Ôèëîëîãè÷åñêèå íàóêè /7. ßçûê, ðå÷ü,
ðå÷åâàÿ êîììóíèêàöèÿ
Ya. N. Kazantseva, M. L. Rostova
Lesosibirsk Pedagogical Institute – the branch of
Siberian Federal University, Russia
TO THE QUESTION OF PRODUCTIVITY
OF WORD-FORMATION TYPES IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Modern English has many ways of formation of new words
which are the following: derivation, composition, conversion, reduction, adjectivation,
substantivation, return word formation, a lexical and semantic way, sound
interchange and transfer of an accent in a word (a phonologic way), etc.
However not all the listed ways are productive. It is important to note that in
the theory of word formation "productivity" has the synonymic term –
"word-formation activity" which is meant as ability of this or that unit,
for example, of a word-formation element, to form new words. "The model,
an affix, a basis can be active in creating new words and, on the contrary, can
be passive, i.e. with their help the insignificant number of words is formed or
not formed at all" (1, page 251). Scientists consider the main sign of
efficiency "the extent of word-formation ranks". It means that if at
all existing restrictions this or that word-formation type serves as a sample
for production of new words, then it is productive.
The concept of productivity is essential to word-formation
because the word-formation type is the diagram or a sample which is generally
used to create new words. It goes without saying that productive types are the center
of word-formation system, and unproductive makes its periphery. Productivity is
not constant property of a model. During a certain period of development of the
language it can change the nature of its productivity and it can become an
active model.
The purpose of our work is to analyze the word-formation
types which are considered to be productive. The base of our research is the
text "The Catcher in the Rye" written by J.D. Salinger (2).
In English the type "verb + suffix-er" is
highly productive. For
example:
Dancer: “He doesn’t want me to be a tap dancer.”
Eater: I’m a very light eater.
Prayer: “Well. Go to sleep. Give Mother a kiss. Did
you say your prayers?”
Lighter: He gave me a light from this big lighter off the table.
Drawer: She took them right out of my hand and then
she put them in the drawer of the
night table.
Next type is “verb + suffix
– ion”. In English this suffix is used to form a noun from a verb. For example:
Direction: “…he kept breathing his stinking breath in my
face while I gave him directions”.
Collection: “…You could keep the money for when you do
take up a collection.”
Operation: She wished me a lot of luck with the operation and all.
Contribution: “I could make a small contribution.”
Information: “… if you look for it and wait for it – to
the kind of information that will be
very, very dear to your heart.”
The type “noun + suffix –
ist”. We have found only five words in the text which are formed by means of
the suffix - ist, nevertheless, he still remains productive. For example, in
the text the word “atheist” (I’m
sort of an atheist) is used. This suffix is usually used for the
people playing a musical instrument like violinist (I
mean I’m not going to be a goddam surgeon or a violinist or anything away).
The composition is also
considered to be a productive type of word-formation. We have divided the
analyzed words into seven word-formation types.
1.
"Noun + noun". Examples:
Newsreel
= news + reel: “The newsreel was on or
something, and all of a sudden I felt this hand on the back of my eck, and it
was Jane`s”.
Drugstore = drug+ store: “When I came out of the record
store, I passed this drugstore, and
I went in”.
2.
“Verb + noun”. Examples:
Spendthrift =
to spend + thrift: “I`m a goddam spendthrift at heart”.
Washbowl = to wash + bowl: “There were about ten washbowls, all right against the wall”.
3.
“Adverb + noun”. Examples:
Downtown: down
+ town: “Hey, do you mind turning around when you get a chance? I gave you
the wrong address. I want to go back downtown.”
4.
“Preposition + noun”. Examples:
Overcoat
= over + coat: “You’ll have snot all over your
dirty filtht overcoat, and you’ll be…”
5.
“Adjective + noun”. Examples:
Forehead
= fore + head: “…I was kissing her all over –
anywhere – her eyes, her nose, her forehead…”.
Seaweed = sea + weed: “Their bodies take in nutrition
and all, right through the goddam
seaweed and crap that’s in the ice.”
6.
“Noun + Verb”. Examples:
Handshake =
hand + shake: “I stopped on the way, though, and picked up Auckley’s hand,
and gave him a big, phony handshake”.
Haircut = hair + cut: “Who gave you that haircut?” I asked her.
7.
“Noun + adjective”. Examples:
Breakfast =
break + fast: “I’d check my bags in one of those strong boxes that they give
you a key to, then get some breakfast”.
So, the most productive types of composition in the analyzed text are "noun
+ noun" and "adjective + noun".
The next type of word formation is
abbreviation. Abbreviations are words formed by addition of initial letters of
a word. This type of word-formation is productive in English. However we have
not found enough examples in the text to prove this fact. Here are the
examples:
N.Y.U.
(New York University): “He took this job
teaching English at N.Y.U”.
I.Q.
(Intelligence quotient): “…but he was one
of these very intellectual guys – he had the highest I.Q. of any boy at Whooton…”
Mrs. (Missis): “Holden!”
Mrs. Spencer said.
Mr. (Mister): “This
teacher that taught biology, Mr. Zambesi, stuck his head out of the
window…”
Dr. (Doctor): “Has
Dr. Thurmer written to your parents yet?” old Spencer asked me.
Truncated words are one of
types of reduction of a word, reduction of number of phonemes and/or morphemes in
the words or phrases without changing their lexical and grammatical value. At
the present stage of development of English the steady growth of number of the
truncated words is observed. Here are the examples from the text:
Phone (Telephone): “…but
I was afraid her mother’d answer the phone”.
G’
night (Good night): “G’ night. G’ night, Sally
baby. Sally sweetheart darling,” I said.
G’
by (Goodbye): “Thanks a lot,” I said. “G’ by!”
Thus, productive word formation is in full accordance with the general
tendencies of development of modern English. Morphological ways of word
formation like affixation, composition, parasynthetic models for creation of
original and unique author's lexical units are mainly used.
References:
1. Modern English (word and sentence). Irkutsk, 1997. 409 pages.
2. Salinger J.D. "The Catcher in the Rye", URL:
http://lingualeo.com/ru/jungle/the-catcher-in-the-rye-by-jd-salinger-368236#/page/1