PRODUCTIVITY

WORD-FORMATION: refers either to the variety of morphological word-forming processes or

to the study of such processes.
MEANING TRANSFER: happens when you use a word which does not denote the thing
mentioned. Meaning transfer is also called semantic transfer. It is based upon metaphorical or
metonymic extension of meaning. Metaphor is a kind of a meaning transfer, e.g. jingle meaning
metallic clinking or ringing sound of coins or small bells is metaphorically extended to mean
be full of alliterations and rhymes that make a verse easy to learn and remember; kiwi
meaning rare kind of flightless bird which lives in New Zealand is metaphorically extended to
mean a New Zealander in informal Australian English. Its relevance to language productivity
and word-formation is significant, since thousands of words are used metaphorically and some of
them became petrified. Meaning transfer leads to derivation of new senses of established words.
Metaphor is the most powerful mechanism of creating new words and one of the main sources
from which new words, new idioms and slang spring. Example of meaning transfer between
languages: Russian troika-denotes a group of three persons, nations, etc. united in power and
acting in unison, but it can also stand for a Russian vehicle drawn by three horses harnessed
side-by-side.
METAPHOR: is the application of a word or a phrase to an object or concept it does not
literally denote in order to suggest comparison with another object or concept. Examples:
DOG: the word dog has its denotative meaning of an animal and connotative meaning of a
friendly, affectionate, and loyal animal, but when dog is used metaphorically it is almost always
used to express something negative, so it can mean something which is of very poor quality:
This car is an absolute dog to drive.
STORM: to speak in a very aggressive way or to go somewhere in a way that shows that you
are very angry and its formal literal meaning is connected with weather.
HIT: a popular song
CRANE: a machine for lifting
ANGELS KISS: a drink that has cream and a cocktail cherry on top.
WIND in GET A SECOND WIND: get a second burst of energy.

The last four metaphors are also PETRIFIED METAPHORS- are words which are
institutionalized in its metaphorical meaning. For example hit meaning a popular song.
WEAK-KNEED- lacking courage and unable to make your own decisions: derived from a
physical feeling of weakness in your knees when you are afraid.
HARD-FISTED- not generous with money, stingy: derived from a physical action of tightening
something in your hand and not letting go.
OPEN-HEARTED- kind, sympathetic, and friendly: derived from a physical state of operating an
open heart which is very delicate and in which a patient trusts the surgeon beyond any doubt.
RED-HANDED- to catch someone at the moment when they are doing something wrong:
derived from a situation when someone was caught with blood on his hands which showed that
he had committed a crime.
BLACKMAIL- when someone tries to get money from you or to make you do what they want
by threating to tell other people your secrets: derived from black + mail= payment (11-20
century) black meaning secret.
GREY ECONOMY- (also black economy) business activity that takes place secretly, especially
in order to avoid tax: the color indicates that is done secretly, in the dark sort to say.
A METAPHOR IS A POWERFUL MECHANISM WHICH TRIGGERS NEOLOGISMS:
SNOW- a very informal word for cocaine, analogy due to the color
SHRINK-psychiatrist, derived from head-shrinker
EIFFELITES- gangly people sitting in front of you at the movies that no matter what direction
you lean in, follow suit: derived from Eiffel by visual metaphor
GOGGLE BOX- TV set, from goggle- to look at something with your eyes wide open in
surprise or shock.
CHERRY PICK- to pick out for oneself the best and the most desirable items, since cherry
comes at the top
BODICE RIPPER- a sexually explicit romantic novel or film with t plot featuring the seduction
of the heroine, from bodice piece of womans underwear that covers the upper part of her
body and Ripper (Jack the) a man who killed and cut up the bodies of several prostitutes in the
Whitechapel area of London in 1888.
TREE HUGGER- an environmental campaigner, derogatory, visual metaphor
THE USE OF METAPHOR IN EVERYDAY LANGUAGE:

Victor is a pig- someone who eats too much; who is untidy; who is unpleasant in some way
Ben was always the apple of his fathers eye- to be loved very much by someone
Clear the air- to do something to end an argument or bad situation (discuss a problem calmly)
Out of the blue (sky) -much unexpected
Dont be so wet! - Someone who is wet does not have a strong character, or is not willing to do
something that you think they should do used to show disapproval.
WEATHER METAPHORS: clear the air, feel under the weather, to save for a rainy day, rain
cats and dogs, fair-weather friend (someone who only wants to be your friend when you are
successful), a whirlpool of emotion or activity, cloudy thoughts/ memories, to have ones head in
the clouds, hot air (things that someone says which are intended to sound impressive, but do not
really mean anything or are not true= windy talk), under a cloud (of suspicion), to give someone
snow (cocaine), out of the blue sky, take the wind out of somebodys sais (to make them lose
their confidence, especially by saying-doing something unexpected)
ANIMAL METAPHORS: make a pig out of oneself (eat too much), fat cat (rich person,
disapproving), foxy (attractive), rat race (competing for success), dog collar (collar worn by
priests), top dog (alpha), a political/ social animal (informal for someone who is interested in
politics/meeting other people).
COLOR METAPHORS: have green fingers( good at gardening), red herring (unimportant
thought/point made to distract from the important one), to be in the red (bankrupt), to be in the
black, to feel blue, once in a blue moon, scream blue murder (scream very loudly), pink-collar
jobs (low paying usually womens jobs), White-collar workers (offices), blue-collar workers
(physical), red alert (warning), red-letter day (informal day that you always remember because
something made you happy), green revolution (increase in growing crops due to
mechanism),brown goods ( TVs and computers), white goods, white lie, black humor, blue
movie (erotic), grey area (part of something that people are not sure how to deal with).
METALLIC WORDS USED AS METAPHORS:
*Leaden- made of lead; heavy; lifeless, inert, lacking energy; dull, grey in color; (v) to make
dull/ sluggish
*Brassy- made of or resembling brass or the sound of brass instruments; brazen, bold, showy,
pretentious.
*silver bullet- AE, something that solves a difficult problem very quickly and easily

*silver lining- something good in a bad situation

*gold-brick AE, I, someone who stays away from their work by pretending they are ill
*gold rush- a situation when a lot of people hurry to a place where gold has just been discovered
*golden handcuffs- things such as a large salary or a good pension that make workers keep
working for the same company rather for a competing one
*golden handshake- BE, a large amount of money given to someone when they leave their job
*golden parachute- part of business persons contract which states that they will be paid a large
sum of money if they lose their job, for example, if the company is sold
*nerves of steel the ability to be brave and calm in a difficult situation
*iron curtain- the border between the communist countries and Europe
*the Iron Chancellor- Bismarck
*The Iron Lady- Dame Margaret Thatcher
Yellow metal symbolizes gold and grey metal symbolizes steel.
*Tin ear-good reputation
NUMERIC TERMS USED IN METAPHORS:
404- Something missing: I was looking for it but it was 404/ he was 404/ my computer was 404ed.
Metaphorically=someone who is 404 is stupid and unable to use computers or complicated
equipment.
24/7- complete availability: He needs 24/7 attention; metaphorically= all the time
180 degrees turn- complete refusal: the company went 180 degrees on the strategy.
METONOMY- is the use of the name of one object or concept for that of another to which is
related or of which is a part. Examples: SCEPTER: denotative-a rod borne in the hand as an
emblem of regional or imperial power, metonymic-sovereignty; ANORAK: denotative- a warm
waterproof jacket with a hood, metonymic- a boring person who is interested in the unimportant
details of a particular subject and does not know how to behave properly in social situations, and
who is popularly caricatured wearing an anorak, a garment traditionally considered to be
unfashionable and boring.

Metonymy triggers the formation of many new words by the mechanism called transfer of
meaning. Inventions and discoveries are named after the name of the inventor or the products are
named after the name of the person they are related to.
CLASSIFICATION OF METONYMS:
The first major type of metonyms is eponyms- the words derived from the names of people.
There are several subtypes of the first category of metonyms which are derived from proper
names these are:
- metonyms which are the names of measures and weights (e.g. decibel after A.G. Bell, joule
after J. P. Joule, kelvin after Lord Kelvin, maxwell after J. C. Maxwell, newton after I. Newton,
watt after J. Watt)
- metonyms which are the names of chemical elements (e.g. lawrencium after E. O. Lawrence,
lewisite after U. L. Lewis, pentlandite after J. B. Pentland)
- metonyms which include miscellaneous examples (e.g. boycott after C. C. Boycott, cardigan
after Earl of Cardigan, Chippendale after Th. Chippendale, daltonism after J. Dalton, lynch v.,
Lynch law after Ch. Lynch, macadam after L. McAdam, mackintosh after Ch. Macintosh, reglan
after Lord Reglan, sandwich after the Earl of Sandwich)
-The second major type of metonyms are those which are derived from geographical names
toponyms (e.g. hamburger after Hamburg, rugby after Rugby, Charleston after Charleston,
bermuda shorts after the Bermudas, bikini after Bikini, cashmere after Cashmere, jersey after
Jersey, Tweed after Tweed, astrakhan after Astrakhan)
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN METAPHOR AND METONYMY:
(a) The *creampuff was knocked out in the first round of the fight.(metaphor)
(b) We need a new glove to play third base. (metonymy)
If we try to provide a nonliteral paraphrase for the comparison by making use of is like , the
comparison that is meaningful is metaphor:
(a) The boxer is like a creampuff. (metaphor)
(b) The third baseman is like a glove. (metonymy; the sentence is unacceptable)
SYNECDOCHE:
Metonymy is very common in everyday language but it can be easily confused with synecdoche
and understandably the latter is often regarded as a special type of metonymy. In synecdoche, the
name of the referent is replaced strictly by the name of an actual part of it: strings ( stringed

instruments ), set of wheels ( car ), keel ( ship ).= Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a
part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the
special, as in ten sail (for ten ships). Historically, synecdoche has brought about some major
changes in meaning: the Modern English word town and its earlier meaning of fence or the
Modern English word stove which has developed through synecdoche from an earlier word
stove meaning heated room.
STEREOTYPED AND CLICH PHRASES CONTAINING EPONYMS:
Achilles heel, Adams apple, Oedipus complex, Abrahams bosom, Aladdins cave, Bloody Mary,
to tantalize, America, Amazon, Christmas, Cyrillic, Davis Cup, Don Juan, Doubting Thomas,
erotic, Goodbye, Gypsis, Hoover, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, malapropism, goofy, odyssey,
Pandoras box, Don Quixote
LEXICAL RULES: are the rules which account for the creative aspect of lexicon. They explain
lexical productivity-formation of new words and formation of new meaning of the words. The
notion of lexical rule comprises word-formation and transfer of meaning.
THE TYPES OF LEXICAL RULES THAT EXPLAIN PRODUCTIVITY:
1)a rule of morphological derivation which involves a change in the morphological specification:
a)an addition of an affix: train + ee= trainee; pre +determine= predetermine
b)a subtraction of an affix: bottom-feeder (n)- bottom-feed (v); burglar (n)- burgle (v)
c)composition-addition of a free morpheme: ever + green=evergreen; (ginger +bread) +
man=gingerbread man
2)a rule of conversion involves a change of syntactic function without a change of morphological
specification. It has to do with the change of form-class without a corresponding change of form:
corner (v)- corner (n)
3)a rule of semantic transfer is a lexical rule of the output of which is a word with a major
change in the semantic specification only, a word does not change its form only its meaning
changes mainly through metaphor and metonymy: crane- a bird/crane- machine for lifting, messdish of food/something in a disorganized state/military canteen, lousy-infested in lice/bad/well
provided with/full of, Wellington-a name/ wellingtons-boots, Tweed-name of a river/ tweedthick, soft, woolen cloth/ tweeds-clothes made of tweed
EXAMPLES:
*divorcee= divorce + ee (derivation, addition)

*soldier (n)- soldier (v) (conversion)

*palm( part of your hand)- palm ( a tree resembling that part of your hand) =semantic transfer
*visionary= vision+ ary (derivation, addition)
*greenery= green + ery (derivation, addition)
*predetermine+ pre + determine (derivation, addition)
*drip-dry drip-dryer (derivation, subtraction)
*dry-clean dry-cleaner (derivation, subtraction)
*oversimplify= over+ simple+ fy (derivation, addition)
*overgeneralize= over+ general+ ise (derivation, addition)
*Burmese= Burma+ ese (derivation, addition)
*Nepalese= Nepal + ese (derivation, addition)
*accessible= access+ ible (derivation, addition)
*digestible= digest+ ible (derivation, addition)
*linguistic= linguist+ ic (derivation, addition)
*genetics= genet+ ics (derivation, addition)
*foolish= fool+ ish (derivation addition)
*go-between= go + between (derivation, composition)
*consumerism= consume + er + ism (derivation, addition)
*ladylike= lady + like (derivation, addition)
*frequently= frequent+ ly (derivation addition)
*candle snatcher- someone who marries somebody much younger than himself (semantic
transfer)
*crane- bird, machine (semantic transfer)
*multi-layered= multi+ layer+ ed (derivation, addition)
*weatherman= weather +man (derivation, composition)
*stage-manage= stage-manager (derivation, subtraction)
*mass-produce= mass-producer (derivation, subtraction)
*bikini-piece of clothing (semantic transfer)
*partying= party + ing (derivation, addition)
*mackintosh- a rain coat (semantic transfer)
*cardigan a sweater with buttons (semantic transfer)

PROPERTIES OF LEXICAL RULES:

1.LIMITED PRODUCTIVITY- as a property of lexical rules which means that the rules are not
fully productive and that there are certain limitations on productivity both in inflectional and
lexical paradigms. It is closely related to ACCEPTABILITY which is gradable and can be:
-actual: referring to the actual acceptability of lexical entries which have attained institutional
acceptance: acceptable, adorable, desirable, disposable, enjoyable, manageable, recognizable,
washable
-potential: referring to the potential acceptability of any lexical entry that can be generated by a
lexical rule:
driable, triable, translateable, referable, obtainable, gettable
-zero acceptability: the unacceptability of a lexical rule on the grounds of violation of linguistic
requirements: windowable, taleable, beeable, beaable
2.DIVERSITY- means that the lexical rules allow the possibility of applying a great number of
different rules to the same lexical entry:
-different rules applied to the entry happy generate: unhappy, happiness, happily, happy- golucky
-different rules applied to the entry harm generate: harmful, harmless, harmlessly
-the rules of semantic transfer have similar diversity so that they generate new instances of
polysemy:
Human race, human rights, human life, human body, human existence, human consumption,
human error
Examples:
Sleep- sleepy, sleepiness, sleepless, sleeplessness, sleeper, oversleep
Man- manhood, manly, postman, gingerbread man, mankind
Play- playable, play-off, playing, replay, play-by-play
Drive- driving, overdrive, drive-in, driver, driven
Home-homeless, homely, homecoming, homebody, homemade
Harm- harmful, harmless, harmlessly, harmfully
Pain- painful, painless, painfully, painkiller, painkilling

White- whitening, Show White, white elephant, white flag, whitener

Black- black and blue, blackberry, black market, blackmail, blackjack
Keep- keeper, safekeeping, keeping, keepsake
House- housekeeper, housemaid, house-warming, housebound, houseboat
Major-majority, majority rule, majorly
Worm- book-worm, worm-eaten, wormhole, wormwood, wormy
Wine- wine cellar, winery, wine glass, wine cooler
Happy- happily, happiness, unhappy, unhappiness, happy-go-lucky
Make- maker, making, homemaker, makeover, makeshift
Conserve- conserving, conservation, conservationist
Business- businessman, businesslike, business class, businesswoman
3.SEMANTIC OPEN-ENDEDNESS- is a property of lexical rules which means that rules are
open-ended in a way that they allow a speaker to read into them any information that he needs to
understand it:
-compounds in English are notoriously structurally ambiguous so that an airbridge can be
interpreted as a)bridge in the air; b)bridge made of air; c)construction that bridges that spaces
between an aircraft and the airport building.
Examples:
Paper man- man who delivers papers/ man who is made of paper
Discman- man who sells discs/ a disk in a shape of a man/ a small CD player with headphones
Walkman- a man who walks/ a small cassette player with headphones
Gingerbread man- a man who sells gingerbread/ a piece of gingerbread in shape of a man
Toy man-a man who sells toys/ a toy which looks like a man
Weatherman- man who changes weather/ a weather forecaster on TV
Barman- a man made of bars/ a man who serves drinks in a bar
Deliveryman- a man who is delivered/ a man who delivers something
Coalman- a man made of coal/ a man who delivers coal to peoples houses
Cameraman- a man who is a camera/ a man who operates it
Camel-man- a man who is a camel/ who sells camels/ who owns camels
Countryman- a man in shape of a country/ a man who lives in a country

Front-man- a man who is in the front/ a person who speaks for an organization/ a singer of a
band
Yes-man- a man who always says yes/ a man in a shape of yes/ someone who always agrees
with and obeys
Their employer, leader etc. in order to gain some advantage; disapproval
Handyman- a man with big hands/someone who is good at doing practical jobs around the house.
4.RECURSIVENESS- is a property of lexical rules which refers to the successive application of
different word-generating rules, or in other words, it is the ability of a lexical entry which is the
output of one lexical rule to be the input of another lexical rule. It is a property of lexical rules
which refers to successive multiple applications of word-generating rules to one and the same
entry. Recursiveness can also be observed in semantic transfer.
-prohibit +ion= prohibition- prohibition +ist =prohibitionist
-possess+ ing= possessing possessing +pre = prepossessing- prepossessing+ un=
unprepossessing
-recursiveness in semantic transfer: Shakespearean play- Shakespearean hero
Examples:
Prohibit+ ion=prohibition prohibition+ ist= prohibitionist
Air+ condition= air-condition air-condition + ing= air-conditioning/ +er= air-conditioner
Egg+ beat= egg-beat egg-beat+ er= egg-beater
Back+ street= back-street (n); backstreet (adj)
Abort+ ion = abortion abortion +ist= abortionist
Good-look + ing= good-looking better-looking
Gold + lace= gold-lace gold-laced
Snow +cover = snow-cover snow-covered
Kidney +shape= kidney-shape kidney-shaped
Hard +line= hardline hard-liner
Ill + treat= ill-treat ill-treated
Immune +ise= immunize immunize +ation = immunization
Corrupt + ible= corruptible in+ corruptible= incorruptible
In + de + fatigue + able= indefatigable
Knock+ knee= knock-knee knock-kneed

Memory + ise = memorize memorized

Power + share= power-share power-sharing
Old+ age= old-age / old-age-pensioners
One +line = one-line/ one-liner
One+ parent= one-parent/ one-parent-family/families
Operate+ ion= operation/ operational
Organize + ion = organization/ organizational
Orient+ ed = oriented/ business-oriented
Pinch + ing= pinching/ penny-pinching
Person + al= personal/ personalize/ personalization
Smooth+ talk= smooth-talk/ smooth-talking
Cap +ed =capped/ snow-capped
Pedal + ing= pedaling/ soft-pedaling
Soap+ ing= soaping/ soft-soaping
Rank+ ing= ranking/ top-ranking
Schedule + ed= scheduled/ unscheduled
Reward + ing= rewarding/ unrewarding
Rival +ed= rivaled/ unrivalled
Sophisticate+ ed = sophisticated/ unsophisticated
5.BI-DIRECTIONALITY- is the property of lexical rules which states the fact that lexical
derivation is a two-directional process- it can move in either direction: the morphemes can be
either added or subtracted:
-air+ less= airless; brain-washing- ing brainwash
Examples of addition:
By+ pass= by-pass

impossible +ility= impossibility

Pass-by +er= passer-by

bake+ ry= bakery

Happy +go +lucky= happy-go-lucky

conservation + ist =conservationist

Hang-glide +er= hang-glider

extreme+ ism= extremism

Stage-manage+ ment= stage-management

face+ less= faceless

Brain +washing= brain-washing

falsify+ ed= falsified

Lip+ read= lip-read

falling + off= falling-off

Tongue+ twister = tongue-twister

fictional+ ized= fictionalized

Mind +reading= mind-reading

flat foot +ed = flat-footed

House+ keeper housekeeper

go + between= go-between

Tape+ recorder= tape-recorder

investigate+ ory= investigatory

Examples of subtraction:
Brain-washing= brain-wash

air-conditioning= air-condition

Mass producer= mass-produce

dry-cleaning= dry-clean

Stage-manager= stage-manage

hand-washing= hand-wash

Hang-glider= hang-glide

baby-sitter= baby-sit

Breaking-neck= break- neck

skydiving= skydive

Editor= edit

spin-dryer= spin-dry

Head-hunter= head-hunt

tumble-dryer= tumble-dry

6.PETRIFICATION- is a property of lexical rules which refers to the process by which a word
gets institutionalized and lexicalized in one of its possible meanings allowed for by lexical rules.
It refers to shrinkage of denotation; It is a final stage of lexicalization when a word becomes
completely unmotivated and opaque and can no longer be related to the meaning of its
constituent parts
- Toy -car can theoretically mean a) car for toys; b) car which is a toy car you play with, with this
meaning this word is institutionalized and petrified.
-metaphors get petrified (dead) by the process of petrification: hit-a popular song.
A PROCESS (word forming or inflectional) IS SAID TO BE PRODUCTIVE if it can
produce new words and word-forms. Different processes are productive to a different degree:
some are fully productive (like some inflectional processes), some are semi-productive (like
word-forming processes), and some are no longer productive.
Noun forming processes are the most productive, and then come verb-forming processes, and
then adjective-forming processes and adverb forming processes are least productive.
Compounding is the favorite word-formation process so that two thirds of all neologisms are
compound words. The principle of partial productivity can also be observed in semantic transfer:
-live metaphors- of the type rat-race- a job or way of life where people compete for
success;disapproval
-dead metaphors- of the type crane-machine for lifting, derived from crane-bird

-moribund metaphors- of the type hawk- a person with warlike attitude.

Suffixes which are no longer productive and have no synchronic relevance:
a)-th in words: width, strength, length, warmth
b)-ft in word: gift
c)-hood in word: neighborhood
There are certain RESTRICTIONS ON PRODUCTIVITY. Word-formation can be influenced
and limited by pragmatics. Pragmatic factors include:
1)hypostatization- requirement of existence, which means that a word will not be formed to
denote an item, an action or quality which does not exist
2)nameability requirement- which means that a word must denote something that is real but
also nameable
3)blocking- the non-occurrence of a lexeme can be due to the existence of another form. A
lexeme fails to be institutionalized because its place in the linguistic system has already been
taken by another lexeme which is synonymous and which is in general use: the existence of the
words thin, little and preparation precludes the existence of unthick, unbig and preparement; also
simplicity blocks simpleness, soloist blocks soloer. Some authorities refer to blocking as
preemption. Blocking has considerable repercussions in the domain of productivity.
LIMITATIONS ON PRODUCTIVITY CAN BE LINGUISTIC that is:
1) phonological- the form livelily is blocked due to phonological reasons
2) morphological- polynational is blocked because of a rule which says that a Greek prefix
cannot be combined with a Latin base, so multinational would be appropriate
3) semantic- black-shoed is not acceptable because the quality of wearing black shoes is not
intrinsic.
New words in English are formed on the basis of native word-formation rules, they can be literal
translations of foreign word-formation patterns (calques) with no or slight adjustments. New
words that come into a language take the form of nonce words (those coined for one occasion to
meet an immediate need) or the form of neologisms (new words which are intended to stay in a
language. Basic sources for new words are creating, borrowing, combining, shortening,
blending and shifting.

