In idiomatic compounds the meaning of a whole is not a mere sum of its elements. For example, a chatterbox is not a box, but a person who talks a lot without saying anything important. A lady-killer kills on one, but he is a man who fascinates women.
Theoretical aspects of composition is the criteria for distinguishing b/w a compound and a word combination.
The graphic criterion is advanced by A.M. Ball, G.H. Vallins, N.G. Guterman and some others.
Arguable questions:
· There is no consistency in English spelling in this respect
· With different dictionaries and different authors the spelling varies, so that the same unit may exist in a solid spelling, e.g. headmaster, loudspeaker, with a hyphen – head-master, loud-speaker, and with a space b/w the components – head master, loud speaker
· This lack of uniformity in spelling is the chief reason why many authors consider this criterion insufficient. Some combine it with the phonetic criterion of stress (due to that criterion stress are: high(first syllable), double and level).
· All compound nouns with very few exceptions, are stressed on the first syllable. But the rule does not hold with the adjectives. Compound adjectives are double stressed like `gray - `green, etc.
· It follows that phonological criterion holds for certain types of words only.
H. Paul, O. Jespersen, E. Kruisinga and many others suggest the semantic criterion, and define a compound as a combination forming a unit expressing a single idea which is not identical n 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.
Arguable points:
It is difficult to decide whether the combination in queston expresses a single integrated idea. Besides, b/w 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. He compares the compound «shipwreck» and the phrase «(the) wreck of (a) ship» comprising the same mophemes, 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 a language. It follows that a word is characterized by structural integrity non-existent in a phrase.
L. Bloomfield points out that the word black in the phrase «black birds» can be modified by very (very black birds) unlike the compound-member black in blackbirds. This argument, however, doesn’t permit the distinguishing of compounds from set expressions: the first element of black market or black list cannot be modified by very either. The argument of indivisibility was advanced by B. Bloch, and G. Trager who pointed out that we cannot insert any word b/w the elements of the compound blackbird. But the example of black market serves H. Marchand to prove the insufficiency of this criterion. Black market is indivisible and yet the stress pattern show that it is a phrase.
E. Nida - No one type of criteria is sufficient for establishing whether the unit is a compound or a 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).
Word-building processes involve not only qualitative but also quantitative changes. Thus, derivation and compounding represent addition, as affixes and free stems, respectively, are added to the underlying form. Shortening, on the other hand, may be represented as significant subtraction, in which part of the original word is taken away.
Shortening is the process and the result of forming a word out of the initial elements of a word combination. Shortening consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts whether this part has previously been a morpheme. Shortening may be regarded as a type of root creation because the resulting new morphemes are capable of being used as free forms and combine with bound forms. They can take functional suffixes, e.g. (sing) bike – (pl.) bikes. Most of the shortened words produce verbs, e.g. to phone, they also serve as basis for further word-formation by derivation or composition: fancy n – fanciful adj – fancifully adv – fancy-ball n – fancy-dress n, etc.
The correlation of the curtailed word with its prototype may be the following:
1. The shortened form may be regarded as a variant or a synonym differing from the full form quantitatively, stylistically and sometimes emotionally, the prototype being stylistically and emotionally neutral, e.g. doc- doctor
2. The connection between the shortened form and the prototype can be established only etymologically. The denotative or lexico-garmmatical meaning or both, may have changed so much that the clipping becomes a separate word. Consequently a pair of etymological doublets comes into being: chap – chapman, fan – fantastic, fancy – fantasy, miss – mistress. A speaker who calls himself a football fan would probably be offended at being called a fanatic. A fanatic is understood to have unreasonable and exaggerated beliefs and opinions that make him socially dangerous.
Various classifications of shortened words have been offered. The general accepted one is that 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 final clipping, initial clipping and medial clipping.
Final clipping: ad - advertisement, coke – coca-cola, ed – editor, lab – laboratory
Initial-clipped: fend – defend, story – history, tend – attend. Cases like cello – violoncello and phone – telephone
Final and initial clipping may be combined and result in shortened words with the middle part of the prototype retained, e.g. flu-influenza, frig-refrigerator, tec-detective.
Curtailed words with the middle part of the word left out are few, e.g. maths-mathematics, specs-spectacles, fancy-fantasy, ma’am-madam.
Among shortened words there is a specific group that has attracted special attention of several authors and was given several different names: blends, blendings, fusions or portmanteau words. The last term is due to Lewis Carrol, who made a special technique of using blends coined by himself, such as mimsy adj < miserable+flimsy, galumph v < gallop+triumph. The process of formation is also called telescoping because the words seem to slide into one another like sections of a telescope.
