Ê.ï.í. ʳíàø Ë.ß.
Ëüâ³âñüêèé íàö³îíàëüíèé
óí³âåðñèòåò ³ìåí³ ²âàíà Ôðàíêà, Óêðà¿íà
COLOUR-NAMING COMPOUNDS AND THEIR STRUCTURAL PATTERNS
The process
of coining compound words doesn’t lose its significance on the modern stage of
the English language development and still remains the object of numerous
linguistic investigations. Thoughts can be expressed, things and phenomena can
be described succinctly with the help of compound words.
The main
reason of coining compounds is an attempt to name a thing by means of one word
which used to be described by bulky combinations or even sentences. English
possesses a unique ability to the economy of language material as well as the
speaker’s articulatory efforts.
The linguistic
basis of creating and functioning of new words as basic linguistic units is
nominalization, the integral design of name giving, that’s why compounds are
considered to be the economical means of revealing the meaning in a short
concise form [3,125].
The question of forming English compounds was
investigated by a large number of native as well as foreign scientists. The
linguist Krajnyak A.K. investigated compounds with the first verbal component
(semantic-cognitive aspect), pragmatic-stylistic aspect of their forming and
functioning (Moros T.M.), the semantics and structure of English compounds and
derivatives with the suffix – er (Solovjova L.F.), the productive types of
compound adjectives and verbs in modern English (Omelchenko L.F), the
functional and cognitive aspects of English word building (Poljuzyn M.M.),
contrastive-translation aspect of compounds of syntactical type (Levytsky O.J.,
Sheludko J.V.), the innovative processes of English word building (Harmash
O.L.), peculiarities of compound-metaphors in the American slang (Honta I.A.),
cognitive-onomasiological aspect of English colour naming compounds (Demenchuk
O.V.) and many others.
Despite the constant interests of linguists to
the problem of word building, some questions aren’t fully investigated. The
problems of forming English colour-naming compounds, defining the productive
types of compounds with such names of colour as red, yellow, blue, black and
distinguishing structural types of colour-naming compounds in modern English
need further investigation. The problem of coining compounds with the name of
colour on the basis of idioms has not found the adequate coverage in the works
of modern scientists.
The absence of a complex investigation of
English colour-naming compounds leads to the choice of the theme of
investigation. The aim of this investigation is to focus the attention on
coining English colour-naming compounds with the aim of defining some
productive types, distinguishing structural peculiarities of English compounds
and derivatives with the names of colour, revealing the idiomatic meanings of
compounds.
The object of the investigation is English
colour-naming compounds as nominative units.
The subject of the investigation is structural
peculiarities of compounds with such colours as red, yellow, blue as they are
considered to be primary because they can’t be made by mixing. Black colour
wasn’t chosen at random, as it can be made by means of mixing colours mentioned
above.
Compounds with the names of colours were
selected by sampling from dictionaries, namely The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English,
Collins Cobuild English Dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English,
Marriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, The Free Online Dictionary.
In order to achieve the aim of the investigation the following tasks
should be solved:
1) to select colour-naming compounds from dictionaries;
2) to define the productive types of coining English compounds
with the names of colours such as red, yellow, blue and black;
3) to distinguish structural peculiarities of English
colour-naming compounds;
4) to reveal the idiomatic meaning of compounds.
The native linguists Demenchuk O.V.,
Kubryakova O.S. define a colour-naming compound as ‘an integrally designed unit
consisting of two components – colour-naming and a meaningful lexeme of a
definite structure that represents a certain connection of meaning and form’. [1,2]
The analysis of reference books concerning the problem of the investigation showed that colour-naming compounds are coined by means of redefining colour features of certain realities, creating associations with the names of fruit, vegetables, berries (cherry-red, lemon-yellow), names of flowers and herbs (poppy-red, primrose yellow), names of animal
species (canary-yellow), names of
precious stones (azure-blue, jet black), metals (steel grey), names of
rocks (slate blue), natural
colours (snow white), names of
food, namely beverages (wine-yellow, milky blue), names of
people with whom the definite colour is associated (cardinal-red), names
of locality connected with this or that colour (redbrick-Oxbridge), the
emotional state of a person (red- hot), etc.
