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phenated in COD8 (1990) but open in COD9…” [Jackson H., Zé Amvela E., 2010:192]. The almost unpredictable nature of how compounds can or should be spelt is summed up by R.W. Zandvoort and H.W. Fowler: “The reader of the last and other sections of this handbook cannot fail to have been struck by a lack of consistency in the use of HYPHENS in the writing of compounds. This lack of consistency is entirely in keeping with English practice, on which the late H.W. Fowler in his Dictionary of Modern English Usage (a book to be used with care) expresses himself thus: ‘The chaos prevailing among writers or printers or both regarding the use of hyphens is discreditable to English education.’ Logic would, of course, prescribe that undoubted compounds, like goldsmith, should be spelt as single words; that a hyphen should be used when the two elements are only occasionally combined, and, therefore, to some extent preserve their individuality in combination (she-wolf); and that the two words should be written apart when they form a group of adjectives + noun, or attrib. noun + noun, etc., not a compound (the London streets). The very logic of this division, however, makes it difficult to apply in many cases, with the result that it is often ignored in cases of less difficulty. The best advice to be given in this matter is: when in doubt, consult the Concise Oxford Dictionary” [Zandvoort, 288:1962].

In the traditional sense, the word consists of at least one free lexical morpheme, “but it can also be made up of a whole series of lexical morphemes, like beer-drinker, theatergoer, segregationist, or denationalization. Leech … gives the examples drum-majorettishly and railway-sta- tion refreshment room” [Lipka, 2002:89].

One of the meaningful differences between a compound and a word combination is that the meaning of a free phrase can usually be inferred from its constituents, whereas “compounds are characterized semantically by the fact that they tend to acquire specialized meanings, thus becoming very much like idioms. Only in rare cases is the meaning of a compound derived from that of its constituents in the literal sense. In most cases, the meaning of at least one of the constituents is somehow obscured” [Jackson H., Zé Amvela E., 2010:94].

Compounds are also prototypically characterized by a single primary stress that falls on the first stem of a compound. If a compound, however, consists of three or more morphemes it is rarely the first stem that

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receives the primary stress: usually, it is the second or the third. Some examples are: wastepaper basket, twenty-twenty vision. The former has its accent on the stem “paper”, the latter – on the last constituent “vision” (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Talking Dictionary).

Exercises:

I

Below are a number of words represented by numbers. Specify their structural, semantic and functional peculiarities1. What is unusual in their semantics and structure? Is there any connection between these words and text-messaging?

1 The examples are taken from the dictionary by A. Peckham, 2005, and from the electronic dictionary PseudoDictionary.com. See references.

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II

Below are a number of compound words taken from Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Webster’s Third International Dictionary. Name the prototypical and marginal features of the compounds and say in what way they differ from a word combination.

Twenty-twenty vision (noun)

Perfect sight, especially as measured by a standard desk

e.g. The optician told me I had twenty-twenty vision. (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)

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House husband (noun)

A man who stays at home and cleans the house, takes care of the children, while his wife goes out to work. (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)

Chair lift (noun)

A set of chairs hanging from a moving wire driven by motor, which carries people, especially those who are going skiing, up and down mountains. (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)

Sewing machine (noun)

A machine which is used for joining together pieces of cloth, and which has a needle that is operated either by turning a handle or by electricity (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)

Fork-lift (noun)

A small vehicle which has two strong bars of metal fixed to the front used for lifting piles of goods. (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)

Hatband (noun)

A strip of material which is fixed around the outside of a hat. (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)

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Hatchback (noun)

A car which has an extra door at the back which can be lifted up to allow things to be put in (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)

Foxglove (noun)

A tall thin plant with white, yellow, pink or purple bell-shaped flowers growing all the way up its stem (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)

Agony aunt

A person who writes in a newspaper or magazine giving advice in reply to people’s letters about their personal problems (Oxford Wordpower Dictionary)

III

The question of whether nonce-words can be regarded as words proper is open to argument. Noncewords are words created ad hoc for one particular occasion, they have a context-bound meaning and are created out of laziness (1), with a view to avoid

the obvious (2), for love of precision (3), out of the desire for brevity (4). The function of nonce-words and the motivation behind their creation will differ depending on the type of discourse and the sphere of communication in which they appear. In literary genre they are deliberate coinages minted by the author out of stylistic purposes. In everyday colloquial communication they may be inadvertent slips of the tongue or emerge because of linguistic laxity, recklessness or lack of linguistic knowledge.

a) Look through the nonce-words below which were coined in spontaneous everyday communication. Specify the causes of their ap-

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pearance. What knowledge does the speaker lack word-wise? Can these words be regarded as words proper?

