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Лексикология как наука. Предмет лексикологии и ее связь с другими разделами языкознания
Слово как основная единица языка. Отношения между словом и понятием
Проблема определения слова и его основные характеристики
Элементы семантической структуры слова. Полисемия в английском языке
Полисемия и омонимия. Проблема разграничения полисемии и омонимии
Антонимические отношения между словарными единицами. Некоторые общие и различительные черты синонимов и антонимов
Типы значения. Значение в синтагматике и парадигматике
Значение в сложных словах
The group of bahuvrihi compound nouns is not very numerous. The term bahuvrihi is borrowed from the grammarians of ancient India. Its literal meaning is ‘much-riced’. It is used to designate possessive exocentric formations in which a person, animal or thing are metonymically named after some striking feature they possess, chiefly a striking feature in their appearance. This feature is in its turn expressed by the sum of the meanings of the compound’s immediate constituents. The formula of the bahuvrihi compound nouns is adjective stem + noun stem. The following extract will illustrate the way bahuvrihi compounds may be coined: I got discouraged with sitting all day in the backroom of a police station with six assorted women and a man with a wooden leg. At the end of a week, we all knew each other’s life histories, including that of the woodenleg’s uncle, who lived at Selsey and had to be careful of his diet (M. Dickens). Semantically the bahuvrihi are almost invariably characterised by a deprecative ironical emotional tone. Cf. bigwig ‘a person of importance’, black-shirt ‘an Italian fascist’ (also, by analogy, any fascist), fathead ‘a dull, stupid person’, greenhorn ‘an ignoramus’, highbrow ‘a person who claims to be superior in intellect and culture’, lazy-bones ‘a lazy person’.
Compound adjectives regularly correspond to free phrases.
The type has a variant with a different semantic formula: snow-white means ‘as white as snow’, so the underlying sense relation in that case is emphatic comparison, e. g. dog-tired, dirt-cheap, stone-deaf. Examples are mostly connected with colours: blood-red, sky-blue, pitch-black; with dimensions and scale: knee-deep, breast-high, nationwide, life-long, world-wide.
The same formula occurs in additive compounds of the bitter-sweet type correlated with free phrases of the type adjective1 and adjective2 {bitter and sweet) that are rather numerous in technical and scholarly vocabulary: social-economic, etc. The subgroup of Anglo-Saxon has been already discussed.
A similar type with the pronoun stem self- as the first component (self-adjusting, self-propelling) is used in cultivated and technical speech only.
Scholars are not agreed on the question of compound verbs. This problem indeed can be argued in several different ways. It is not even clear whether verbal compositions exist in present-day English, though such verbs as outgrow, overflow, stand up, black-list, stage-manage and whitewash are often called compound verbs. There are even more complications to the problem than meet the eye.
H. Marchand, whose work has been quoted so extensively in the present chapter, treats outgrow and overflow as unquestionable compounds, although he admits that the type is not productive and that locative particles are near to prefixes. “The Concise Oxford Dictionary", on the other hand, defines out- and over- as prefixes used both for verbs and nouns; this approach classes outgrow and overflow as derivatives, which seems convincing.
The stand-up type was in turns regarded as a phrase, a compound and a derivative; its nature has been the subject of much discussion. The verbs blackmail and stage-manage belong to two different groups because they show different correlations with the rest of the vocabulary.
blackmail v = honeymoon v = nickname v
blackmail n honeymoon n nickname n
The verbs blackmail, honeymoon and nickname are, therefore, cases of conversion from endocentric nominal compounds. The type stage-manage may be referred to back-formation. The correlation is as follows:
stage-manage v = proof-read v = housekeep v
stage-manager n proof-reader n housekeeper n
The second element in the first group is a noun stem; in the second group it is always verbal.
Some examples of the first group are the verbs safeguard, nickname, shipwreck, whitewash, tiptoe, outline, honeymoon, blackmail, hero-worship. All these exist in English for a long time. The 20th century created week-end, double-cross ‘betray’, stream-line, softpedal, spotlight. The type is especially productive in colloquial speech and slang, particularly in American English.
The second group is less numerous than the first but highly productive in the 20th century. Among the earliest coinages are backbite (1300) and browbeat (1603), then later ill-treat, house-keep. The 20th century has coined hitch-hike (cf. hitch-hiker) ‘to travel from place to place by asking motorists for free rides’; proof-read (cf. proof-reader') ‘to read and correct printer’s proofs’; compare also mass-produce, taperecord and vacuum-clean. The most recent is hijack ‘make pilots change the course of aeroplanes by using violence’ which comes from the slang word hijacker explained in the Chambers’s Dictionary as ‘a highwayman or a robber and blackmailer of bootleggers’ (smugglers of liquor). The structural integrity of these combinations is supported by the order of constituents which is a contrast to the usual syntactic pattern where the verb stem would come first. Cf. to read proofs and to proofread.
