15. Abbreviation. Other ways of word creation.

Abbr. – words formed by initial letters.

Shortenings are produced in two different ways:

1. To make a new word from a syllable of the original word. The word may lose its beginning (phone – from telephone) , it’s ending (hols – for holidays, vac – for vacation) or both the beginning and the ending (flu – from influenza, fridge – from refrigerator).

2. To make a new word from the initial letters of a word group: a) If the abbreviated written form tends itself to be read as though it were an ordinary English word and sounds like an English word, it will be read like one. The words thus formed are called acronyms,U.N.O. ['ju:neu] from the United Nations Organisation, NATO — the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation b) The other subgroup consists of initial abbreviation with the alphabetical reading retained, i.e. pronounced as a series of letters. B.B.C. from the British Broadcasting Corporation. This type is called initial shortenings. They are found not only among formal words, such as the ones above, but also among colloquialisms and slang. So, g. f. is a shortened word made from the compound girl-friend.

Minor ways of word formation:

• back formation is the process when a word structurally more complex served as the original element from which a simpler word was derived (editor –to edit, beggar – to beg).

• sound and stress interchange are means of distinguishing between dif. words, primarily between words of dif. parts of speech (to sing-song, ‘export-ex’port).

• sound imitation is the way of creating words out of the sounds we hear in nature and registering them (to buzz - жужжать).

• blending is the process of merging parts of words into one new word (smog=smoke+fog).

• clipping is the process of reduction of a word to one or two syllables (prof.=professor, mid=middle).

• reduplication. in reduplication new words are made by doubling a stem, either without any phonetic changes as in bye-bye or with a variation of the root-vowel or consonant as in ping-pong,chit-chat.

16.Phraseological units in English.

Phr-cal units are comparatively stable and semantically inseparable. The essential features of phr-cal units are stability of the lexical components and lack of motivation.

Phr-cal units, or idioms, are described in numerous Eng dict-ries (The Oxford dictionary of idioms, the Collin’s, the Longman dict of Idioms).

Researching to idioms has shown that they have important roles in writing and spoken E. They can appear in informal speech and formal style.

Phr-cal units referred to lg universals (affixation, compounding), because every lg has phrases, word groups that are ready-made, stable and idiomatic. It means that they are not created in speech, but are introduced as fixed or set expressions. Their meaning cannot be deduced from the literal meaning of the constituent parts (“a snake in the grass” – hidden danger).

Features that characterize the Phr-cal units:

1. they are ready-made

2. stable in structure

3. idiomatic or transferred meaning

4. colorful expressive

5. stylistically marked.

Ways of understanding:

1. narrow

2. wide

Problems of studying phr-cal units:

1. the problem of the adequate term and its definition,

2. the problem of the lg material, which is referred to domain of phraseology,

3. the problem of the classification of the lg material.

Idiom – an expression unique to a lg, esp one whose sense are not predictable from the meaning of arrangement of its element.

Fixed/ set expression – stability of lexical components and gram structure.

Collocation (by Crystal) – a habitual association between particular words, such as “to and fro”, “white coffee''. They cannot be predicted by the knowledge of the word.

Lexical phrases- Cristal devides them into polywords (by the way, so) and institutionalized expressions (how do you do).

Proverb - short traditional saying of a didactic nature ( a stick in time saves nine).

Sayings - concise observation that expresses fock, wisdom.(time flies)

Vinogradov’s classification of phr-cal units:

1. фразеологические сращения (phr-cal fusions); - “to kick the bucket — сыграть в ящик”, “red tape”.

2. фразеологические единства (Phr-cal units) – “an old bird”, “Achilles' heel”;

3. фразеологические сочетания (Phr-cal collocations) – “white coffee”, to take smb for granted, to take advantage of.

Types:

1. one-summit units: at large; be the way; by heart.

2. subordinate and coordinate word groups:

a. substantives – “an old bird”, “hot dog”;

b. adjective – as good as gold, as cool as cucumber.

c. adverbial – at last, as quick as a flesh.

3. structures with an embedded clause (a lexim + a clause). – ships that pass in the night; to see how the land lies.

4. clause idioms (стр-ра придат предлож) – when pigs fly;

5. nominative-communicative: to break the ice, to pass the rabicon.

6. sentence idioms: birds of a feather flock together; if you run after 2 hares you will catch neither.

7. interjectional sentence (эквивалент предлож). – by George, here here, oh God.