1.Creativity- or lexical innovation is the method by which new words are introduced into the
language. This method may take the form of neologism (which is a new word added to the
vocabulary) or transfer of meaning (which refers to the derivation of new senses of
established=institutionalized words). The opposite tendency to lexical creativity is anti-creative
tendency in languages as jargonization, language stereotypes and clichs. Creating a word means
to make it out of nothing, not exploiting already existing words or patterns or, more frequently, to
make a word whose sound resembles some sound in nature (onomatopoeic words).
2.Borrowing is a word taken over from another language and modified in its sound-shape,
written form, morphological shape and meaning to the standards of the English language. (See
Origin of Words)
3. Combining- is by far the most productive source of words. The process of combining
proliferates compounds and derivates (which are all the result of combining existing words or
word parts). New formations exploit traditional prefixes and suffixes but new affixes or new
senses of old ones often develop and they make the list of affixes and affix-like morphemes even
bigger;some suffixes are interposed or even reduplicated, some are made by blending
4.Shortening or clipping- is a process of word-building by means of subtracting one part of the
input word (or parts of two or more words): examination-exam, double-dub, influenza-flu
Word-forming processes normally involve the process of addition of a morpheme to the base (in
the case of derivation and compounding) on the other hand they can involve subtraction (in the
case of shortening, back-formation). Both addition and subtraction are indicative of quantities
changes involved in word-formation processes; qualitative changes on their part involve the
change of meaning (denotative or associative). The usage of the word which is the result of
clipping and of its original prototype-word is different; clipped words are generally used in less
formal situations than their original full-length forms. Shortening means the reduction of a word
where one part of the original word is subtracted; the slipped part need not be a morpheme, it can
just be an arbitrary part of the word (-ination in examination and oratory in laboratory are not
morphemes). There do not seem to be any phonological or spelling reasons on the basis of which
we can predict which part of the word will be cut-in other words, some shortenings are made
through the eye and some through the ear. Some clipped forms get the ending y or er;
Vicky-Victoria, Aussie-Australian, hanky-handkerchief; there are many words which retain the
finals: maths-mathematics, specs-spectacles; there are some irregular clippings like bike-

bicycle or mice-microphone. Shortening is type of root creating where these roots can combine
with bound morphemes:bike-bikes, fancy (derived from fantasy)-fancy(v)-fanciful-fancifullyfancy-ball As a correlation between a shortened word and its full-length counterpart it can be
that of synonymy :doc-doctor, Betty-Elizabeth, Frisco- San Francisco (the only difference is the
presence of a stylistic marker). On the other hand the correlation could be such that the clipped
form becomes a separate word (these are called etymological doublets: miss-mistress, fanfanatic). Shortening produces new words which belong to the same part of speech (with the
exception of back-formation). The most part of shortened words are nouns: photo, mike,telly,
pram, vet, do, perm, than come verbs which are much rarer: perm, tab, dub, vac, shortened
adjectives are very few:comfy, fab(fabulous). There are different types of clipping depending on
whether the end, the beginning, or both the end and the beginning or the middle part of the word
is clipped. Final clipping ( back/hind-clipping) is the type of clipping where the end of the
original word is clipped and the beginning is retained: cinema-cinematograph, lab-laboratory,
pub-public house, ad-advertisement, coke-coca-cola, fab-fabulous, gym-gymnastics, macmackintosh, ref-referee, veg-vegetable, vet-veterinary, psycho-psychopath, memo-memorandum,
pop music-popular, al-Alfred, ben-Benjamin, mex- Mexican, co-op=cooperative association,
prefab-prefabricated, cable-cablegram, taxi-taximeter cab, polio-polio melitis, ex-ex
husband/wife Initial/fore-clipping is the type of clipping where the beginning part is subtracted
and the end part is retained: cello-violoncello, phone-telephone, bus-omnibus, Baldie- Archibald,
Betty-Elizabeth, pike-turnpike road, plane-airplane, van-caravan, chute-parachute, cute-acute.
Final and initial clipping can be combined and that we call both-ends clipping: flu-influenza,
fridge-refrigerator, tec-detective, Liz-Elizabeth, Tave-Octavia. The middle part of the word can
be syncopated so that this type of clipping is called syncope (the middle part of the word is left
out): maths-mathematics, specs-spectacles, maam-madam, cablegram-cable telegram, mailomatmail automat. The omission of the middle part is also called ellipsis. A clipping can lose its
connection with the longer word of which it is a shortening so that it no longer belongs to wordformation but it becomes an unrelated lexical unit (vamp-vampire, pants-pantaloons, mob-mobile
vulgaris, fan-fanatic). It also seems that examples such as lunch and movie are on the way to
independence since luncheon and movingpicture are not often used). There are also acronyms
(words composed of the initials of other words). All kinds of shortening are very productive in

English. They show great combining ability and they form basis for further word-formation
processes.
*PHONETIC ELLISION- has relevance in morphology and it is the way of forming shortened
words. The subtraction of a sound is sometimes not the result of a deliberate wish to shorten the
word but rather the result of processes of phonetic elision: aphesis, apocope and syncope. The
elided form is often treated as a new word: stonewash is an apocoped form of stonewashed,
maam is a syncopated form of madam. Aphesis means the loss or omission of an initial vowel or
syllable at the beginning of a word, as in squire-esquire, or count-account.
5. Blending- is compounding by means of clipped forms. The result of blending is a blend or a
portmanteau word which is a new lexeme formed from parts (not necessarily morphemes) of two
or more other lexemes: smog= sm(oke) +(f)og, brunch=br(eakfast)+(l)unch, portmanteau means
a big suitcase and Lewis Carroll first used this term. The majority of blends are neologisms:
cama=camel + llama. Most blends of earlier times and even some present-day coinages have a
punning or colloquial flavor or are terms of mockery. It only began to have a serious effect on
word-forming in 20th century. As for formal characteristic of blends, a blend is formed of
irregular fragments of two or more words. There is no general rule about the form that the
fragments are likely to take-sometimes they are recognizable as morphemes in the source
word,but most often they are just arbitrary parts of the original word. Depending on the
prototype phrases with which they can be correlated two types of blends can be distinguished:
additive (which can be transformed as an and phrase: cama, smog) and
restrictive(transformable as the phrase containing a head word and a prehead modifier which
restricts its meaning):spam-spiced ham, positron-positive electron, shamboo- sham bamboo.
Another classification of blends based upon the criterion of the nature of fragments entering the
process of blending can be the following: blends created of phonaesthemes (elements based on
the principle so expressive symbolism:flimmer=flicker+shimmer), blends created as suffixed
words: washeteria, candyteria, lunchteria, cheeseburger, fishburger) this group of words is the
least likely to be interpreted as blends, and the process is more like suffixing through analogy
( Watergate, Irangate, Monicagate), there are compound blends which can be nominal compound
blends: screenager=screen+tennager, celtuce=celery+lettuce, they can be adjectival compound
blends (attractivating= attractive+captivating, fantabulou=fantastic+fabulous), there are verbal

compound blends (meld= meld+weld, smothercate= smother+suffocate), then there are neoclassical compound blends (oceanaut=ocean+naut, oceanarium= ocean+ aquarium). Blending is
fairly productive in literary and scientific contexts (liger, paratroops=parachute+troops,
paraglider=parachute+glider; smackerel= smack+mackerel). Cockney rhyming slang belongs to
the general category of blending.
6. Conversion- is the process whereby a lexeme changes its word-class without the addition of
an affix as an overt morphological class-maker. Conversion is the change in form class of a form
without any corresponding change of form. The status of conversion within word-formation is
unclear: some linguists consider it as a branch of derivation (and it is sometimes referred to as
zero derivation, derivation by zero affix). Other terms which refer to the same phenomena are:
functional shift/change, shifting, functional conversion. The productiveness and proliferation of
the process of conversion as well as its frequency can be seen to be directly related to lack of
clear morphological distinctions between word classes in English.It seems that conversion is a
totally free process. Prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs, interjections, and even affixes can be
used as basses for conversion. Conversion (shifting) is the process by which English shifts forms
into new ones. Shifting has to do primarily with shift in grammar or in meaning. Shift in
grammar means functional shift, shift from one use to another and shift of meaning, comprises
specialization of meaning, its generalization and metaphor. There is also directionality of
conversion: verb to noun conversion, adjective to noun conversion, also some cases of
conversion adverb/interjection/miscellaneous examples to noun. There can also be verbs
converted from nouns/adjectives/interjections/adverbs/particles. There are also different levels of
conversion: complete (floor), partial (the rich),approximate (change in spelling or pronunciation:
advice-advise;house-house=voicing, blood-bleed; breath-breathe=vowel modification,
conduct,conflict,escort=shift of stress). Compounds, derivatives, back-formed words, blends,
acronyms, clipped forms, simple and complex words, all part-of-speech classes, affixes can be
the input material to the process of conversion.
CONVERT- is a technical term for a lexeme which is the output of the process of conversion

7. Compounding- is a process of forming new words whose output are compounds. Among
neologism 90% of compounds are nouns. There are prefix-like and suffix-like compounds and
new rhyme compounds. They usually consist out of two elements but sometimes there are more
than two that are called noun sequences: father in-law, jack-of-all-trades, New Year Eve fancy
dress ball.. And there are cases where the first part of the compound is a compound and that is
called string compound.
8. Back-formation- is a word-forming process which involves subtraction of a part of the word
usually interpreted as a suffix.= is the word-forming process the output of which is word
obtained by the deletion of actual or supposed affixes (sightseeing=sight see, headhunting=head-hunt). The most prominent reasons which give rise to back-formation are: the need
of filling the gap in vocabulary, the immediate need of expression, the desire to make rhyme or
for brevity. These words are characteristic of everyday language and scientific register. Many of
them are nonce words or neologisms.
SUBTRACTION PROCESSES: SHORTENING, BLENDING, BACK-FORMATION
ADDITION PROCESSES: DERIVATION AND COMPOUNDING.
DERIVATION: is the word-forming process that results in the formation of new words by
affixation.
ACTUAL ACCEPTABILITY- refers to the lexical entries which have attained institutional
acceptance:
Acceptable, adorable, desirable, disposable, enjoyable, manageable, recognizable, washable
POTENTIAL ACCEPTABILITY- refers to the lexical entry that can be generated by a lexical
rule: driable, triable, translateable, referable, obtainable, gettable, corn-grinder, walnut-grinder,
hazelnut-grinder, stone-grinder, gold-grinder. These words can be built according to lexical rules
of word-formation but are nonexistent because they are blocked by some pragmatic factor.
Examples:
Acceptable=deepen, moisten, blacken, whiten, ashen, golden, leaden, oaken, silken, wooden,
waxen, woolen.
Potentially acceptable= auburnen, beigen, coalen, aluminiumen
Unacceptable= off-whiten, bronzen, earthern.

The morphological component of language generates many words some of which are ACTUAL
WORDS- which make up the EXPLICIT LEXICON- and which are part of the IMPLICIT
LEXICON together with the words which have been filtered out since they have never been
used by the speech community.
SEMI-PRODUCTIVITY- refers to the degree to which a productive word-formation of
inflectional process can be generalized. We can say that the process in question is only partially
productive or semi-productive if it is not fully generalized. Semi-productivity means that there
are gaps in inflectional and derivational paradigms (all verbs except modals get s in third
person), and there are numerous gaps in lexical paradigms.
Here are some words that are potentially possible yet inexistent in English and so there are these
gaps in the paradigms. Those gaps are there because words with that meaning already exist in
another form or there is no need for them at all:
Actual words: permit, permission, permissiveness, permissible
Implicit Lexicon: permissibility, permissioner,permitment, permital, permitter, permittable
A: commit, commission, commissioner, commitment, committal
I: commissiveness, commissible, commissiability, commitor, commitable
A: transmit, transmission, transmitter
I: transmissiveness, transmissible, transmissiability, transmissioner, transmitment, transmittal,
transmittable.
POTENTIATION: is the ability of one morphological process to potentiate another by creating
a base suitable for that other process to apply to. Example: -ize is the suffix which combines with
nouns to form verbs which refer to actions that involve or are related to the original noun. This
morphological process potentiates another morphological process, such as the formation of ing
participles.
Apology +ize= apologize apologizing (apologing is impossible)
Character + ize = characterize- characterizing
Fantasy + ize= fantasize fantasizing
Memory + ize= memorize memorizing
Philosophy + ize = philosophize philosophizing
Revolution +ize= revolutionize revolutionizing
Summary + ize = summarize summarizing

Symbol + ize = symbolize symbolizing

Sympathy + ize = sympathize sympathizing
LEXICALIZATION- is the process by which word becomes no longer transparent; it is no
longer seen as a result of a word-forming process (possible meaning vs. lexicalized meaning?)
Top-drawer the top drawer of some desk/ (adj) of the highest quality
Hit- to touch someone to hurt them/ a popular piece of music, film
Springboard- board for jumping off/ something that helps you start doing something
Conservationist- preventing something from being lost/ somebody who protects nature from
being destroyed
Egg-beater- beater is someone who beats people/ kitchen machine for beating eggs
Killjoy- to kill means to take someones life/somebody who spoils other peoples pleasure
Bottom-feeder- a container with food for animals/ a person or an animal that eats in a particular
way/
Some fish are bottom-feeders; they feed at the bottom of rivers
Other examples are: candle-snatcher, push-chair, jailbreak, daybreak, leftovers, turnover, daytripper, twigloo, telephone box, toy box, keepsake, White House, greenhouse, glasshouse
(informal for military prison)
Words can be LEXICALIZED semantically, phonologically, morphologically and syntactically:
*Phonologically lexicalized if the phonological shape of the word cannot be predicted on the
basis of productive phonological rules: strong-strength; sing-sang-sung
*morphologically lexicalized: department, basement, foolishness, gift, neighborhood, derailment
*syntactically lexicalized: cutpurse, disbelieve, mess, red herring, killjoy, spoilsport
*semantically lexicalized if their meaning is no longer the sum of the meaning of their parts:
forgiveness, whiteness, redskin, likeness
=These are called different TYPES OF LEXICALIZATION.
AFFIX- is an obligatory bound morph which does not realize a lexeme. According to their
distribution the commonest types of affixes are prefixes and suffixes. As to their meaning
prefixes are always lexical whereas suffixes can be either lexical or grammatical. Affixes can
have word-forming function in which case they are called derivational or they can have the
grammatical function of forming a grammatical paradigm and in that case they are termed
inflectional.

Suffixation as a word-forming process is most frequent in noun and adjective formation while
prefixation is typical of verb formation. A suffix and a base forma fusion and it has less semantic
independence than a prefix, which is more semantically independent. There are about 300
prefixes and suffixes in English. Most prefixal derivatives are verbs followed by adjectives and
then nouns
Comparing pairs of affixes to their degree of productivity:
-er is more frequent, whereas ist is highly productive (suffixes)
- quasi- forms very formal words so its less frequent than de- (prefixes)
--pre is highly productive, but re- is more frequent (prefixes)
- ery forms words with various meanings so it is more productive than -ment (suffixes)
- ion is more productive than hood because it forms new noun in general, -hood only related to
people
- ness is highly productive so it is more productive than ity (suffixes)
-y is more productive than ful, but they are both very productive
Comparing pairs of word formation processes as to their degree of productivity:
-derivation in verbs is more productive than composition in verbs
-composition in nouns is more productive than composition in adverbs
-back-formation in verbs is more productive than derivation in verbs
-shortening is more productive than blending
-back-formation is more productive than blending
LANGUAGE CREATIVITY- is the ability to produce new words.
CREATIVITY or LEXICAL INNOVATION-is the method by which new words are
introduced into the language. This method may take the form of neologism (which is a new word
added to the vocabulary) or transfer of meaning (which refers to the derivation of new senses of
established=institutionalized words). The opposite tendency to lexical creativity is anti-creative
tendency in languages as jargonization, language stereotypes and clichs.

NEOLOGISM: is any word or set expression formed according to the productive wordformation rules of English(best-seller), or less frequently, on the basis of the structural pattern of
another language (calques=chain-smoker), or borrowed from another language

( loans=comedienne). These words are new coinages and speakers feel them as something new.
This feeling of the newness is essential to the definition of neologism. The newness may also be
in the new use of an existing word or its grammar. When they first appear in the language they
are felt as new and after that they either get assimilated or drop out of the language. They are
recorded in special dictionaries of neologisms. Neology is a study of formation of neologisms.
There are some new words that have come into English since 1980: faxable, junk mail,
snowboarding =snow surfing, monoboarding, eco-friendly, cardboard city, Leonardomania,
mouse potato, karaoke, dark-green, clergyperson, chairperson
Neologisms from the point of view of word-formation:
- combining, derivate:
abortuary/Blarism/Clintonile/Clintonisms/canyoning/orienteering/techie/teleprompter/
chocoholic/jokethon/teleshopping
- shortening: been there, done that/CD/CD-ROM/DVD/drop dead/decaf/mouse
potato/prenup/disco/giro
- combining, compound: body-piercing/bodice-ripper/break-dancing/carjacking/clergyperson/nofly zone/ no-go area/rollerblade/stage-diving/sky-diving/cahin-drinker/F-word/jet set/wait
state/media-friendly/PR-friendly
- blending :Britpop/twigloo/car bra/Internet/fish burger/smaze
- combining: cable-ready/cable readiness/e-mailer
- shifting: e-mail/tree-huger/soap
-creating: IFOR/KODAK/
-borrowing, calque: chain-smoker/guestworker
-borrowing, loan word: magicienne/ nouvelle cuisine/perestroika
-back-formation- bargain-hunter/script-write
NONCE WORDS- are words coined to meet some immediate purpose and used only for the
particular occasion. They are unlikely to become permanent part of the vocabulary: I am not
really show-businessy/ He got red-carded/hard-liner/kidney-shaped/eelionaire/wiskify.
NONCE FORMATIONS: blah-blahing/hah-hahed/wiskify/how-do-you-does/did-notfinishers/have-nots/art-for-arter/hopefuls/hope-nots/tickler/tickle-ee= Nonce words are used to
gain an effect, to encapsulate the meaning the formulation of which would be syntactically
awkward and space and time consuming, they are also coined because the speaker may not be

able to remember the usual word for the same concept. Whether or not a nonce-formation stays
in the language depends on a number of factors such as: the status of the person who used the
word, the attitude to the word, and the existence of an object which needs a name.
The difference between neologisms and nonce words:
Neologisms are coined to describe the newness and may stay in use for a certain period.
Nonce words are used to cover some immediate need, may be coined when the speaker isnt able
to remember the usual word for the same concept.
OBSOLETE WORDS- are the words that have dropped out of the language (e.g. baldric). Old
words may stay in the language but they acquire a new stylistic meaning (e.g. damsel). When a
word is no longer in general use but it is still in the language we call it an archaism. And words
that denote something that is outdated they are called historicisms.
Yeoman-farmer/cordwainer-shoemaker/ostler-person who takes take of horses/ado-fuss/affinity-a
marriage/ afore,ere-before/afresh-anew/ague-fever/abase-humble/abhor-despise/acquit-to hold
guiltless/damsel-lady
STUNT WORDS: are words which are kind of nonce words coined for one occasion to meet an
immediate need, they are highly idiosyncratic and intended to be humorous and to show coiners
virtuosity: chop-oholics/amberlievable/furious/purrifect/chatterday/aqualibrium/BFE/cometised/disconfest/disorien
t express/ eaters death/elecelleration and then there are some examples from the Internet:
accordinated/baggravation/ burgercide/aqualibrium/cadillacing, and then there are some
examples from The New York Times: snot-com/netwit/E-jerk/cyboor/I.P.Oaf/dotcommoner/technotrash,dotcompost,World Wide Weasles/compucreeps/ Intergnants/RAMbos,
and some examples from the TV: furrious, purrifect, eelionaire, chatterday Saturday, babeification, chop-o-holic, there are some from the Hair magazines: ringlets/anklet/wristlet/dyeing
for change/ amberlivable/looking glam/celeb style/head scarves are this seasons must-haves/best
dos and donts/ twenty four hopefuls taken to the catwalk/sensational
NONSENSE- refers to words,speech, or texts that do not mean anything and do not make sense.
It refers to something meaningless or stupid and foolish. Nonsense also means poetry or writing
that is specially written to be amusing without meaning anything or making sense. It is
particularly interesting from the point of lexical creativity. Once lexical meaning has been
attached to the potential word the word gets disambiguated and so it stops being nonsensical; It

then gets fitted into the morphological and syntactic system, it can get stylistically market if
necessary and it gets accepted and institutionalized by the speech community, which rounds up
the process of word creation. These words are not registered in any English dictionary. On the
basis of their phono-morphological shape it can be said that these words belong to the English
language. Word play and nonsense are related in some poems because the poets invent rhyming
words and characters for their poems: bibbons/ Crumpety Tree/ Pobble/Bisky Bat.
ANALOGY IN WORD-FORMATION- an analogical formation is a new formation clearly
modeled on one already existing lexeme. Analogy is a very powerful and prolific mechanism of
forming new words in English.
Analogical formations in English: lakescape/seascape/roofscape, stage-diving, fish burger,
discman
Some words are coined because of chance phonetic resemblance: ambisextrous-ambidextrous,
chatterday- Saturday, guesstimate-estimate
PHONETIC MOTIVATION- refers to onomatopoeic, imitative or echoic words which are
lexicalized sound symbolic units which join together sound and meaning in a non-arbitrary way.
Although they are phonetically motivated they are not fully transparent so that their meaning
cannot be unilaterally and unambiguously assigned to particular sounds and sound sequences.
ONOMATOPOEIC,IMITATIVE OR ECHOIC WORDS- are lexicalized sound symbolic
units which join together sound and meaning in a non-arbitrary way. They can be related to the
sounds made by mouth and nose, or different sort of sounds, cries of several animals and so on.
ESTABLISHED- a word is said to be established if it becomes accepted by the speech
community, in which case we say that is has become an institution. Such a word becomes a part
of the lexicon. When a word appears for the first time it has a status of a nonce-formation or
neologism after which it can be lexicalized and accepted as a legitimate member of the lexicon.
In language communities with lexicographic tradition the inventory of established words can be
found in a dictionary.
INFIXATION- is the use of infixes in word-building. It is practically unknown in English and
very rare in Indo-European. The words produced by infixation never become established and
they seem to have the status of nonce formation only.
INSTITUTIONALIZATION- refers to the situation when the nonce formation starts to be
accepted by the speech community as a known lexical item. Nonce formations are transparent

and type-familiar. They are also potentially ambiguous and are disambiguated only if they
become institutionalized-then they become item-familiar.
WIDENING- refers to the process of word-formation through semantic change of broadening of
the denotation, e.g. the Modern English word bird developed from an earlier word bird which
had the meaning of nestling. Historical semantics is interested in the process of widening as
well as in the process of narrowing which is the opposite of it.
NARROWING- refers to the shrinking of denotation, e.g. the Modern English word meat had
an earlier meaning of food. The process of narrowing is relevant for word-formation through
semantic change. It is of interest to historical semantics.

ORIGIN OF WORDS
NATIVE WORD-is a word which belongs to the original English stock as known from the
earliest available manuscripts of the Old English period. The native words are subdivided into
those of the Indo-European stock (e.g. brother,mother,son,sun,moon,wind,water) and those of
Common Germanic origin (summer,winter,storm,rain,ice,ground,house,room). Find the
examples of native words in the following text:
(1) Did (do) you ever hear of such a pitiable case in all your lives? Here was (be) the richest
breakfast that could be set before a king, and its very richness (rich) made it good for nothing.
The poorest laborer, sitting down to his crust of bread and cup of water, was (be) far better off
than King Midas, whose fine food was (be)really worth its weight in gold. How many days could
he live on this rich food? But this was (be) only a passing thought. So pleased was (be) Midas
with the shining of the yellow metal,that he would still have refused to give up the Golden Touch
for so small a matter as a breakfast. Just imagine what a price for one meal! It would have been
the same as paying millions of money for some fried fish,an egg, a potato, a hot cake, and a cup
of coffee! It would be quite too dear, thought (think)Midas. Still,so great was (be) his hunger,
and the difficulty of his situation, that he again cried aloud and very sadly too. Our pretty
Marigold could bear it no longer. She sat a moment looking at her father, and trying,with all the
might of her little wits, to find out what was (be) the matter with him. Then, with a sweet and
sorrowful sorrow) wish to comfort him,she started (start) from her chair,and running (run) to
Midas,threw (throw) her arms lovingly (love) about his knees. He bent (bend) down and kissed

(kiss) her. He felt feel) that his little daughters love was worth a thousand times (time) more
than he had gained by the Golden Touch, My precious,precious Marigold! cried he. But she
made no answer.
*pitiable(pity), case, very, poorest (poor),fine, really, passing (pass), pleased (please), metal,
refuse, touch, matter, price, paying(pay), money, fried (fry),cried(cry), trying (try), comfort,
precious- came through Old French, derived from Latin
*just, imagine, moment- came through French, derived from Latin
*million-came through French from Old Italian, derived from Latin
*quite- From Old French
*gain-From French
*chair-came through Old French from Latin, derived from Greek
*crust, cup (from Old English),difficulty-came from Latin
*breakfast= break +fast (1400-1500)
*down, same, egg, cake _Old Norse
*situation-Medieval Latin
*potato-Spanish
*coffee-From Italian caf, which came from Turkish and Arabic
*Kind Midas- in ancient Greek stories, a king who was given a power to change everything he
touched into gold. He soon realized this would not bring him happiness, when he found that even
his food and drink changed into gold as soon as he touched them.
(2)The machine translation project SUSY was derived from a Russian-German prototype system
that had been developed in the 1970s. It attempts to generalize that system by adding
multilingual capabilities (German, Russian, French, English and Esperanto), but the main goal of
SUSY is MT research rather than development of an operational system. The basic MT
methodology of SUSY is transfer. The analysis stage of the system has eight subprocesses:
1)word identification, 2)morphological analysis, 3)homograph disambiguation, 4)clause-level
parsing, 5)noun group analysis, 6)verb group analysis, 7)combining noun and verb groups, and
8)semantic disambiguation. The homograph disambiguation subprocess uses a weighted heuristic
to estimate the likelihood of word class,based on the word classes of surrounding words in the
sentence. The semantic disambiguation subprocess uses semantic dictionaries,which allow
assigning features to nouns and transformations on syntactic structures.

*the, was (be), from, that, had(have), been(be), in, the, it, to, by, French, English, but, main, of,
is, rather, than, an, eight, word, weighted (weight), which come from Old English
*machine, capability, basic, stage, subprocess, clause, level, noun, verb, use, surrounding,
sentence, allow, assigning (assign), feature- came through Old French, derived from Latin
*generalize, derivation, combining (combine), class, syntactic, came through French, derived
from Latin
*translation, project, German, attempt, adding, multilingual, operational, transfer,
disambiguation, parsing, estimate, transformation, structure came from Latin
*derive, development, developed- came from French
*research- came from Old French
*prototype- came through French, derived from Greek
*group- French word from Italian gruppo
*system, identification- from Late Latin from Greek
*dictionary- Medieval Latin
*methodology- Latin from Greek
*analysis- came through Modern Latin from Greek
*morphological, semantic- from Greek
*heuristic- from German
*likelihood-from Old Norse
*homograph- 1800-1900 origin: homo + Greek graphos written homo-Latin from Greek
*Russian-from Russian
*Esperanto- Dr. Esperanto (from Latin sperare to hope), name taken by L.Zamenhof, who
invented it
*goal-1500-1600 origin: gol limit, boundary (1300-1400)
=The approximate proportion of native to foreign words in text (1) is 4:1, and in the text (2) is
1:2. The second text has a lot of Latin words because its scientific.
ORIGIN OF WORDS(a brief history of the English language with reference to its
morphology)-The English language is related to about a hundred languages which constitute the
Indo-European family. There are two main groups of languages in the Indo-European family:
1.The Western group:embracing Germanic, Celtic,Greek,Italic
2. The Eastern group: containing Balto-Slavonic, Indo-Iranian, Albanian and Armenian.

