LECTURE 5. Word Building.

1. The morphological structure of a word. 
2. Affixation. 
3. Compounding. 
4. Conversion. 
5. Other types of word building. 

1. A word is the main unit of the language. A word is an autonomous unit of the language in which a particular meaning is associated with a particular sound form and which is capable of a particular grammatical employment. The word is able to form a sentence by itself. If viewed structurally, words appear to be divisible into smaller units which are called morphemes. A morpheme is not an autonomous unit of the language though it is also an association of a given meaning with a given sound form. Morphemes do not occur as free forms but only as constituents of words. Yet they possess meaning of their own. We can say that a morpheme is the smallest meaningful language unit. E.g. heart-ly (2 morphemes) 

2. According to the role they play in constructing words morphemes are subdivided into roots and affixes. The latter, in their turn, fall into prefixes and suffixes. Roots are main morphemic vehicle of a given idea in a given language and at a given stage of the development. It is a common element within a word family. E.g. –heart- is the common root of the following words: heart, hearten, heartless, sweetheart, heartbroken, etc. Affixes are units of the words structure which take part in the meaning of the word as a whole, but are dependant on the meaning of the root. Affixes are subdivided into: 1) derivatives – words which consist of a root and one or more affixes; 2) compounds – words which consist of two or more stems (E.g. dining room, mother-in-law); 3) derivational compounds which combine words of a phrase plus affixation (kindhearted). The process of affixation consists in coining a new word by adding an affix or several affixes to some root morpheme. According to their position affixes are subdivided into suffixes and prefixes, according to their function and meaning into derivatives and functional affixes and from etymological point of view – into native and borrowed. A suffix is a derivational morpheme following the stem and forming a new derivative in a different part of speech or a different wordclass. A suffix is a derivational morpheme standing before the root and modifying meaning. An interfix is an affix placed within the word (Anglosaxon). This type is productive. Functional affixes. They serve to convey the grammatical meaning. They build the different forms of one and the same word. Complete sets of the forms of a word are termed paradigm. A paradigm is the system of grammatical forms, characteristics of a word. A paradigm of a word “near” is “nearer, the nearest”. E.g. a son, son’s, sons, sons’. Derivational affixes serve to supply the stem with components of the lexical and lexicogrammatical meaning and thus form different words. E.g. –y; its lexico-grammatical meaning consists in the ability to express the qualitative idea peculiar to adjectives and creates adjectives from noun stems. The concrete lexical meaning of the suffix –y is: 1) full of (cloudy); 2) covered with (hairy). Borrowed affixes. They are especially of Roman origin. They are very numerous in the English vocabulary. E.g. dis-, extra-, in-, etc. All these affixes take part in the word making process. 

3. Compounding or word composition is a productive type of word formation in Modern English. There are 3 types of word building: compounding, conversion, affixation. Compound words are made up by joining together two stems. There are at least 3 aspects of composition: structural, semantic, the criteria for distinguishing between a compound and word combination. Structural aspect. Due to this aspect three types of compounds are distinguished: a) neutral; b) morphological; c) syntactic. a) In neutral compounds there is no linking element. Words are formed by placing one constituent after another in a definite order. E.g. bedroom. b) Morphological compounds are few in number. This type is non-productive. It is represented by words in which the compounding stems are combined by a linking vowel or consonant. E.g. Anglosaxon. c) Syntactic compounds. The elements of such compounds are arranged as in a phrase. This is a typical English of compounding. E.g. jack-of-all-trades (мастер на все руки); don’t get into buy-now-pay-later-trap; know-all. Semantic aspect. To do well upon this problem let’s answer the question: if the meaning of the compounds can be regarded as the sum of its constituent meanings. It can be if a compound belongs to the first group which is called non-idiomatic compounds. E.g. class-room. Its meaning can be described as the sum of its constituent meanings. The second and the third groups are called idiomatic compounds. The meaning of the compounds of the second group is transparent, though one of the constituents has changed its meaning we can see through the meaning of the whole compound. At least we can have a vague idea. E.g. good for nothing (никчемный); a blackbird. The third group. The compounds of this group represent compounds whose meanings don’t correspond to the separately taken meanings. It is impossible to understand the meaning of the whole complex by taking separate meanings of the constituents. E.g. blue stocking (девушка, сильно занимающаяся учебой ), wallflower (дама, оставшаяся без кавалера), red-neck (работяга). 

4. Conversion consists in making a new word from some existing word by changing the category of a part of speech, the morphemic shape of the original word remains the same. The new word has a meaning which differs from that of the original one though it can easily be associated with it. It has also a new paradigm peculiar to its new category as a part of speech. nurse (noun) to nurse (verb) -s; pl -’s; Poss. C. -s’; Poss. C.; pl -s; 3d p.; sg -ed; Past Simple; Part. -ing; Present Part.; Gerund The two categories of parts of speech especially effective by conversion are nouns and verbs. Verbs made from nouns are the most numerous. E.g. a hand, to hand; a back, to back. Nouns are frequently made from verbs. E.g. to go, a go; to work, a work; to show, a show. Verbs can also be made from adjectives. E.g. pale, to pale; warm, to warm. Other parts of speech are not subject to conversion. E.g. down, to down; in, ins; etc.