Modern English Word-Formation

1) The first principle of classification that, one might say, suggests itself is the part of speech formed. Within the scope of the part-of- speech classification suffixes naturally fall into several groups such as: a) noun-suffixes, i.e. those forming or occurring in nouns, e. g.

–er, –dom, –ness, –ation, etc. (teacher, Londoner, freedom, brightness, justification, etc.); b) adjective-suffixes, i.e. those forming or occurring in adjectives, e. g. –able, –less, –ful, –ic, –ous, etc.

(agreeable, careless, doubtful, poetic, courageous, etc.); c) verb-suffixes, i.e. those forming or occurring in verbs, e. g.

–en, –fy, –ize (darken, satisfy, harmonize, etc.); d) adverb-suffixes, i.e. those forming or occurring in adverbs, e. g. –ly, –ward (quickly, eastward, etc.).

2) Suffixes may also be classified into various groups according to the lexico-grammatical character of the base the affix is usually added to. Proceeding from this principle one may divide suffixes into: a) deverbal suffixes (those added to the verbal base), e. g. –er,

–ing, –ment, –able, etc. (speaker, reading, agreement, suitable, etc.); b) denominal suffixes (those added to the noun base), e. g. –less,

–ish, –ful, –ist, –some, etc. (handless, childish, mouthful, violinist, troublesome, etc.); c) de-adjectival suffixes (those affixed to the adjective base), e. g. –en, –ly, –ish, –ness, etc. (blacken, slowly, reddish, brightness, etc.).

3) A classification of suffixes may also be based on the criterion of sense expressed by a set of suffixes. Proceeding from this principle suffixes are classified into various groups within the bounds of a certain part of speech. For instance, noun-suffixes fall into those denoting: a) the agent of an action, e. g. –er, –ant (baker, dancer, defendant, etc.); b) appurtenance, e. g. –an, –ian, –ese, etc. (Arabian, Elizabethan,

Russian, Chinese, Japanese, etc.); c) collectivity, e. g. –age, –dom, –ery (–ry), etc. (freightage, officialdom, peasantry, etc.); d) diminutiveness, e. g. –ie, –let, –ling, etc. (birdie, girlie, cloudlet, squirreling, wolfing, etc.).

4) Still another classification of suffixes may be worked out if one examines them from the angle of stylistic reference. Just like prefixes, suffixes are also characterized by quite a definite stylistic reference falling into two basic classes: a) those characterized by neutral stylistic reference such as

–able, –er, –ing, etc.; b) those having a certain stylistic value such as –old, –i/form,

–aceous, –tron, etc.

Suffixes with neutral stylistic reference may occur in words of different lexico-stylistic layers. As for suffixes of the second class they are restricted in use to quite definite lexico-stylistic layers of words, in particular to terms, e.g. rhomboid, asteroid, cruciform, cyclotron, synchrophasotron, etc.

5) Suffixes are also classified as to the degree of their productivity.

Distinction is usually made between dead and living affixes. Dead affixes are described as those which are no longer felt in Modern English as component parts of words; they have so fused with the base of the word as to lose their independence completely. It is only by special etymological analysis that they may be singled out, e. g. –d in dead, seed, –le, –l,

–el in bundle, sail, hovel; –ock in hillock; –lock in wedlock; –t in flight, gift, height. It is quite clear that dead suffixes are irrelevant to present-day English word-formation, they belong in its diachronic study.

Living affixes may be easily singled out from a word, e. g. the noun- forming suffixes –ness, –dom, –hood, –age, –ance, as in darkness, freedom, childhood, marriage, assistance, etc. or the adjective-forming suffixes –en, –ous, –ive, –ful, –y as in wooden, poisonous, active, hopeful, stony, etc.

However, not all living derivational affixes of Modern English possess the ability to coin new words. Some of them may be employed to coin new words on the spur of the moment, others cannot, so that they are different from the point of view of their productivity. Accordingly they fall into two basic classes — productive and non-productive word-building affixes.

It has been pointed out that linguists disagree as to what is meant by the productivity of derivational affixes.

Following the first approach all living affixes should be considered productive in varying degrees from highly-productive (e. g. –er, –ish,

–less, re–, etc.) to non-productive (e. g. –ard, –cy, –ive, etc.).