The Germanic speech family is separated into three main families: East Germanic, North
Germanic and West Germanic,from which Dutch, Flemish, Friesian and English have developed.
When the Romans came to Britain in the 1st century B.C. they found the Britons there. The
Britons were Celtic people who were pushed to Scotland and Wales upon Roman invasion. In
A.D. 410 the Romans left Britain and the Angles, Saxons and Jutes came and invaded Britain.
The Celtic element in the English language is fairly marginal and its influence upon it was
surprisingly small and English took almost nothing from the old Celtic language (which is the
language spoken by the Britons, developed into Welsh, spoken by the Welsh; Gaelic,spoken in
Scotland; Erse (Irish Gaelic) spoken in Ireland; and Breton spoken in Brittany in France; there
are also the languages:Manx spoken in the Isle of Man and Cornish, spoken in Cornwall (but
these two died out). Something of Celtic has been fossilized in numerous place names and
geographical names (the names such as :Thames, Avon, Cam, Dee, Aire, Severn, Trent from the
Celtic word for river, Stour, Tees, Trent, Wye are all Celtic names; the Celtic dun meaning
protected place is present in the names: Dundee, Dunbar, Edinburgh,Dunedin; the Celtic caer,
meaning a castle is kept in the words Caerleon, Carlisle, Cardiff. In the 5th century A.D. Britain
was invaded by the Germanic tribes: Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who established Germanic as the
principal language of Britain. The Angles were the most numerous and they gave their name to
the land (Britain became Englaland
=the land of Angles)and to the language (Englisc-Old English:englese). The Anglo-Saxon
element in English is by far the most dominant. The three stages in the development of the
English language are: Old English (sometimes called Anglo-Saxon),spoken in Britain from the
Germanic invasions up to the end of the 11th century; Middle English (c 1150- c 1475) and
Modern English from the 15th century up to the present.
OLD ENGLISH-was an inflected language: there was inflection in nouns, verbs, adjectives and
pronouns. There were two major declension types (weak and strong declensions), five types of
Old English noun declensions and a four-case system (nominative, genitive,dative,accusative and
occasionally instrumental). Adjectives in Old English were inflected to show agreement with the
nouns in gender, number and case. This system of inflection was very much reduced in Middle
English and given up in Modern English. There was a system of grammatical gender (by
contrast,the gender in Modern English is natural so that only animate beings are masculine or
feminine and all inanimate things are neuter). Personal pronouns in Old English marked gender

in the third person singular,and case and number in all persons. There was a full conjugation of
verbs.The Old English verb had no dual number and the persons were distinguished in the
indicative singular only. Verbal inflection in Old English falls into a system for the present and
for the past and the two types of verbs are traditionally called strong (the past is marked by
changing the root vowel and weak (the past is formed by adding a dental suffix); strong verbs are
referred to as irregular in Modern English.
As for Old English Word Formation-it was much like it is today:words were built from other
words by prefixation,suffixation and compounding. Many of the Old English affixes and
compounds are no longer in use, but Modern English makes abundant use (uses them a lot) of
compounding and the process is on the increase. OE prefixes: a, after, arch, be, by, for, fore, in,
mid, mis, off, out, over,twiun, under, up, with.
OE suffixes: noun- dom, en, er, hood, ing, ling, ness, red, ship, ster, teen, th, ty; adjectives- ed,
en, ern, eth, fold, ful, ish, ly, th, some, ward, y; verb- en, er ,le.
Foreign influences on OE were considerable. Celtic influence was almost negligible, but Latin
influence on the other hand was major. Latin Borrowings: wall, street, mile, cheap, monger,
pound, mint, wine, kitchen, cup,dish,cheese, spelt, pepper,
cherry,butter,plum,pea,chalk,pitch,pipe, church,bishop; abbot, alms, altar, anthem, ark, candle,
canon, disciple, hymn, martyr, mass, nun,pope,priest, psalm, shrine, temple, cap, sock, chest,
mat,sack, beet, pear, radish,balsam, mallow, school,master, grammatic, verse,meter,notary.
The next important foreign influence on the English language came in the 9th century with the
invasion by the Scandinavians (Vikings or the Danes). The Danish element can be seen in large
number of place names, e.g. the element by (town,village) is present in the words: Derby,
Rugby, Whitby, and a lot of other words which came from Scandinavian: law, fellow, husband,
band, booth,bull,egg,gap,leg,root,skill,skin,skirt,sky,window, flat, happy,low,ugly,weak,wrong,
bask,cast,crawl,cut,die,get,give,raise,take,thrust.
The Norman element in English is major. The invasion of the Normans played a part in shaping
of the English language. The Normans descended from the warrior race of Norsemen, but they
adopted Christianity and French as their language, because well known for their learning, their
military skill and their organizing ability; they began to organize England in the Norman patterns
and they put it into the stream of European culture and thoughts. For about three hundred years
two languages were spoken in England: the official language was French, and English was

spoken only by the common people. It took more than three centuries for Norman and Saxon to
unite and finally English emerged as the language of England.
MIDDLE ENGLISH (c 1150- c 1475) saw further simplification of the inflectional
system:inflectional endings gradually dropped, the language got rid of grammatical gender, case
endings of nouns were reduced to one- the genitive or possessive, prepositions took place of
inflectional endings, verb forms became simplified. The greatest impact, however, was on the
vocabulary so that the language that emerged was essentially Germanic in its grammar but its
vocabulary was predominantly (up to 60%) of French or Latin origin.
The Norman element:government, prince, sovereign, throne, crown, royal, state,
country,people,nation, parliament, duke, count, chancellor, minister, council, honor,
glory,courteous, duty,polite, conscience,noble,pity,fine, cruel, arch,pillar,place, castle, tower, war,
peace, battle, armor, officer, soldier, navy, captain, enemy, danger, march, company, justice,
judge, jury, court, cause, crime, traitor, prison, tax, money, rent, property, injury,religion, service,
prophet, saint, sacrifice, miracle, preach, pray.
Common-class words were English and the upper-class ones were Norman:
English: town, hamlet,home,house and

Norman: castle, city

father,mother,son,daughter,sister,brother

relations,ancestors,

descendants
happiness, gladness, work, swine,pig

pleasure, comfort, ease, delight

shoemaker, shepherd, miller, fisherman,

smith, baker, cow, bull,sheep, lamb, deer

tailor,barber,painter,carpenter
French: beef,

mutton,pork,bacon,veal,venison
Early borrowings from French became fully Anglicized both in accent and pronunciation, but
the later borrowings failed to be completely assimilated.These became completely English:table,
chair, castle, grocer, beauty; but these did not: amateur, facade, mnage, soufflet,chef, garage,
chauffeur, chandelier.
Along with the expansion of the vocabulary came new French influences which introduced new
resources for the formation of words. Some of the most common affixes were introduced from
French: ance, ant,ity, ment, tion(prefixes), con, de,dis,ex,pre (suffixes). An interesting effect of
the French language upon English was a kind of bilingual quality, with two words, one of Saxon
origin and one of French origin to mean the same:

foe-enemy, friendship-amity, freedom-liberty, unlikely-improbable, happiness-felicity, boldcourageous, kingly-royal, love-affection, hearty welcome- cordial reception.
MODERN ENGLISH (c 1475 to the present) has seen further simplification of the inflectional
system: all inflections of nouns have dropped except for two inflectional suffixes with the
meaning of plural and possessive. Inflections of adjectives have been entirely lost. Personal
pronouns have developed the form they have today and: thou, thee,thy have fallen out of use.
Many verbs have changed from strong to weak and they have almost completely lost the
subjunctive as a distinctive form. Major loss of the inflectional endings has had great impact
upon syntax in that it caused greater dependence on the strict word order and prepositional
phrases. One of the most outstanding characteristics of ME is its rich vocabulary. In the 16th
century a great many words were taken from language such as Latin, Greek, Hebrew and French.
Classical borrowings: specimen, focus, arena,album, minimum,complex, nucleus,alibi,
ultimatum,extra,insomnia, deficit, ego, opus, referendum, bacillus, formula.
Greek Words expressed new ideas and concepts that were introduced during Renaissance:
philosophy, ethics, esthetics, epistemology, axiology, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, zodiac,
grammar, affix, syntax, logic, category, rhetoric, poetry, comedy, tragedy, prologue,dialogue,
alphabet,drama,chorus,theory,orchestra,museum.
Contemporary borrowings and coinages based on the Greek and Latin elements and
models: chroma, chromatic, cinematograph,kaleidoscope,microscope, horoscope, photography,
telephone,bicycle, aeroplane, dynamo, euthanasia, post mortem, prima facie, prima vista, in
vitro, in vivo, psychology, psyche, psychiatry, neuron,neurology, atom,
nitrogen,hydrogen,aerosphere,hemisphere,economy,cosmetic,antiseptic,pedestrianism.
Greek prefixes: anti-against, hyper-beyond,over, hypo-under, arch-chief, dia-through, hemi-half,
homo-same, mano-single, pan-all, poly-many, pro-before, pseudo-false, syn,sym-with, tele-at a
distance, tri-three.
Greek suffixes: ism, ology.
Borrowings from other languages have been frequent in Modern English and they have swelled
English vocabulary to such an extent that it goes far beyond the scope of any dictionary book.
Italian: piano, sorano, finale, solo, sonata, duet, operetta, palette, fresco, miniature, studio,
model, balcony, umbrella, influenza, duel, monkey, ghetto, tenor, confetti, ballerina, spaghetti,
lasagna, bandit, casino.

Spanish: cargo, cigar,

cigarette,cork,desperado,alligator,sherry,potato,tabacco,canoe,toboggan,embargo,siesta,
guerilla,macho,mosquito,bonanza,lasso.
Mexican Spanish: chocolate, cocoa, tomato.
Caribbean:hammock, hurricane, maize.Norwegian:ski,slalom,fiord
Portuguese: port, marmalade,tank,buffalo,verandah,parasol,firm,banana,negro,cobra.
Dutch: boss, yacht,buoy,freight, dock,skipper, cruise,smuggle,landscape,sketch.
German: Furher, Kindergarten,hamburger,kitsch,frankfurter,delicatessen,blitz,waltz,poodle
India: pyjamas,shampoo, khaki (pants made of khaki), bungalow, curry,ginger,bandana(a square
of silk material with red or yellow spots, usually worn round the neck)cashmere( soft wool of
Cashmere goats),chintz (kind of cotton cloth with printed designs used for curtains, covers,
furniture),dungarees (overalls of coarse cotton material),jodhpurs (riding breeches).
Persian:bazaar, caravan,divan,jasmine, lilac, checkmate,baksheesh,bronze.
Arabic: orange,lemon,admiral, alcohol,algebra,coffee, cotton,crimson,
assassin,sultan,harem,sipher,mufti
Chinese: tea.Malaya: bamboo, gong.
Polynesian: taboo, boomerang, kangaroo.Finnish:sauna
Japanese: kanban(a sheet displaying a set of manufacturing specifications which is circulated to
suppliers),
karaoke, karoshi (death caused from overwork or job-related exhaustion),tycoon,
honcho(boss),judo,kamikaze, kimono,ninja, samurai,bunraku,ikebana, manga,sushi,tofu,wasabi,
aikido,karate, hara-kiri,bonsai, honcho-boss, kimono, shogun (military leader)
Swedish: smorgasbord( a collection of similar things from which you can choose; a meal
of cold food that is put on a table so that people can take what they want)
Turkish:yoghurt,kiosk,caftan,fezEskimo:kayak.igloo,anorak
Russian:bistro,sputnik,cosmonaut,perestroika, tundra,tsar, kulak,
nyet,balalaika,mammoth,kasha,kvass
French:automobile,chauffeur,boutique,elite, avant-garde,etui,etude,vis--vis
Yiddish: bagel, klutz, kibitz (to make unhelpful remarks while somebody is doing something or
to talk about things that everyone already knows in a boring way.
Serbian: vampire, paprika

BORROWING, BORROWED WORD OR LOAN WORD- is a word taken over from

another language and modified in its sound-shape,written form, morphological shape and
meaning to the standards of the English language. Up to 70% of the English vocabulary consists
of loan words and only 30% of the words are native.
A distinction can be made between origin and source of borrowing.
SOURCE OF BORROWING- the language from which the loan word was taken into English.
ORIGIN OF BORROWING- the language to which the word may be ultimately traced.
Its not only the words that can get imported-whole expressions can be taken over: get
lost,pardon the expression,give a look, I need it like a hole in the head=literal translations of
Yiddish expressions, also words bagel, klutz and kibitz.Literal translation from French: it goes
without saying-cela va sans dire(calque).
*Illustration of the difference between of source and origin of borrowing:
1 .trampoline- Spanish ~ Italian ~ Germanic
2. liberty- Middle English ~Middle French ~ Latin
3. Orange- Middle English ~ Old French ~ Spanish ~ Arabian ~ Persian ~ Sanskrit
4. zodiac- Latin~Greek
***Taboo is a word borrowed from Tongan. As an adjective it means forbidden or banned, as a
verb it means to avoid or prohibit something as a taboo. Example: This is, after all, the age of
air bags, bicycle helmet, and drunk-driving taboos, of warning labels, coroner inquiries and
consumer product testing. Here drunk-driving taboos means to restrain from driving in a state
of being drunk.
***Smorgasbord is a word taken over from Swedish- smorgas-bread and butter, and bord-table.
It has 2 meanings: 1. A buffet featuring various dishes, such as hors doeuvres, salads fish etc. 2.
A medley or miscellany (zbirka pesama).
***Erg meaning the unit of work or energy in the centimeter-gram-second system comes from
Greek ergon meaning work and it derives from the Indo-European root werg which the
following words share: ergonomic, energy, metallurgy,surgery, orgy.
ASSIMILATION: of loan words denotes partial or total conformation to the phonetic,graphic,
morphological and semantic standards of the receiving language. Completely assimilated loan
words conform in all respects to the norms of the English language. They follow fully phonetic,
orthographic and morphological standards of English and they are semantically integrated into

the system of the English language. Fully assimilated words are no longer felt to be foreign
either in their sound or graphic shape so that they are phonetically and graphically
indistinguishable from native ones, e.g. start is native and sprot is foreign (derived from Old
French word meaning to amuse oneself and ultimately derived from Latin word portare
meaning to carry). Completely assimilated loan words are like native ones in that they are
morphologically analyzable, e.g. sport-ing consists of two morphemes and it means relating to
or used for sport. They can be actively used in word-formation (consider the following
examples: the word sport has three inflected forms: sports, sporting, sported and it is used as the
input word in many word-formation processes to produce combinations such as: sports car,
sports day, sports jacket, sportsman, sportsmanship, sportswear, sportswoman, sporty, and idioms
like make sport of someone(to ridicule or mock someone), sporting chance (something that is
quite likely to happen). Such words are frequent and their valency is high so that they can be
easily combined with other words. Completely assimilated words easily combine with native
affixes, e.g. the word pain which is ultimately of Greek origin and which came into English via
Latin and French is now felt to be native, and it appears as a root word in:
pained,painful,painfully, painless,painlessly,painlessly,painlessness and it is also a part of a
compound word painkiller. On the other hand,native roots can combine with affixes of foreign
origin: age,ance,ment,esse, and they produce hybrids like:
breakage,leakage,linkage,shortage,shrinage,slippage,spillage,spoilage,stoppage,
wastage,wreckage,footage,yardage,reluctance,hidrance,acknowledgment,requirement,
resentment, goddess, stewardess, waitress.
Fully assimilated words: cheese, street,wall, wine (from Latin); husband, fellow, gate, root,
wing, call, die, take, want,happy,ill,low,odd,wrong (from
Scandinavian);table,face,finish,matter,figure (from French).
Partly assimilated words:are those which do not conform fully to the
phonetic,graphic,morphological and semantic standards of the receiving language. There are five
types of partially assimilated loan words (that is, these are the degrees of assimilation=in what
respects they have or have not been assimilated):
1.loan words not assimilated semantically
(baksheesh,balalaika,sari,sombrero,purdah,fez,caftan, kaiser,shah,rajah,

sheik,toreador,rickshaw,pilau,sherbet,chevapcici,kebab,vodka,karate,judo,yoga,karma,kamikaze,
kakemono, kaki, kaka, kakapo,kibbuts);
2. loan words not assimilated morphologically(axis-axes, medium-media, bacterium-bacteria,
basis-bases, crisis-crises, hypothesis-hypotheses,phenomenon-phenomena,criterion-criteria,
oasis-oases; but there are some loan words which show the tendency to conform to the native
way of forming plural by means of the s inflection and they have two plurals: formulaformulae,formulas;terminus-termini,terminuses; cactus-cacti,cactuses; focus-foci,focuses;
nautilus-nautili,nautiluses; corpus-corpi,corpuses; aquarium-aquaria,aquariums; terrariumterrarria, terrariums; maximum-maxima,maximums; minimum-minima,minimums; sanatoriumsanatoria,sanatoriums; kibbutz-kibbutzim,kibbutzes; bureau-bureaux,bureus, tableautableaux,tableaus; portmanteau-portmanteaux, portmanteaus;adieu-adieux,adieus; banditbanditi,bandits; libretto-libretti, librettos; soprano-soprani,sopranos; virtuoso-virtuosi,virtuosos;
but some have completely naturalized so they always take s for plural: bonus,
chorus,omnibus,prospecus,area,arena,era,idea,sonata,solo,umbrealla,villa,album,asylum,museum
,demon);
The word trousseau (trousseaux/ trousseaus) came into English from French. The meaning of it
the clothes, linen, and other possessions that a bride collects for her marriage. This word is
considered to be rather old-fashioned. This word has two plurals so it is partially assimilated
grammatically because it has a plural with s but it keeps its original plural as well.
3. loan words not assimilated phonetically(are those which have traces of their foreign-ness in
their phonetic shape, e.g. the sound // in the end position in
camouflage,sabotage,espionage,dressage,massage,prestige, mnage; or in words: gendarme,
gendarmerie,bourgeous,regime; or accent on the final syllable in: machine, cartoon, maisonnette,
police, menage,duet,couchette) ;
4. loan words not assimilated graphically(ballet, buffet,
cafe,cliche,bouquet,expose,precis,creche, atelier,cloche,habitu melee,
melange,menage,maisonette, matredhtel, msalliance, negligee,puree,coup d-etat, coupe, visa-vis, elan vital, Furher,kitsch, baksheesh, balalaika,
confetti,incognito,macaroni,spaghetti,marinara,kebab,tomato,potato,tabacco,terazzo,generalissim
o,geisha,jojoba,opera,solo,viola,virtuoso,soprano,toccata,sonata,cadenza,operetta,gala,virago,kits

ch,kaput,kibosh,llama,loggia,kibitz,kibitzer,kiblah,kwashiorkor,karaoke,karoshi,kaizen(continuin
g self-improvement);
5.loan words that show incomplete assimilation in several respects simultaneously(expose-is
not complete assimilated phonetically,graphically and semantically but it is completely
morphologically assimilated because it takes s for plural). Loan words not assimilated in any
respect and which exist alongside their English counterparts are called barbarisms, e.g.
addio,ciao (Italian)-good bye(English), ergo(Latin)-therefore, ad libitum-at pleasure,
autochthon(Greek)-aboriginal,native; au fait(French)-expert; au fond thoroughly; au jus- with
the gravy, au contraire-on the contrary, au courant-up-to-date; auf Wiedersehen(German)goodbye, kaput-broken, kibosch-ruin, au revoir-good bye, terracotta-clay, en route-on the way, nota
bene-observe carefully, kitsch- art of little or no value; terra incognita-an unknown land, fiascocomplete failure; nouveau riche-newly rich.
***Three words from the major source languages of English:
1.betise (from French betise- stupidity, nonsense, ultimately from Latin bestia-beast, In English
has two meanings: stupidity and foolish remark or action.
2. agita (Americanism, from Italian agitare- to agitate) means heartburn or anxiety.
3. katzenjammer (from german katzen-plural of katze-cat + jammer (distress) means hangover or
distress or confusion.
These three words are partially assimilated= betise is not semantically and graphically
assimilated, agita is not semantically assimilated and katzenjammer is not semantically,
phonetically and graphically assimilated.
***Words from German kumel(a liquor) and krieg spiel (a game) are not graphically,
phonetically, semantically assimilated.
BARBARISMS- are loan words not assimilated in any respect and which exist alongside their
English counterparts. Examples: addio (Italian)- goodbye, pot-au-feu (French)- clear soup, ergo
(Latin)-therefore, ad libitum(Latin)- at pleasure, autochthon (Greek)- aboriginal, native, au fait
(French)-expert, au fond (French)- thoroughly, au jus(French)- with the gravy, au contraire
(French)- on the contrary, au courant(French)- up-to-date, faux pas (French)- mistake, culpa
(Latin)- fault, mea culpa (Latin)- my fault, mea maxima culpa (Latin)- I am really sorry, auf
Wiedersehen (German)- goodbye, Aufklarung (German)- enlightenment

CALQUE-is a name for a translation loan. It is a word or expression which is a result of literal
translation from another language. The input parts are English but the word-formation pattern of
another language is followed, e.g. chain-smoker is a literal translation of the German word
Kettenraucher (but chain-drinker is formed by analogy and it is not a loan).
INTERNATIONAL WORDS-are words of identical origin that occur in several languages as a
result of simultaneous or successive borrowings from one source, e.g. taxi, problem, atom,
disc,antibiotic, university,
football,match,nylon,film,club,cocktail,jazz,blues,rock,pop,hit,sport,start,finish,weekend,commu
nist,fascist, Fascista, nazi, super, interview, a la carte.
ETYMOLOGY-is an account of the history of a word. Etymology is a study of historical
linguistic change, especially as applied to individual words, e.g. Modern English nice-pleasing,
fine... meant foolish in Middle English. The word came into English from Old French but it
source of origin was Latin (nescius-ignorant)
ETIMOLOGY DICTIONARIES:
1) Hoad, T.F., The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Oxford, Oxford University
Press (1986),
2) Eric Partridge, Origins: A short etymological dictionary of Modern English. New York:
Greenwich House (1958, 1959, 1961, 1966, 2008)
3) Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (1966), ed. C.T.Onions, London: Oxford University
Press
4) Picket, Joseph P. et all, The American Dictionary of the English Language, fourth edition
(2000), Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company
DOUBLETS-two English words both derived from the same word belonging to another
language but borrowed at different times, and, as a result,having different pronunciations and
usually slightly different meanings, e.g. warden-guardian, warranty-guarantee, cattle-chattel,
catch-chase (the first is English word, the other is French).
COGNATES-are words which are related by birth or of the same parentage (capital and cattle
from Latin caput).FALSE COGNATES OR FALSE FRIENDS-are words that appear to be
related but they are not, they have completely different origins. Impregnable-to withstand attack
comes from Middle English, and impregnate- to make pregnant from Latin. These can work
across languages as well: the English words eventually and actual, are not in any way related to

the Serbian words eventualno and aktuelan, which are in no way related to eventuelt and aktuell
in Norwegian; or sensible and senzibilan,emission- emisija, publik-publika,ekspres kafa,femirati
se,sentimentacija,kvarijes,poluklinika,svirena,buldozder,moralno, drugstore-dragstor ( it
sometimes happen due to WRONG INTERPRETATION). The following words embarazada
(Spanish), tasten (German), and stanza (Italian) respectively. Embarazada means pregnant and
it could be linked with embarrassed which means ashamed. Tasten means to fumble and it
could be related to taste. Stanza means living room and it could be related to stanza- a group of
lines in a poem.
FOLK ETIMOLOGY-refers to the situation when an opaque and unanalyzable word is treated
as transparent and analyzable= is change in the form of a word or phrase based on a mistaken
assumption about its composition or meaning: e.g. asparagus is interpreted as sparrow grass. In
Serbian :expresso-espresso;kompaktibilan- kompatibilan; bezbednosan-bezbedonosan and
zaduzbina-nesto cime se neko zaduzi. It is a change in the form of a word phrase based on a
mistaken assumption about its composition or meaning, as in shamefaced for shamfast, cutletcotelette, woodchuck-wuchak.FALSE CUTTING-a humble pie-an umble pie-humble
pie(humiliation in a form of apology).
ANGLICISM-is a word,idiom,or characteristic feature of the English language occurring in or
borrowed by another language,e.g.weekend(weekend in French or vikend in Serbian),sandwich
(sandwich in French and sendvic in Serbian), club (club in French and klub in Serbian). The
definition also covers the examples of words which are not originally English
(like:radio,television,kangaroo) and which have been made of foreign non-English elements
(radiare is Latin, tele- is Greek, visio is Latin, kangaroo is native Australian) but which have
nevertheless been integrated into the English language and as such they have been taken over by
another language. There are also words which are called PSEUDOANGLICISMS or secondary
Anglicisms. Such words have not been borrowed from English because they do not exist there
but they have been formed in the receiving language on the basis of English elements and
pseudo-English pattern, e.g. golman(Serbian word for goalkeeper). dzezer(Serbian word for
jazzman),boks (Serbian word for Boxing), Serbian examples have been made by the processes of
composition, derivation and ellipsis.
EXAMPLES OF ANGLICISMS IN THE SERBIAN LANGUAGE: disketa, kaseta, sajt,
haket, atacment, vokmen, diskmen, brifing, lizing, marketing,

menadzment,diler,establishment,monitor,printer,skrinsejver, laser,stajling,stilista,fotosesn,dajdzest,plejbek,rimejk,remiks,kambek,frontmen,fri lens, bestseller, bajpas, pejsmejker,

hamburger, dzingl, desk,spot,rok,pop,erkondisn,marker.
ANGLICISMS CAN BE ANALYSED ON THREE LEVELS: PHONOLOGICAL,
MORPHOLOGICAL, AND SEMANTIC:
1)PHONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS: takes into consideration spelling and pronunciation.
Anglicisms in Serbian are written in four ways:
a)writing based on the sound-form of the word: lizing-leasing, dzet-set jet set, dzip-jeep, rok,
rock, dzingl-jingle, cek-cheque, fri lens- free lence, triler-thriller.
b) Serbian orthography follows English spelling- marketing-marketing, bard-bard, bestsellerbestseller, deficit-deficit, trust-trust, supermarket-supermarket
c) Serbian word is formed on the combination of spelling and pronunciation: intervju-interview,
klub-club, spageti vestern- spaghetti western, kontejner-container, kargo-cargo, kontraktrocontractor.
d)the form of the Anglicism is under the influence of the mediator language: Serbian blef is a
German modification of the English bluff.
2) Three degrees of MORPHOLOGICAL ADAPTATION can be distinguished in Serbian:
a)zero degree of adaptation which concerns English Free forms with no affix (dolar- dollar,
deficit-deficit= are integrated into Serbian language without morphological changes: bilbordbillboard, barmen-barmen),
b) second degree of adaptation involves phonological adaptation of the affix, but in spite of that
it does not belong to the morphological system of the Serbian language (lider-leader, kampingcamping, parking-parking, kompjuter-computer, foto-sesn- photo-session, menadzer- manager,
sejker-shaker);
c) third degree adaptation means full intergation into the morphological system of the Serbian
language so it conforms fully to the morphological rules which govern native word formation
(komercijalna banka-commercail bank, televizija-television, banknote-banknote, konvertibilanconvertible, konvertibilnost- convertibility, testirati- to test, nokautirati- to knockout, minic- mini
skirt, rasista-racist, surfovanje internetom-surfing the Internet).
3) There are three levels of SEMANTIC ADAPTATION can be distinguished in Serbian:
a)zero level of adaptation means that the imported word keeps its original meaning (minibus);

b)it can be that the meaning of the original has been narrowed: sheriff is 1. A person who is
elected in America to make sure that the law is obeyed, 2. The senior judge of a county or district
in Scotland, 3. A person in England or Wales appointed by the queen or king to carry out
ceremonial duties=serif has only the first meaning in Serbian, the word tanker in Serbian refers
only to ships and its original meaning is referred to all transportation which carries oil or gas, the
word tandem in Serbian refers only to doing something together while the original refers to a
double bicycle as well.
c) the meaning of the English word can be widened: bar has four meanings in English: 1)a place
where you can buy and drink alcoholic drinks, 2)a room in a hotel where alcoholic drinks are
served, 3)one of the rooms in a pub where prices are slightly lower and that contains a dart board
and other pub games, 4)a counter on which alcoholic drinks are served, and in Serbian it has one
more meaning-night club.

