used but now with an additional meaning of "commanding position" or "the chief or most important position", "the place of authority or control", "a chief or leader" etc. The fact that the HEAD is the topmost part of the body relates it with other extra-linguistic facts which also are the topmost part: "the top or highest part of" (i.e. the head of the page) etc. And the demonstration can continue. So, if we take the word HEAD as an example, its picture with all the additional meanings will be something like the following: 1. that part of the body that is above the neck - "They cut his head off."; 2. that side of a coin on which the head of a famous person is (king, queen, president etc.) - "Heads or tails"; 3. a head's length - "The horse won by a head."; 4. the chief or most important position - "at the head of a business"; a) a chief or leader - "the head of a family"; 5. a single person - "there were 50 diners""; a) an individual animal - "50 head of cattle"; 6. the top of the highest part - "at the head of the page" etc. The various meanings of a polysemantic word have different ability to combine with other words not from the grammatical point of view but semantically. Grammatically, the various meanings most frequently do not change the characteristics of the word. Polysemy can be accounted for by: 1. shifts in application - GREEN (colour) to fruit and plants; unripe; or young or tender; vigorous, flourishing; not dried etc.; 2. specialization - a word acquiring additional meanings when used as a technical term. ACTION the process of condition of acting or doing; a thing done, a deed; BUT technically: the taking of legal processes to establish a claim or obtain remedy a legal process or suit; active operation against the enemy, a fight; a devotional exercise etc. 3. figurative expressions: "He COMBED the streets for his old friends"; - a mountain of a baggage" etc.; 4. borrowings - may slightly differ in meaning in the target language as compared to the language from which it was borrowed: "affair" (= business in French) means mostly "an amorous relationship" (=love affair") etc.

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Homonymy Homonyms are words different in meaning but identical in form. This linguistic process is the result of coincidence. Due to various grammatical, phonological and semantic developments which unquestionably take place in conformity with linguistic rules, the forms of words change, and at a given period, certain words may become identical in form, e.g. calf - the young of any bovine animal or the fleshy hinder part of the shank of a leg; Homonymy may be: complete as in the above examples (perfect phonetical and grammatical coinciding forms) or partial when the phonetical and grammatical forms are partially different: e.g. to lie - lay - lain and to lie - lied - lied; considering (prep.) and considering (pres. part.). (Sometimes partial homonymy is referred to as conversion). Homophones - are homonyms which coincide in sound but differ in spelling and meaning: e.g. know - no; knew - new, blue - blew, night - knight, right write, red - read, missed - mist, site - sight, tail - tale, hair - hare, pair - pear. Homographs are homonyms coinciding in spelling while differing in sound and meaning: e.g. bow [bou] - arc, bow [bu] - a se @nclina; lead [led] - plumb, to lead [li:d] - a conduce; row [rou] - ]ir, row [rau] - ceart[; tear [ti] - lacrim[, to tear [te] - a rupe etc.

Synonymy Synonymy are words which have different shades of one and the same basic meaning. In the history of a language there are periods abounding in synonyms for certain notions which fall out of use at a later period, e.g. in A.-S. literature there are about 30 synonyms for the notion of "warrior" and almost the same number for the notion of "sea". The majority of these are completely obsolete in Modern English:
Synonym s a b s o lu te r e la tiv e (p ro p e r ) le x ic a l g r a m m a tic a l

1. Absolute or perfect synonymy - exceedingly rare. Nothing will justify the existence of two words or grammatical forms side by side having exactly the same meaning in one language. "If two words exactly coincide in meaning and use the natural tendency is for one of them to drop out of the language. A simple example is the word an, which in Shakespeare's time had the same function and use/ as if; in the fight for survival if won. Usually "synonyms function only part of the way together "and their roads divide". (H.A. Treble - An ASC of English Usage, Oxford, 1936). 2. Relative synonyms (synonyms proper)

