Дубенец Э.М. "Курс лекций и планы семинарских занятий по лексикологии английского языка"

ABBREVIATION

In the process of communication words and word-groups can be shortened. The causes of shortening can be linguistic and extra-linguistic. By extra-linguistic causes changes in the life of people are meant. In Modern English many new abbreviations, acronyms , initials, blends are formed because the tempo of life is increasing and it becomes necessary to give more and more information in the shortest possible time. 
There are also linguistic causes of abbreviating words and word-groups, such as the demand of rhythm, which is satisfied in English by monosyllabic words. When borrowings from other languages are assimilated in English they are shortened. Here we have modification of form on the basis of analogy, e.g. the Latin borrowing «fanaticus» is shortened to «fan» on the analogy with native words: man, pan, tan etc. 
There are two main types of shortenings : graphical and lexical.

Graphical abbreviations 
Graphical abbreviations are the result of shortening of words and word-groups only in written speech while orally the corresponding full forms are used. They are used for the economy of space and effort in writing. 
The oldest group of graphical abbreviations in English is of Latin origin. In Russian this type of abbreviation is not typical. In these abbreviations in the spelling Latin words are shortened, while orally the corresponding English equivalents are pronounced in the full form,e.g. for example (Latin exampli gratia), a.m. - in the morning (ante meridiem), No - number (numero), p.a. - a year (per annum), d - penny (dinarius), lb - pound (libra), i. e. - that is (id est) etc. 
Some graphical abbreviations of Latin origin have different English equivalents in different contexts, e.g. p.m. can be pronounced «in the afternoon» (post meridiem) and «after death» (post mortem). 
There are also graphical abbreviations of native origin, where in the spelling we have abbreviations of words and word-groups of the corresponding English equivalents in the full form. We have several semantic groups of them : 
a) days of the week, e.g. Mon - Monday, Tue - Tuesday etc 
b) names of months, e.g. Apr - April, Aug - August etc. 
c) names of counties in UK, e.g. Yorks - Yorkshire, Berks -Berkshire etc 
d) names of states in USA, e.g. Ala - Alabama, Alas - Alaska etc. 
e) names of address, e.g. Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr. etc. 
f) military ranks, e.g. capt. -captain, col. - colonel, sgt - sergeant etc. 
g) scientific degrees, e.g. B.A. - Bachelor of Arts, D.M. - Doctor of Medicine . ( Sometimes in scientific degrees we have abbreviations of Latin origin, e.g., M.B. - Medicinae Baccalaurus). 
h) units of time, length, weight, e.g. f. / ft -foot/feet, sec. - second, in. -inch, mg. - milligram etc.  
The reading of some graphical abbreviations depends on the context, e.g. «m» can be read as: male, married, masculine, metre, mile, million, minute, «l.p.» can be read as long-playing, low pressure.

Initial abbreviations 
Initialisms are the bordering case between graphical and lexical abbreviations. When they appear in the language, as a rule, to denote some new offices they are closer to graphical abbreviations because orally full forms are used, e.g. J.V. - joint venture. When they are used for some duration of time they acquire the shortened form of pronouncing and become closer to lexical abbreviations, e.g. BBC is as a rule pronounced in the shortened form. 
In some cases the translation of initialisms is next to impossible without using special dictionaries. Initialisms are denoted in different ways. Very often they are expressed in the way they are pronounced in the language of their origin, e.g. ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, United States) is given in Russian as АНЗУС, SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) was for a long time used in Russian as СОЛТ, now a translation variant is used (ОСВ -Договор об ограничении стратегических вооружений). This type of initialisms borrowed into other languages is preferable, e.g. UFO - НЛО, CП - JV etc. 
There are three types of initialisms in English: 
a) initialisms with alphabetical reading, such as UK, BUP, CND etc 
b) initialisms which are read as if they are words, e.g. UNESCO, UNO, NATO etc. 
c) initialisms which coincide with English words in their sound form, such initialisms are called acronyms, e.g. CLASS (Computor-based Laboratory for Automated School System).  
Some scientists unite groups b) and c) into one group which they call acronyms. 
Some initialisms can form new words in which they act as root morphemes by different ways of wordbuilding:  
a) affixation, e.g. AWALism, ex-rafer, ex- POW, to waafize, AIDSophobia etc.  
b) conversion, e.g. to raff, to fly IFR (Instrument Flight Rules), 
c) composition, e.g. STOLport, USAFman etc. 
d) there are also compound-shortened words where the first component is an initial abbreviation with the alphabetical reading and the second one is a complete word, e.g. A-bomb, U-pronunciation, V -day etc. In some cases the first component is a complete word and the second component is an initial abbreviation with the alphabetical pronunciation, e.g. Three -Ds (Three dimensions) - стереофильм.