LEXICAL SEMANTICS
SEMANTICS- (in linguistics) means the study of meaning and the study of linguistic
development by classifying and examining changes in meaning (historical semantics).
SEMANTIC MOTIVATION- refers to metaphor and metaphorical extension of meaning
(semantic transfer): crane bird/machine for lifting.
LEXICAL SEMANTICS- is the branch of morphology that is devoted to the study of meaning.
It refers to the study of word-meaning proper, although it can be concerned with the meaning of
smaller elements of structure such as prefixes and suffixes, which are by definition linguistic
units which are meaningful and lend themselves to this kind of study.
The relationship between one word and another belonging to a different part of speech and
produced from the first by some process of derivation is called PARONYMY (e.g. the
relationship between white and whiten, write and writer). The derivationally primitive
word is the base and the derived form the PARONYM. It is assumed that the derived form is
semantically more complex. Paronymous relations apply also to zero-derivation paronyms,
those with a zero affix: mop (n)-mop(v), honeymoon(n)- honeymoon(v)
Denotative, cognitive and conceptual meaning can be alternatively used for referential
meaning.

WORD MEANING- REFERENTIAL APPROACH- to meaning defines meaning by

establishing the interdependence between words and the things and concepts they refer to (this
kind of interrelation is marked by the term denotation). Referential meaning refers to the
relationship between words as referring items and referents as the characteristics of the worlds to
which the words refer. Referential theory of meaning presupposes the existence of the three
components closely related to the concept of meaning: the sound-form of the linguistic sign, the
concept and the thing denoted which constitute the basic triangle which is the basic of the
referential model of meaning. All referential models and approaches to meaning presume and
imply the existence of the relationship between the things denoted and its meaning. The terms
which are alternatively used for referential meaning are: denotative, cognitive and conceptual.
The connection between the sound-form and meaning is a matter of convention and is most cases
not inherent- it is arbitrary. In other words, the connection between word and object is in turn
remote, arbitrary and abstract. There is the difference between meaning and concept:
get/receive/obtain, infant/baby/child There is also the difference between meaning and the
thing denoted, e.g. we can denote one and the same object by more than one word with a
different meaning: spouse- my wife/my pride and joy/my disgrace/my consolation
DENOTATIVE MEANING- (logical, conceptual, cognitive or referential) is considered to be
the central factor in language communication whereas other types of meaning: connotative,
social, affective, reflected, collocative, thematic, are peripheral in contrast to denotative meaning
which is integral to the essential functioning of the language. Denotative meaning is assigned
priority on the basis of the logical complexity of its organization which can be compared to the
sophistication and organization at the level of syntax or phonology. CONNOTATIVE
MEANING- is what is communicated by virtue of what language refers to over and above its
purely conceptual content. The boundary between conceptual and connotative meaning is
coincident with the crucial distinction between language and the real world. Connotations are
relatively unstable and they vary according to culture, historical period, and the experience of the
individual. Connotative meaning is open-ended whereas determinateness of the conceptual
content. SOCIAL MEANING- is what is communicated of the social circumstances of language
use. AFFECTIVE MEANING- is what is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the
speaker or writer. REFLECTED MEANING- is what is communicated through associations
with another sense of the same expression. COLLOCATIVE MEANING is what is

communicated through association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another
world. THEMATIC MEANING- is what is communicated by the way in which the message is
organized in terms of order and emphasis. A briefer term for conceptual meaning is sense.
Connotative, social, affective, reflected and collocative meaning are subsumes under the term
ASSOCIATIVE MEANING. On the other hand, meaning in the wider sense which embraces
all the types listed is referred to as COMMUNICATIVE VALUE.
FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO MEANING-maintains that the meaning of a linguistic unit
may be studied only through its relation (syntagmatic and paradigmatic) to other linguistic units
and not through its relation to either concept or referent. In the functional approach semantic
investigation is directed to the analysis of the difference and sameness of meaning (this is the
principle of contrastiveness in linguistic structure) and the meaning is understood basically as the
function of the use of linguistic units. The semantic component that serves to distinguish one
word from all others contain identical morphemes is referred to as DIFFERENTIAL
MEANING. This kind of meaning can be seen in minimal pairs (fly-catcher=one option has
species marker and the other hasnt). Two key concepts of the functional approach are
CONTEXT and DISTRIBUTION by which we understand the position of a linguistic unit in
relation to other linguistic units. The position and arrangement of the morphemes within a word
is significant (it is referred to as DISTRIBUTIONAL MEANING) and any change in the order
of morphemes makes the word either meaningless or it changes its meaning altogether. The
relationship between morphemic structure and meaning is called MORPHOLOGICAL
MOTIVATION. The functional and referential theories are complementary. Word meaning is
not homogeneous- it is made out of variant components which are described as types of meaning.
GRAMMATICAL MEANING is the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of
individual forms of different words (tense in verbs/number and case in nouns). Word forms
have one and the same grammatical meaning if they can be found in identical distribution. There
are also GRAMMATICALLY BOUND MEANINGS-and those are the meanings of words
which are grammatically conditions. To denote grammatical contexts the terms patters or
structure is used. In the following examples, words have different meaning due to their
grammatical context: make in make a comment, make in make sure, make clear; get in get cold,
angry, bored and so on. LEXICAL MEANING- is the component of meaning proper to the
word as a linguistic unit. By lexical meaning we designate the meaning proper to the given

linguistic unit in all its forms and distributions while by grammatical meaning we designate the
meaning proper to sets of word-forms common to all words of a certain class. PART-OFSPEECH MEANING- is the meaning which a word has by virtue of its form class. The role of
lexical and grammatical meaning varies in different word-classes and even in different subgroups
within one and the same class.
DENOTATION- tends to be described as the definitional, literal, obvious or commonsense
meaning of a sign. The term CONNOTATION is used to refer to the socio-cultural and personal
associations of the sign. These associations: cultural, ideological, emotional etc. are typically
related to the speakers social position, age, sex, and so on. In the case of words the denotative
meaning is what dictionaries aim to provide.
While theorists find it useful to distinguish connotation from denotation, in practice this
distinction cannot be made in an easy, neat, and unquestionable way. Most semanticists argue
that no sign is purely denotative so that no strict division between denotation and connotation
can be made. Connotations can develop into new denotation.
COLLOCATIVE MEANING- is what is communicated through association with words which
tend to co-occur with another word in a syntagmatic chain. Connotation is not only a
paradigmatic associative dimension- syntagmatic associations are also a key factor in
generating connotations.
Both connotations and denotations are socially and culturally variable and they change over time.
Generally speaking woman had more negative denotations and more negative connotations in
the past than it does now. Note the use of woman in the following situation: There is a woman
at the door! It has a negative connotation and, instead, the proper way of saying this would be
There is a lady at the door;. On the other hand, in the same situation, it would be normal to use
man rather than gentleman.
Changing the form of the signifier and keeping its denotation intact can generate different
connotations. Changes of style or intonation may suggest different connotations, such as when
using different typefaces for exactly the same text, or pronouncing the same word using different
intonation patterns. Tropes such as metaphor generate connotations.
Words are more polysemic, and more semantically open in their connotation than in their
denotations. They are also said to be more stable in their denotative meaning and more variable

in what they connote. Some linguists provide examples to prove that semantics is conceptual and
not perceptual.
Members of a CATEGORY must contain all the properties defining the category. The
CONCEPTS can be said to be clear but the boundaries demarcating these concepts are not crispclear but fuzzy. CATEGORIAL PROPERTIES are not simply present or absent. Instead, it
would be more appropriate to say that a member of a category may have varying degrees of a
given property, and this is called graded membership.
SOCIAL MEANING- has to do with social circumstances communicated by means of a word
or some other piece of language. The following dimensions of socio-stylistic variation can be
recognized: variation according to dialect (geographical or social), variation according to time
(the language of the 16th century, contemporary English), variation according to province (legal
English, business English, Net Speak), variation according to status (formal English, educated,
colloquial, slang), variation according to modality (classroom English, the language of cartoons,
the language of jokes), variation according to singularity (the style of Shakespeare, of T.S.Eliot).
STYLISTIC VARIETY- this is the matter of stylistics which studies the relationship between
extralinguistic factors such as topic dealt with, or social circumstances of communication and
linguistic means. From the point of view of the subject spoken about English language breaks
into variety of registers, and as for the social circumstances of speech process the language can
be decomposed into a variety functional styles. The same subject can be spoken about in
different ways depending on the social circumstances and the speaker is free to choose among
options which are open to him in vocabulary. There are words which fit equally well any register
and any style and these we call stylistically neutral. On the other hand, there are words which fit
only certain subject domains of communication and only a certain social occasions-such words
are said to be stylistically marked. In dictionaries these words are labeled: formal, colloquial,
informal, very formal, familiar, offensive, slang, non-standard, old-fashioned, poetical etc.
Respective examples are the following: cause celebre (formal), me in you and me (colloquial),
piss (informal), talent sexually attractive girl (very formal), daddy (familiar), wop an Italian
( very offensive), merry-go-round (rhyming slang for pound), aint (substandard) apothecary
(old-fashioned), damsel (poetical). The broadest binary division based upon stylistic criteria is
the division into formal and informal English. Words belonging to formal style are sometimes
referred to as learned words (hereby, hereafter, hereupon, furthermore) Poetic diction is also

associated with certain vocabulary (array-clothes, brow-forehead, behold-see). Slang is a

functional variety of language whose main characteristics are : expressiveness, abundant use of
metaphor in word creation, exaggeration, irony, or pejorative attitude: Adam and eve- believe;
Anna Maria-fire, airs and graces-faces, almond rocks-socks, all bloody interpolations are
considered to belong to this style: abso-bloody-lutely The most vital examples of slang words
get accepted by large speech community and they are no longer felt as stylistically marked (bore,
chap, shabby, sham, snob). The difference can be made between general slang and special slang
(one used by some specific social or professional group). The language of the underworld is
called cant. Stylistic varieties in English (usually referred to as attitudinal varieties) are closely
related to all other strata of English language varieties such as registers (varieties according to
subject matter), social dialects (varieties on the basis of education and social standing), standardsubstandard English, varieties according to medium (these have to do with the difference
between written and spoken English), varieties which have to do with bilinguism and codeswitching (varieties according to interference), and also to idiolects (varieties based upon
individual language habits and difference among speakers of English).
COLLOQUIAL- is used to describe words, expressions, or language that are informal, and
especially used in conversation. It refers to style or usage and means that which is characteristic
of an appropriate to ordinary or familiar conversation rather than formal speech or writing.
Conversational and informal can be said to be synonymous with colloquial and they all refer to
types of speech or to usages not on a formal level. It is important not to associate negative
evaluation with any of these terms and they should not be taken to mean bad, vulgar or
incorrect- rather they describe the ordinary everyday languages of cultivated speakers.
COLOQUIALISM- is a colloquial word or phrase.
FORMAL- refers to language style opposite to informal. And there is VERY FORMAL.
INFORMAL- refers to language style, opposite to formal: oops, show biz, loo, nightie, to-diefor, woozy
REGISTER- refers to the domain of communication (its subject matter) as reflected in
language, especially in its vocabulary.
VARIETIES OF ENGLISH- There are several variety classes, such as: regional variation
technically termed regional dialect; there are varieties according to education and social standing
known as social dialects; educated English is referred to as Standard English and uneducated

English is often called substandard; individual varieties of language used by individual speakers
of English are called idiolects; varieties according to subject matter are called registers; varieties
according to medium cover the difference between spoken and written English; varieties
according to function are referred to as functional styles or attitudinal varieties. Within each
variety class there are a number of varieties. Language variation according to region is referred
to as regional dialect. Within British English the best known are Irish, Scots, and Northern,
Midland, Welsh, South-western, and London varieties. Within North America the broadest
division into geographical dialects into: Canadian, New England, Midland and Southern varieties
of English. Regional variation is predominantly seen in phonology but its vocabulary system is
also distinctive. Social dialects cover the distinction made upon the criteria of education and
social standing. Popular terms used to refer to such variation are: educated and uneducated
speech. Educated speech is also referred to as BBC English (or Network English in the US) or
standard English whereas uneducated English is often called substandard. Educated speech is
given prestige and it is used by government, the press, and learned professions. The two broadest
national standards are British and American English. Some characteristics of American English
as distinct of British are the following: grammatical differences are few (two past participle
forms for got-get, gotten; informally they use past instead of perfective), there are some
differences in spelling, like leaving out ou in color or ue in catalog; lexical differences are
numerous, there is also a difference in emotional and stylistic coloring of the words; in
phonology the differences are also prominent. Altogether the differences between the two
standards are such that some tend to qualify AE as the American language. Scots E, Irish E,
Canadian E, South African E, New Zealand E, Australian E represent other national standards.
Varieties of English according to subject matter are referred to as registers. It is presumed that he
switches to the appropriate one to handle the subject in question: law, computing, cookery The
varieties according to medium are those determined by the medium of communication-speech or
writing. Both varieties are characterized by their own use of linguistic means: style, vocabulary,
discourse strategy. Varieties according to attitude (to the speaker, to the subject spoken about, to
the purpose of communication) are often referred to as functional styles. Stylistic varieties are
most often talked about in terms of the dichotomy: formal and informal English. The relationship
between variety classes is complex: some styles suit certain subject matter (e.g. formal style is
inextricably related to legal English); one particular medium is often favored by a certain register

(e.g. legal statuses are expressed in writing); standard English is by definition the language of
educated people; certain combinations of varieties can be incompatible (e.g. the subject of
courtship and formal style or a parliament debate on the subject of fox-hunting and informal
style). All varieties no matter how remote they may seem have something in common and that is
referred to as the common core of English.
WORD GEOGRAPHY- is concerned with the regional distribution of words for various
notions.
AFFECTIVE-means the feeling with which the person or thing denoted is regarded. It usually
combines with diminutive meaning. Language reflects the personal feelings of the speaker, his
attitude to the listener, or his attitude to what he is talking about (e.g. a speaker can be polite,
ironic, sarcastic, rude, offensive) This kind of meaning is called affective meaning. It largely
relies upon other types of meaning: denotative, connotative or stylistic.There are however,
elements of language, chiefly interjections, like Hurrah, Aha, Gee, Yippee, whose main function
is to express emotion. The attitude can be expressed overtly by the choice of words, or in less
direct way, e.g. by scaling our remarks according to politeness.
REFLECTED MEANING- refers to the situation when one sense of a word is part of the
speakers response to another sense. This happens in cases of multiple conceptual meaning of
words.
Messages can be organizes so that they differ in terms of ordering, focus and emphasis. The
meaning associated with this kind of situation is referred to as THEMATIC MEANING.
Thematic meaning is a matter of choice between alternative grammatical constructions, words,
stress, and intonation. These two sentences have the same cognitive meaning but different
thematic meaning: I do not know this. = This I do not know.
FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO MEANING- maintains that the meaning of a linguistic unit
should be studied only through its relation (syntagmatic and paradigmatic) to other linguistic
units and not through its relation to either concept or referent. Compare: sugar-coated/sugar
daddy, red wine/ red cross/ red herring, extra-large/ extraterrestrial
Two key concepts of the functional approach to meaning are context and distribution.
CONTEXT is the minimal stretch of speech determining each individual meaning of the word.
DISTRIBUTION- refers to the position of a word in relation to another word; it also refers to
the order and arrangement of the morphemes in a word. Order and arrangement of words or

morphemes in a sequence is significant in the senses that it brings out the difference in meaning
(child problem- problem child, garden rock- rock garden this is called distributional meaning.
Violation of distribution rules of the morpheme within a word can produce ungrammatical forms
(dislocate- locatedis).
DIFFERENTIAL MEANING- refers to the semantic component that serves to distinguish one
word from all others containing identical morphemes. Example of this can be shown on minimal
pairs.
GRAMMATICAL MEANING- is the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of
individual forms of different words, e.g. the case meaning in nouns (childs, womans, parents).
LEXICAL MEANING- is the component of meaning proper to the word as a linguistic unit,
e.g. the word forms: elephant, elephants, elephants, elephants have one and the same core
meaning component denoting a certain animal.
PART-OF-SPEECH MEANING- the meaning a word has by virtue of its form class.
HYPERBOLE- in rhetorics is obvious and intentional exaggeration and an extravagant
statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally (a thousand thanks, to wait an
eternity). Historically, words can change their meaning through hyperbole, e.g. the Modern
English word kill originally meant to torment. The opposite tendency is that of diminution.
Hyperbole is often confused with a simile and metaphor. Examples:
Nearly die laughing, jump out of your skin, to make toes curl, tempest in a teapot, a storm in a
teacup, like a ton of bricks, to try a thousand times
LITOTES-is a word, originally Greek, which means diminution. It is an understatement,
especially that in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary as in not bad
at all. Historically, words can change their meaning though litotes, e.g. the Modern English
word astound originally meant to strike with thunder and the process of diminution is evident.
Litotes can be used to make a modest assertion, e.g. using not improperly rather than correctly;
or best in: This game can be termed not improperly the melodrama of romance. Litotes can be a
means of expressing modesty (downplaying ones accomplishments) in order to gain the
audiences favor as in: She has a doctorate and three children, which is no small achievement.
New words are formed, old ones wither, and existing words change. A few hundred years ago a
gale was a gentle breeze and nice was not a compliment, it meant foolish and stupid.
Historically, words can change their meaning through litotes as in astound, and also through

hyperbole as in kill. Thy can change their meaning through elevation as in marshal or
degeneration as in knave. Word meanings change through metaphor and metonymy.
ELEVATION- is the process of semantic change by which new words are formed through
change of the original meaning of the word, e.g. Modern English word knight meaning a man
of noble birth who was raised to honorable military rank and bound to chivalrous conduct
developed from the Old English word cniht = boy,manservant. Another example is word
marshal which means a military officer of the highest rank in Modern English and which
developed from the word which was a syncopated variant of mareschal (horse+ servant). The
opposite process is degeneration.
DEGENERATION- is the process of semantic change which refers to deterioration of the
original meaning of the word, e.g. Modern English knave- dishonest person, developed from
the word knave-boy.
There are different lexical sense relations, e.g. synonymy, hyponymy, compatibility,
incompatibility
HISTORICAL SEMANTICS: is the study of the change of meaning in time. The kinds of
change that occur are: narrowing, widening, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, litotes,
hyperbole, degeneration, elevation. Historical change of meaning is the subject of historical
semantics, historical linguistic and comparative philology.
SYNONYM- is a word or expression which means the same as another word or expression
(violin-fiddle). Synonyms are words different in their sound-form and similar in their denotative
meaning and interchangeable at least in some contexts. The definition implies that there are no
real synonyms. The reason behind this is that, from the point of view of language efficiency,
there is no need for totally substitutable synonyms. There is always some slight difference of
meaning between the words which are said to be synonymous. There are cognitive synonyms
(which are incapable of yielding sentences with different truth conditions): He plays fiddle
entails He plays violin. Some are context-dependent (to start/ to begin). Synonyms differ in at
least 5 different ways:
1.Some sets of dialects belong to different dialects (AE and BE): autumn-fall, tap-faucet,
motorway-highway, stone-rock, queue-line..
2.Some words are used in different styles or registers which means that they are denotationally
similar but they are favored by a particular language variant to suit best the relations among

discourse participants, subject matter and expressiveness: adversary-enemy, cardiologist- heat

doctor, matrimony-marriage
3. Some words which are denotationally synonymous differ only in their evaluative meaning
(which can be positive or negative)- their cognitive meaning remains the same: hide(+)conceal(-); womanly(+)-womanish(-)
4. Some words are collocationally restricted, they occur only in conjunction with other words:
handsome and beautiful
5. Many words are close in meaning: loose-inexact, free, relaxed, vague mature-ripe,
complete, full..
SYNONYMY- is the sameness of meaning.A rule of thumb of testing synonymy is substitution.
EUPHEMISM- is a polite word or expression that people use when they are talking about
something unpleasant or embarrassing, such as illness, death, sex, bodily functions, war :
redundancy-unemployment, underprivileged-poor, urinate/pass water/relieve yourself- piss, put
to sleep-kill In Serbian: skratiti za glavu, otici Bogu na istinu, zaobici istinu for death in
English: pass away/go the way of all flesh/to breathe ones last/ to be gathered to ones feathers/
to join the great majority/ to come to an untimely end
EUPHEMISTIC- is a language that uses polite words and expressions to avoid words which
directly refer to something considered unpleasant or embarrassing.
TABOO WORD: that are usually avoided.
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS (PC)- with reference to language means: terns which are
politically correct or politically incorrect. Political correctness has to do with the rejection of
language considered discriminatory or offensive. Politically correct means appropriate to the
prevailing political or social circumstances. Examples:
Vertically challenged-short, horizontally challenged-fat, physically challenged-handicapped,
cerebrally challenged-stupid, experientially enhanced-old. To ne non-PC is generally thought to
be a positive attribute. Some people feel that politically correct euphemism are unacceptable,
even offensive and deserving ridicule and that the words to be avoided are, on the contrary
straightforward, unobjectionable, harmless and respectable, so its better to say a person who is
blind than hard of seeing, visually challenged, sightless, visually impaired, people with
blindness

As civilizations decline, they become increasingly concerned with form over substance,
particularly with respect to language. At the time of WWI they called it shell shock; the term
was simple, clear and descriptive. A generation later, it was called combat fatigue. Today the
two words have doubled in size, and there is even an acronym PTSD; post-traumatic stress
disorder, the term being more in tune with current effete sensibilities. Euphemisms and
politically correct language can be pretentious, ridiculous, and at their worst they can damage the
causes they claim to benefit (neutralize for kill). Its often better to use; person with a disability
than disabled person, people who are deaf than deaf people, a student with dyslexia than dyslexic
student
DYSPHEMISM- opposite of a euphemism) is the substitution of a harsher, deprecating,
offensive, ugly or otherwise unpleasant locution for one relatively neutral or more attractive in
sound or meaning (brat for child,bitch for woman). Dysphemism is an antonym of euphemism.A
dysphemism is a statement which is intended to sound much worse than reality. Political
campaigns make great use of dysphemisms. A dysphemism and a euphemism are often two sides
of the same coin (e.g. a guerilla in neutral language can be called freedom fighter by some and
terrorist by others).
PEJORATIVE is a word or expression which is derogatory and shows disapproval (junk
food,kinglet, manish, junk mail, wooly-minded, womanish), it is critical as well.
DEROGATORY- means tending to derogate (to show what a low opinion you have of)
someone or something. Words in let and ling often have derogatory force (apart from their
diminutive meaning): kinlet, plincelet, lordling, weakling
CLICH- is a stereotyped or excessively used expression. It is a result of an anti-creative
tendency of language. Clichs belong to informal language and social communication. They are
there to be either avoided (which can be difficult and sometimes even impossible) or to be made
fun of (by those who wish to poke fun at people to use them). Clichs can be individual words
(candle-snatcher, cliff-hanger), phrases (to have the last laugh, to add fuel to the flames, off the
beaten track, alive and kicking, to walk on air, too good to be true, the good old days, its all
Greek to me, to rise from the ashes, asking for trouble, to break the ice, the lay your cards on the
table, armed to the teeth, mind your own business), proverbs and sayings (absence makes the
heart grow fonder, no news is good news, let bygones be bygones, life is not a bed of roses, life
begins at forty, it is as broad as it is long, the road to hell is paved with good intention), lively

metaphors (blind alley, couch potato, wet blanket, red herring, monkey business, walking
encyclopedia, castle in the air, alphabet soup, baby snatching, cradle-snatcher, backhander, cliffhanger, top brass, bodice ripper, kiss of life, kiss of death, land of milk and honey, a baptism of
fire, the bask and beyond, a bone of contention), catchy rhymes based on assonance (true blue,
eager beaver, namby-pamby, ants in your pants, arty crafty, big-wig, chalk and talk, high and dry,
by hook or by crook, like it or lump it, make or break, put up or shut up, Aga saga), and
alliteration (live and learn, live and let live ,to little too late, to make a mountain out of a
molehill, rob Peter to pay Paul, through thick and thin). Clichs encapsulate and petrify a certain
experience (past or present) so that it can be conveniently and effectively used in communication
which is in the way made easier and more economical. Only excessive use makes clichs
undesirable.
Phrases can employ various nationalities, these ethnic slurs occur in every language and in
English they are used in speech rather than in writing: French leave, Irish bull (crazy statement),
Roman holiday (entertainment from watching barbarism), Chinese wall ( a barrier), Dutch
courage (when you are drunk), Its all Greek to me, go Dutch with somebody, Welsh rabbit, Goth
( rude and uncivilized person).
HOMONYM- is a word the same as another in pronunciation and spelling but different in
meaning, e.g. chase meaning to e after, to pursue and chase meaning to ornament metal are
homonyms.
HOMONYMY- is a meaning relation which holds between two or several words with the same
shape (spelling and pronunciation). The same word may have different meaning and this we call
polysemy. A polysemic word is treated as a single entry in a dictionary while a homonymous one
has a separate entry for each homonym. However, having in mind the fact that the distinction
between homonymy and polysemy is notoriously difficult to define, the decisions by
lexicographers are often arbitrary. Synchronically the differentiation between homonymy and
polysemy is as a rule based on semantic criteria distinguishing between related and unrelated
meanings. All cases of homonymy fall into two classes: full and partial.
FULL HOMONYMY means that the paradigms of two or more words are identical (e.g. the
paradigm comprising the singular and plural form of the word box 1. Meaning: a square
container- box, boxes and the paradigm comprising the singular and plural of the word;box, 2.
Meaning: in the theater an area like a little room where a small number of people can sit away

from the rest of the seats- box, boxes are identical (also for examples: seal ( animal and a rank),
case (a special situation, or a box to protect something)).
PARTIAL HOMONYMY- means that some word-forms are homonymous but the whole of the
paradigm is not identical: box- box, boxes and box(to fight); seal- seal, seals and seal ( to mark
with a seal)- seal, seals, sealed, sealing.
Homonyms can be lexical ad grammatical.
LEXICAL HOMONYMS- differ in lexical meaning (eye- organ/ hole for the thread)
GRAMMATICAL HOMONYMS- are homonymous word-forms of one and the same word,
e.g. asked- past simple tense/or past participle, cut- past/present/ past participle).
Homonyms can be subdivided into homographs and homophones.
HOMOGRAPHS- are words identical in spelling but different in their sound-form and meaning
(lead /led/-a heavy metal and lead /lid/-action in guiding).
HOMOPHONES- are words identical in sound-form but different in spelling and meaning.
Homophones, or words such as key and quay can cause problems when writing English or trying
to understand spoken English.
POLYSEMY: The same word may have a set of different meanings. This is polysemy and such
a word is polysemic. The following test can be applied if we want to see whether we are dealing
with the same or different meanings of a word, e.g. Mark is sad/ The book is sad, cannot be
combined in the sentence: Mark is sad as the book he is reading, it is clear that we deal with
polysemy here.
PUN- is the humorous use of polysemous homonymous or homophonous words for the sake of
wordplay. What one says has two meanings and that can have comic effect. = the humorous use
of a word in such a way as to suggest different meaning or applications or of words having the
same or nearly the same sound but different meanings; a play on words.
WORDPLAY- play on words or punning is using words in an unusual, playful way to show
verbal wit, to have fun or to produce humorous effect. An ACROSTIC is a series of written lines
or verses in which the first, last or other particular letters from a word, phrase, alphabet, etc.
These letter spell out a hidden word of a message. Acrostics can be said to be the most complete
type of deletion since it is only a single letter per line that remains. Acrostics also have to do with
word-play as well as ANAGRAMS which are the rearrangement of letters in a word, phrase, or
name to form another word , phrase, name

