Ўзбекистон республикаси олий ва ўрта махсус таълим вазирлиги ўзбекистон давлат жаҳон тиллари университети инглиз тили назарий аспектлари №1

Answer the following questions:
1. What is affixation?
2. What criteria for classification of affixes do we know?
3. What morphemes are called prefixes?
4. What morphemes are called suffixes?
5. What semantic features can affixes possess?
6. What language elements do we call ‘semi-affixes’?


LECTURE 11. COMPOUNDING AS A MAJOR TYPE OF WORD FORMATION
Plan of the lecture:
1. Definition of compounds and ways of their formation
2. The meaning and motivation in compounds
3. Idiomaticity in compounds
4. Classification of compounds according to different criteria
5. Grammatical classes of compounds
6. Correlation between compounds and phraseological units

Modern English is very rich in compound words. Compound words are

made up by joining two or more stems. For example, taxi-driver, paint-box, bookcase, etc.
For a combination to be a compound there is one condition to be fulfilled;
the compound must be morphologically isolated from a parallel syntactic group.
BIackbird has the morpho-phonetic stress pattern of a compound black market has not, despite its phrasal meaning; the latter therefore is a syntactic group, morphologically speaking stress is a criterion here. «Compound words are words consisting of at least two stems which occur in the language as free forms. In a compound word the immediate constituents obtain integrity and structural cohesion that make them function in a sentence as a separate lexical unit». (Arnold 1. V.}
«Word-composition» or compounding is a distinct type of words made up by
joining together two stems (mostly stems of notional parts of speech)». (Ginzburg R. S. and others)
Generally, a compound-member cannot, like a word in a phrase, serve as a
constituent in a syntactic construction. The word «black» in the phrase «black
birds» can be modified by «very (very black birds)», but not so the compound —
member «black» in blackbirds.
A compound word has a single semantic structure. We distinguish the
meaning of 'the compound words from the combined lexical meanings of its
components. For example, «pencil- case» is a case for pencils. The meaning of the
compound words is derived not only from the combined lexical meanings of its
components but also from the order and arrangement of the stems. A change in the
order of components of compound words brings a change in their lexical meaning.
For example, life-boat — a boat of special construction for saving lives, boat-life
— life on board of a ship. a fruit-market — market where fruit is sold, marketfruit— fruit for selling.
Compound words differ from free word-groups, they are inseparable vocabulary units. Compound words structurally, phonetically and graphically are
inseparable.
Structurally compounds are inseparable because if we change the places of
components of compounds we see the change of meaning in compounds or they will not be compounds. For example, boat-life — life on ship, life-boat—a boat
which is used for saving. If we change the places of components of compound word long-legged in this way «legged long» it will be not a compound word. So
the inseparability in structure of compounds can be seen in their specific order and
arrangement of stems.
The compounds are phonetically inseparable as the components of them
have only one stress. Mostly the first component is stressed. For example, penknife, 'book-case, 'doorway, 'bookshelf. There are some compounds which have a double stress. In this case we have the primary stress on the first component and a weaker secondary stress on the second component. For example, 'mad-'doctor,
'washing-'machine, 'money-'order etc.
These stress patterns in many cases may be used as a criteria of distinguishing compound words from free word groups. As we know both components of free word groups are always stressed. For example, a 'green-house
— a 'glass-house, a 'green 'house (word group)—a house that is painted green, 'dancing-girl—a dancer, 'dancing 'girl—a girl who is dancing.
Graphically compounds have two types of spelling — they are written either
together or with a hyphen. This is also one of the criteria of distinguishing of compounds from word groups.
Some linguists1 advocate the semantic criterion. They define a compound
word as a combination of words expressing a single idea. This point of view causes
some doubt. Because it does not give us sufficient ground to distinguish between
the cases of compound words and idiomatic set phrases. Like other linguistic phenomena we may approach to the study of compounds synchronicaliy and diachronically.
Synchronically we study the structural and semantic patterns of compound
words, while diachronically we study the various changes compound words undergone in the course of time and the way compound words appear in the language.