Other examples of blendings are smog < smoke+fog, brunch <breakfast+lunch, transceiver < transmitter+receiver, telecast < television broadcast, motel < motorists’ hotel, slanguage < slang+language.
Abbreviation is a process of shortening the result of which is a word made up of the initial letters or syllables of the components of a word-group or a compound word. Graphical abbreviation is the result of shortening of a word or a word-group only in written speech (Sun., Tue., Feb., Oct., Dec.; USA, Mr., Mrs., Dr)
Anacronym is an acronym which is longer perceived by speakers as a shortening: very few people remember what each letter stands for, e.g. laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation), radar (radio detecting and ranging), scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus), yuppie (young urban professional).
Substantivation – turning into nouns, e.g. female (n) from female (adj), relative (n) from relative (adj), criminal (n) from criminal (adj), etc.
As to the origin English words may be classified into two large sets: native and borrowed words. A native word is a word which belongs to the original English word stock, as known from the earliest available manuscripts of the Old English period. A borrowed word or a borrowing is a word taken over from another language and assimilated in phonemic shape, spelling, paradigm or meaning, or at least in some of these aspects, according to the standards of the English language.
The term borrowing belongs to diachronic description of the word stock thus the words ‘wine, cheap, pound’ were introduced by the Romans into all Germanic dialects long before the Angles and the Saxons migrated to the British Isles and nowadays they are not distinguishable from words of native origin.
According to the origin the wordstock may be subdivided into native and borrowed. A much bigger part of the native vocabulary layer is formed by words of the Common Germanic stock, i.e. of words having parallels in German, Norwegian, Dutch, Icelandic, etc, but not in Russian or French. It contains a great number of semantic groups, e.g. summer, winter, storm, rain, ice, ground, bridge, house, shop, room, coal, iron, cloth, hat, shirt, shoe, care, evil, hope, life, need, rest; the verb bake, burn, buy, drive, hear, keep, make, meet, rise, see, send, shoot and many more, the adjectives broad, dead, deaf, deep, many adverbs and pronouns.
Together with the words of the common Indo-European stock these Common Germanic words form the bulk of the most frequent elements used in any style of speech. They constitute no less than 80% of the 500 most frequent words.
The part played by borrowings in the vocabulary of a language depends upon the history of each given language. the Roman invasion, the introduction of Christianity, the Danish and Norman conquests and the development of British colonialism in modern times caused important changes in the vocabulary. 70% of the English vocabulary consist of loan words and only 30% of the words are native.
The term assimilation of loan words is used to denote a partial or total conformation to the phonetical, graphical and morphological standards of the receiving language and its semantic system. According to the degree of assimilation all loan words are subdivided into three groups: completely assimilated loan words, partially assimilated loan words and unassimilated loan words or barbarisms. The group of partially assimilated words may be subdivided according to the aspect that remains unaltered, i.e. spelling, pronunciation or morphology.
1. Completely assimilated words are found in all layers of older borrowings: e.g. cheese, street, wall, wine (Latin), husband, fellow, gate, root, wing (Scandinavian), table, chair, face, figure, finish, matter (French).
2. The second group containing the partly assimilated loan words can be subdivided into subgroups.
a) loan words not assimilated semantically, because they denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from which they come. They may denote foreign clothing: sari, sombrero; foreign titles and professions: shah, rajah, sheik, bei, toreador; foreign vehicles: caique (Turkish), rickshaw (Chinцщкв-ese); food and drinks: sherbet (Arabian), pilav (Persian).
b) Loan words not completely assimilated grammatically, for example nouns borrowed from Latin or Greek which keep their original plural forms: phenomenon-phenomena, formula-formulae, index-indices.
c) Loan words not completely assimilated phonetically. Some French words borrowed after 1650 keep the stress on the final syllable: machine, cartoon, police. Others contain sounds that are standard for the English language: [ ] bourgeiois, prestige, regime; [wa:] - memoir. In many cases it is not the sounds but the whole pattern is different from the rest of the vocabulary: confetti, macaroni, opera, sonata, tomato, potato, tobacco.
d) Loan words not completely assimilated graphically. These are, for instance, words borrowed from French in which the final consonant is not pronounced: ballet, buffet, corps. Some may keep a diacritic mark: café, cliché. Speciffically French diagraphs (ch, qu, ou,etc) may be treated in spelling: bouquet, brioche.
3. The third group of borrowings comprises the so-called barbarisms, i.e. words from other languages used by English people in conversation or in writing but not assimilated in any way, and for which there are corresponding English equivalents. The examples are the Italian addio, ciao “good bye”, the French affiche for “placard”, the Latin ad libitum “at pleasure” and the like.