Derivational compounds or compound-derivatives are words in which the structural integrity of the two free stems is ensured by a suffix referring to the combination as a whole, not to one of its elements: kind-hearted, old-timer, schoolboyishness, teenager. In the coining of the derivational compounds two types of word-formation are at work. The essence of the derivational compounds will be clear if we compare them with derivatives and compounds proper that possess a similar structure. Take, for example, brainstraster, honeymooner and mill-owner. The ultimate constituents of all three are: noun stem + noun stem + -er. Analysing into immediate constituents, we see that the immediate constituents (IC’s) of the compound mill-owner are two noun stems, the first simple, the second derived: mill + owner.
The process of word-building in these seemingly similar words is different: mill-owner is coined by composition, honeymooner — by derivation from the compound honeymoon. Honeymoon being a compound, honeymooner is a derivative. Now brains trust ‘a group of experts’ is a phrase, so brainstruster is formed by two simultaneous processes — by composition and by derivation and may be called a derivational compound. Its IC’s are (brains + trust)+ -еr. The suffix -er' is one of the productive suffixes in forming derivational compounds.
Another frequent type of derivational compounds are the possessive compounds of the type kind-hearted: adjective stem + noun stem + -ed. Its IC’s are a noun phrase kind heart and the suffix -ed that unites the elements of the phrase and turns them into the elements of a compound adjective. Similar examples are extremely numerous. Compounds of this type can be coined very freely to meet the requirements of different situations. The first element may also be a noun stem: bow-legged, heart-shaped and very often a numeral: three-coloured. The derivational compounds often become the basis of further derivation. Cf. war-minded : : war-mindedness; whole-hearted : : whole-heartedness : : whole-heartedly, schoolboyish : : schoolboyishness; do-it-yourselfer : : do-it-yourselfism.
The group consists of reduplicative compounds that fall into three main subgroups:
Reduplicative compounds proper. Actually it is a very mixed group containing usual free forms, onomatopoeic stems and pseudo-morphemes. Onomatopoeic repetition exists but it is not very extensive: hush-hush ‘secret’, murmur (a borrowing from French) pooh-pooh (to express contempt). In blah-blah ‘nonsense’, ‘idle talk’ the constituents are pseudo-morphemes which do not occur elsewhere.
Ablaut combinations are twin forms consisting of one basic morpheme (usually the second), sometimes a pseudo-morpheme which is repeated in the other constituent with a different vowel. The typical changes are [ı] — [æ]: chit-chat ‘gossip’ (from chat ‘easy familiar talk’), dilly-dally ‘loiter’, knick-knack ‘small articles of ornament’, riff-raff ‘the mob’, shilly-shally ‘hesitate’, zigzag (borrowed from French), and [ı] — [o]: ding-dong (said of the sound of a bell), ping-pong ‘table-tennis’, singsong ‘monotonous voice’, tiptop ‘first-rate’.
Rhyme combinations are twin forms consisting of two elements (most often two pseudo-morphemes) which are joined to rhyme: boogie-woogie, flibberty-gibberty ‘frivolous’, harum-scarum ‘disorganised’, helter-skelter ‘in disordered haste’, hoity-toity ‘snobbish’, humdrum ‘bore’, hurry-scurry ‘great hurry’, hurdy-gurdy ‘a small organ’, lovey-dovey ‘darling’, mumbo-jumbo ‘deliberate mystification, fetish’, namby-pamby ‘weakly sentimental’, titbit ‘a choice morsel’, willy-nilly ‘compulsorily’ (cf. Lat volens-nolens). About 40% of these rhyme combinations (a much higher percentage than with the ablaut combinations) are not motivated: namby-pamby, razzle-dazzle. The pattern is emotionally charged and chiefly colloquial, jocular, often sentimental in a babyish sort of way. The expressive character is mainly due to the effect of rhythm, rhyme and sound suggestiveness.
The words like gillyflower or sparrow-grass are not actually compounds at all, they are cases of false-etymology, an attempt to find motivation for a borrowed word: gillyflower from OFr giroflé, crayfish (small lobster-like fresh-water crustacean, a spiny lobster) from OFr crevice, and sparrow-grass from Latin asparagus. May-day (sometimes capitalised May Day) is an international radio signal used as a call for help from a ship or plane, and it has nothing to do with the name of the month, but is a distortion of the French m'aidez ‘help me’ and so is not a compound at all.
As English compounds consist of free forms, it is difficult to distinguish them from phrases. Separating compounds from phrases and also from derivatives is no easy task, and scholars are not agreed upon the question of relevant criteria. The following is a brief review of various solutions and various combinations of criteria that have been offered.