Consequently it becomes important to describe the constraints imposed on and the factors favouring the productivity of affixational patterns and individual affixes. The degree of productivity of affixational patterns very much depends on the structural, lexico-grammatical and semantic nature of bases and the meaning of the affix. For instance, the analysis of the bases from which the suffix –ize can derive verbs reveals that it is most productive with noun-stems, adjective-stems also favour ifs productivity, whereas verb-stems and adverb-stems do not, e. g. criticize

(critic), organize (organ), itemize (item), mobilize (mobile), localize

(local), etc. Comparison of the semantic structure of a verb in –ize with that of the base it is built on shows that the number of meanings of the stem usually exceeds that of the verb and that its basic meaning favours the productivity of the suffix –ize to a greater degree than its marginal meanings, e. g. to characterize — character, to moralize — moral, to dramatize — drama, etc.

The treatment of certain affixes as non-productive naturally also depends on the concept of productivity. The current definition of non-productive derivational affixes as those which cannot hg used in Modern English for the coining of new words is rather vague and maybe interpreted in different ways. Following the definition the term non-productive refers only to the affixes unlikely to be used for the formation of new words, e. g. –ous, –th, fore– and some others (famous, depth, foresee).

If one accepts the other concept of productivity mentioned above, then non-productive affixes must be defined as those that cannot be used for the formation of occasional words and, consequently, such affixes as

–dom, –ship, –ful, –en, –ify, –ate and many others are to be regarded as non-productive.

The theory of relative productivity of derivational affixes is also corroborated by some other observations made on English word-formation.

For instance, different productive affixes are found in different periods of the history of the language. It is extremely significant, for example, that out of the seven verb-forming suffixes of the Old English period only one has survived up to the present time with a very low degree of productivity, namely the suffix –en (e. g. to soften, to darken, to whiten).

A derivational affix may become productive in just one meaning because that meaning is specially needed by the community at a particular phase in its history. This may be well illustrated by the prefix de– in the sense of ‘undo what has been done, reverse an action or process’, e. g. deacidify (paint spray), decasualize (dock labour), decentralize

(government or management), deration (eggs and butter), de-reserve

(medical students), desegregate (coloured children), and so on.

Furthermore, there are cases when a derivational affix being nonproductive in the non-specialized section of the vocabulary is used to coin scientific or technical terms. This is the case, for instance, with the suffix –ance which has been used to form some terms in Electrical

Engineering, e. g. capacitance, impedance, reactance. The same is true of the suffix –ity which has been used to form terms in physics, and chemistry such as alkalinity, luminosity, emissivity and some others.

Conversion, one of the principal ways of forming words in Modern English is highly productive in replenishing the English word-stock with new words. The term conversion, which some linguists find inadequate, refers to the numerous cases of phonetic identity of word-forms, primarily the so-called initial forms, of two words belonging to different parts of speech. This may be illustrated by the following cases: work — to work; love — to love; paper — to paper; brief — to brief, etc. As a rule we deal with simple words, although there are a few exceptions, e.g. wireless — to wireless.

It will be recalled that, although inflectional categories have been greatly reduced in English in the last eight or nine centuries, there is a certain difference on the morphological level between various parts of speech, primarily between nouns and verbs. For instance, there is a clear- cut difference in Modern English between the noun doctor and the verb to doctor — each exists in the language as a unity of its word-forms and variants, not as one form doctor. It is true that some of the forms are identical in sound, i.e. homonymous, but there is a great distinction between them, as they are both grammatically and semantically different.

If we regard such word-pairs as doctor — to doctor, water — to water, brief — to brief from the angle of their morphemic structure, we see that they are all root-words. On the derivational level, however, one of them should be referred to derived words, as it belongs to a different part of speech and is understood through semantic and structural relations with the other, i.e. is motivated by it. Consequently, the question arises: what serves as a word-building means in these cases? It would appear that the noun is formed from the verb (or vice versa) without any morphological change, but if we probe deeper into the matter, we inevitably come to the conclusion that the two words differ in the paradigm. Thus it is the paradigm that is used as a word-building means.

Hence, we may define conversion as the formation of a new word through changes in its paradigm.

It is necessary to call attention to the fact that the paradigm plays a significant role in the process of word-formation in general and not only in the case of conversion. Thus, the noun cooker (in gas-cooker) is formed from the word to cook not only by the addition of the suffix –er, but also by the change in its paradigm. However, in this case, the role played by the paradigm as a word-building means is less obvious, as the word-building suffix –er comes to the fore. Therefore, conversion is characterized not simply by the use of the paradigm as a word-building means, but by the formation of a new word solely by means of changing its paradigm. Hence, the change of paradigm is the only word-building means of conversion. As a paradigm is a morphological category conversion can be described as a morphological way of forming words.

Compounding or word-composition is one of the productive types of word- formation in Modern English. Composition like all other ways of deriving words has its own peculiarities as to the means used, the nature of bases and their distribution, as to the range of application, the scope of semantic classes and the factors conducive to productivity.