Abbreviations of words 
Abbreviation of words consists in clipping a part of a word. As a result we get a new lexical unit where either the lexical meaning or the style is different form the full form of the word. In such cases as »fantasy» and «fancy», «fence» and «defence» we have different lexical meanings. In such cases as «laboratory» and «lab», we have different styles.

Abbreviation does not change the part-of-speech meaning, as we have it in the case of conversion or affixation, it produces words belonging to the same part of speech as the primary word, e.g. prof is a noun and professor is also a noun. Mostly nouns undergo abbreviation, but we can also meet abbreviation of verbs, such as to rev from to revolve, to tab from to tabulate etc. But mostly abbreviated forms of verbs are formed by means of conversion from abbreviated nouns, e.g. to taxi, to vac etc. Adjectives can be abbreviated but they are mostly used in school slang and are combined with suffixation, e.g. comfy, dilly, mizzy etc. As a rule pronouns, numerals, interjections. conjunctions are not abbreviated. The exceptions are: fif (fifteen), teen-ager, in one’s teens (apheresis from numerals from 13 to 19). 
Lexical abbreviations are classified according to the part of the word which is clipped. Mostly the end of the word is clipped, because the beginning of the word in most cases is the root and expresses the lexical meaning of the word. This type of abbreviation is called apocope. Here we can mention a group of words ending in «o», such as disco (dicotheque), expo (exposition), intro (introduction) and many others. On the analogy with these words there developed in Modern English a number of words where «o» is added as a kind of a suffix to the shortened form of the word, e.g. combo (combination) - небольшой эстрадный ансамбль, Afro (African) -прическа под африканца etc. In other cases the beginning of the word is clipped. In such cases we have apheresis , e.g. chute (parachute), varsity (university), copter (helicopter) , thuse (enthuse) etc. Sometimes the middle of the word is clipped, e.g. mart (market), fanzine (fan magazine) maths (mathematics). Such abbreviations are called syncope. Sometimes we have a combination of apocope with apheresis,when the beginning and the end of the word are clipped, e.g. tec (detective), van (avanguard) etc. 
Sometimes shortening influences the spelling of the word, e.g. «c» can be substituted by «k» before «e» to preserve pronunciation, e.g. mike (microphone), Coke (coca-cola) etc. The same rule is observed in the following cases: fax( facsimile), teck (technical college), trank (tranquilizer) etc. The final consonants in the shortened forms are substituded by letters characteristic of native English words.

SECONDARY WAYS OF WORDBUILDING SOUND INTERCHANGE 
Sound interchange is the way of word-building when some sounds are changed to form a new word. It is non-productive in Modern English, it was productive in Old English and can be met in other Indo-European languages. 
The causes of sound interchange can be different. It can be the result of Ancient Ablaut which cannot be explained by the phonetic laws during the period of the language development known to scientists., e.g. to strike - stroke, to sing - song etc. It can be also the result of Ancient Umlaut or vowel mutation which is the result of palatalizing the root vowel because of the front vowel in the syllable coming after the root ( regressive assimilation), e.g. hot - to heat (hotian), blood - to bleed (blodian) etc. 
In many cases we have vowel and consonant interchange. In nouns we have voiceless consonants and in verbs we have corresponding voiced consonants because in Old English these consonants in nouns were at the end of the word and in verbs in the intervocal position, e.g. bath - to bathe, life - to live, breath - to breathe etc.

STRESS INTERCHANGE 
Stress interchange can be mostly met in verbs and nouns of Romanic origin : nouns have the stress on the first syllable and verbs on the last syllable, e.g. `accent - to ac`cent. This phenomenon is explained in the following way: French verbs and nouns had different structure when they were borrowed into English, verbs had one syllable more than the corresponding nouns. When these borrowings were assimilated in English the stress in them was shifted to the previous syllable (the second from the end) . Later on the last unstressed syllable in verbs borrowed from French was dropped (the same as in native verbs) and after that the stress in verbs was on the last syllable while in nouns it was on the first syllable. As a result of it we have such pairs in English as : to af`fix -`affix, to con`flict- `conflict, to ex`port -`export, to ex`tract - `extract etc. As a result of stress interchange we have also vowel interchange in such words because vowels are pronounced differently in stressed and unstressed positions.

