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Assessment Title:
Listening/ Responsive (2)
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2.1 Recognizing Morphological Elements
Shortening. Types of shortening
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Word-building processes involve not only qualitative but also quantitative
changes. Thus, derivation and compounding represent addition as suffixes and free
stems respectively are added to the underlying form. Shortening , on the other
hand, may be represented as subtraction, in which part of the original word is taken
away. The types of shortening are: clipping, blending, abbreviation and acronyms.
Clipping is a type of word-building shortening of spoken words. Shortening
consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts, as a result of which the new
form acquires some linguistic value of its own. The part retained does not change
phonetically, hence the necessity of spelling changes, e.g., double – dub,
microphone – mike, tranquilizer – trank.
The generally accepted classification of shortened words is based on the
position of the clipped part.
According to whether it is the final, initial or middle part of the word that is
cut off we distinguish:
1) initial clipping (or aphesis , i.e. a pheresis , from Greek "aphairesis" - a taking
away), e.g., cap (captain), phone (telephone), story (history), chute (parachute);
2) final clipping (or a pocope, from Greek "apokoptein" - cut off), e.g., cap
(captain), gym (gymnasium, gymnastics), lab (laboratory), ed (editor);
3) medial clipping (or syncope, from Greek "syncope" a cutting up), e.g., fancy
(fantasy), ma'am (madam).
Final and initial clipping may be combined and result in the curtailed words
with the middle part of the prototype retained, e.g., flu (influenza), frig
(refrigerator), tec (detective).
If we approach the shortened word from the point of view of the structure of
the prototype we distinguish two groups:
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1) shortened words correlated with words, e.g., cabbie (cabman), nightie
(nightdress), teeny (teenager);
2) shortened words correlated with phrasea, e.g., finals (final examinations), perm
(permanent wave), pop (popular music), pub (public house), taxi (taximeter-cab).
Unlike conversion, shortening produces new words in the same part of
speech. The bulk of shortened words are nouns. Verbs are rarely shortened, e.g.,
rev (revolve), tab (tabulate). To phone, to taxi, to vac and others are converted
nouns. Clipped adjectives are also very few, e.g., comfy (comfortable), awk
(awkward), impos (impossible), mizzy (miserable).
Blending is a type of compounding by means of merging parts of words into
new one word. The process of formation is also called telescoping, because the
words seem to slide into one another like sections of a telescope. E.g., brunch
(breakfast + lunch), smog (smoke + fog), smaze (smoke + haze), slimnastics (slim
+ gymnastics).
It seems practical to distinguish the following groups of blends:
1) coining a new word from the initial elements of one word and the final elements
of another, e.g., drunch (drink + lunch), skort (skirt + short);
2) coining a new word by combining one notional word arid the final element of
another word, e.g., manglish (man + English), radiotrician (radio + electrician);
3) combining the initial elements of one word with a notional word, e.g., mobus
(motors + bus), legislady (legislative lady).
Such coinages are often formed with a playful or humorous intent and have a
stylistic status. They can convey various shades of emotive colouring (irony or
mockery), which makes them most active in different types of slang: dopelomat
(dope + diplomat), Yanigan (Yankee + hooligan), nixonomics (Nixon +
economics).
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Blends, although not very numerous altogether, seem to be on the rise,
especially in terminology and also in trade advertisements.
Abbreviation is a type of shortening when words are formed from the initial
letters of each part of a phrasal term. Abbreviations are pronounced as a series of
letters, i.e. the alphabetical reading of the letters is retained. E.g., B.B.C. (The
British Broadcasting Corporation), M.P. (Member of Parliament), P.M. (Prime
Minister), T.V. (Television), Y.C.L. (The Young Communist League).
A specific type of abbreviations having no parallel in Ukrainian is represented
by Latin abbreviations, which are not read as Latin words but substituted by their
English equivalents, e.g., a.m. (ante meridium) – in the morning; p.m. (post
meridiem) – in the afternoon; i.e. (id est) – that is; cp. (comparare) – compare; e.g.,
(exempli gratia) – for example.
Acronyms (from Greek "acros" end + "onym" name) are abbreviated words
formed from the initial letters of word-combination; the abbreviated written form
lends itself to be read as though, it was an ordinary English word and sounds like
an English word. E.g., NATO /neitou/ - The North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
UNO /ju:nou/ - United Nations Organization, SALT /solt/ - Strategic Arms
Limitation Talks, radar – radio detecting and ranging; laser – light amplification
stimulated emission radio; maser – microwave amplification stimulated emission
radio.
Christian names in acronyms:
Fred – fast reading electric device;
Oscar – orbiting satellite;
Eva – electronic velocity analyzer.
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