The problem is naturally reducible to the problem of defining word boundaries in the language. It seems appropriate to quote E. Nida who writes that “the criteria for determining the word-units in a language are of three types:
No one type of criteria is normally sufficient for establishing the word-unit. Rather the combination of two or three types is essential."
E. Nida does not mention the graphic criterion of solid or hyphenated spelling. This underestimation of written language seems to be a mistake. For the present-day literary language, the written form is as important as the oral. If we accept the definition of a written word as the part of the text from blank to blank, we shall have to accept the graphic criterion as a logical consequence. It may be argued, however, that there is no consistency in English spelling in this respect. With different dictionaries and different authors and sometimes even with the same author the spelling varies, so that the same unit may exist in a solid spelling: headmaster, loudspeaker, with a hyphen: head-master, loud-speaker and with a break between the components: head master, loud speaker. Yet if we take into consideration the comparative frequency of solid or hyphenated spelling of the combinations in question, the criterion is fairly reliable. These three types of spelling need not indicate different degrees of semantic fusion. Sometimes hyphenation may serve aesthetic purposes, helping to avoid words that will look too long, or purposes of convenience, making syntactic components clearer to the eye: peace-loving nations, old-fashioned ideas.
This lack of uniformity in spelling is the chief reason why many authors consider this criterion insufficient. Some combine it with the phonic criterion of stress. There is a marked tendency in English to give compounds a heavy stress on the first element. Many scholars consider this unity of stress to be of primary importance.
It is true that all compound nouns, with very few exceptions, are stressed on this pattern. Cf. ‘blackboard : : ‘blackboard’, ‘blackbird : : ‘black'bird; ‘bluebottle : : ‘blue'bottle. The only exception as far as compound nouns are concerned is found in nouns whose first elements are all- and self-, e. g. ‘All-'Fools-Day, ‘self-con'trol. These show double even stress.
The rule does not hold with adjectives. Compound adjectives are double stressed like ‘gray-'green, ‘easy-'going, ‘new-'born. Only compound adjectives expressing emphatic comparison are heavily stressed on the first element: ‘snow-white, ‘dog-cheap.
Moreover, stress can be of no help in solving this problem because word-stress may depend upon phrasal stress or upon the syntactic function of the compound.
Besides, the stress may be phonological and help to differentiate the meaning of compounds:
'overwork ‘extra work'
'over'work ‘hard work injuring one’s health'
'bookcase ‘a piece of furniture with shelves for books'
'book'case ‘a paper cover for books'
'man'kind ‘the human race'
'mankind ‘men’ (contrasted with women)
'toy,factory ‘factory that produces toys'
'toy'factory ‘factory that is a toy’.
It thus follows that phonological criterion holds for certain types of words only.
H. Paul, O. Jespersen, E. Kruisinga and many others, each in his own way, advocate the semantic criterion, and define a compound as a combination forming a unit expressing a single idea which is not identical in meaning to the sum of the meanings of its components in a free phrase. From this point of view dirty work with the figurative meaning ‘dishonorable proceedings’ is a compound, while clean work or dry work are phrases. Сf. fusspot, slow-coach. The insufficiency of this criterion will be readily understood if one realises how difficult it is to decide whether the combination in question expresses a single integrated idea. Besides, between a clearly motivated compound and an idiomatic one there are a great number of intermediate cases.
As to morphological criteria of compounds, they are manifold. Prof. A. I. Smirnitsky introduced the criterion of formal integrity.2 He compares the compound shipwreck and the phrase (the) wreck of (a) ship comprising the same morphemes, and points out that although they do not differ either in meaning or reference, they stand in very different relation to the grammatical system of the language. It follows from his example that a word is characterised by structural integrity non-existent in a phrase. Unfortunately, however, in the English language the number of cases when this criterion is relevant is limited due to the scarcity of morphological means.
“A Grammar of Contemporary English” lists a considerable number of patterns in which plural number present in the correlated phrase is neutralised in a compound. Taxpayer is one who pays taxes, cigar smoker is one who smokes cigars, window-cleaner is one who cleans windows, lip-read is to read the lips. The plural of still-life (a term of painting) is still-lifes and not still lives. But such examples are few. It cannot be overemphasised that giving a mere description of some lexicological phenomenon is not enough; one must state the position of the linguistic form discussed in the system of the language, i.e. the relative importance of the type. Therefore the criterion of structural integrity is also insufficient.
The same is true as regards connective elements which ensure the integrity. The presence of such an element leaves no doubt that the combination is a compound but the number of compounds containing connective elements is relatively insignificant. These elements are few even in languages morphologically richer than English. In our case they are -s- (craftsman), -o- (Anglo-Saxon), -i- (handiwork).