SOUND IMITATION 
It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by imitating different sounds. There are some semantic groups of words formed by means of sound imitation 
a) sounds produced by human beings, such as : to whisper, to giggle, to mumble, to sneeze, to whistle etc. 
b) sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, such as : to hiss, to buzz, to bark, to moo, to twitter etc. 
c) sounds produced by nature and objects, such as : to splash, to rustle, to clatter, to bubble, to ding-dong, to tinkle etc.  
The corresponding nouns are formed by means of conversion, e.g. clang (of a bell), chatter (of children) etc.

BLENDS 
Blends are words formed from a word-group or two synonyms. In blends two ways of word-building are combined : abbreviation and composition. To form a blend we clip the end of the first component (apocope) and the beginning of the second component (apheresis) . As a result we have a compound- shortened word. One of the first blends in English was the word «smog» from two synonyms : smoke and fog which means smoke mixed with fog. From the first component the beginning is taken, from the second one the end, «o» is common for both of them.

Blends formed from two synonyms are: slanguange, to hustle, gasohol etc. Mostly blends are formed from a word-group, such as : acromania (acronym mania), cinemadict (cinema adict), chunnel (channel, canal), dramedy (drama comedy), detectifiction (detective fiction), faction (fact fiction) (fiction based on real facts), informecial (information commercial) , Medicare ( medical care) , magalog ( magazine catalogue) slimnastics (slimming gymnastics), sociolite (social elite), slanguist ( slang linguist) etc.

BACK FORMATION 
It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by dropping the final morpheme to form a new word. It is opposite to suffixation, that is why it is called back formation. At first it appeared in the languauge as a result of misunderstanding the structure of a borrowed word . Prof. Yartseva explains this mistake by the influence of the whole system of the language on separate words. E.g. it is typical of English to form nouns denoting the agent of the action by adding the suffix -er to a verb stem (speak- speaker). So when the French word «beggar» was borrowed into English the final syllable «ar» was pronounced in the same way as the English -er and Englishmen formed the verb «to beg» by dropping the end of the noun. Other examples of back formation are : to accreditate (from accreditation), to bach (from bachelor), to collocate (from collocation), to enthuse (from enthusiasm), to compute (from computer), to emote (from emotion) to reminisce ( from reminiscence) , to televise (from television) etc. 
As we can notice in cases of back formation the part-of-speech meaning of the primary word is changed, verbs are formed from nouns.

SEMANTIC CHANGES

The meaning of a word can change in the course of time. Changes of lexical meanings can be proved by comparing contexts of different times. Transfer of the meaning is called lexico-semantic word-building. In such cases the outer aspect of a word does not change. 
The causes of semantic changes can be extra-linguistic and linguistic, e.g. the change of the lexical meaning of the noun «pen» was due to extra-linguistic causes. Primarily « pen» comes back to the Latin word «penna» (a feather of a bird). As people wrote with goose pens the name was transferred to steel pens which were later on used for writing. Still later any instrument for writing was called « a pen».  
On the other hand causes can be linguistic, e.g. the conflict of synonyms when a perfect synonym of a native word is borrowed from some other language one of them may specialize in its meaning, e.g. the noun «tide» in Old English was polisemantic and denoted «time», «season», «hour». When the French words «time», «season», «hour» were borrowed into English they ousted the word «tide» in these meanings. It was specialized and now means «regular rise and fall of the sea caused by attraction of the moon». The meaning of a word can also change due to ellipsis, e.g. the word-group «a train of carriages» had the meaning of «a row of carriages», later on «of carriages» was dropped and the noun «train» changed its meaning, it is used now in the function and with the meaning of the whole word-group. 
Semantic changes have been classified by different scientists. The most complete classification was suggested by a German scientist Herman Paul in his work «Prinzipien des Sprachgeschichte». It is based on the logical principle. He distiguishes two main ways where the semantic change is gradual ( specialization and generalization), two momentary conscious semantic changes (metaphor and metonymy) and also secondary ways: gradual (elevation and degradation), momentary (hyperbole and litote).