Remindful (mindful), insuccess (failure), deplacement (displacement), correctitude (correctness), briskened (quickened), unquiet (unrest).

b) Consider the following nonce-words selected from the works by British and American writers. Can these units be regarded as proper words? Dwell on the rationale behind their coinage and specify the linguistic means of their creation.

“They caught him”, I say. “He’s not a threat anymore.” “That’s good!” she says, a big falsey-toothy smile opening onto her face. “You are a wonderful job for us. We are all grateful to you.” [Ford, 1996: 87].

“Do you feel sometimes that no one’s looking out for you anymore?” She smiles faintly. The creases at the corners of her mouth make weals in her cheeks.

“Every day.” I try to beam back a martyrish look [Ford, 1986:245].

But if I’m right, his question is of a much more omenish and divining nature, having to do with the character of eventuality [Ford, 1986:98].

They are large women in white, tentish maid-dresses, talking and swinging big banger purses, waiting for their white ladies to come and pick them up [Ford, 1986:143].

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“I think I know exactly what you are getting at.”

“What about?”Mr. Tanks says suspiciously staring sharks at me.

“About wondering where I ought to go,” I say in as unaggressive, unsharky, unhomophilic a way as possible. [Ford, 1986:75].

Сonsequently it’s a good strategy to set the Markhams adrift...

staring at the greasy motel walls, listening to the traffic drum past, everyone but them bound for cozy seaside holiday arrangements where youthful, happy, perfect-toothed loved ones wave greetings from lighted porches, holding big pitches of cold gin [Ford, 1986:98].

I literally bashed right into Frank one summer night a year ago, driving home tired and foggy-eyed from the Red Man Club, where I’d fished till ten [Ford, 1996:96].

Her eyes snap at me. She offers me a long-toothed, savage stare and waves my way as if she knew me from Bogalussa or Minter City – maybe she simply recognizes a fellow southerner (smth. in the submissive shruggy set of my shoulders) [Ford, 1986:265].

Because no matter how many emotions his fancy dipolar circuits had allowed him to mimic, he was still at it, a computer. Even following Eddie this far into riddledom’s Twilight Zone ad caused Blaine’s sanity to totter [King, 2003:56].

Instead I make my old, familiar turn down fragrant, bonneted Hoving Road, a turn I virtually never make these days but should, since my memories have almost all boiled down to good ones or at least to tolerable, instructive ones [Ford, 1996:79].

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Then all at once five immense jet planes come cracking in over us, low and ridiculously close together, their wings steady as knife blades, their smack-shwoosh eruption following a heart’s beat behind [Ford, 1996:8].

“I’m way ahead of him emotionally. I’ll have my period pretty soon.”

“Well, that’s good to know,” I say, my heart going ker-whonk, my eyes suddenly hot and unhappily moist – not with unhappy tears, but with unhappy sweat that has busted out on my forehead [Ford, 1986:9].

“Why are you driving so eff-ing slow?” he says. Then, in a mocking old-granny’s voice, “Everybody passes me, but I get there just as fast as the rest of them.” [Ford, 1986:100].

V

Exclamations and interjections can be defined as conventional sound words that have developed as imitative words that resemble or suggest the sound2. Going by this definition and one (ones) that you can find in a dictionary (dictionaries), say in what way interjections and exclamations differ from other functional parts of speech.

Consider the interjections and exclamations below and express your opinion of their linguistic status.

2 This is the way Sol Steinmetz and Barbara Ann Kipfer define exclamations and interjections (2006).

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Recommended reading:

Девкин В.Д. Очерки по лексикографии. – М.: Прометей, 2000. Дягтерь И.Г. О термине «окказионализм» или «окказиональное сло-

во» // Структура словаря и вопросы словообразования германских языков. – Пятигорск, 1975. – С. 129–135.

Касевич В.Б. Морфонология. – Л.: Изд-во ЛГУ, 1986.

Кудрявцева Л.А. Моделирование динамики словарного состава языка. – Киев: ИСИОУ, 1993.

Леонтьев А.А. Слово в речевой деятельности: Некоторые проблемы общей теории речевой деятельности. – 3-е изд., стереотип. – М.: КомКнига, 2006.

Леонтьев А.А. Психолингвистические единицы и порождение речевого высказывания. – 4-е изд., стереотип. – М.: КомКнига, 2007.

Лопатин В.В. Рождение слова. Неологизмы и окказиональные образования. – М.: Наука, 1973.

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