Olena Zavalna

Kyiv National Technical University “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”

The functioning system of verbal nouns and denominative verbs in the English discourse

Any language is in constant motion. And exactly vocabulary primarily reflects the changes in the language.

It has been observed that in comparison with other ways of replenishment of vocabulary (semantic changes, borrowing) a derivation is the most productive in the modern language.

One of the most interesting ways of modern English word formation, causing many discussions, is conversion.

Conversion to some extent is common to many languages, but in English it is particularly widespread. The most important reason of this is that the set of inflections in the English language is very limited.

The most common model of conversion is the formation of verbs from nouns, but there are groups of nouns, the composition of which is constantly replenished by the verbs, i.e. they are derived from verbs units. New designation concepts are born in the language as a result of complex interaction mechanisms of categorization of the surrounded world and linguistic forms, non-linguistic and linguistic knowledge. As the complexity of its structure, this process becomes even more complicated integrative because a meaning of the whole is not the sum of the values of its constituent elements, but suggests their integration into a unified whole.

Thus, verbal nouns and denominative verbs are mobile and actively-growing part of the vocabulary of modern English, but special researches devoted to the description of nominative functions of data of analytic units are so far missing.

English verbal nouns and denominative verbs are formed by the following ways: affixes, conversion, and a change of the place of emphasis. Analysis of theoretical sources shows that the largest number of researches of these units is devoted to the conversion as one of the most productive ways of their formation.

In the English language there are almost no formal morphological constraints for conversion. That is why the conversion was studied from the standpoint of morphology (T. G. Matureli, G. M. Sydelnikova, O. I. Smirnitskiy, and Y. M. Biese), semantics (S. M. Kostenko, G. P. Troitska, D. Lee, and H. Marchand), syntax (G. Brown, D. Craig, R. Pence), word formation (U. O. Zhluktenko, A. Y. Zagoruiko, N. F. Irtenieva) and also its correlations with phrase formations (L. P. Pavlichenko).

Verbal nouns and denominative verbs have repeatedly been the subject of research, but usually each of these groups was considered separately (I. I. Borisenko, U. I. Vysochinskiy, M. B. Krasikova, L. F. Omelchenko, K. Z. Plotkina and others). In our work both sides of the language are studied comprehensively in terms of their systematic characteristics and functioning in the British newspaper texts.

The concept of linguistic homogeneity includes a number of features that should be common to texts that include the general population and taken for the sample (V.I. Perebyinis). Thus, the texts should be chronologically and genre, and thematically homogeneous. This research is performed on the materials of texts from British newspapers.

Actuality of the mentioned theme is caused by the orientation of modern linguistic studies to explore systemic and functional characteristics of lexical and grammatical units, including statistical methods.

The purpose of the theme is to establish the systematic (grammatical and lexical-semantic) and functional characteristics of English verbal nouns and denominative verbs in modern British newspaper texts.

Achievement of this goal requires the solutions of the following tasks:

1) to determine the correlation in formed array of word formative groups of studied structural word lexical units: verbal nouns with –ing, preffixal denominative verbs, suffixal verbal nouns and denominative verbs, conversed verbal nouns and denominative verbs, and verbal nouns and denominative verbs, which differ from homograph base units by the place of emphasis;

2) to find out which existing methods of formation of denominative verbs and verbal nouns are currently productive;

3) to review the methods of formation of verbal nouns and denominative verbs which are used in British newspapers articles, and to find out the direction of derivative words in conversion pairs: verb → verbal noun (V → N) or noun → denominative verb (N → V);

4) to distinguish lexical-semantic groups of studied linguistic units and to determine their quantitative correlation in the array of analyzed verbal nouns and DV.

The theoretical value of the theme is that the results of the research are contribution to the theoretical grammar and functional stylistics; deepen knowledge about the functioning of verbal nouns and denominative verbs in newspaper texts; promote the further development of theoretical syntax of the English language, and expand knowledge of the interaction between the systematic characteristics of VN and denominative verbs and laws of their functioning in the English newspapers.

The practical significance of the theme can be seen in the possibility of usage the conclusions and materials of the research in theoretical and practical courses of grammar (units: "Morphology of the English noun", "Morphology of the English verb", "Conversion", "Phrases"), lexicology (units: "Word formation of the English noun", "Word formation of the English verb").

Reference

1. Красікова М. Б. Про диференціацію значень похідних одиниць (на прикладі віддієслівних іменників в англійській мові) / М. Б. Красікова // Типологія мовних значень у діахронічному та зіставному аспектах : зб. наук. праць. – Донецьк, 2003. – С. 120–125.

2. Шевченко Т. Е. Функциональные характеристики словоизменительной парадигмы английского глагола (на материале современной художественной прозы): дис. … канд. филол. наук : 10.02.04 / Шевченко Татьяна Егоровна. – К., 1997. – 201 с.