Colour-naming compounds can be correlated
with a certain degree of intensification of colour which characterizes various
shades and intensity of colour. The difference between colour naming in English
and Ukrainian is noticeable while depicting the intensity of colour. In
Ukrainian the intensity of colour in most cases is expressed by means of the
suffix –àòèé (÷åðâîíóâàòèé, æîâòóâàòèé), while in
English by suffixes –ish (bluish, reddish, blackish) and –y (yellowy). Various morphological and lexical means are used such as clarifying words ÿñêðàâî-,
áë³äî-, òüìÿíî-, ñâ³òëî-, òåìíî- to depict shades of colours in Ukrainian. The following clarifying words vivid, slightly, completely, entirely, faintly, softly, deep, etc. are typical for
English in order to denote a certain degree of brightness or intensity of
colour.
As to structural peculiarities, the
investigators of this problem claim that colour-naming compounds appear as a
result of lexicalization of mostly attributive compounds in which a colour
component is connected with another lexeme according to certain structural
patterns [3,75]. The analysis of the selected words showed that the most
productive type among the analysed colour-naming compounds is adjectives formed
according to the following structural patterns:
1) N+Adj;
Colour-naming compounds
cardinal/ flame/
blood/ cherry/ ruby/ scarlet/ poppy-red are
formed by means of transformation of the comparative structure as
red as, in which a colour is clarified by comparison. Compounds Persian/
Tuscan/ Upsdell/ Venetian/ Indian red include in
its structure the name of locality the colour is associated with. The vast
majority of compound adjectives are two-component structures, though there are
also three-component ones: N+N+Adj, for
example: candy apple/fire engine red. Among compounds with the colour component yellow structural
pattern N+Adj (canary/
amber/ lemon/ wheat/ straw/ daffodil/ jasmine/ magnolia/ maize/ ochre/ topaz/
sulphur/ chrome/primrose-yellow) and structures N+N+Adj/
Adj+N+Adj prevail
(tea rose/ eggshell
yellow/old gold yellow). Blue in the colour-naming compounds is represented by
the following structural patterns: N+Adj (steel/ cobalt/ midnight/ sky/ peacock/ powder/ petrol/ gentian/ Cambridge/ Copenhagen/ Oxford/ Prussian/ Nile/ Wedgwood blue); Adj+Adj (electric/ navy/ royal blue); (N+N)+Adj (duck-egg blue). The comparative structure as black as coal/ jet/ ink/ pitch/ soot/ sable/ raven facilitates the appearance of numerous
colour-naming compounds with this colour, namely, coal/ jet/ soot/ sable/ pitch black, formed
according to the structural pattern N+Adj.
2) (Adj+N)+ed;
The colour-naming compounds
of this structural pattern are united on the basis of the meaning ‘of having smth’ and are used to describe people, animals, birds, insects or parts of their body and plants or their parts.
They are translated into the Ukrainian language as -ãðóäèé, -êðèëèé, -áðîâèé, -ãîëîâèé, -ïåëþñòêîâèé. For example, to
describe a man’s appearance or his traits of character the following
colour-naming adjectives are used red/ yellow/ blue/ black -blooded/ browed/ cheeked/ eyed/ faced/ haired/ nosed/ rimmed, to describe
plants – red/ yellow/ blue/ black-leafed/ petalled/ edged/ margined, to describe
animals – red/ yellow/ blue/ black-backed/ bellied/ breasted/ capped/ chinned/ collared/ crested/ crowned/ eared/ footed/ fronted/ jawed/ legged/ lipped/ manteled/ necked/ nosed/ shouldered/ spotted/ streaked/ striped/ tagged/ tailed/ thighed/ throated/ toothed/ whiskered/ winged and many
others. To describe a swallow a many-component structure
is used (Adj+conj+Adj)+N+ed (blue-and-white capped/ black-and-rufous collared swallow).
A number of compound adjectives formed from one adjectival and one substantival stem with the help of the morphological formative –ed can lose
their primary meaning of colour and acquire an idiomatic one. For example, the
compound yellow-bellied has
nothing to do with a belly of yellow colour, it means ‘áóòè áîÿãóçëèâèì’ instead. Let
us provide some more examples: a blue-eyd boy – ïåñòóí÷èê, ìàçóí÷èê; black-hearted – çëèé, ëèõèé;
black-browed – íàñóïëåíèé, ïîõìóðèé.