SPECIALIZATION

It is a gradual process when a word passes from a general sphere to some special sphere of communication, e.g. «case» has a general meaning «circumstances in which a person or a thing is». It is specialized in its meaning when used in law (a law suit), in grammar (a form in the paradigm of a noun), in medicine (a patient, an illness). The difference between these meanings is revealed in the context. 
The meaning of a word can specialize when it remains in the general usage. It happens in the case of the conflict between two absolute synonyms when one of them must specialize in its meaning to remain in the language, e.g. the native word «meat» had the meaning «food», this meaning is preserved in the compound «sweetmeats». The meaning «edible flesh» was formed when the word «food», its absolute synonym, won in the conflict of absolute synonyms (both words are native). The English verb «starve» was specialized in its meaning after the Scandinavian verb «die» was borrowed into English. «Die» became the general verb with this meaning because in English there were the noun «death» and the adjective «dead». «Starve» got the meaning «to die of hunger» . 
The third way of specialization is the formation of Proper names from common nouns, it is often used in toponimics, e.g. the City - the business part of London, Oxford - university town in England, the Tower -originally a fortress and palace, later -a prison, now - a museum. 
The fourth way of specialization is ellipsis. In such cases primaraly we have a word-group of the type «attribute + noun», which is used constantly in a definite situation. Due to it the attribute can be dropped and the noun can get the meaning of the whole word-group, e.g. «room» originally meant «space», this meaning is retained in the adjective «roomy» and word combinations: «no room for», «to take room», «to take no room». The meaning of the word «room « was specialized because it was often used in the combinations: «dining room», «sleeping room» which meant «space for dining» , «space for sleeping».

GENERALIZATION

It is a process contrary to specializaton, in such cases the meaning of a word becomes more general in the course of time. 
The transfer from a concrete meaning to an abstract one is most frequent, e.g. «ready» (a derivative from the verb «ridan» - «ride») meant «prepared for a ride», now its meaning is «prepared for anything». «Journey» was borrowed from French with the meaning «one day trip», now it means «a trip of any duration». 
All auxiliary verbs are cases of generalization of their lexical meaning because they developed a grammatical meaning : «have», «be», «do», «shall» , «will» when used as auxiliary verbs are devoid of their lexical meaning which they have when used as notional verbs or modal verbs, e.g. cf. «I have several books by this writer» and «I have read some books by this author». In the first sentence the verb «have» has the meaning «possess», in the second sentence it has no lexical meaning, its grammatical meaning is to form Present Perfect.

METAPHOR

It is a transfer of the meaning on the basis of comparison. Herman Paul points out that metaphor can be based on different types of similarity: 
a) similarity of shape, e.g. head (of a cabbage), bottleneck, teeth (of a saw, a comb); 
b) similarity of position, e.g. foot (of a page, of a mountain), head (of a procession); 
c) similarity of function, behaviour e.g. a whip (an official in the British Parliament whose duty is to see that members were present at the voting); 
d) similarity of colour, e.g. orange, hazel, chestnut etc. 
In some cases we have a complex similarity, e.g. the leg of a table has a similarity to a human leg in its shape, position and function.  
Many metaphors are based on parts of a human body, e.g. an eye of a needle, arms and mouth of a river, head of an army.  
A special type of metaphor is when Proper names become common nouns, e.g. philistine - a mercenary person, vandals - destructive people, a Don Juan - a lover of many women etc.

METONYMY

It is a transfer of the meaning on the basis of contiguity. There are different types of metonymy: 
a) the material of which an object is made may become the name of the object , e.g. a glass, boards, iron etc; 
b) the name of the place may become the name of the people or of an object placed there, e.g. the House - members of Parliament, Fleet Street - bourgeois press, the White House - the Administration of the USA; 
c) names of musical instruments may become names of musicians, e.g. the violin, the saxophone; 
d) the name of some person may becom a common noun, e.g. «boycott» was originally the name of an Irish family who were so much disliked by their neighbours that they did not mix with them, «sandwich» was named after Lord Sandwich who was a gambler. He did not want to interrupt his game and had his food brought to him while he was playing cards between two slices of bread not to soil his fingers. 
e) names of inventors very often become terms to denote things they invented, e.g. «watt» , «om», «rentgen» etc 
f) some geographical names can also become common nouns through metonymy, e.g. holland (linen fabrics), Brussels (a special kind of carpets) , china (porcelain) , astrachan ( a sheep fur) etc.

ELEVATION

It is a transfer of the meaning when it becomes better in the course of time, e.g. «knight» originally meant «a boy», then «a young servant», then «a military servant», then «a noble man». Now it is a title of nobility given to outstanding people; «marshal» originally meant «a horse man» now it is the highest military rank etc.