Diachronically speaking, the type craftsman is due either to the old Genitive (guardsman, kinsman, kinswoman, sportsman, statesman, tradesman, tradeswoman, tradesfolk, tradespeople) or to the plural form.
It has already been pointed out that the additive (copulative) compounds of the type Anglo-Saxon are rare, except in special political or technical literature.
Sometimes it is the structural formula of the combination that shows it to be a word and not a phrase. E. g. starlit cannot be a phrase because its second element is the stem of a participle and a participle cannot be syntactically modified by a noun. Besides the meaning of the first element implies plurality which should have been expressed in a phrase. Thus, the word starlit is equivalent to the phrase lit by stars.
To some authors the syntactical criterion based on comparing the compound and the phrase comprising the same morphemes seems to be the most promising. L. Bloomfield points out that “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." This argument, however, does not permit the distinguishing of compounds from set expressions any more than in the case of the semantic criterion: the first element of black market or black list (of persons under suspicion) cannot be modified by very either.
This objection holds true for the argument of indivisibility advanced by B. Bloch and G. Trager who point out that we cannot insert any word between the elements of the compound blackbird. The same example black market serves H. Marchand to prove the insufficiency of this criterion. Black market is indivisible and yet the stress pattern shows it is a phrase. Some transformational procedures that have been offered may also prove helpful. The gist of these is as follows. A phrase like a stone wall can be transformed into the phrase a wall of stone, whereas a toothpick cannot be replaced by a pick for teeth. It is true that this impossibility of transformation proves the structural integrity of the word as compared with the phrase, yet the procedure works only for idiomatic compounds, whereas those that are distinctly motivated permit the transformation readily enough:
That is why we shall repeat with E. Nida that no one type of criteria is normally sufficient for establishing whether the unit is a compound or a phrase, and for ensuring isolation of word from phrase. In the majority of cases we have to depend on the combination of two or more types of criteria (phonological, morphological, syntactic or graphical). But even then the ground is not very safe and the path of investigation inevitably leads us to the intricate labyrinth of “the stone wall problem” that has received so much attention in linguistic literature.
Distinction should be made between shortening which results in new lexical items and a specific type of shortening proper only to written speech resulting in numerous graphical abbreviations which are only signs representing words and word-groups of high frequency of occurrence in various spheres of human activity as for in-stance, RD for Road and St for Street in addresses on envelopes and in letters; tu for tube, aer for aerial in Radio Engineering literature, etc. English graphical abbreviations include rather numerous shortened variants of Latin and French words and word-groups, e.g.: i.e. (L. id est) — ‘that is’; R.S.V.P. (Fr. — Repondez s'il vous plait) — ‘reply please’, etc.
Graphical abbreviations are restricted in use to written speech, occurring only in various kinds of texts, articles, books, advertisements, letters, etc. In reading, many of them are substituted by the words and phrases that they represent, e.g. Dr. = doctor, Mr.=mister, Oct.= October, etc.; the abbreviations of Latin and French words and phrases are usually read as their English equivalents. It follows that graphical abbreviations cannot be considered new lexical vocabulary units.
It is only natural that in the course of language development some graphical abbreviations should gradually penetrate into the sphere of oral intercourse and, as a result, turn into self-contained lexical units used both in oral and written speech. That is the case, for instance, with a.m. ['ei'em] — ‘in the morning, before noon’; p.m. ['pi:'em] — ‘in the afternoon’; S.O.S. ['es ‘ou ‘es] (=Save Our Souls) — ‘urgent call for help’, etc.
1. Transformations of word-groups into words involve different types of lexical shortening: ellipsis or substantivisation, initial letter or syllable abbreviations (also referred to as acronyms), blendings, etc.
Substantivisation consists in dropping of the final nominal member of a frequently used attributive word-group. When such a member of the word-group is dropped as, for example, was the case with a documentary film the remaining adjective takes on the meaning and all the syntactic functions of the noun and thus develops into a new word changing its class membership and becoming homonymous to the existing adjective. It may be illustrated by a number of nouns that appeared in this way, e.g. an incendiary goes back to an incendiary bomb, the finals to the final examinations, an editorial to an editorial article, etc. Other more recent creations are an orbital (Br. ‘a highway going around the suburbs of a city’), a verbal (‘a verbal confession introduced as evidence at a trial’), a topless which goes to three different word-groups and accordingly has three meanings: 1) a topless dress, bathing suit, etc., 2) a waitress, dancer, etc. wearing topless garments, 3) a bar, night-club featuring topless waitresses or performers. Substantivisation is often accompanied by productive suffixation as in, e.g., a one-winger from one-wing plane, a two-decker from two-deck bus or ship; it may be accompanied by clipping and productive suffixation, e.g. flickers (coll.) from flicking pictures, a smoker from smoking carriage, etc.