Some compounds which were formed in old English can't be considered compound words. The morphological structure of a word loses the meaning and undergoes phonetic changes. This case is called simplification. For example, woman OE—wifmasn (woman — person), daisy OE—dass ease (day's eye).
It follows that the meaning of a compound is made up of the combined lexical meaning of the bases and the structural meaning of the pattern.
T he s e m a n t i c c e n t r e of the compound is the lexical meaning of t h e s e c o n d c o m p o n e n t modified and restricted by the meaning of the first. The semantic centres of compounds and the semantic relations embedded in the structural patterns refer compound words to certain lexico-semantic groups and semantic sets within them as, for example: 1) compound words denoting action described as to its agent, e.g. sunrise, earthquake, handshake, 2) compounds denoting action described as to its time or place, e.g. day-flight, street-fight, 3) compounds denoting individual objects designed for some goal, e.g. bird-cage, table-cloth, diving-suit, 4) compounds denoting objects that are parts of the whole, e.g. shirt-collar, eye-ball, 5) compounds denoting active doers, e.g. book-reader, shoe-maker, globe-trotter.
The lexical meanings of both components are closely fused together to create a new semantic unit with a new meaning which is not merely additive but dominates the individual meanings of the bases and is characterised by some additional semantic component not found in any of the bases. For example, a hand-bag is essentially ‘a bag, designed to be carried in the hand’, but it is also ‘a woman’s bag to keep money, papers, facepowder and the like’; a time-bomb is ‘a bomb designed to explode at some time’, but also ‘after being dropped or placed in position’.
The bulk of compound words are monosemantic and motivated but motivation in compounds like in all derivatives varies in degree. There are compounds that are c o m p l e t e l y m o t i v a t e d like sky-blue, foot-pump, tea-taster. M o t i v a t i o n in compound words m a y be p a r t i a1, but again the degree will vary. Compound words a hand-bag, a flowerbed, handcuffs, a castle-builder are all only partially motivated, but still the degree of transparency of their meanings is different: in a hand-bag it is the highest as it is essentially ‘a bag’, whereas handcuffs retain only a resemblance to cuffs and in fact are ‘metal rings placed round the wrists of a prisoner’; a flower-bed is neither ‘a piece of furniture’ nor ‘a base on which smth rests’ but a ‘garden plot where flowers grow’; a castle-builder is not a ‘builder’ as the second component suggests but ‘a day-dreamer,
one who builds castles in the air’.
There are compounds that l a c k m o t i v a t i o n a l t o g e t h e r , i.e. the native speaker doesn't see any obvious connection between the word-meaning, the lexical meanings of the bases and the meaning of the pattern, consequently, he cannot deduce the lexical meaning, of the word, for example, words like eye-wash — ’something said or done to deceive a person’, fiddlesticks — ‘nonsense, rubbish’, an eye-servant — ‘a servant who attends to his duty only when watched’, a night-cap — ‘a drink taken before going to bed at night’ all lack motivation. Lack of motivation in compound words may be often due to the transferred meanings of bases or of the whole word as in a slow-coach — ‘a person who acts slowly’ (colloq.), a sweet-tooth — ‘one who likes sweet food and drink’ (colloq.). Such words often acquire a new connotational meaning (usually non-neutral) not proper to either of their components. Lack of motivation may be often due to unexpected semantic relations embedded in the compound.
Sometimes the motivated and the non-motivated meanings of the same word are so far apart that they are felt as two homonymous words, e.g. a night-cap: 1) ‘a cap worn in bed at night’ and 2) ‘a drink taken before going to bed at night’ (colloq.); eye-wash: 1) ‘a liquid for washing the eyes’ and 2) ’something said or done to deceive somebody’ (colloq.); an eyeopener: 1) ‘enlightening or surprising circumstance’ (colloq.) and 2) ‘a drink of liquor taken early in the day’ (U.S.)