BLOOPER- is a slang word for a blunder, a gross, stupid or careless mistake, especially one
made in public.
KANGAROO WRODS- are marsupial words that carry smaller versions of themselves within
their spellings (respite-rest, splotch-spot, instructor-tutor, curtail-cut, feasted-fed/ate, rapscallionrascal
FRANGIBLE- is a three-generation kangaroo word: in its pouch it has one word with the same
meaning and that other word has yet another one in its pouch with a similar meaning: fragilefrail/agile
PALINDROME- is a word that communicates the same message when the letter of which it is
composed are read in reverse order: level-level, race car-race car, civic-civic, madam-madam.
While palindromic word has the same meaning left to right and right to left, other words change
their meaning and become new words when spelled in reverse (doc-cod, decaf-faced).
PANGRAM- is a sentence that makes use of all the letters of the alphabet (e.g. The quick brown
fox jumps over a lazy dog- is a sentence that employs every letter in the alphabet at least once).
HYPONYMY- (inclusion) refers to class membership flower= rose, pansy, violet, bluebell,
carnation, daisy The words which are part of a given taxonomy are related to each other
though the relationship of generic hyponymy. When talking about inclusion the upper term is
superordinate or HYPERNYM and the lower term is subordinate or HYPONYM. Violets and
roses are CO-HYPONYMS and are linked by their common inclusion under a superordinate or
hypernym flower. Hyponymy involves ENTAILMENT (there are three chimpanzees entails
that there are three monkeys).
TAXONOMY- may be regarded as u sub-type of hyponymy so that the taxonyms of a lexical
item are a sub-set of its hyponyms. A useful test for taxonomy is: An X is a kind/type of Y ( a
daffodil is a type of flower).
MERONYMY- A major type of branching lexical hierarchy is the part-whole type (arm, leg,
head parts of the body). The semantic relation between a lexical item denoting a part and that
denoting the corresponding whole is termed meronymy.
ANTONYM- is a word which is opposite in meaning to another word which is also called an
antonym (deep- shallow, tall-short).
ANTONYMY- means oppositeness of meaning. Demarcations within antonymous sense
relations can be made as follows: 1.complementarity which means that the presence of one sense

component excludes another and that use of one word entails the denial of the other (singlemarried); 2.converseness which refers to contrastive lexical relations involving logical
reciprocity and the words are said to be reciprocal correlates (buy-sell) 3.incompatibility refers to
relational contrast between items in a semantic fields (this is a lark, excludes that it is any other
kind of bird); 4.antonymy is an inclusive term for all the above contrastive sense relations but in
a more restrictive sense of gradable opposites (thick-thin, rich-poor). Antonymy is the only
meaning relation which in the process of word-formation can be signaled by the introduction of a
special morpheme in the position of a prefix or a suffix climax-anticlimax, happy-unhappy).
Minor types of antonyms are the antipodals and reversives. In the pair of antipodals one member
of the pair represents an extreme in one direction while the other represents the other extreme
(top-bottom, head-toe). In the pair of reversives one member of the pair represents movement in
one direction and the other movement in the opposite direction (enter-exit, affirmative-negative,
encourage-discourage). The relationship of reverse antonyms holds between prefixal derivatives
and the bases they are derived from (dress-undress, tie-untie).
COMPATIBILITY- is the lexical relation which corresponds to overlap between classes.
Lexical items related by compatibility are COMPATIBLES. A pair of compatibles must have a
common hypernym (cat and dog- animal; husband and milkman- human males). The sense
relation between classes with no members in common is INCOMPATIBILITY. (leaf and key,
flower and sky).
MOPHOLOGICAL MOTIVATION- is the synchronic relationship between morphemic
structure and meaning. All one-morpheme words: man, bag, stop are not motivated. It the words
consist of more than one morpheme their meaning is the sum of the meaning of the component
morphemes and the meaning of the component morphemes and the meaning of the structural
morphological pattern of the word: flower-pot and pot-flower the meaning of the constituent
morphemes is the same, but the difference in meaning of these two words can be accounted for
by the difference in the structural pattern.
DIMINUTIVE- means pertaining to or productive of a form denoting smallness, familiarity,
affection, or triviality, as the suffix let: froglet, piglet, starlet or the suffix ette: maisonette,
cigarette, and kitchenette. It is also used to denote a diminutive element or formation. Diminutive
words in English are often affective that is they express the feeling about the thing or person
denoted: deary, sweetie. When denoting people diminutive suffix can also suggest femininity:

usherette. Smallness can be expressed in English by the use of adjectives small and little
(where small is neutral and little is affective). However, it need not be overtly expressed- it
can be implied: kid, cottage, hamlet. The following suffixes are used to form diminutives in
English: -ette, -ie/y: Johnny, piggy, sweetie, -kin: lambkin, catkin, -let: piglet, -ling: duckling,
suckling

METHODS AND PROCEDURES OF

MOPRHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS: has to do with the separating of morphologically complex
language material or abstract entity into its constituent elements (opposed to synthesis); it is the
process which is a method of studying the nature of words and morphemes, determining their
essential features and their relations. As a scientific investigation morphological analysis
involves: observation, classification, generalization, and verification process. There are different
methods and procedures of morphological analysis: statistical analysis, immediate constituent
analysis, distributional analysis, transformational analysis, componentional analysis,
computational analysis.
IMMEDIATE CONSTITUENT ANALYSIS- has to do with the defining of the relevant
relationships which hold between morphologically relevant structural units. Combinations of the
units are usually binary and the aim of the immediate constituent analysis is to segment
structurally complex lexical units into two independent sequences called immediate constituents.
Successive segmentation results in ultimate constituents that is end-elements of the structure
which cannot be further analyzed and which are equal to morphemes. Immediate constituents
represent the word-formation structure while the ultimate constituents show the morphemic
structure of polymorphemic words. Successive segmentation results in ultimate constituents
which cannot be further analyzed. The word lawlessness is a binary construction which can be
divided into: lawless + ness, however, lawless itself is a morphologically complex binary unit
which can be split into: law + less. Lawless, ness, law, less are said to be immediate constituents
and: law, less, ness, are said to be ultimate constituents. The hierarchical structure of the word
can be represented linearly by means of cuts ( in lawlessness there are two cuts). The hierarchical
structure of a complex word or word-form can also be graphically represented by a tree-diagram

where branches indicate binary division of the complex structure and leaves show morphemic
structure of the morphologically complex unit. A tree diagram of the word lawlessness would
look like on the picture.In the case of grammatically marked words it is the inflectional suffix
that is cut off first (handcuffs or teaspoonfuls the first things cut off is s. When we have a word
which consists of noun or numeral and derivation ed is cut off first, but is we have an adverb
and derivation ed, than the word is divided first and then we remove ed. Also in a word
unrealistically we will remove: ly, un, al, ic, ist respectively.

DISTRIBUTIONAL ANALYSIS- refers to the position of a lexical unit relative to other lexical
units of the same level (dis- in disbelieve takes the position of a prefix which means that it
preceded the base, -let in piglet follows the base; push-chair is a compound noun of the type verb
plus noun, and wheelchair is a compound noun of the type noun plus noun). A word has a
different lexical meaning depending on its distributional pattern (birdcage and cage-bird). The identity of distributional pattern, however,
does not necessarily mean that he words have the same meaning (take
in: take a book, take a look, take a chance).Knowledge of the
distributional patterns can be used productively, that is to form new
words, e.g. like combines with nouns to form adjectives which
describe things that are similar to whatever the nouns refer to: childlike,
prison-like
Distributional patterns are part of language competence which enables decoding (understanding
of the word on the basis of the familiarity of the constituent elements and distributional pattern).
Violation of the rules of a distributional pattern can result in an ungrammatical word (embodybodyem).

CO-OCCURRENCE- means aptness of a word to co-occur (collocate) with other words with
which it shares the same semantic component. A COLLOCATE of a particular word is another
word which often occurs with that word: do collocates with: census, hair, room, much, well
Co-occurrence and distribution can be seen as synonymous.
TRANSFORMATIONAL ANALYSIS- is a kind of morphological analysis which has to do
with the repatterning of word-structure so as to bring out the difference in meaning of the words
which are structurally the same: bottle-washer and bottle-washer are the same from the point of
view of their structure and distributional pattern; however, they differ in meaning and this can be
easily shown by resorting to transformational analysis: bottle-washer- a person or the machine;
walking part/shoe person/object
Transformational analysis is instrumental in discovering meaning relations (synonymy,
oppositeness, hyponymy, and superordination) between the words.
COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS- which has to do with semantic decomposition of wordmeaning which can be broken into two kinds of semantic components: semantic markers
(semantic features shared with other words: profession marker for: postman, milkman, barman,
clergyman, weather man;lemon-squeezer and pastry-cutter) and semanticdistinguishers
(semantic features which are distinctive, which individualize the word, .e.g. ex-president has all
the characteristic of a president except that it has the characteristic used to be the thing referred
to by the noun, pig and piglet). Componential analysis is also used in exploring semantic
structure of synonymic pairs and in synonymy testing. Furthermore, componentional analysis is
in the basis of almost all classifications of words and it is widely used by lexicologists and
lexicographers. Componential analysis is complementary to some other types of morphological
analysis, such as transformational and distributional analysis.
Words refer to things and concepts which belong to semantic categories (sometimes to more than
one category).
Categories, on their part, can be seen as a conglomerate of components. TH meaning of a word
can be seen as the sum of the semantic features it has and which are included in its semantic
description that is its definition. CATEGORY FEATURES assign the word to a semantic
category (fly belong to the category of - insects).
FUNCTION FEATURES- assign a usual state or activity to the word ( a fly flies fly).

PROPERTY FEATURES- list the properties distinguishing the reference of the word (an insect
which is black and has two wings- black, wings). The SEMANTIC ENTRY for the word fly
may be expressed as:
Fly- insect, fly, black, wings.
The term componential analysis is a method of analysis which has to do with reducing the
meaning of the word to it ultimate contrastive elements. The sense is broken down into its
minimal components. One way to represent the senses is to write formulae in which the
dimensions of meaning are expressed by feature symbols:
(e.g. woman: +human, +adult, -male; boy: +human, -adult, +male). These formulae are called
COMPONENTIAL DEFINITIONS. It can be said that two meaning or two componential
formulae are incompatible if one has at least one feature contrasting with a feature in the other
(e.g. the meaning of man is incompatible with that of a boy because of the clash between +adult
and adult). Meaning inclusion or hyponymy is the relationship which exists between two
meanings if one componential formula has all the features present in the other formula (e.g. boy
is hyponymous to youngster because the features making up the definition youngster: +human,
+young are both present in the definition boy. Using componential formulae we can show the
synonymy of two words by assigning them both the same componential definition (e.g. both
adult and grown-up have the same definition: +human, +adult and therefore we say that they are
synonymous: the difference in style: adult-formal, grown-up informal, has not been taken into
account).
***Two principles are at the basis of all language organization: the PRINCIPLE OF
CONSTITUENT STRUCTURE and the PRINCIPLE OF CONTRASTIVENESS. The first
principle is the one by which larger linguistic units can be broken into smaller units (e.g. words
into morphemes); the second principle maintains that the language units are identifiable in terms
of contrasts that is the conceptual meaning are organized largely in terms of contrastive features.
The notion of paradigm builds upon this assumption (different notions of chair: deck chair,
swivel chair, armchair, electric chair, folding chair).
CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS- is a detailed synchronic comparison of the structure of a native
and a target language. It can be carried out at different linguistic levels. At the level of lexis
contrastive analysis aims at discovering the features of sameness and difference in the semantic
structure of correlated words in a pair of languages which are contrasted or in a pair of variants

(dialect, register, stylistic) within one and the same language. Contrastive analysis is based upon
two basic principles on which language is based: the principle of structure and the principle of
contractiveness. Languages differ as to the way in which they classify reality by means of words.
The word sat in Serbian is both watch and clock; the Serbian words opanak and cevapcici
have no correspondents in English and the English words sophisticated and efficient and
birdwatcher have zero correspondence in Serbian. Polysemic words of different languages are
not co-extensive (there is no one-to one correspondence between the words and there is the
difference in contextual scope), which can be seen in some examples from English and Serbian:
the English word Head is not always glava in Serbian as can be seen from the following
juxtaposed paradigms of collocations : head of a person-glava; head of a bed- uzglavlje; head of
a coin- glava; head of a cane- drska; head of a table- cello stola; head of an organizationupravnik. The difference in the lexical meaning of correlated words accounts for the difference
of their collocability in different languages, e.g. the English word new can be correlated with
the Serbian word nov, but notice the difference in the paradigms: new dress, New Year, New
potatoes: nova haljina, Nova Godina, mlad krompir. There also can be many-to-one
correspondence and one-to-many correspondence. Many mistakes can be made in translation due
to false pairing. Contrastive analysis is important in vocabulary study, in lexicography,
translation, in methodology (textbook-writing, tests and typical-error prediction: eventually,
actual, sensible, drugstore, public, sympathy, decorate) and automatic language processing).
CONFUSABLE WORDS- are the words which are easily confused and this can be due to
several reasons. Certain words are the same when they are written down but have very different
meanings (bear-animal/give birth to). There are some other words which sound the same but
have different meaning (stationary- not moving and stationery-writing paper and materials).
Other words do not look the same but they can be confused because they have similar meanings
(small and little). Words can also be confused due to the grammatical difference between words
which share similar meaning or a similar form (after and afterwards). Another area of confusion
can be the differences between language variants (girlfriend in BE and in AE). However, it is
important to point out that it is wrong to assume that all these problems (which are related to
what linguists call: homonymy, homography, homophony) are restricted only to the area of
learning English as a foreign language. It is the case, however, that the native speakers also do
sometimes confuse words for the same reasons and this confusion can leave permanent trace in

vocabulary as can be seen in folk etymology (asparagus-sparrow grass); or it can be the case that
the confusion takes the shape of malapropisms (he has a prostrate problem instead of prostate
problem).
MALAPROPISMS/MALAPROPS- are defined as comic, unintended misuse of language often
found in speech of uneducated people and children. In other words, a malapropism is an instance
of the unintentional confusion of words that produces a ridiculous effect. Intentional misuse of
language and word creation for the purpose of producing the effect of jocularity and showing
virtuosity of the language user comes under the name of stunt words. On the other hand,
malapropisms also include words which are usually treated under the heading of fold etymology.
The examples of folk etymology, however, are more stable than malapropisms in that they are
more generally accepted by the language users, become petrified and passed on to another
generation of speakers. They are named after Mrs. Malaprop from a play The Rivals (1775).
Some of the examples: Thou shall not take the covers off your neighbors wife instead of: Thou
shall not covet thy neighbors wife.

nema u praktikumu:

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS- in morphology is important because of its precision and its

relevance to information theory, communication engineering, speech recognition, machine
translation, lexicography, theoretical linguistics, applied linguistics etc. In language study there is
a need for the collection of quantitive data. The literary critic may wish to count the relative
numbers of various terms, tense forms, alliterative sounds, pronunciation marks or some other
linguistic feature of the text he is investigating. The language teacher or course designer may
wish to obtain the data on student performances under two teaching methods. The lexicographer
may wish to know which words and which word-meanings are the most frequent, so that
attention is given to each word and its meaning according to its prominence, and that the entries
in a dictionary are presented in adequate order. Statistics is indispensable in any kind of
automatic language and speech processing. The theoretician may use statistics as a test vehicle
for proving his theoretical model. Hypothesis testing is an important part of inferential statistics.
Making sense of the data is the purpose of statistical methods and some techniques of interest to
linguists are: multiple correlation and regression, cluster analysis, and analysis of variance with
more than one independent variable.

Here are some common facts reached by statistics: the passive vocabulary of an educated
Englishman comprises no more than 30,000 words (but of about 500,000) and out of these only
4,000-5,000 are sufficient for ordinary everyday communication.
COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS- is the study of computer systems or understanding and
generating natural language. The aim of computational linguistics is to understand language in
terms of processes, regularities and procedures and, further, to be able to interpret and generate
natural language.
ALGORITHM- is a special series of instructions that are carried out in a particular order, for
example as a part of a computer program.

MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
AFFIXATION- is a word-forming process where new words are formed by adding derivational
affixes. Derived words formed by affixation may be the result of one or several applications of
word-formation rules that is the bases enter derivational relations of different degrees (sleep, law,
luck, help- we are dealing with zero degree derivation= all the words are monomorphemic and
have no derivational affix); words sleepy, lawful, lucky, helpless- are the output of a derivational
process and they contain one derivational affix, so these words illustrate what is called a first
degree derivation. Derivational affixes are most commonly divided into prefixes and suffixes.
Corresponding derivational processes which involve either prefixes or suffixes are called
prefixation or suffixation. Distinction is made between prefixal and suffixalderivates according
to the last stage of derivation, e.g. unlawful= un + (law+ ful) and deglamorize= de + (glamor
+ize) represent prefixal derivatives; encouragement= (en+ courage) +ment represents
suffixalderivates. Suffixation as a word forming process is most frequent in noun and adjective
formation while prefixation is typical of verb formation. A prefix may be associated with one
part of speech, e.g. en in encourage, enslave, encage or it may function in more than one part of
speech, e.g. over in overheat, overexcited, oversight. Suffixes can also be confined to one part of
speech only, e.g. ee which combines with transitive verbs which describes action to form a noun:
appointee, employee, assignee; on the other hand there are suffixes which can combine with
different part-of-speech bases, e.g. ery which combines with verbs or nouns to form new noun as
can be seen in following examples: bakery, brewery (v+ ery), fishery, nunnery, catery, winery

(n+ery), and there is also the case where one suffix can be used to form words which belong to
different parts of speech (armful, handful, beautiful, cheerful, painful). Another comparison
between affixes and prefixes is worth making: a suffix and a base form a fusion and it has less
semantic independence than a prefix, which is more semantically independent,compare ing in
typing and re in re-create. There are about 300 prefixes and suffixes in English. Most
prefixalderivates are verbs followed by adjectives and then nouns.
INFLECTION- is the process the output of which are all the word-forms of that lexeme which
occur in syntactically determined environments; in English inflection involves a stem and an
inflectional suffix. Inflection is the process which creates word-forms of a lexeme (and not a new
lexeme), it does not change the part of speech of the input word, it has a regular meaning (so that
it can e formulated in an algorithmic way) and which is fully productive (with possible minor
exceptions) and highly generalized.
INFLECTIONAL SUFFIX- is a suffix which has a grammatical meaning (GRAMMATICAL
SUFFIX). As to their distribution all inflectional morphemes in English are suffixes. In English
there are nine inflectional morphemes which mark different grammatical categories. These are: -s
meaning plural, -s meaning third person singular present simple tense indicative, -s meaning
genitive, -d meaning past simple tense, -d meaning past participle, -ing meaning present
participle, -ing meaning gerund, -er meaning comparative degree and-est meaning superlative
degree. However, the number of inflectional suffixes is not equal to the number of grammatical
categories and some suffixes are actually portmanteaus- they represent more than one category,
e.g. the case marker is inextricably joined with number and gender markers and the category of
aspect is closely related to the categories of tense and mood.
POTENTIATION: is the ability of one morphological process to potentiate another by creating
a base suitable for that other process to apply to. Example: -ize is the suffix which combines with
nouns to form verbs which refer to actions that involve or are related to the original noun. This
morphological process potentiates another morphological process, such as the formation of ing
participles.
Apology +ize= apologize apologizing (apologing is impossible)
PREFIXATION- is a word-forming process the output of which is a prefixal derivative, e.g.
debone, discourage, undo, unhappy, presuppose, pro-liberal, countereffect.