The derivative pattern from the one mentioned above is (Adj+ish+N)+ed which is the basis of forming such colour-naming
compounds as reddish-winged/ striped, yellowish-bellied/ breasted, bluish-fronted, blackish-headed. They are formed by means of the morphological formative -ish and the
substantival stem by adding -ed, in this case this formative -ish means ‘a moderate degree of quality named’ and
correlates with the lesser degree of colour intensity. The structural pattern
Adj+ish+(Adj+N)+ed+N
of the compound, for example, blackish white-toothed shrew at first
sight seems to be bulky, however understandable from the semantic and
structural point of view and indicates that a compound word bears more
information than a simple one.
3)
Adj+Adj/ Adj+ish+Adj;
Numerous are compound adjectives formed from
two adjectival stems, for example:
red-black/ brown/ gold/ green/ grey/ hot/ lavender/ orange/ purple/ yellow;
reddish-blue/ pink/ violet;
yellow-beige/ brown/ grey/ green/ olive/ orange/ white;
yellowish-pink;
blue-grey/ green/ red/ violet/ white;
bluish-black/
lilac/ purple/ violet/ white;
black-blue/ grey/ yellow/white;
blackish-blue/ brown/ grey/ red.
In compounds blackish-blue/ brown/ grey/ red the morphological formative -ish means ‘â íåçíà÷í³é ê³ëüêîñò³’, ‘â
íåïîâí³é ì³ð³’, while in the compound black-blue/ grey/ yellow the colour intensity is fully revealed. Three-component and many-component structures which include from three to ten adjectival stems are the basis of creating acronyms – abbreviations
that contain the initial letters of a word that make it up. For example:
RYB (Red-Yellow-Blue) – êîëüîðîâà ãàìà ó òðàäèö³éíîìó æèâîïèñ³,
RGGB (Red-Green-Green-Blue) - îïòîåëåêòðîí³êà,
ROYGBIV (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet) – ïîðÿäîê êîëüîð³â âåñåëêè,
BBROYGBVGW (Black, Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Grey, White) – ïîñë³äîâí³ñòü êîäó
åëåêòðîííîãî ðåçèñòîðà
4) Adj+conj+Adj;
Two adjectival stems can be connected with the help of the
conjunction and and join colours that don’t depend on and specify each other. Accordingly, each of the components has
an independent adjectival feature: red and black/blue/green/ purple/ tan/ white/
yellow;
yellow and
black/ green;
blue and
black/ gold/ grey/ green/ white/ yellow;
black and
blue/ buff/ chestnut/ cinnamon/ gold/ grey/ red/ rufous/ tawny/ white/ yellow.
As we can see from the given examples, black colour can be connected with a
great number of other colours, as a result different shades and colours can be
obtained. In such structures the abbreviated form of the conjunction and is often used, for example: a black n’ red book,
Black ‘N’ Blue.
According to O.V.Demenchuk’s point of view the colour-naming compounds with the linking element (red and pink, black and green) don’t create a new colour, but only indicate the correlation with the tone characteristic of colour, while the colour-naming compounds without any linking element are characterized by mergering of two components
and on their basis an image about a new colour concept is formed by mixing two
colours [1,10], for example, blue-black means
forming a new colour by means of mixing black and blue.
The components of the colour-naming
compounds ‘black-and-blue’, ‘in black-and-white’ acquire
idiomatic meanings ‘áóòè
ó ñèíöÿõ/ ïîáèòèì’, ‘ó ïèñüìîâ³é ôîðì³’.
Three adjectival stems can be joined asyndetically or syndetically (red-green-brown alliance; red, white and blue paradise), and their
structural patterns are: Adj+Adj+Adj+N and Adj+Adj+ conj+Adj+N.
5) Adj+prep+Adj;
The stems in colour-naming compounds can
be joined by means of prepositions, the most common of which are:
a)
on
e.g.: gold on
red/ red on green – symbol of felicity and joy;
red on blue –
symbol of death and mourning;
black-on-black
racism – a form of discrimination in which human beings are accorded differing social and treatment based
on skin color;
blue
on blue – firing by one's own side, when it
harms one's own personnel;
b)
versus
e.g.: Red vs
blue (RvB) - a set of related comic science fiction video series. This preposition is used in the
meaning ‘ïðîòè’, ‘íà ïðîòèâàãó’;
c)
of, on <
from dialectal ‘black a vice’: black + dialectical ‘a’ in the meaning ‘of’,
‘on’ from French + ‘vice’ that means ‘face’ – having a dark complexion,
e.g.:
black-a-vised with the
structural pattern Adj+prep+N+ed;
d)
from … to
e.g.: from
yellow to orange – a Japanese video game developer;
e)
in
The structural pattern of such compounds is:
Adj+prep+N, e.g.: red in the face – to get embarrassed or angry;
blue/black in
the face – to be at the point of extreme exasperation;
blue on the
greens – a heart attack on a golf course.
