The Indexes Method by j. Greenberg

This method makes it possible to determine typological characteristics of the word-forming systems in the C.L. and helps to identify the quantitative co-occurrence or frequency of some feature or phenomenon. A passage of one hundred notional words is subjected to various typologically relevant analyses.

The parameters of these computations are as follows:

1. The degree of synthesis in the words.

Thus, when the morphemes are lettered as M and the number of words in the passage as W, the ratio will express the synthetic structure index (between 1.62 to 1.68 in English)

2. The productivity degree of word-forming and of form-building morphemes constitutes the second parameter.

The quantity of derivational morphemes (D) in direct relation to the number of words (W) in the text gives the ratio indicating the word-forming / form-building capacity of a language.

3. The index of suffixation ( ratio) characterizes the correlation of suffixal morphemes in their relation to the number of words

4. Similarly, the ratio with P for prefixal morphemes will be the index of prefixation in the words of the text.

The parameters of some computations are shown in the table.

Indexes	English	Ukrainian
Degree of synthesis	1.68 -	2.33-2.45
Derivation	0.15 0.23	0.37
Suffixation	0.64 0.19	1.15-1.21
Prefixation	0.04 0.04	0.17

While analyzing these figures, though not very exact, we can come to certain conclusions.

1. Ukrainian language is more synthetic, it has more complicated synthetic structure.

2. Derivation is more widely spread in Ukrainian than in English.

3. The number of suffixes exceeds the number of prefixes and they are more significant in the word-forming process in both languages.

Lecture 3-4 word – formation in english and ukrainian

Before turning to the various processes of making words, it would be useful to analyse the related problem of the composition of words, i. e. of their constituent parts.

If viewed structurally, words appear to be divisible into smaller units which are called morphemes. Morphemes do not occur as free forms but only as constituents of words. Yet they possess meanings of their own.

All morphemes are subdivided into two large classes: roots (or radicals) and affixes. The latter, in their turn, fall into prefixes which precede the root in the structure of the word (as in re-read, mis-pronounce, unwell; за-думав, пре-гарний) and suffixes which follow the root (as in teach-er, cur-able, diet-ate; паль-чик, вовч-ищ-е, лік-ар).

Words which consist of a root and an affix (or several affixes) are called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the process of word-building known as affixation (or derivation).

Derived words are extremely numerous in both the English and the Ukrainian vocabularies. Successfully competing in English with this structural type is the so-called root word which has only a root morpheme in its structure. This type is widely represented by a great number of words belonging to the original English stock or to earlier borrowings (house, room, book, work, port, street, table, etc.), and, in Modern English, has been greatly enlarged by the type of word-building called conversion (e. g. to hand, v. formed from the noun hand; to can, v. from can, п.; to pale, v. from pale, adj.; a find, n. from to find, v.; etc.).

Another wide-spread word-structure is a compound word consisting of two or more stems (e. g. dining-room, bluebell, mother-in-law, good-for-nothing; пароплав, зорепад). Words of this structural type are produced by the word-building process called compounding or composition.

The somewhat odd-looking words like flu, pram, lab, M. P., V-day, H-bomb, UNO; авто, комп, райво, ООН are called shortenings, contractions or curtailed words and are produced by the way of word-building called shortening (contraction).

The four types (root words, derived words, compounds, shortenings) represent the main structural types of Modern English words, and conversion, derivation and composition the most productive ways of word-building.

To return to the question posed by the title of this chapter, of how words are made, let us try and get a more detailed picture of each of the major types of word-building in the contrasted languages and, also, of some minor types.

By word-building are understood processes of producing new words from the resources of this particular language. Together with borrowing, word-building provides for enlarging and enriching the vocabulary of the language.

The principal ways of word-formation in the contrasted languages are common.

They are:

1. morphological

2. morphologico-syntactic

3. lexico-semantic

4. lexico-syntactic

The most productive ways of word-building in English and Ukrainian are affixation, compounding and non-affixal word-formation.

Let us try and get a more detailed picture of the major types of word-building and also, of some minor types.