PREFIXAL DERIVATIVE- is a word which is the output of the word-forming process of

derivation by means of a prefix, e.g. unkind, re-educate, disinherit Examples of prefixal
derivatives would be : the prefixal verbs: enslave, imprison; the prefixal nouns: ex-wife, codriver; the prefixal adjective: anti-war, unlucky
PREFIX- is an obligatory bound morpheme which does not realize a lexeme and which precedes
the base. Two types of prefixes are to be distinguished: those not correlated with any independent
word (and that would be in the line with the definition of a prefix): un, dis, mis, de, en, im, ir, il,
in, non, a, and those which are correlated with functional words that is prepositions and
preposition-like adverbs: out, over (can mean excess and power), up, under ,down, in, on, off
(can mean position or that something is not the case: off-guard) and there are called semibound
prefixes.Semibound means that they and occur both as independent words and as derivational
prefixes (under in underestimate and under the circumstances). Prefixes can and some cannot
transfer words to a different part of speech in comparison with their original form. Prefixes
which shift a word to another category are called class-changing prefixes (be in befriend which
is a verb from a noun friend).Prefixes which do not change the word-class of a word are called
class-maintaining prefixes (arch in archbishop, mal in maladjusted). Classification of prefixes
can be based on different principles. Diachronically, distinction is made between prefixes of
native and foreign origin (un- is native and uni- is foreign). Synchronically, prefixes may be
classified: according to the word-class of a prefixal derivative, so there are noun-forming, verbforming, adjective-forming, etc. prefixes but they can also function and more than one part of
speech; according to the type of the base to which they are added prefixes can be : deverbial (re
in reconsider, de in decolonize), denominal (ex in ex=boyfriend, co in co-pilot),deadjectival (un
in unsympathetic, im in improbable); semantically prefixes can be mono (like in baby like,
childlike- it only represents this one meaning of similarity) and polysemous(ery has four
different meanings: action in bribery, delivery, robbery, behavior in bravery, savagery, foolery,
place in bakery, fishery, cannery, and groups in artillery, greenery, imagery, jewelry; according to
generic denotative meaning there are: negative prefixes- un, non, in, dis;
reversative prefixes- un, de, dis (untie, disentangle); pejorative prefixes- mis ,mal, pseudo,
crypto; prefixes of time and order- fore, pre, post, ante, ex; prefix of repetition- re; locative
prefixes- sub, inter, intra, trans, circum; prefixes of degree and size: hyper, mini, out, over, sub,
super, sur, ultra, under; prefixes of attitude- anti, contra, counter, pro; number prefixes- bi, di,

poly, multi, semi, tri, uni, mono; stylistically neutral and stylistically marked prefixes- un, im,
pre, re (neutral), pseudo, ultra, uni, quasi (stylistically marked). There are traditional prefixes
and also new ones that appear in dictionaries of neologisms: agri, bio, docu, eco, bin, be, conto,
counter, crypto, de, electro, ergo, exo, extra, hydro, hyper, hypo, intra, inter, kilo, maxi, mega,
mono, multi, neo, non, off, re, retro, simi, sub, super, thermo, tri, turbo, ultra, un, under, up, urbi,
xero.
Prefix miss usually means that something has been done incorrectly and prefix dis means the
opposite of the base. For example self is very productive in forming nouns from nouns and
adjectives from present and past participles and it can have two basic meanings: something done
to or by yourself ( self-approval, self-awareness, self-restraint, self-inflicted, self-discipline) and
for attitudes (self-important, self-confident, self-assured, self-respect, self-satisfied).
SUFFIXATION- is a word-forming process the output of which is a suffixal derivative
(information, bribery, peaceful, foolishness, availability, widely).
SUFFIXAL DERIVATIVE- is a word which is the output of the word-forming process of
derivation by means of a suffix. Examples of suffixal derivatives would be: suffixal verbs
(darken, widen, glorify, personify, nationalize), suffixal nouns (princedom, brightness, and
reconciliation), suffixal adjectives (helpful, helpless, talented, and absorbent), suffixal adverbs
(downwards, clockwise, gradually).
SUFFIX- is an obligatory bound morpheme which does not realize a lexeme and which follows
the base. Suffixes can have lexical or grammatical meaning in which case they are called
inflectional. Classification of suffixes is the following: according to the part of speech formed
there are noun suffixes (dom, ness, ee, ery, ance), adjectival suffixes (able, less, ful, ic, ous),
verb-forming prefixes (en, ify, ize), adverb-forming suffixes (ly, ward, wise); according to the
base to which the suffix is added suffixes can be: deverbial (er, ing, ment, able), denominal
(less, ish, ful, ist, some), deadjectival (en, ly,ish,ness); according to semantic criteria suffixes
can denote: the agent of the action (er, ant, ist), appurtenance (an,ian, ese), collectivity (age,
dom, ery), diminutiveness (ie, let, ling); from the point of view of stylistic reference suffixes can
be stylistically neutral (able, er, ing) and stylistically marked (oid, ish); according to the degree
of productivity there are suffixes which are highly productive (er, ness, able) and there are those
which are less frequent (ure in closure or ft in gift); furthermore suffixes can be divided into two
categories: class-changing suffixes ( ure, ment,ful, ness) and class-maintaining suffixes (ie,

dom, ette). Some suffixes can be polysemous (ful can have two meanings: amounts and
measurements and characteristics and qualities) whereas other can have only one meaning (entreference to a person or thing that performs the action or that experiences the process described
by the original verb: absorbent). Some suffixes can be homonymous (ly as in adverb forming
suffix-slowly, nicely; and ly as an adjective forming suffix-leisurely, motherly). There is also
synonymy in suffixes: er and ist are synonymous in pairs: judo player and judoist; ist and ician
in semanticist and semantician. As to their origin suffixes can be native (ness, ish, dom) and
foreign (ation, ment, able). Suffixes are more numerous than prefixes and they are used in wordforamtion more often. The traditional suffixes used in recent word production are the following:
able, ac, aceous, age, aire, (al)ly, (i)ana, ate, ation, side, dom, ectomy, ed, ee, eer, eering, er, ry,
ese, esque, ette, eur, euse, ey, fication, fy, grapher, graphy, ian, iatrics, ic, ical, ics, ie, y, in, ing,
ion, ish, ism, ist, ite, ity, ium, ive, ization, ize, latry, less, let, logist, logy, ly, ment, metrician,
ness, oid, or, osis, phile, phobe, ster, stress, tomy, wise, y. Some traditional suffixes acquire new
meanings and produce neologisms (itis which occurs in nouns of illness:bronchitis, dermatitis,
has acquired a new meaning obssesion : auctionitis, campaignitis, consumeritis, relationitis,
weddingitis. Some of new suffixesare : genic-telegenic, nik-discothequenik, ateer- pamphleteer,
flation- taxflation, cast-shortcast, gate-ippergate, mobile-bloodmobile, wich, burger, naut, rama,
thon, tron, happy,in, out, off
Suffixes hood, ship and doom are used to make abstract nouns from the names that refer to
people; the names for members of a family have a suffix-hood; nouns ending in hood refer to
stated, conditions, or periods of time in which something is experiences; words ending in er/-or
usually have ship; words ening in man also have ship; the suffix dom in nouns has two
meaning: a state or condition, and a realm or territory. The suffix ness is highly productive in
making new abstract nouns from adjective. These newlt formed nouns refer to the state or quality
described by the adjective. Note that the final y is replaced by I before adding ness. There
are of course some words which end in ness but are not the same as the previous examples:
forgiveness, witness, business. This suffixation is so productive that many abstract words are
formed in this way despite the fact that there are already existing words with the same meaning
but different morphological shape (humble-humility/humbleness). Formations in ness are
sometimes not necessary at all. Noun-formingsuffixes th and t are no longer productive
(height, width, strength, length, death, gift, drift, depth, weight, truth, sight, growth suffixes:

er, or, ar, ist, an, ian, eer, ee are all connected to people. Suffix ess combines with nouns that
refer to a woman of a female animal. When it is not possible to add this suffix to a noun,
femininity is indicated by woman or lady put before a noun of after a noun (woman-writer,
cleaning-lady). French ienne and ee are also possible indicators of femininity (comedienne,
fiance).Suffix ful can mean the amount of something (pocketful, mouthful, cupful) and it can
have a meaning of a characteristic or quality (beautiful, harmful, painful, graceful). Suffix ion
combines with verbs to form nouns which in this case refer to the state or process described by a
verb. The most common variations of the spelling of ion are ation, -ition, -sion and tion
(action, division, combination, prevention). There are of course words that end in this suffix but
do not have the same meaning (affection, attention, disposition, mission). Suffix ism can be
found in nouns referring to beliefs, or to behaviors related to such beliefs (Marxism, feminism,
alcoholism). The adjectival suffix sh has different meaning. When it is added to the names of
persons it means having the bad qualities of: manish, wamnish, childish, old-maidish). There
are some less common adjective suffixes: -like (has the meaning of resembling or in a manner
of), -some (is added to verbs and nouns to show attributes and characteristics or causing someone
to feel a particular emotion), -worthy (worthy of). The suffix able (-ible) is extremely
productive in modern English and it can be added to a very large number of nouns and almost
any transitive verb to mean able to be (washable). The form ible is found in French and Latin
borrowings (possible, digestible). able can also mean qualities (sth that is fashionable is in
fashion). To denote smallness we can use diminutives and suffixes to form them( let, y/ie, kin,
ling), but smallness can also be implied with words that imply smallness( kid, cottage, hamlet,
pocket, globule, molecule, particle, chicken, maiden, kitten, freckle).
CONVERSION- is the process whereby a lexeme changes its word-class without the addition of
an affix as an overt morphological class-maker. Conversion is the change in form class of a form
without any corresponding change of form. The status of conversion within word-formation is
unclear: some linguists consider it as a branch of derivation (and it is sometimes referred to as
zero derivation, derivation by zero affix). Other terms which refer to the same phenomena are:
functional shift/change, shifting, functional conversion. The productiveness and proliferation of
the process of conversion as well as its frequency can be seen to be directly related to lack of
clear morphological distinctions between word classes in English. It seems that conversion is a
totally free process. Prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs, interjections, and even affixes can be

used as basses for conversion. Conversion (shifting) is the process by which English shifts forms
into new ones. Shifting has to do primarily with shift in grammar or in meaning. Shift in
grammar means functional shift, shift from one use to another and shift of meaning, comprises
specialization of meaning, its generalization and metaphor. There is also directionality of
conversion: verb to noun conversion, verbs can go from intransitive to transitive, adjective to
noun conversion, also some cases of conversion adverb/interjection/miscellaneous examples to
noun. There can also be verbs converted from nouns/adjectives/interjections/adverbs/particles.
There are also different levels of conversion: complete (floor), partial (the rich),approximate
(change in spelling or pronunciation: advice-advise; house-house=voicing, blood-bleed; breathbreathe=vowel modification, conduct, conflict, escort=shift of stress). Compounds,
derivatives, back-formed words, blends, acronyms, clipped forms, simple and complex words, all
part-of-speech classes, affixes can be the input material to the process of conversion.
Directionality of conversion has to do with assigning priority to one word-class as the starting
point in the process of conversion. The decision is based upon semantic criteria which are given
priority. Transformational analysis can be used to decide on directionality of conversion
(honeymoon (n)_honeymoon(v)).
RECURSIVENESS- is a property of lexical rules refers to the successive application of
different word-generating rules, or in other words, it is the ability of a lexical entry which is the
output of one lexical rule to be the input of another lexical rule. It is a property of lexical rules
which refers to successive multiple applications of word-generating rules to one and the same
entry. Recursiveness can also be observed in semantic transfer.
-prohibit +ion= prohibition- prohibition +ist =prohibitionist
COMPOUNDING- is a process of forming new words whose output are compounds. Among
neologism 90% of compounds are nouns. There are prefix-like and suffix-like compounds and
new rhyme compounds. They usually consist out of two elements but sometimes there are more
than two that are called noun sequences: father in-law, jack-of-all-trades, New Year Eve fancy
dress ball.. And there are cases where the first part of the compound is a compound and that is
called string compound.
NEO-CLASSICAL COMPOUNDS- are formed from elements of the classical languages and
even the root is not native. These formations are called neo-classical because they are created
wholly out of stems existing in the classical languages and therefore could be taken for Latin or

Greek, but they were unknown to ancient Greeks and Romans. Such compounds can be found in
many spheres of knowledge and human activities, and the coinage of scientific, technical,
scholarly, commercial and political terms is quite frequent in contemporary English. These are:
scientology, radioluminescence, radiometeorgraph, radioscopy, serigraphy, neurolinguistics,
otorhinolaryngology, hydrophaty, diplopia
ACRONYM-ia a word coined from the initial letters of the words which make up a phrase.
Some of these abbreviations are pronounced by pronouncing the letters, some by pronouncing
them as a word made from those letters, some are pronounced as full words (mr, mrs). They can
have plurals: MP-MRs.
NETSPEAK- language of the internet: www. Blog, CD
SHORTENING OR CLIPPING- is a process of word-building by means of subtracting one
part of the input word (or parts of two or more words): examination-exam, double-dub,
influenza-flu Word-forming processes normally involve the process of addition of a morpheme
to the base (in the case of derivation and compounding) on the other hand they can involve
subtraction (in the case of shortening, back-formation). Both addition and subtraction are
indicative of quantities changes involved in word-formation processes; qualitative changes on
their part involve the change of meaning (denotative or associative). The usage of the word
which is the result of clipping and of its original prototype-word is different; clipped words are
generally used in less formal situations than their original full-length forms. Shortening means
the reduction of a word where one part of the original word is subtracted; the slipped part need
not be a morpheme, it can just be an arbitrary part of the word (-ination in examination and
oratory in laboratory are not morphemes). There do not seem to be any phonological or spelling
reasons on the basis of which we can predict which part of the word will be cut-in other words,
some shortenings are made through the eye and some through the ear. Some clipped forms
get the ending y or er; Vicky-Victoria, Aussie-Australian, hanky-handkerchief; there are many
words which retain the finals: maths-mathematics, specs-spectacles; there are some irregular
clippings like bike-bicycle or mice-microphone. Shortening is type of root creating where these
roots can combine with bound morphemes: bike-bikes, fancy (derived from fantasy)-fancy(v)fanciful-fancifully-fancy-ball As a correlation between a shortened word and its full-length
counterpart it can be that of synonymy :doc-doctor, Betty-Elizabeth, Frisco- San Francisco (the
only difference is the presence of a stylistic marker). On the other hand the correlation could be

such that the clipped form becomes a separate word (these are called etymological doublets:
miss-mistress, fan-fanatic). Shortening produces new words which belong to the same part of
speech (with the exception of back-formation). The most part of shortened words are nouns:
photo, mike, telly, pram, vet, do, perm, than come verbs which are much rarer: perm, tab, dub,
vac, shortened adjectives are very few: comfy, fab(fabulous). There are different types of
clipping depending on whether the end, the beginning, or both the end and the beginning or the
middle part of the word is clipped. Final clipping ( back/hind-clipping) is the type of slipping
where the end of the original word is clipped and the beginning is retained: cinemacinematograph, lab-laboratory, pub-public house, ad-advertisement, coke-coca -cola, fabfabulous, gym-gymnastics, mac-mackintosh, ref-referee, veg-vegetable, vet-veterinary, psychopsychopath, memo-memorandum, pop music-popular, al-Alfred, ben-Benjamin, mex- Mexican,
co-op=cooperative association, prefab-prefabricated, cable-cablegram, taxi-taximeter cab, poliopolio melitis, ex-ex husband/wife Initial/fore-clipping is the type of clipping where the
beginning part is subtracted and the end part is retained: cello-violoncello, phone-telephone, busomnibus, Baldie- Archibald, Betty-Elizabeth, pike-turnpike road, plane-airplane, van-caravan,
chute-parachute, cute-acute. Final and initial clipping can be combined and that we call bothends clipping: flu-influenza, fridge-refrigerator, tec-detective, Liz-Elizabeth, Tave-Octavia. The
middle part of the word can be syncopated so that this type of clipping is called syncope (the
middle part of the word is left out): maths-mathematics, specs-spectacles, maam-madam,
cablegram-cable telegram, mailomat-mail automat. The omission of the middle part is also called
ellipsis. A clipping can lose its connection with the longer word of which it is a shortening so that
it no longer belongs to word-formation but it becomes an unrelated lexical unit (vamp-vampire,
pants-pantaloons, mob-mobile vulgaris, fan-fanatic). It also seems that examples such as lunch
and movie are on the way to independence since luncheon and moving picture are not often
used). There are also acronyms (words composed of the initials of other words). All kinds of
shortening are very productive in English. They show great combining ability and they form
basis for further word-formation processes.
ELLIPSIS- is defined as the omission of a word or words considered essential for grammatical
completeness. Ellipsis is morphology is the omission of a part of a word or parts of words or
phrases. Ellipsis may result in a change of lexical and grammatical meaning and the new word

belongs to a different part of speech (daily paper-daily; daljinskiupravljac- daljinski;

mobilnitelefon-mobilni Various other processes are often interwoven with ellipsis.
BLENDING- is compounding by means of clipped forms. The result of blending is a blend or a
portmanteau word which is a new lexeme formed from parts (not necessarily morphemes) of two
or more other lexemes: smog= sm(oke) +(f)og, brunch=br(eakfast)+(l)unch, portmanteau means
a big suitcase and Lewis Carroll first used this term. The majority of blends are neologisms:
cama=camel + llama. Most blends of earlier times and even some present-day coinages have a
punning or colloquial flavor or are terms of mockery. It only began to have a serious effect on
word-forming in 20th century. As for formal characteristic of blends, a blend is formed of
irregular fragments of two or more words. There is no general rule about the form that the
fragments are likely to take-sometimes they are recognizable as morphemes in the source word,
but most often they are just arbitrary parts of the original word. Depending on the prototype
phrases with which they can be correlated two types of blends can be distinguished: additive
(which can be transformed as an and phrase: cama, smog) and restrictive (transformable as the
phrase containing a head word and a prehead modifier which restricts its meaning):spam-spiced
ham, positron-positive electron, shamboo- sham bamboo. Another classification of blends based
upon the criterion of the nature of fragments entering the process of blending can be the
following: blends created of phonaesthemes (elements based on the principle so expressive
symbolism:flimmer=flicker+shimmer), blends created as suffixed words: washeteria, candyteria,
lunchteria, cheeseburger, fishburger) this group of words is the least likely to be interpreted as
blends, and the process is more like suffixing through analogy ( Watergate, Irangate,
Monicagate), there are compound blends which can be nominal compound blends:
screenager=screen+tennager, celtuce=celery+lettuce, they can be adjectival compound blends
(attractivating= attractive+captivationg, fantabulou=fantastic+fabulous), there are verbal
compound blends (meld= meld+weld, smothercate= smother+suffocate), then there are neoclassical compound blends (oceanaut=ocean+naut, oceanarium= ocean+ aquarium). Blending is
fairly productive in literary and scientific contexts (liger, paratroops=parachute+troops,
paraglider=parachute+glider; smackerel= smack+mackerel). Cockney rhyming slang belongs to
the general category of blending (slap and yell, kiss and tell).
BACK-FORMATION-(reversive/retrograde derivation) is a word-forming process which
involves subtraction of a part of the word usually interpreted as a suffix.= is the word-forming

process the output of which is word obtained by the deletion of actual or supposed affixes
(sightseeing=sight see, head-hunting=head-hunt). The most prominent reasons which give rise to
back-formation are: the need of filling the gap in vocabulary, the immediate need of expression,
the desire to make rhyme or for brevity. These words are characteristic of everyday language and
scientific register. Many of them are nonce words or neologisms. The most productive type of
back-formation is derivation of verbs, and composite verbs in particular, from compounds that
end in either er or ing.
METANALYSIS- is defined a re-interpretation of a particular structure by successive
generations, counter to etymology, e.g. beg was derived through misinterpretation of the suffix
which was taken to have aggentative meaning in the example begger , also enthise was backderived from enthusiasm as a result of metanalysis. The term metanalysis was first used by
Jespersen who defined it as an analysis of the word different from the original way of building it
up.
REDUPLICATION: is the word-forming process the output of which is a reduplicative
compound. Reduplicative compounds fall into three groups: reduplicative compounds proper
(hush-hush, murmur, blah-blah, hah-hah, bye-bye, puff-puff, quack-quack, pretty-pretty, goodygoody) and ablaut combinations (twin forms where one element is repeated with a slight
change in phonetic shape, usually with a different vowel or vowel consonant: chit-chat,
shillyshally, Ping-Pong, ding-dong, sing-song, flip-flop, zigzag, crisscross, bibble-babble, dillydally, tiptop, seesaw) and there are also rhyme combinations(twin forms that are made to
rhyme: boogie-woogie, argy-bargy, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy, humdrum, hurry-scurry,
lovey-dovey, mumbo-jumbo, pow-wow). Reduplicative compounds are all stylistically marked;
they are colloquial, familiar, nursery or slang words which are stylistically charged in that they
are overtly expressive, emotional, and playful. Semantically these words are predominantly used
to denote disorder and trickery, and they are usually derogatory and playful.
COMPOUND: a compound is a result word of the process of compounding. It consists of at
least two potentially free morphemes and no subsequently added bound morphemes through the
process of affixation, e.g. honeymoon is a compound but honeymooner is he output word of the
process of derivation by means of a suffix (the base to which the derivation rule has been applied
is however a compound). Compounds usually consist of two elements although there are some
examples of compounds made up of more than two elements (father-in-law, maid-of-all-work,

jack-of-all-trades, good-for-nothing, free-for-all, smash-and-grab, hit-or-miss, merry-go-round,

dishwasher-proof, nevertheless). The first element of a compound may itself be a compound
(aircraft carrier, out-patient clinic=string compounds). Combinations of more than two noun
elements are called noun sequences: New Year Eve fancy dress ball, Empire Air Raid Distress
Fund Flag Day Committee. Both compounds and noun sequences are on the increase in English
and the tendency is that the English language is getting closer than ever to German (when
compared to some earlier stages in the development of English, for example the time of Chaucer
or Shakespeare). A compound word shows structural cohesion achieved through the unity of
stress, solid or hyphenated spelling, semantic unity and the unity of morphological and syntactic
functioning. However, every rule-of-thumb definition of a compound can be proven to be
deficient and counter-examples can be given. For example: three different spelling of post
office-post-office- postoffice or loud speaker-loud-speaker-loudspeaker-does it mean we are
dealing with three different words resulting from different word-formation processes? Unity by
means of stress can also be questioned as a sole indicator of a compound (compounds that are
marked by three stress patterns: primary stress on the first component- honeymoon, goldfish,
grass-green; double stress: primary on the first part, secondary on the second: washingma,chine, lemon-,squeezer, test-,tube, sometimes both immediate constituents of a compound
have primary stress; armchair, hot-water bottle). In many cases accentual pattern of a
compound has a contrastive force (ring-,finger-the finger on which a ring is worn and finger
,ring the ring to be worn on a finger, as opposed to ear-ring or white house-a house painted
white and white ,house- where president lives or bird ,cage- a cage for a bird not for a monkey
and cage ,bird- a bird that can be kept in a cage). The solidity of a compound is further marked
by the semantic unity of the constituents and compounds rely formally and semantically on the
bases which form them and also on the underlying semantic inter-relations between structural
types: house warming, glass-house, window-cleaner, sky blue, evergreen, fancy-dress ball- all
belong to different structural types. Distributional patterns (order and arrangement of the basis)
of compounds are fixed and cannot be changed without a consequent change of meaning (sky
blue- blue sky, boat life- life-boat, fruit-market- market fruit). The structural meaning of a
compound can be presented and described as meaning inter-relations of its constituents
(structural meaning of the compounds: egg-slicer, egg-beater, coffee-grinder, cheese cutter,
salad-spinner, salt-shaker can be presented as the following structural pattern:

object+verb+instrument+ purpose marker or, using words, the same can be described as: for
that something is done by means of something. From the point of view of structure compounds
may have derivational patterns which are monosemic (the ones where is one-to-one
correspondence between structure and meaning) and polysemic (the relationship between
structure and meaning is complex so that we are dealing with what we call structural ambiguity).
The polysemy of the structure results in the polysemy of the compound (toy-man can have few
meaning: toy having a shape of a man, a toy maker, man who is like a toy and whom you can use
like a toy), gingerbread man, however, although having the same structural pattern, has neither of
the meanings stated- it means a biscuit made from flour and ginger spice which has the shape of
a man. Structural ambiguity is disambiguated in the form which is lexicalized. Talking about the
meaning of compounds it can be said that usually it is the second immediate constituent of a
compound which is its semantic head (the most prominent part). In other words, the semantic
center of the compound is most often the meaning of the second component modified and
restricted by the meaning of the first: spy-hole is kind of a hole; off-white is a kind of white.
Furthermore, the meaning of compounds can be said to be to a certain extent derived from the
compound lexical meaning of its parts and the built-in structural pattern. What follows is that it
can be assumed that semantically compounds are generally motivated lexical units (different
meanings of watch-to look attentively/a device; chronometer are reflected in the meaning of the
compound: bird-watcher, watch-dog, watch-tower, wrist watch; spring-board, board-piece of
wood, official group of people). On the basis of semantic centers and the built-in semantic
relations within the structural patterns compounds can be classified so as to belong to different
semantic groups: *object-instrument compounds with purpose marker = air freshener, aircondenser, bed-warmer, boot-scraper, brain-twister, can opener, lawn-mower, lawn-sprinkler,
key-finder; *object-agent compounds with habitual and profession marker= bartender,
beekeeper, bookbinder, door-keeper, bus-driver, fortune-teller, glass-blower, goalkeeper,
weightwatcher, window-dresser, wine-taster; *compounds indicating action= wine tasting, apple
growing, bloodshed, bootlicking, fox-hunting, mind-reading, wood-crying, weight lifting,
window-dressing; *instrument-action compounds=belly-landing, hand-work, lead-poisoning,
mercy killing, phone call, piano-playing, swordplay, wax-painting; *agent compounds with
profession markers : cleaning lady, dancing-girl, hangman, wash-woman; *place compounds
with purpose marker: dining room, dining hall, gambling house, peep-hole, runway, smoke-

room, swimming-pool; etc. There are compounds that are fully motivated and their meaning is
transparent: sky blue, wine tasting, apple growing, window-cleaning, slow-motion. Some
compounds are motivated only to certain extent and the degree of motivation varies: windowshopping, shoulder-bag, flower-bed. There are compounds which lack motivation altogether,
which are opaque: nightcap-an alcoholic drink taken at bedtime; in sports-the last event of the
program for the day; night rider-a member of Ku Klux Klan; slow-coach-smb who is slow;
moonshine-foolish thoughts, or whiskey made illegally. Compounds can be classified according
to different principles: according to the degree of semantic independence of components, parts of
speech, means of composition, types of basis, correlation between compounds and free phrases,
the degree of productivity. According to the *degree of semantic independence compound can be
paratactic (copulative, coordinative, additive) where we are dealing with the case in which
both components of a compound have equal status: carrier-pigeon, fighter-bomber, boy-friend,
Anglo-Saxon. And these compounds fall into three groups reduplicative (repetition)
compounds made by repetition of the same base: fifty-fifty, blah-blah, bye-bye. These
compounds can be onomatopoeic in that they imitate the sounds which they repeat: pooh-pooh,
hah-hah, chug-chug. They can be used as nouns, verbs or attributively. Reduplicative compounds
can repeat the first element with slight changes and also initial consonant (rhythmical twin
forms): chit-chat, crisscross, zigzag. Many repetition compounds are nonce-words or nursery
words: tootsy-wootsies. Repetition compounds are mostly restricted to colloquial style; they are
emotionally marked, and have a fairly low degree of productivity. Third category of paratactic
compounds are so called additive compounds which denotea person or an object which is
characterized by two qualities which are really important: producer-director, bed-sitter
(bedroom+ sitting room), Afro-Asian. Opposite to paratactic compounds there is a category of
hypotactic compounds (subordinative compounds) where the parts of a compound are
semantically related in such a way that one member is subordinated to the other. The member
which is semantically dominant is the head member of a compounds: long in head-long, stand in
head-stand. Examples: matchmaker, trouble-shooter, dish-washer, spin-dryer, window-shopping,
air-conditioning, off-white, stone-deaf, evergreen, looker-on, passer-by, down-hiller, highjumper, kidney-shaped, three-cornered, better-looking. These compounds are by far largest in
number.