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a) "lexical synonyms - imply either certain semantic differences, or the accentuation of certain notes characteristic of the respective notion, phenomenon" etc. (L. Levichi - Lexicologie, 1970). The examples below are taken from the same source, e.g. in the series ENCLOSURE, FENCE, WALL, ENCLOSURE has the most general meaning and represent the dominant of the synonymic series, something that ecloses"; FENCE is an "enclosure" put round a field, garden etc., especially one made of wood or wire/; HEDGE is a row of bushes or low trees usually cut level in hight, planted to form a boundary; WALL is a solid structure made especially of stone, brick or concrete, used to enclose, divide or protect; in the series THIN, SLENDER, SLIM, LEAN and MEAGRE, THIN is the most general and comprehensive, expressing lack of fatness or insufficient quantity of fatness; SLENDER involves a certain, agreeable proportion in the body or parts of the body; SLIM may replace SLENDER, but it usually connotes the idea of frailty; LEAN is used to underline the idea that somebody is no longer fat or normal (it frequently combines with MEAT); MEAGRE underlines the idea of "thinness and weakness". Further analysis of synonyms implying stylistical approach, register, formality etc. can prove both interesting and helpful in the effort of refining the knowledge of English of all learners. b) grammatical synonyms - are widely developed in Modern English. Consider e.g. - the various means of expressing futurity; the means of expressing permission (asking, granting); expressing past routine etc. The importance of a good command of synonymy not only in one but also in two or more languages is a prerequiste for translations. To translate means to find equivalents - the most adequate equivalents; the best solutions seldom come "at once" - to find equivalents actually means to select from a possible synonymic series (See L. Levi\chi - Lexicologia, 1970).

Antonyms Antonyms are words opposed in meaning. Only words belonging to one and the same grammatical category can be antonyms. L. Levi\chi suggests that "by slightly enlarging the usual definition of antonyms it may be said that they are "lexical and grammatical units whose meanings are in a relation of opposition". In this way antonyms cease to be an exclusive potentiality of words (rapidly - slowly, open - shut etc.); they also include phrases (as plump as a partridge as thin as a lath; to be taken ill to recover etc.) and certain grammatical forms (he was he was not, he was in the army for 3 years he has been in the army for 3 years, etc)". a) lexical antonymy - in point of form, absolute lexical antonyms can be divided into radical and affixal. Radical synonyms are expressed by different lexical units (good bad, short tall etc.) while affixal synonyms are expressed by words having the same rot, the relation of opposition being established by means of negative prefixes; to believe disbelieve, important unimportant, do undo, encode decode etc. and the negative suffix less - useful useless, careful careless etc. Relative antonyms express partial opposition between lexical or grammatical units. In most cases these opposition are accidental (contextual), e.g. conduct - conduct[, comportare, mod de a se purta @n general behaviour purtare, comportament @ntr-o @mprejurare dat[, the opposition being "permanence" "limited duration". In a stanza from Shelley's "Song to the Men of England", L. Levitchi finds both lexical and grammatical relative antonyms: The seed ye sow, another reaps;
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The wealth ye find, another keeps; The robes ye weave, another wears; The arms ye forge, another bears; REAP, KEEP, WEAR, BEAR are not opposed to SOW, FIND, WEAVE, FORGE, respectively, but here in this context. Similarly, the demonstrative pronoun ANOTHER and the personal pronoun, HE are not necessarily in a relation of opposition, but become antonyms in the quoted stanza because of the general linguistic context in which they are used. b) grammatical antonyms - consider the so-called "disjunctive questions". "He is a good physician, isn't he?" etc.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, Valerie, Banta, Andrei, An Introduction to Modern English Word Formation, London, 1973. Relations between English Semantics and Grammar, n Analele Universitii Bucureti. Limbi germanice, Bucureti, 1971. English Word-Formation, CUP, 1983. Productivity in Word-Formation, in Gregersen, 1978.

Bauer, Laurie, Bauer, Laurie,

Baugh Albert C. & A History of the English Language, a treia Thomas Cable, ediie revizuit, London, 1978. Biese, Y. M., Fries, C. C., Iarovici, Edith, Jespersen, Otto, Origin and Development of Conversion in English, Helsinki, 1941. The Structure of English, New York, 1952. Engleza american Ed. tiinific, Bucureti, 1971. Growth and Structure of the English Language, London, 1956.

Levichi, Leon, Lexicologia, Ed. Didactic i Pedagogic, Bucureti, 1973. Marchand, Hans, The Categories and Types of Present-day English WordFormation, Munich, 1969. Marchand, Hans, A Set of Criteria for the Establishing of Derivational Relationship between Words Unmarked by Derivational Morphemes, IF, 1964. Pennanen, E. V., Conversion and Zero-derivation in English, Acta Universitatis Tamperensis, ser. A, vol. 40, 1971.

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