6) (Adj+N)+ing;
A small number of colour-naming compounds
means a kind of a man’s activity. To this group belong colour-naming compounds
formed by means of a morphological formative –ing, for example: red-baiting/ cooking/ carding/ dogging/ flowering/ lining/ penciling/ staining;
yellow-carding;
blue-bugging/ casting/ dating/ printing/ penciling/ skying/ screening/ snarfing/ sniping/ spamming/ swailing;
black-berrying/ birding/ fishing/ legging/ listing/ mailing/ marketeering, etc. A
subtype of the pattern mentioned above can be the pattern (Adj+N)+V+ing (black-hat hacking, blue-sky thinking, etc.
7) (Adj+N)+er/
(Adj+N)+ship;
Some colour-naming compounds are closely
connected with a man’s activity that find the expression in colour-naming
compound nouns formed with the help of the morphological formative –er. This structural pattern
indicates a doer of an action. Let’s provide some examples: black-birder/ fisher/ mailer/ marketer; red-header, his skills,
competence (black artship). Colour-naming compounds
can have the following structures: (Adj+N)+N+er (black-hat hacker, blue/white-collar worker) (Adj+Adj)+ed+(N+V+er) (blue-bearded bee-eater). Sometimes colour-naming compounds themselves can
be the basis for creating derivatives, for example: blue-stocking – blue-stockingism; red tape – red-tapist – red-tapery, etc.
8) (Adj+N)+N;
The colour-naming compounds formed
according to this pattern have idiomatic meanings: red-carpet treatment - to welcome with great hospitality or ceremony;
a red-letter
day - a memorably important or happy
occasion;
a red-light
district - a neighborhood where
prostitution is common;
a black-tie
event – a gathering with a formal dress code;
a yellow-dog
contract - an employer-employee
contract, no longer legal, by which the employee agrees not to join a union
while employed.
Some colour-naming compounds can be
changed from one part of speech into another, that’s why conversion is typical for
them: bright blues and yellows, ‘The Red and the Black’, ‘Blacks and
Whites’ carnival’. We come
across coversion in some proverbs and sayings, for example: The friendship between blacks and whites.
Two blacks/wrongs do not make a white/right. A special attention should be paid to
colour-naming compounds in which one of the components loses its direct meaning
ans gets some idiomatic colouring: to blue the family fortunes – to waste money; to blacken smb’s chatacter/name – to defame, etc.
Being the important means of nomination, colour-naming compounds help to create landscape paintings, reveal the complex feelings, peculiarities of outlooks, associative
links, etc. The knowledge of structural and semantic peculiarities of
colour-naming compounds helps to reveal the mechanisms of their coining and
functioning in modern English. The analysis showed that the most numerous are
adjectival compounds formed according to the structural pattern of the
following type (Adj/N+N)+ed. But there is a tendency to substitute this structural pattern for patterns Adj+N òà N+Adj without
the morphological formative–ed. It can be explained by attempts
to the economy of language tools and a speaker’s articulation efforts. There is
a great variety of colour-naming compounds which consist of two adjectival
stems, one of which is an adjectival one formed by means of the morphological
formatives –y/ – ish/ -er/ -ing. Colour-naming compounds in which stems are joined with a linking element (a preposition or pronoun) are widely-spread in the English
language. It turned out that English phrasal verbs with the name of colour and
colour-naming compounds-neologisms are not fully investigated.
REFERENCES
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2. Îìåëü÷åíêî
Ë.Ô. Àíãëèéñêàÿ êîìïîçèòà: ñòðóêòóðà è ñåìàíòèêà. – äèñ… äîêò.ôèëîã.íàóê. – Ê.,
1989. – 493 ñ.
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Dictionary of Contemporary English. – Longman Publishing House, 2010. – 1950p.
4. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English. – Oxford
University Press. – 2011. – 1728p.
5. Collins Cobuild Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary. –
Collins Publishers. – 2005. -1867p.
6. http://www.marriam-webster.com/
7. http://thefreedictionary.com/