Functionally compounds can belong to *different parts of speech and they can be found in all
parts of speech. However, compound words are most likely to be nouns, adjectives, verbs, and
adverbs. Each part-of-speech compound is characterized by its own derivational and semantic
pattern to which it belongs. In terms of part of speech of the component parts of a compound,
compounds can be classified into nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc. And compound nouns can be
classified into noun plus noun compounds, verb plus noun compounds, adjective plus noun
compounds, etc. compound adjective can be of the type noun plus adjective, adjective plus
adjective etc. All classifications of compounds in terms of part of speech of their components
have some drawbacks and are dubious from the point of view of lexical theory and reality- it is
questionable whether the component of compounds have part of speech status at all.
Nevertheless, such classifications although inadequate and simplistic can be used in classroom
for pragmatic reasons. Compound nouns are of several types: the first element may be: a noun
(silver fish), adjectives (bluebell), a pronoun (he-goat), a verb (cutpurse) an adverb (overcoat).
There are noun+ noun compounds: goldfish, skinhead, windmill, doorknob, frogman, snowflake,
girl-friend, window-cleaner, egg-beater, coffee-grinder, diamond cutter, tongue-twister, weekend,
spotlight, maternity leave, grievance leave, study leave; verb +noun compounds: pickpocket,
pinchpenny, lift-bridge, lift-gate, killjoy, kill time, spoil-sport, hovercraft, playground, peep-hole,
breakneck, searchlight, rattlesnake, flashlight; adjective+ noun compounds: blackbird,
blackboard, bluebell, commonwealth, highway, nobleman, shorthand, smallpox, easy-chair
(greenhouse, sick-room, sweet-shop we are dealing with adjectives converted into nouns as first
elements), noun +verb compounds: nosebleed, earthquake, sunshine, sunrise, handshake,
handstand, headstand, toothpick, jailbreak, heartbreak, daybreak, bee sting; pronoun+ noun
compounds: he-goat, she-wolf, he-man; adverb +noun (or particle +noun or nominalized verbstem) compounds: afterthought, aftershave, aftertaste, aftereffect, side-effect, onrush, outcast,
downpour, outburst, outbreak, by-pass, output, input, up-start, overcoat, underclothes; verb
+particle compounds: drawback, drop-out, fallout, setback, set-up, hang-out, take-off, stand-by,
mix-up, look-out, get-away, left-overs, turn-overs (there compounds owe their origin to the
process of conversion); phrase compounds: daughter-in-law, forget-me-not, marry-go-round, hasbeen, jack-of-all-trades; noun+ gerund compounds: weight-lifting, bird-watching, horse-riding,
sightseeing, air-conditioning, brainwashing, dressmaking, daydreaming, skydiving, scuba-diving,
handwriting, sleep-walking, spring-cleaning, house-warming, trouble-shooting: gerund + noun

compounds: waiting list, diving-board, dining-room, swimming-pool, tracing paper, reading

room, chewing gum, cooking tomato, blotting paper, dancing shoes, skipping-rope; participle
+noun compounds: running water, dancing bear, bleeding-heart, cleaning lady, singing bird.
Compound adjectives mostly consist of two elements, the second of which is an adjective
proper (evergreen, off-white, drip-dry, word-perfect) or a particle (home-made, heart-shaped,
chauffeur-driven, half-starved). The first element can be a noun (hand-written, crystal-clear), an
adjective (bitter-sweet, reddish-brown), an adverb (over-cautious, over-eager, underpriced, allimportant) or a particle (sweltering hot, stinking rich). There are also combinations of ordinal
numeral and noun (first-rate, second-hand) and combinations with self (self-centered, selfconfident). A syntactic word group can be converted into an adjective: early-warning, up-to-date,
out-of-date, to-the-point, well-to-do, happy-go-lucky, day-to-day, down-to-earth, and free-andeasy. Semantic relations which are encoded in adjective compounds are various: such
compounds can focus on the object (trustworthy, bloodthirsty), cause (seasick, sand-blind),
resemblance (stone-deaf, milk-white), measure or extent (lifelong, ankle-deep), restriction
(dishwasher-proof, color-blind), combination of qualities (bitter-sweet, dead-alive, deaf-mute),
qualification of some quality (light-green, dark-blue) etc. Compound participles: snow-covered,
heart-shaped, man-made, hand-made, home-made, weather-beaten, self-taught, heart-breaking,
far-reaching, well-meaning, best-looking, underdone, overcooked, outstretched, widespread.
Semantic relations encoded can be: agentative (government-owned, self-taught), instrumental
(poverty-stricken, weather-beaten, man-made, hand-made, machine-made), objective (heartbreaking, self-relying, self-starting, self-regulating, self-winding),locative (home-made, selfcentered, heart-felt, outgoing, incoming, British-born, British-bred, shop-soiled), temporal
(everlasting, long-lasting, night-blooming), manner (easy-going, well-meaning, clean-shaven,
full-grown) etc. There is one particularly common pattern present in compound adjectives- the
one which consists of adjective, noun or numeral + noun +ed suffix
(dark-haired, blue-eyed, high-heeled, old-fashioned, low-spirited, faint-hearted, open-hearted,
open-minded, good-natured, hard-fisted, cold-blooded, blue-blooded, pig-headed, dog-eared,
gold-laced, one-sided, three-cornered). There is yet another type of combination similar to this:
an adverb+ derivative in ed: well-mannered, well-behaved.
There are some other marginally productive patterns of compound adjectives: verb +verb
adjective compounds: go-go (dancer), pass-fail (test), and stop-go (economics); verb + particle

adj. compounds: see-through (blouse), see-through (marker), wrap-around (skirt). Compound

verbs fall into four groups: 1.those with an adverb (particle) as their first element: outdo, outlive,
outrun, outgrow, outjump, outhero, outlast, outmaneuver, outpace, outplay, outshine, outsmart,
out-talk, outvote, out-walk, outwit, overcharge, overcompensate, overcook, overdo, overeat,
overestimate, overfill, overheat, overload, overproduce, over-react, oversleep, overspend,
overwork, overpower, overrule, overrun, overturn, underestimate, undermine, underdo, undersell,
understate, under-indulge, underplay, under-se, undervalue, underline, underscore, uphold, upset,
update, upgrade, uprate, uproot, downgrade, downplay, downturn; 2. Those occurring as particles
only (these can be treated as compound adjectives): hand-made, home-made, everlasting, handwritten, cone-shaped, well-meant, widespread, frost-bitten; 3. Those formed by back-formation:
babysit, playact, housekeep, spring-clean, mas-produce, chain-smoke, dry-clean, hand-wash,
roller-skate, ice-skate, window-shop, spin-dry, type-write, proof-read, sleep-walk, backbite,
spoon-feed, double-glaze, double-check, double-cross, cross-examine(back-formed verbs can be
treated as compound verbs only from the point of view of structure and not from historical
viewpoint); 4. Compound verbs formed by conversion (usually from nouns, adjectives or
syntactic groups): spotlight, side-track, handcuff, blacklist, pinpoint, blackmail, honeymoon,
nickname, safeguard, shipwreck, whitewash, tiptoe, hero-worship, week-end, streamline,
waterproof, cold-shoulder, wet-blanket, court-martial. Compound verbs are particularly common
in colloquial speech and slang and especially in American English.
Compound adverbs are most commonly formed by suffixation (-ly is added to a compound
adjective base): whole-heartedly, single-handedly, single-mindedly, (such adverbs can rightly be
treated as derivatives), however, other patterns are found: double-quick, off-hand, flat-out, overnight, herein, hereby, therefore, thereafter, hereafter, anywhere, everywhere, nowhere, sideways,
crossways, sidelong, nevertheless, meantime, sometime, anytime, headlong, downstairs, upstairs,
indoors, outdoors, oversees, furthermore, maybe, would-be, etc. there are also adverbial groups
which can be treated as compounds: at once, of late; adverb particles are often found in pairs
forming adverbial phrases: to and fro, off and on, up and up, backwards and forwards, up and
down, through and through, back and forth, down and out, out and out, up and about, in and out,
over and over, on and on, by and by. Compound prepositions: into, onto, upon,
notwithstanding. There are also prepositional groups like: on to, out of, up to, as for, ahead of, by
means of, in place of, across from, along with, apart from, away from, because of, due to, except

for, in front of, inside of, in spite of, instead of, next to, owing to, safe for, up against, up until,
within, without. There are some prepositions that are used as adverbs: in between, on board,
outside, throughout, within. Compound conjunctions and conjunctional groups can be
illustrated by the following examples: as if, so that, and/or, as though, as soon as. Compound
numerals: twenty-nine, thirty-seven. Compound pronouns mostly occur among: indefinite
pronouns (with body and one)- somebody, anybody, nobody, someone, anyone, no one,
everybody, everyone +compound with thing: anything, something, nothing, everything;
interrogative pronouns: who ever, what ever, which ever; personal pronouns: myself, yourself;
compound relative pronouns: whoever, whatever, whichever.
*According to the types of bases compounds can be classified into compound proper: doormat, magnifying-glass, push-chair, bottle-opener, key-finder, search light, pin-point, week-end,
wine-tasting, evergreen, navy blue, furthermore, hereafter, into, anybody etc. and derivational
compounds: long-legged, cross-legged, dog-eared, faint-hearted, single handed, doublebreasted, three-cornered, show-offish, show-businessy, looker-on, passer-by, single-mindedly,
hold-up, break-through, breakdown, honeymoon (v), court-marital (v), stage-manage, massproduce, baby-sit, breast-feed, type-write, proof-read. *According to means of composition
compounds are classified into: compounds formed by joining constituents with no linking
element: gold-fish, moonshine, table-mat, door-scraper, house-dog, dog-house, pot-pie, pie-pot
and compounds with a linking element: speedometer, statesman, Afro-American, electromagnetic, electro-chemical etc. *From the point of view of history of language it can be said
that compounding is one of the oldest word formation methods in English. The process in getting
increasingly productive- it is far more productive than it was in the age of Chaucer and
Shakespeare. In its tendency to make compounds English is getting closer to German. In English,
the type noun+ noun compounds goes back to Old English: head ache, heartache, rainbow. To the
oldest layer also belong the adjective+ noun compounds. Some compounds have changed
phonetically and semantically (daisy=days eye, husband=master of the house, woman=woman
person, lord-bread keeper, kidnap=to seize a young goat). Compounding is extremely productive
today and new compounds appear almost daily.
ENDOCENTRIC COMPOUND- is a compound where it is a hyponym of the head element in
the compound: gold fish is a kind of a fish and wedding ring is kind of a ring.

EXOCENTRIC COMPOUND= bahuvrihi compound: is a compound which does not denote

the hyponym of the head element (as it is the case with endocentric compounds) but it denotes
some feature of the entity denoted: pickpocket, spoilsport.
SYNTHETIC COMPOUND=VERBAL COMPOUNDS OR VERBAL-NEXUS
COMPOUNDS: is a compound word whoSe head element contains a verbal base including an
affix and whose modifying element can potentially be the argument of the verb : street cleaner
book-binder, house-warming, time-sharing
CONVERSION: is the process whereby a lexeme changes its word class without the addition of
an affix as an overt morphological class-maker. Conversion is the change in form class of a form
without any corresponding change of form. The status of conversion within word-formation is
unclear: some linguists consider it as a branch of derivation (zero derivation) but for some
scholars conversion is a word-formation process in its own right on the level with derivation and
compounding. Other words that refer to the same phenomena are: functional shift, functional
change, shifting, functional conversion. The productiveness and proliferation of the process of
conversion as well as its frequency can be seen to be directly related to lack of clear
morphological distinctions between word classes in English. It would be worthwhile pointing out
that there is a substantial difference between the words in English which have the same shape
and no overt part-of-speech maker and which belong to more than one part of speech: love (n)
and love (v). there seem to be no restrictions- morphological or word-class- on the forms to
which the process of conversion can be applied so that compounds, derivatives, back-derived
words, lends, acronyms, clipped forms, simple and complex words and also all part-of-speech
classes can be input material to the process of conversion. It seems that conversion is a totally
free process. Prepositions, conjunctional, adverbs, interjections, and even affixes can be used as a
basis for conversion: to up, to down, on the up, but me, no buts, a maxi, to counter, super (ajd.).
Many of these form classes can undergo conversion into more than one form class (down-prep.
Can be converted to a verb (he downed his beer), to a noun (he has a down on me), to adjective
(the down train). Further examples of as many as three words of the same form derived from
one another by functional shift could be: brush- noun denoting an instrument turned into a verb
to brush which is again turned into a noun your coat needs a good brush; or wire meaning
long piece of metal with a shift of meaning becomes a telegraph and a verb to telegram.
Conversion (or shifting) is the process by which English shifts forms into new ones. Shifting has

to do primarily with the shift in grammar or in meaning. Shift in grammar means functional
shift- shift from one use to another, and shift of meaning comprises specialization of meaning,
generalization of meaning and metaphor. The major kinds of conversion are noun to verb (to
bottle, to bridge, to skin, to vacation, to veto), verb to noun (guess, cheat, move), adjective to
noun (the blind, the rich, the poor) and adjective to verb (to dirty, to empty). There are also minor
categories of conversion: conversion from affixes to nouns isms and ologies; from verbs to
adjectives: under-the tale, leg-of-mutton, leg-of-mutton sleeve. Directionality of conversion
has to do with assigning priority to one word-class as the point of departure in the process of
conversion. The difficulty of doing this can be considerable but it may be said, as a rule-ofthumb, that the decision is based upon semantic criteria which are given priority and upon the
language competence of a native speaker (the starting point of conversion is the form whose
semantic priority is implied by the convert- and this can be tested by means of transformation= to
elbow means to use elbows while moving so the meaning of the noun is incorporated into the
meaning of the verb and therefore the noun is the base and this is noun to verb conversion; the
blacks- adjective to noun conversion. Verb to noun conversion (deverbial substantives) can be
classified into the following types according to semantic and logic criteria: deverbial nouns
meaning the instance of an action (from dynamic verbs): move, laugh, get-away; converted
nouns from stative verbs: doubt, the haves and the have-nots; deverbial nouns which indicate the
agent of an action: help, bore, cheat, spy, rebel; nouns converted from verbs denoting place of the
action: drive, dump, turn; nouns converted from verbs denoting object or result of the action:
peel, catch, suspect, limp, sigh, smile, whisper, cough, break-down, wash-out; the same object
meaning can be found in the following examples (have, give, make, take +noun converted form a
verb): have a look/swim/try/go/ride/rest/puff/sip, give a
cry/grunt/howl/laugh/shudder/push/creeps, make a move/dash/guess/ offer, take a
look/peep/stroll etc. there are nouns converted from verbs that indicate an instrument of the
action and also have a purpose marker: cover, cure, permit, polish, sting, wrench. There are also
miscellaneous phrases with the verb to be + the noun converted from a verb: to be in a hurry/in a
rush/on the boil/on the go/ on the increase/on the move. Adjective to noun conversion: a daily, a
regular, a comic, a crazy, marrieds, newly-weds, the Reds, whites and blacks, savages, Liberals,
evils Adjectives denoting a quality common to a group of people may be used to denote such
people as a group: the sick, the wounded, the poor, the rich, the old, the infirm, the dead, the

blind, the deaf, the mute, the hopefuls (but not the hope-nots or hopelesses). In appositions to
proper names English may use an adjective to refer to a single person: Charles the bold,
alexander the Great, Ivan the terrible. There is also a number of adjective turned into nouns
denoting peoples of different countries:
English, British, Irish, Welsh, Dutch. Superlatives can also be used as nouns: the worst of it and
the best of it. Nouns converted from adjectives can appear in some idiomatic expressions: the
long and the short of it, to take the rough with the smooth and in some clich expressions such
as: to make the most of something, if the worst comes to the worst, the dead of night, in general,
at large, what is the good. Emotional adjectives converted into nouns may be used as vocatives:
you silly, you stupid, my dear, he is such a silly, men are such sillies, he is a big bore. Color
adjectives can turn into nouns: Ive never seen such a brown; there are different greens, the white
of an egg, the white of the eye. There are also some examples of converted superlatives preceded
by at and a possessive noun: at best, she did her best, I dislike him the most; or preceded by an
of: his remarks were of the vaguest. There are some classes of adverb to noun and interjection
to noun conversion: ups and downs, to be on the up, his oohs and ahs; also a few pronouns can
be turned into nouns: you must have a little something; it was a bunch of nobodies. There are
also miscellaneous examples of conversion to nouns (defective verbs, stereotyped phrases,
sentences, conjunctions, affixes): must, forget-me-not, know-how, go-between, whats his name,
ifs and buts, boo, isms, ologies. Any word or part of a word or combination of words can be
turned into a noun if it is quoted as such (there are known as quotation substantives):s in how
many s-es are there in professor or ex in my ex and her husband. Minor categories of
conversion within the noun word-class comprise change of secondary word-class: non-count
nouns become count nouns (teas-different kinds, coffees- many cups of it, a Shakespeare- his
book, a Renoir-his painting. Verbs converted from nouns may denote action: to fish, to butcher,
to ape, to dog, to kitten, to crusade, to parade, to queue, to race, to file, to experience, to pity, to
lust, to panic, to caricature, to mimic, to picture, to mother, to father, to shadow, to head, to
shield, to fool, to tower, to landscape, to treasure, to coat, to soldier, to nurse, to referee, to sidestep; instrument: to whip, to fork, to knife, to screw, to telescope, to nail, to hammer, to x-ray, to
bomb, to bicycle, to motor, to balloon, to ski, to brake, to elbow, to gum, to mail, to ship; place:
to book, to can, to box, to cradle, to land, to surface, to center, to field, to stage, to floor, to shop,
to yacht; time: to vacation, to honeymoon, to week-end, to winter, to holiday; deprivation of an

object: to bone, to dust, to milk, to skin, to peel, to scalp. A number of compound verbs are
formed from nouns by conversion: to spotlight to handcuff, to pinpoint, to blackmail, to
honeymoon, to nickname, to safeguard, to week-end. Verbs converted from adjectives: to bald, to
dim, to idle, to pale, to better, to busy, to still, to warm, to level, to savage, to calm, to dirty, to
dry, to empty, to lack, to gray. This category of conversion competes with - en suffixation and
sometimes there are two forms in use: to clack, to blacken. There are some examples of verbs
converted from other sources (interjections, adverbs, particles): to ooh, to ah, to blah-blah, to
encore, to hurrah, to shoo, to near, to further, to down, to round, to up. Minor categories of
conversion within the verb-class include the cases of change of secondary word-class:
intransitive verbs change to transitive: to run (the water); transitive verbs change to intransitive:
your style reads well, the door opened; intransitive verb becomes intensive: he fell flat;
monotransitive verb becomes complex transitive: they wiped it clean. A distinction can be made
between cases of complete conversion and those of partial conversion. Complete conversion
covers the cases where the converted word has taken all the characteristic of a new word-class:
floor (v)-floor (n). In cases of partial conversion the converted word takes on only some of the
characteristic of the other word-class: the rich (noun from an adj.) does not take plural ending
even though it has plural meaning. When adverbs are converted to adjectives we also deal with
cases of partial conversion: an off chance, the then minister, the above example. Nouns used as
adjectives are also instances of partial conversion: London taxi and London cannot be compared
so it is not a true adjective. Another distinction is worthwhile making that between approximate
and complete conversion. Approximate conversion refers to the fact that a work in the course of
conversion may undergo a change of pronunciation or spelling. The principle kinds of alteration
are: voicing of final consonant in verbs: advice (n)-advise(v), house(n)-house(v), abuse(n)abuse(v), sheath(n)-sheathe (v), teeth(n)-teethe(v), half(n)-halve(v), relief(n)-relieve(v); vowel
modification: blood-bleed, breath-breathe, food-feed; shift of stress- when verbs are converted
into nouns the stress sometimes shifts from the second to the first syllable: abstract, conduct,
conflict, contrast, compound, digest, discount, escort, ferment, export, extract, import, insult,
misprint, produce, permit, present, progress, rebel, record, refund, refill, remake, survey suspect,
transform, transport, break-down, get-away, press-up, sit-up. There are, however, examples of
disyllabic noun-verb pairs which do not differ in stress: balance, censor, contract, defeat,
discipline, dispute, defeat, disguise, release, support.

PHRASEOLOGY
PHRASEOLOGY: is the study of word-groups (the members of which are functionally and
semantically inseparable). Such word-groups are called phraseological units and they are word
equivalents (put up with-tolerate, put off-postpone, turn down-reject, give in-yield, set upestablish, under-the-weather--depressed, under-the-tablesuppressed, many cooks spoil the
broth- ruin). In contrast to phraseological units there are word-groups which can be defined as
free of variable word-groups or phrases (where the component members have greater semantic
and structural independence) and they are studied in syntax. Phraseology is also concerned with
other combinations whose lexical components are constant and with fixed meaning and which
come into speech or witting ready-made; these combinations are set-phrases, clichs, idioms,
proverbs, familiar quotations. Phraseology would be interested in word-combinations like these:
black-sheep, black market, red herring, green fingers, crocodile ears, cold war, to give a cold
shoulder, out of the blue, Dutch treat, French leave, swan song, tiger economy, queer fish, small
fry, big shot, better late than never, turn another leaf, every cloud has a silver lining, blessing in
disguise, irony of fate, you can never win, you cant please everybody, to sleep the sleep of the
just, wash ones hands of something, to out-Herod Herod, to err is human to forgive is divine, all
is well that ends well..
PHRASEOLOGICAL UNIT: is a set-phrase, a word-group the members of which are closely
linked so that they are functionally and semantically inseparable. There are word-equivalents to
phraseological units (the phrase nothing to write home about is the same as unremarkable; on
the rocks the same as unsuccessful.
CLICH- is a stereotyped or excessively used expression. It is a result of an anti-creative
tendency of language. Clichs belong to informal language and social communication. They are
there to be either avoided (which can be difficult and sometimes even impossible) or to be made
fun of (by those who wish to poke fun at people to use them). Clichs can be individual words
(candle-snatcher, cliff-hanger), phrases (to have the last laugh, to add fuel to the flames, off the
beaten track, alive and kicking, to walk on air, too good to e true, the good old days, its all
Greek to me, to rise from the ashes, asking for trouble, to break the ice, the lay your cards on the
table, armed to the teeth, mind your own business), proverbs and sayings (absence makes the
heart grow fonder, no news is good news, let bygones be bygones, life is not a bed of roses, life

begins at forty, it is as broad as it is long, the road to hell is paved with good intention), lively
metaphors (blind alley, couch potato, wet blanket, red herring, monkey business, walking
encyclopedia, castle in the air, alphabet soup, baby snatching, cradle-snatcher, backhander, cliffhanger, top brass, bodice ripper, kiss of life, kiss of death, land of milk and honey, a baptism of
fire, the bask and beyond, a bone of contention), catchy rhymes based on assonance (true blue,
eager beaver, namby-pamby, ants in your pants, arty crafty, big-wig, chalk and talk, high ants
dry, by hook or by crook, like it or lump it, make or break, put up or shut up, Aga saga), and
alliteration (live and learn, live and let live ,to little too late, to make a mountain out of a
molehill, rob Peter to pay Paul, through thick and thin). There are a number of stereotyped and
clich expressions containing eponyms (Achilles heel, Adams apple, cut the Gordian knot, as
old as Methuselah, cross the Rubicon, Hercules task, the sword of Damocles, Judas
kiss).Clichs encapsulate and petrify a certain experience (past or present) so that it can be
conveniently and effectively used in communication which is in the way made easier and more
economical. Only excessive use makes clichs undesirable. Phrases can employ various
nationalities, these ethnic slurs occur in every language and in English they are used in speech
rather than in writing: French leave, Irish bull (crazy statement), Roman holiday (entertainment
from watching barbarism), Chinese wall ( a barrier), Dutch courage (when you are drunk), Its all
Greek to me, go Dutch with somebody, Welsh rabbit, Goth ( rude and uncivilized person).
Clich examples of adverb particles that can be found in imperatives and exclamations: Get out!
Look out! Hands off! Be off!
SIMILE: is a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared as in she is
like rose (metaphor). Idiomatic commonplace comparisons characteristically used in spoken
English(the expressions are short and vivid to catch attention, sometimes striking and slightly
exaggerated in meaning: as black as coal/ink/ midnight/pitch/soot, as blind as a bat/beetle/a
mole, as bold as brass/lion, as brave as a lion, as bright as day/ noonday/the light/silver, as brown
as a berry, as busy as a bee, as changeable as the moon/weather, as cheerful as a lark, as clear as
a bell/crystal/day/noonday, as cold as charity/a frog/ice/marble/a stone, as cool as cucumber, as
cunning as a fox, as dark as midnight, as dead as a door nail, as deaf as a post, as deep as a well,
as dry as a biscuit/bone/dust/mummy/stick, as drunk as a lord, as dumb as a statue, as easy as
ABC, as fair as a rose, as fat as utter/pig, as fierce as a tiger, as firm as a rock, as fit as a flea, as
flat as a boars/pancake, as free as the air, as fresh as a daisy/rose, as good as gold, as graceful as

a swan, as greedy as a dog/wolf, as green as grass, as happy as a king, as harmless as a dove, as

heavy as lead, as hungry as a hunter, as light as air/feather, as like as two beans/as two drops of
water, as two peas, as mute as a fish, as obstinate as a mule, as old as the hills, as pale as
death,/ghost, as poor as a church mouse, as proud as a peacock, as red as blood/cherry/fire/rose,
as rich as a Jew, as round as an apple/ball/globe, as sharp as a needle/razor, as silent as the
dead/grave/starts, as silly as a goose/sheep, as sober as a judge, as straight as an arrow, as strong
as a horse/lion, as stupid as a donkey, as sure as death, as sweet as honey/sugar, as tall as steeple,
as tame as a cat, as thin as a rake, as timid as a hare, as ugly as a toad/scarecrow, as warm as
wool, as wet as a serpent, etc. There are also some commonplace comparisons which do not take
the asas shape: like fish out of water, off like a shot, to follow like a shadow, to spread like
wildfire, like a blue-arsed fly, drop like flies, feel like a million dollars, fight like Kilkenny cats,
like water off a ducks back, eyes like a hawk, like a bear, like a bull in a china shop, like a red
rag to a bull Fixed similes are not neutral and should be used with care. They are informal and
humorous.
FIXED EXPRESSIONS: two word fixed expressions: here and there, now and then, hit and
miss, give and take, odds and ends, part and parcel, rack and ruin, rough and ready, wine and
dine, pick and choose, first and foremost, on and on, on and off, back and forth, up and down,
through and through, in and out, over and over, sooner or later, all or nothing, sink or swim
everyday language is full of fixed expressions. Their meaning can be transparent: that is it, thats
that. Fixed expressions can be used as sentence modifiers: if the worst comes to the worst, if all
else fails, as luck would have it, in other words, at any rate, at all events, in all likelihood, in all
probability, in any case, on the other hand, on second thoughts, on the contrary, on the whole
ADJECTIVES THAT OFTEN GO IN PAIRS: fixed pair and should be memorized as such:
for better for worse, cut and dries, dead and gone, drunk or sober, fair and square, free and easy,
good or bad, great and small, high and dry, the long and short, more or less, past and present, rich
and poor, rough and ready, short and sweet, slow and steady, slow but sure, through thick and
thin
IDIOMATIC PAIRS: Alpha and Omega, bag and baggage, through fire and water, flesh and
blood, over head and ears, heart and soul, part and parcel, sheep and goats, skin and bone, sword
and shield, tooth and nail.