Idiomaticity is the tendency of phrases to take on meanings that go beyond the meanings of their parts. That is, idiomaticity is in opposition to compositionality. As we'll see below when we consider more extreme examples, idiomaticity is a matter of degree. But in all cases, the aspects of meaning that are not derivable from the parts of the phrase and that speakers and hearers are expected to know must be stored in the lexicon. That is, they are linguistic conventions. The extent to which languages are idiomatic, that is, the extent to which they deviate from pure compositionality, is a matter of considerable controversy. I'll focus on clearly idiomatic examples, but some researchers believe that extra meaning is inherent in a great number of frequent phrases and that the lexicon stores far more information about meaning than it would if language were more purely compositional.
Note that English actually distinguishes the compositional phrase black board from the idiomatic word blackboard. Not only is the idiom written as one word (a relatively trivial writing convention); it is stressed on the first element rather than the second, as would be normal for non-idiomatic adjective + noun phrases. This is also true for other similar examples: greenhouse vs. green house, bluebird vs. blue bird, softball vs. soft ball. But English is not completely consistent with this pattern. Slow motion has an idiomatic component; it refers not just to motion that is slow but to normal motion which is displayed in a slowed-down fashion. However, the stress is on motion rather than slow, and we write the expression as two words.
Are expressions like blackboard, softball, and slow motion words? We could choose to decide whether an English expression is a word on the basis of whether it is written as one word, that is, without spaces within it. But the writing conventions are not very consistent, and in any case they are a reflection of whatever it is that makes something a word rather than the basis for calling it a word. Besides, using the conventions regarding placement of spaces would not help at all with languages such as Japanese that have writing systems that do not use spaces to separate words or with the many languages that are not written at all.
English also has a number of highly idiomatic noun + noun phrases. A couch potato is not a potato at all but a person who spends a lot time on the couch. A bookworm is not a worm but a person who loves books. Both of these are examples of metaphoric extensions. Some insults are noun + noun phrases involving both metaphor and metonymy. A chowder head, for example, is a person whose head seems as if it is full of soup. This is metaphoric in the sense that the person's brains are similar to chowder and metonymic in the sense that the person is referred to through a body part.
Though expressions such as live wire and couch potato, like blackboard, are wordlike in the sense that their meanings have to be stored in the lexicon, many of them seem less like words than compounds such as blackboard do. For the adjective + noun expressions in this category, English does not usually put the stress on the adjective as it does for compounds such as blackboard. Perhaps having these idiomatic phrases sound like ordinary compositional phrases rather than like words makes them more colorful; hearers are reminded of their original meanings as compositional phrases. In any case, we have been thinking of the lexicon as a place to store words. Now it is clear that some whole phrases need to be there as well. We need a new, more general term to refer to units stored in the lexicon; the usual term for this is a lexical unit /item. Lexical items include words such as board and apple, compounds such as blackboard and softball, and idiomatic phrases such as live wire and cold turkey. As noted above, they may also include phrases that are compositional but appear frequently, phrases such as apple pie and green apple.
From the point of view how the components are joined together the compound words may be classified into; compounds whose components are joined with a linking element, (Afro-Asion, Anglo-Saxon, sportsman, speedometer, handicraft, statesman, landsman) and without a linking element (snowball, raincoat, door-handle, reading-room, paint-box, door-step).
Compound words are also classified according to different ways of
compounding. In this case we divide them into two groups: 1) compound words proper. Such kind of compounds are formed by joining together stems of words and these compounds have no derivational affix. The components of such compounds are simple stems. For example, door-step, looking-glass, table-cloth, whitewash, bookcase, bookshelf; 2) derivational compounds. These compounds have a derivational affix: long-legged, kind-hearted, schoolboyishness, blue-eyed, absentminded.
There are two types of relationship in linguistic literature: that of coordination and subordination and accordingly compound words may be classified into coordinative and subordinative. In coordinative compounds the components are structurally and semantically independent (reduplicative: goody-goody, fifty-fifty).
In subordinative compounds the components are based on the domination of one component over the other.