Compounds, as has been mentioned elsewhere, are made up of two ICs which are both derivational bases. Compound words are inseparable vocabulary units. They are formally and semantically dependent on the constituent bases and the semantic relations between them which mirror the relations between the motivating units. The ICs of compound words represent bases of all three structural types. The bases built on stems may be of different degree of complexity as, for example, week-end, office- management, postage-stamp, aircraft-carrier, fancy-dress-maker, etc.

However, this complexity of structure of bases is not typical of the bulk of Modern English compounds.

In this connection care should be taken not to confuse compound words with polymorphic words of secondary derivation, i.e. derivatives built according to an affixal pattern but on a compound stem for its base such as, e. g. school-mastership ([n + n] + suf), ex-housewife (prf + [n + n]), to weekend, to spotlight ([n + n] + conversion).

Structurally compound words are characterized by the specific order and arrangement in which bases follow one another. The order in which the two bases are placed within a compound is rigidly fixed in Modern English and it is the second IC that makes the head-member of the word, i.e. its structural and semantic centre. The head-member is of basic importance as it preconditions both the lexico-grammatical and semantic features of the first component. It is of interest to note that the difference between stems (that serve as bases in compound words) and word-forms they coincide with is most obvious in some compounds, especially in compound adjectives. Adjectives like long, wide, rich are characterized by grammatical forms of degrees of comparison longer, wider, richer. The corresponding stems functioning as bases in compound words lack grammatical independence and forms proper to the words and retain only the part-of-speech meaning; thus compound adjectives with adjectival stems for their second components, e. g. age-long, oil-rich, inch-wide, do not form degrees of comparison as the compound adjective oil-rich does not form them the way the word rich does, but conforms to the general rule of polysyllabic adjectives and has analytical forms of degrees of comparison. The same difference between words and stems is not so noticeable in compound nouns with the noun-stem for the second component.

Phonetically compounds are also marked by a specific structure of their own. No phonemic changes of bases occur in composition but the compound word acquires a new stress pattern, different from the stress in the motivating words, for example words key and hole or hot and house each possess their own stress but when the stems of these words are brought together to make up a new compound word, 'keyhole — ‘a hole in a lock into which a key fits’, or 'hothouse — ‘a heated building for growing delicate plants’, the latter is given a different stress pattern — a unity stress on the first component in our case. Compound words have three stress patterns:

a) a high or unity stress on the first component as in 'honeymoon,

'doorway, etc. b) a double stress, with a primary stress on the first component and a weaker, secondary stress on the second component, e. g. 'blood-

?vessel, 'mad-?doctor, 'washing-?machine, etc. c) It is not infrequent, however, for both ICs to have level stress as in, for instance, 'arm-'chair, 'icy-'cold, 'grass-'green, etc.

Graphically most compounds have two types of spelling — they are spelt either solidly or with a hyphen. Both types of spelling when accompanied by structural and phonetic peculiarities serve as a sufficient indication of inseparability of compound words in contradistinction to phrases. It is true that hyphenated spelling by itself may be sometimes misleading, as it may be used in word-groups to emphasize their phraseological character as in e. g. daughter-in-law, man-of-war, brother-in-arms or in longer combinations of words to indicate the semantic unity of a string of words used attributively as, e.g., I-know-what-you're-going-to-say expression, we- are-in-the-know jargon, the young-must-be-right attitude. The two types of spelling typical of compounds, however, are not rigidly observed and there are numerous fluctuations between solid or hyphenated spelling on the one hand and spelling with a break between the components on the other, especially in nominal compounds of the n+n type. The spelling of these compounds varies from author to author and from dictionary to dictionary.
For example, the words war-path, war-time, money-lender are spelt both with a hyphen and solidly; blood-poisoning, money-order, wave-length, war-ship— with a hyphen and with a break; underfoot, insofar, underhand—solidly and with a break[25]. It is noteworthy that new compounds of this type tend to solid or hyphenated spelling. This inconsistency of spelling in compounds, often accompanied by a level stress pattern (equally typical of word- groups) makes the problem of distinguishing between compound words (of the n + n type in particular) and word-groups especially difficult.

In this connection it should be stressed that Modern English nouns (in the
Common Case, Sg.) as has been universally recognized possess an attributive function in which they are regularly used to form numerous nominal phrases as, e. g. peace years, stone steps, government office, etc. Such variable nominal phrases are semantically fully derivable from the meanings of the two nouns and are based on the homogeneous attributive semantic relations unlike compound words. This system of nominal phrases exists side by side with the specific and numerous class of nominal compounds which as a rule carry an additional semantic component not found in phrases.

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