DEGRADATION

It is a transfer of the meaning when it becomes worse in the course of time. It is usually connected with nouns denoting common people, e.g. «villain» originally meant «working on a villa» now it means «a scoundrel».

HYPERBOLE

It is a transfer of the meaning when the speaker uses exaggeration, e.g. «to hate»(doing something), (not to see somebody) «for ages».  
Hyperbole is often used to form phraseological units, e.g. «to make a mountain out of a molehill», «to split hairs» etc.

LITOTE

It is a transfer of the meaning when the speaker expresses affirmative with the negative or vica versa, e.g. not bad, no coward etc.

PHRASEOLOGY

The vocabulary of a language is enriched not only by words but also by phraseological units. Phraseological units are word-groups that cannot be made in the process of speech, they exist in the language as ready-made units. They are compiled in special dictionaries. The same as words phraseological units express a single notion and are used in a sentence as one part of it. American and British lexicographers call such units «idioms». We can mention such dictionaries as: L.Smith «Words and Idioms», V.Collins «A Book of English Idioms» etc. In these dictionaries we can find words, peculiar in their semantics (idiomatic), side by side with word-groups and sentences. In these dictionaries they are arranged, as a rule, into different semantic groups. 
Phraseological units can be classified according to the ways they are formed, according to the degree of the motivation of their meaning, according to their structure and according to their part-of-speech meaning.

WAYS OF FORMING PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS

A.V. Koonin classified phraseological units according to the way they are formed. He pointed out primary and secondary ways of forming phraseological units.  
Primary ways of forming phraseological units are those when a unit is formed on the basis of a free word-group : 
a) Most productive in Modern English is the formation of phraseological units by means of transferring the meaning of terminological word-groups, e.g. in cosmic technique we can point out the following phrases: «launching pad» in its terminological meaning is «стартовая площадка» , in its transferred meaning - «отправной пункт», «to link up» - «cтыковаться, стыковать космические корабли» in its tranformed meaning it means -«знакомиться»; 
b) a large group of phraseological units was formed from free word groups by transforming their meaning, e.g. «granny farm» - «пансионат для престарелых», «Troyan horse» - «компьюторная программа, преднамеренно составленная для повреждения компьютера»;  
c) phraseological units can be formed by means of alliteration , e.g. «a sad sack» - «несчастный случай», «culture vulture» - «человек, интересующийся искусством», «fudge and nudge» - «уклончивость». 
d) they can be formed by means of expressiveness, especially it is characteristic for forming interjections, e.g. «My aunt!», « Hear, hear !» etc 
e) they can be formed by means of distorting a word group, e.g. «odds and ends» was formed from «odd ends», 
f) they can be formed by using archaisms, e.g. «in brown study» means «in gloomy meditation» where both components preserve their archaic meanings, 
g) they can be formed by using a sentence in a different sphere of life, e.g. «that cock won’t fight» can be used as a free word-group when it is used in sports (cock fighting ), it becomes a phraseological unit when it is used in everyday life, because it is used metaphorically, 
h) they can be formed when we use some unreal image, e.g. «to have butterflies in the stomach» - «испытывать волнение», «to have green fingers» - »преуспевать как садовод-любитель» etc. 
i) they can be formed by using expressions of writers or polititions in everyday life, e.g. «corridors of power» (Snow), «American dream» (Alby) «locust years» (Churchil) , «the winds of change» (Mc Millan). 
Secondary ways of forming phraseological units are those when a phraseological unit is formed on the basis of another phraseological unit; they are: 
a) conversion, e.g. «to vote with one’s feet» was converted into «vote with one’s f eet»; 
b) changing the grammar form, e.g. «Make hay while the sun shines» is transferred into a verbal phrase - «to make hay while the sun shines»; 
c) analogy, e.g. «Curiosity killed the cat» was transferred into «Care killed the cat»; 
d) contrast, e.g. «cold surgery» - «a planned before operation» was formed by contrasting it with «acute surgery», «thin cat» - «a poor person» was formed by contrasting it with «fat cat»; 
e) shortening of proverbs or sayings e.g. from the proverb «You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear» by means of clipping the middle of it the phraseological unit «to make a sow’s ear» was formed with the meaning «ошибаться». 
f) borrowing phraseological units from other languages, either as translation loans, e.g. « living space» (German), « to take the bull by the horns» ( Latin) or by means of phonetic borrowings «meche blanche» (French), «corpse d’elite» (French), «sotto voce» (Italian) etc. 
Phonetic borrowings among phraseological units refer to the bookish style and are not used very often.