IDIOMS: peculiar uses of particular words or special kind of phrases which have become
stereotyped in English. An idiom is a group of words in fixed order which have a different
meaning from what they would have if their meaning were taken individually. Examples: bite
your tongue/ hold your tongue/ find you tongue/ give somebody the rough side of your tongue/
give somebody the rough edge of your mouth/with tongue in check. Literal vs. Idiomatic
meaning (where literal meaning does not have any sense: to have green fingers, pull your socks
up, your salad days, storm in a teacup-tempest in a teapot, drop a brick, kick the bucket, red
herring Idioms are typically metaphorical: they are metaphors which have become petrified or
fossilized:
To have smb in the palm of your hand, hand in hand, it takes two to tango, to pull the rug under
your feet
In their broader sense idioms can be said to include: semi-idioms (some very common multiword
metaphors acid test), metaphorical proverbs (people who live in glass houses shouldnt throw
stones), common simile (poor as a church mouse), proverb like expressions (thats the way the
cookie crumbles) and phrasal verbs.Odd-ball (sb who behaves in a strange, unusual way); overthe-top (exaggerated); round the bend (crazy); middle-of-the-road (moderate, not extreme)
IDIOMATIC ADJECTIVES AND NOUN PHRASES: animal spirits (natural cheerfulness),
arch look, bad blood, blind alley, black sheep, blue stocking, chicken-hearted man, cold feet,
cold war, crocodile tears, diamond weeding, double-minded man, French leave, Dutch courage,
free-lance, high flier, hush money, leap year, queer fish, quixotic project, red-letter day, small
talk, sleeping partner, wet blanket, white lie, swan song.
Idiomatic phrases: an apple of discord, a bed of roses, a bed of thorns, birds of a feather, a fish
out of water, a house of mourning, a jack of all trades, the ins and outs of a thing, the ups and
downs of life, the man in the street, a big fish, a big fish in a small pond, a small fish in a big
pond, a cold fish, drink like a fish, a fish out of water, have other fish to fry, have bigger fish to
fry, like shooting fish in a barrel, neither fish nor fowl, there are plenty more fish in the sea
Idioms: before your eyes, cant take your eyes of smb, feast your eyes on sth, have eyes in the
back of your head, keep your eyes peeled, only have eyes for someone or something, open
somebodys eyes, with your eyes closed, with your eyes glued to something, to think you are at
bees knees, a dogs breakfast/dinner, to be dressed up like a dogs dinner, going to the dogs,
throw smb to the dogs, dog and pony show, a pie in the sky, by the skin of their teeth, dance to

somebodys tune, out of this world, jump of your own skin, theres no smoke without fire, cover
your tracks, get out of bed on the wrong side, have a bee in your bonnet, beat your chest, drop a
brick, have a finger in every pie, laugh your head off, a wolf in sheeps clothing.
IDIOMATIC WORDS: some English words and phrases whose meaning you cant work out on
the basis of your knowledge of the meaning of their constituent parts and your knowledge of the
pattern used in the formation of a particular word or phrase: salad days, trim your sails, the salt
of the earth, red herring, acid test, a fishing expedition, shoot yourself in the foot, play
gooseberry, grapevine, lose your marbles, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys, learn the ropes,
lovebirds, bullish, pig-headed, sheepish, clockwork, overcook, hothouse, glass-house,
greenhouse, to have green fingers, tempestuous, a smart cookie, push up the daisies
PHRASAL VERB: is a combination of a verb and an adverb and/or preposition, which have a
single meaning. Functionally and semantically they are indivisible wholes: put up, put up with,
put out, set up, make up, make up for, let down, turn down, give in, give up, do away with
PROVERBIAL SAYINGS: what cannot be cured must be endured; prevention is better than
cure; a rolling stone gathers no moss; Rome was not built in a day; better late than never; easy
come, easy go; as you make your bed. So you must lie; too many cooks spoil the broth; a stitch
in time saves nine; all his gees are swans; birds of a feather flock together; you shouldnt put all
of your eggs in one basket
FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS: to be or not to be; to err is human, to forgive is divine.

STYLISTIC VARIETIES OF ENGLISH VOCAULARY

REGISTER- refers to the domain of communication (its subject matter) as reflected in
language, especially in its vocabulary.
THEMATIC GROUP: is a group of words joined together by the common subject-matter they
are related to (travelling= timetable, map, suitcase, luggage, passport, journey, train, plain, bus;
mechanical, musical and visual apparatus= wireless, record, turn-table, switch, speed selector,
loud-speaker, dial, wave length, TV set, aerial, satellite dish, record-player, slide..

STYLISTIC VARIETY- this is the matter of stylistics which studies the relationship between
extralinguistic factors such as topic dealt with, or social circumstances of communication and
linguistic means. From the point of view of the subject spoken about English language breaks
into variety of registers, and as for the social circumstances of speech process the language can
be decomposed into a variety functional styles. The same subject can be spoken about in
different ways depending on the social circumstances and the speaker is free to choose among
options which are open to him in vocabulary. There are words which fit equally well any register
and any style and these we call stylistically neutral. On the other hand, there are words which fit
only certain subject domains of communication and only a certain social occasions-such words
are said to be stylistically marked. In dictionaries these words are labeled: formal, colloquial,
informal, very formal, familiar, offensive, slang, non-standard, old-fashioned, poetical etc.
Respective examples are the following: cause celebre (formal), me in you and me (colloquial),
piss (informal), talent sexually attractive girl (very formal), daddy (familiar), wop an Italian
( very offensive), merry-go-round (rhyming slang for pound), aint (substandard) apothecary
(old-fashioned), damsel (poetical). The broadest binary division based upon stylistic criteria is
the division into formal and informal English. Words belonging to formal style are sometimes
referred to as learned words (hereby, hereafter, hereupon, furthermore) Poetic diction is also
associated with certain vocabulary (array-clothes, brow-forehead, behold-see).
SLANG is a functional variety of language whose main characteristics are : expressiveness,
abundant use of metaphor in word creation, exaggeration, irony, or pejorative attitude: Adam and
eve- believe; Anna Maria-fire, airs and graces-faces, almond rocks-socks, all bloody
interpolations are considered to belong to this style: abso-bloody-lutely The most vital
examples of slang words get accepted by large speech community and they are no longer felt as
stylistically marked (bore, chap, shabby, sham, snob). The difference can be made between
general slang and special slang (one used by some specific social or professional group). The
language of the underworld is called cant. Stylistic varieties in English (usually referred to as
attitudinal varieties) are closely related to all other strata of English language varieties such as
registers (varieties according to subject matter), social dialects (varieties on the basis of
education and social standing), standard-substandard English, varieties according to medium
(these have to do with the difference between written and spoken English), varieties which have
to do with bilinguism and code-switching (varieties according to interference), and also to

idiolects (varieties based upon individual language habits and difference among speakers of
English).
Another term borrowed form French that is synonymous with clang is argot. Argot is the jargon
of particular class of people and SLANG includes this but is used more broadly to include
particular periods and colloquial speech in a general way.Back slang is created when a word is
spelled backwards (top oreeb= pot of beer, say=yes, tekram=market and emag=game.
*Colloquialmeans pertaining to common/ordinary/every day or familiar conversation, not
formal, academic or literary. It can be used to describe terms used in normal discourse between
people of a particular language group. In many languages there are colloquial phrases and
expressions, and many of these may not be listed in standard dictionaries. However, they are
often used, and everyone knows what they mean. [Etymology: Colloquial is from colluquy, Latin
colloquium, from con, with, + loquor, to speak]. Examples of colloquial language: 'We must get
someone in to help us balance the books. Do you know a good accountant?" "It's no good leaving
her a message to phone you back. You can wait until the cows come home and she'll never call!"
Slang (noun) refers to words, phrases and uses of language that are considered to be very
informal and the usage is often restricted to special contexts or is only used by a particular class,
profession, social group, etc. e.g. prison slang, or in speech by people who know each other well.
Some slang includes abusive, offensive or vulgar language and 'taboo' words. Most slang
expressions are spoken, not written and would be considered inappropriate in formal types of
communication. Examples of slang "We get smashed (drunk) every Friday night." "We've all had
this bug (illness) for a week."
Colloquialisms are the broad category of informal speech which includes slang. Slang is a subcategory of Colloquial expressions. No, there is a slight difference. Colloquialism is when a word
is used in informal or relaxed use. Most native speakers will know what a colloquial word
means. Slang is when a word is used by a small group of people, e.g. teenagers, which is not
used by most people. A common example of colloquialism is the word "cool''. Cool can be found
in the dictionary and everyone knows what it means. However, a person would not use "cool"
when writing an article or a paper. The ironic thing is that in the 1960's, cool was slang only
hippies knew what the word meant.
Irony, humor, and metaphor are characteristic of slang. It does not spare anyone, and it is most
often cruel due to its pejorative attitude. More examples of slang: keep ones lips buttoned,

mates, quid, money for old rope (easily obtained), blew the money (spent it recklessly), terrific,
hit the jackpot, slashed, lifer, the coppers, the bottle, stacks of dough, so-and-so, old woman,
Kiwi, lid, we behind the ears, a grand there are words that are used in informal English to
intensify the meaning of the adjective: fast, wide, solid, bone, stiff, boiling, brand, sick, stone.
NETSPEAK: classified as dynamic jargon in and out of itself, rather than slang. It is heavily
base upon technical vocabulary used by computer programmers and actually all users of
computer networks. Linguistically, the most interesting feature of Netspeak is its morphology. It
abounds in acronyms and abbreviations (FAQ-frequently asked questions; TIA- thanks in
advance), deriatives (internet, hypertext), eponyms (Gabriel, Veronica-different protocols for
searching the internet), functional shifts (flame- an angry answer, to respond angrily). There are
quite a few analogical formations in Netspeak (email: snail mail). Building words by
metaphorical extension is ever so present in Netspeak and metaphor is a powerful mechanism
which triggers neologisms (mailbomb&mailbombing- sending a lot of emails to a single address
in order to disrupt the system of the recipient). Creativeness is also shown by special
symbols=emoticons to express emotions (happiness, sarcasm) or by all-caps to indicate shouting.
It is interesting that Netspeak inspires grammatical and vocabulary changes in the process of
assimilation (surfovanjeumestokrstarenje, skrolovanjejernemasrpskereci). Some Netspeak words
have become international words (internet and cybercaf) and there is an ever gwoing number of
Netspeak words which have split over in our offline lives. Examples:
Netiquette, yahooligans, webpedia, hactivist, btw, cyber, cyberish, cyperpunk, cypersace,
cybernaut, cyberart, cyberartist, cyberculture, cybercaf, cyberians, cybercrime, cyberlawyer,
cyberlaw, cyberphobia, e-cash, e-commerce, e-mail, emoticon, smiley, FWIW- for what its
worth), fyi-for your information,lol, modem mantra, systop, telnet, SoHo, MorF, README file,
ROTFL, Trojan horse, www, webliography, bug
PEJORATIVE is a word or expression which is derogatory and shows disapproval (junk food,
kinglet, manish, junk mail, wooly-minded, womanish), it is critical as well.
COLLOQUIAL- is used to describe words, expressions, or language that are informal, and
especially used in conversation. It refers to style or usage and means that which is characteristic
of an appropriate to ordinary or familiar conversation rather than formal speech or writing.
Conversational and informal can be said to be synonymous with colloquial and they all refer to
types of speech or to usages not on a formal level. It is important not to associate negative

evaluation with any of these terms and they should not be taken to mean bad, vulgar or
incorrect- rather they describe the ordinary everyday languages of cultivated speakers.=
Vulgate (n) (rom Late Latin- vulgate edition- popular edition), past participle of vulgare- to
make pulic or common), from vulgus- pulic= means everyday, informal or substandard speech
of people.
COLOQUIALISM- is a colloquial word or phrase.
FORMAL- refers to language style opposite to informal. And there is VERY FORMAL.
INFORMAL- refers to language style, opposite to formal: oops, show biz, loo, nightie, to-diefor, woozy
EUPHEMISM- is a polite word or expression that people use when they are talking about
something unpleasant or embarrassing, such as illness, death, sex, bodily functions, war :
redundancy-unemployment, underprivileged-poor, urinate/pass water/relieve yourself- piss, put
to sleep-kill In Serbian: skratitizaglavu, oticiBogunaistinu, zaobiciistinu for death in
English: pass away/go the way of all flesh/to breathe ones last/ to be gathered to ones feathers/
to join the great majority/ to come to an untimely end
EUPHEMISTIC- is a language that uses polite words and expressions to avoid words which
directly refer to something considered unpleasant or embarrassing.
TABOO WORD: that are usually avoided.
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS (PC)- with reference to language means: terns which are
politically correct or politically incorrect. Political correctness has to do with the rejection of
language considered discriminatory or offensive. Politically correct means appropriate to the
prevailing political or social circumstances. Examples:
Vertically challenged-short, horizontally challenged-fat, physically challenged-handicapped,
cerebrally challenged-stupid, experientially enhanced-old. To ne non-PC is generally thought to
be a positive attribute. Some people feel that politically correct euphemism are unacceptable,
even offensive and deserving ridicule and that the words to be avoided are, on the contrary
straightforward, unobjectionable, harmless and respectable, so its better to day a person who is
blind than hard of seeing, visually challenged, sightless, visually impaired, people with
blindness
As civilizations decline, they become increasingly concerned with form over substance,
particularly with respect to language. At the time of WWI they called it shell shock; the term

was simple, clear and descriptive. A generation later, it was called combat fatigue. Today the
two words have doubled in size, and there is even an acronym PTSD; post-traumatic stress
disorder, the term being more in tune with current effete sensibilities. Euphemisms and
politically correct language can be pretentious, ridiculous, and at their worst they can damage the
causes they claim to benefit (neutralize for kill). Its often better to use; person with a disability
than disabled person, people who are deaf than deaf people, a student with dyslexia than dyslexic
student
DYSPHEMISM- opposite of a euphemism) is the substitution of a harsher, deprecating,
offensive, ugly or otherwise unpleasant locution for one relatively neutral or more attractive in
sound or meaning (brat for child, bitch for woman). Dysphemism is an antonym of euphemism.
A dysphemism is a statement which is intended to sound much worse than reality. Political
campaigns make great use of dysphemisms. A dysphemism and a euphemism are often two sides
of the same coin (e.g. a guerilla in neutral language can be called freedom fighter by some and
terrorist by others).

REGIONAL VARIETIES OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY

VARIETIES OF ENGLISH- There are several variety classes, such as: regional variation
technically termed regional dialect; there are varieties according to education and social standing
known as social dialects; educated English is referred to as Standard English and uneducated
English is often called substandard; individual varieties of language used by individual speakers
of English are called idiolects; varieties according to subject matter are called registers; varieties
according to medium cover the difference between spoken and written English; varieties
according to function are referred to as functional styles or attitudinal varieties. Within each
variety class there are a number of varieties. Language variation according to region is referred
to as regional dialect. Within British English the best known are Irish, Scots, and Northern,
Midland, Welsh, South-western, and London varieties. Within North America the broadest
division into geographical dialects into: Canadian, New England, Midland and Southern varieties
of English. Regional variation is predominantly seen in phonology but its vocabulary system is
also distinctive. Social dialects cover the distinction made upon the criteria of education and

social standing. Popular terms used to refer to such variation are: educated and uneducated
speech. Educated speech is also referred to as BBC English (or Network English in the US) or
standard English whereas uneducated English is often called substandard. Educated speech is
given prestige and it is used by government, the press, and learned professions. The two broadest
national standards are British and American English. Some characteristics of American English
as distinct of British are the following: grammatical differences are few (two past participle
forms for got-get, gotten; informally they use past instead of perfective), there are some
differences in spelling, like leaving out ou in color or ue in catalog; lexical differences are
numerous, there is also a difference in emotional and stylistic coloring of the words; in
phonology the differences are also prominent. Altogether the differences between the two
standards are such that some tend to qualify AE as the American language. Scots E, Irish E,
Canadian E, South African E, New Zealand E, Australian E represent other national standards.
Varieties of English according to subject matter are referred to as registers. It is presumed that he
switches to the appropriate one to handle the subject in question: law, computing, cookery The
varieties according to medium are those determined by the medium of communication-speech or
writing. Both varieties are characterized by their own use of linguistic means: style, vocabulary,
discourse strategy. Varieties according to attitude (to the speaker, to the subject spoken about, to
the purpose of communication) are often referred to as functional styles. Stylistic varieties are
most often talked about in terms of the dichotomy: formal and informal English. The relationship
between variety classes is complex: some styles suit certain subject matter (e.g. formal style is
inextricably related to legal English); one particular medium is often favored by a certain register
(e.g. legal statuses are expressed in writing); standard English is by definition the language of
educated people; certain combinations of varieties can be incompatible (e.g. the subject of
courtship and formal style or a parliament debate on the subject of fox-hunting and informal
style). All varieties no matter how remote they may seem have something in common and that is
referred to as the common core of English.
AMERICAN ENGLISH: sick, dope, hella tight, down, ride, bounce, bling-bling, sweet, hot,
ghetto, dog, chill/chill out, what up/whats up/ wassup/ wazzup
IRISH ENGLISH: make bags of sth (mess)< bold-naughty, culchies-rural people, drawerspanties, eat the head off-attack verbaly, eejit-fool, fella-male, fluthered/stocious-drunk, fostering-

fussing, full shilling-mentally competent, giving out-scolding, gom-idiot, guff-idle talk, headermentally unstable person
SCOTTISH ENGLISH: blackmail, sculduddery, slogorne, flirt, weird, gowf, gift of the gob;
aye/eye, ben/mountain, brae/river bank, drum/whiskey, glen/valley, kirk/church, loch/lake,
bonny/beautiful, janitor/caretaker, lassie/girl, wee/small, wean/child, greet/cry,weep, glar/mud,
quare/large,big, bachle/clumsy person, keech/you dont want to know
In India, English continues to be the official working language. There are 15 national languages
recognizes by the Indian constitution and there are spoken in over 1600 dialects. INDIAN
ENGLISH has impoverished and innovated so much so that it is referred to as Hinglish, a kind
of Pidgin English that draws form Hindi and other local languages (fooding and lodging, chestbosom) and it is more formal than British English and it has preserved some language
characteristics which would be appropriately qualified as belonging to poetic fiction.
There are two views of AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH: the first that Australian English is an
endangered species and the other one is that it deserves extinction. The truth is that Australian
English in interesting for its rich store of idosyncractic words and expressions and for its unique
way for building words: smoko=coffee break, milka person who delivers milk, ecorat=economic
rationalism optic nerve= perv that ogles.
Some core Australian words: bludger, brass, razoo, dobber, woop woop, wowser, happy as a
bastard on Fathers day, off like a rides nightie, shell be apples; shark biscuits novice surfer
(Australian neologism);
Food= counter tea, chico roll, minimum chips, silverbeet, chocolate crackles, fairy bread, lollies
Drinking terms= the middy, pot, schooner, dead marine, tinnie, the leg opener
Coffee= flat white, short black, long black, macchiato
Mozzies=mosquitoes, Barbie-barbeque, oldies=parents, bizzo=bizons
AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND IDIOMS: a stitch in itme saves nine, accidentally on
purpose, afters, as sure as eggs, at the end of the day, Aussie, offsider=assistant, off your
face=drunk, Ocker, argy-bargy
CANADIAN ENGLISH: preferred spelling: cenre, cigarette, catalogue, moustache, cauldron,
omelette, defence, practice, pretence (-se if these are verbs), aesthetic, organize, enroll, fulfill,
install, marveled, marvelous, signaled, skillful, woolledn, colour, glamour, favour, honour*bill,
trunk, tins, side bacon, lawyer, drugstore or chemists, chips, click for kilometer, dick-nothing,

eh?-dont you think?, elevators, tap, railways, humidex-combined effect of heat and humidity,
loonie=loony- Canadian dollar coin, AWOL absent without official leave.
LEXICOGRAPHY
LEXICOGRAPHY: is the writing or compiling of dictionaries. Lexicology and lexicography
have the same object of study- the vocabulary of a language. Lexicography is concerned with
formal, functional, and semantic description of the words which constitute the explicit lexicon of
a particular language. Lexicographers aim to present the whole of the vocabulary of a language
but in practice this is not possible sine the vocabulary of a language is ever-growing and everchanging. Over the past four hundred years there has been a steady increase in the number of
words listed in dictionaries (e.g. the first monolingual English dictionary by Robert Cawdrey
published in 1604 contained 2500 words, Samuel Johnsons dictionary which appeared in 1755
had 40.000; Noah Websters American Dictionary in 1828 had 70.000; James Murrays Oxford
English Dictionary in 1928 had over 400.000 words; and Phillip Goves Websters Third New
International Dictionary which appeared in 1961 had 450.000 words). The dictionaries in which
the words explained and their explanations belong to the same language are called monolingual
dictionaries, and if explanations are given in another language or languages they are called
bilingual or multilingual. Dictionaries which deal with contemporary vocabulary are called
synchronic, whereas those dealing with the words in historical perspective are called historical
(or diachronic) dictionaries. Both monolingual and bilingual dictionaries can be general (if they
present a comprehensive list of words of a given language) or special (if they cover only one
particular segment of the vocabulary system of a given language, e.g. dictionaries of synonyms,
homophones, confusable words, phrasal verbs, idioms, neologisms, eponyms, clich, proverbs,
toponyms, surnames..). Monolingual dictionaries which give an alphabetical list of words or
expressions and their special and technical meanings (definitions) that they have in a particular
book, subject, field or area of usage are called glossaries. An alphabetical list of words in a book
or books together with notes saying where they appear and how they are used is referred to as a
concordance. Dictionaries which contain alphabetically arranged articles on various topics
covering all branches of knowledge or all aspects of one subject are called encyclopedias. A
dictionary of synonyms and synonymous expressions (of all the words by which certain idea can
be expressed) is called thesaurus (Greek-treasury). Learners dictionaries are dictionaries

specially compiles and designed to meet the needs of foreign language learners. The main
problems in lexicography are the selection of head-words (which words to choose, having in
mind the unsolved problems related to the question of what is a word); whether to include certain
neologisms, nonce-words, slang words, technical words belonging to certain highly specialized
domains of human activity. There is also problem of arrangement of lexical entries and it is about
the problem of synonymy and sequencing of different meaning (in historical dictionaries various
senses are presented in chronological order and in synchronic one they are given in frequencybased order). Dictionaries also give information on word-classes, valencies (lexical and
grammatical), they also indicate different stylistic values of words attaching labels like: formal,
colloquial, very informal, slang, etc. Dictionary definitions of word meanings can be linguistic
(If they include only linguistically relevant information) and encyclopaedic (if they include
pragmatic elements). The meaning of the word can be defined in terms of its synonyms or by
context. Category features assign the word to a semantic category (ladybird belongs to the
category of insect). Function features assign a usual state or activity to the word (ladybird flies
fly).Property features list the properties distinguishing the reference of the word (an insect
which is small, round, has black spots and can fly small, round, red, black spots, wings).
= The semantic entry for the word lady bird may be expressed as : LADYBIRD: (insect), (fly),
(small), (round), (red), (black spots), (wings).
The most notable lexicographers of English are: Samuel Johnson, Noah Webster, Joseph
Emerson Worcester, and James Murray. The most famous English lexicographer was Dr. Samuel
Johnson (1709-1784) who was also a poet and a literary critic. He hoped to fix the English
language in a pure state. His Dictionary which included 40.000 words, was published in 1755
after nine years of hard work. He was not an innovator, but he was better than his predecessorsespecially in his treatment of word-meanings. His definitions were illustrated by a choice of
literary quotations by which he meant to preserve the wells of English undefiled. For more than
a century his dictionary remained the most authoritative. Noah Webster (1758-1843), however,
did not want to fix the language but rather to replace S.J.Dictionary as the American standard
( he vigorously supported the idea that American English needed its own dictionary). His two
volume American Dictionary of the English Language which included 70,000 words, appeared
in 1828. His contemporary Joseph Emerson Worcester published his Comprehensive
Pronouncing and explanatory Dictionary of the English Language in 1830. His dictionary was

based on British lexicographic tradition. James Murray wanted to establish the histories of
English words by arranging literary quotations in chronological order. The English Philological
Society sponsored his dictionary A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. In 1884
the first volume appeared, then three more editors were added and after fifty years a final
volume appeared in 1928 (by the time the dictionary was called the Oxford English Dictionary, it
had 240,000 head-words and included 400,000 entries based on 5,000,000 quotations). The
definitions were precise and the etymologies were the best compared to previous lexicographic
tradition and the critics described the dictionary as monumental and without parallel.
LEXICOLOGY- is a branch of linguistics which studies words, word-forming morphemes and
word-groups.
LEXICON: is an inventory of words of a language and all relevant information concerning their
pronunciation, meaning, and their potential to enter certain morphological and syntactic patterns.
It is a list of lexemes which, on their part, ate the objects of study of both lexicology and
morphology. There are two lexicons: implicit list of all possible words that could be generated
by the grammar of words and explicit list that only contains the actual words of a language. One
persons word knowledge is termed mental lexicon.
CONCORDANCES: are a huge source of information about a language. The raw text is called
CORPUS and the linguistic observations form a DATABASE. The database relies on the corpus.
SELECTION OF EXAMPLES: is one of the features of dictionaries, they should be real and
drawn from the corpus.
PRESENTATION STYLE: different are used by different dictionaries. Some are notorious for
the typographical eccentricities, numerous uses of brackets, symbols and abbreviations together
with different typeface. In comparison to the dictionaries characterized by this kind of
professional mystique there are those whose presentation is simple and clear.