3. Immediate Constituents Analysis

The theory of Immediate Constituents (I.C.) was originally set forth у L. Bloomfield as an attempt to determine the ways in which lexical units are related to one another. This kind of analysis is used in lexicology mainly to discover the derivational structure of lexical units.

Immediate constituents are any of the two meaningful parts of a word. The main constituents are an affix and a stem. For example, L. Bloomfield analyzed the word ungentlemanly. It consists of a negative prefix un— + an adjective stem. First we separate a free and a bound forms; un— + gentlemanly and gentleman + -ly. Then we break the word gentleman: gentle + man. At any level we obtain only two ICs, one of which is a stem, and, as a result, we get the formula: un + (gentle + man) + ly.

The adjective eatable consists of two ICs eat + able and may be described as a suffixal derivative, the adjective uneatable however possesses a different structure: the two ICs are un + eatable which shows that this adjective is a prefixal derivative though the unit has both a prefix and a suffix.

S. S. Khidekel describes numerous cases when identical morphemic structure of different words may be insufficient proof of their identical pattern of word formation structure, which can be revealed only by I.C. analysis. Thus, comparing snow-covered and blue-eyed we observe that both words contain two root morphemes and one derivational morpheme. I.C. analysis shows that whereas snow-covered may be considered a compound consisting of two stems snow + covered, blue-eyed is a suffixal derivative as the underlying structure is different: (blue + eye) + ed.

Thus I.C. analysis is used in lexicological investigations to discover the word-formation structure.

4. Affixation

Affixation — the addition of an affix — is a basic means of forming words in English. It has been productive in all periods of the history of English. Linguists distinguish among three types of affixes. An affix that is attached to the front of its base is called a prefix, whereas an affix that is attached to the end of its base is termed a suffix. Both types of affix occur in English. Far less common than prefixes and suffixes are infixes — a type of affix that occurs within abase of a word to express such notions as tense, number, or gender. English has no system of infixes, though many languages make great use of infixes.

Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation. In Modern English, suffixation is characteristic of noun and adjective formation, while prefixation is typical of verb formation. As a rule, prefixes modify the lexical meaning of stems to which they are added. The prefixal derivative usually joins the part of speech the unprefixed word belongs to, e.g. usual /un — usual. In a suffixal derivative the suffix does not only modify the lexical meaning of the stem it is added to, but the word itself is usually transferred to another part of speech, e.g. care (n) / care — less (adj).

Suffixes and prefixes may be classified along different lines. The logical classification of suffixes is according to:

1. their origin: Romanic (e.g. -age, -ment, -tion), Native (-er, -dom, -ship), Greek (-ism, -ize), etc,

2. meaning, e.g/-er denotes the agent of the action, -ess denotes feminine gender, -ence/ance has abstract meaning, -ie and -let express diminutiveness, -age, -dom — collectivity, -an, -ese, -ian — appurtenance, etc.;

3. part of speech they form, e.g. noun suffixes -er, -ness, -ment; adjective-forming suffixes -ish, -ful, -less, -y; verb-suffixes -en, -fy, etc.;

4. productivity, i.e. the relative freedom*with which they can combine with bases of the appropriate category, e.g. productive suffixes are -er, -ly, -ness, -ie, -let, non-productive (-dom, -th) and semi-productive (-eer, -ward).

Since suffixes determine the part of speech of words, we classify them according to parts of speech. The meanings given for the suffixes are very broad, and often they have little connection with the meaning of the resulting word.

Some English derivational suffixes
Suffix	Meaning	Examples
NOUN
Old English
-dom	state, rank, condition	freedom, kingdom
-er	doer	writer
-ness	quality, state	happiness, softness
Foreign (Latin, French, Greek)
-ence	act, condition, fact	evidence
-ess	feminine	lioness
-ment	means, result, action	amazement, treatment
-y	result, action, quality	jealousy, inquiry
ADJECTIVE
Old English
-ful	like, full of	thankful, hopeful
-ish	similar, like	childish
-y	suggesting	sticky
Foreign
-able	likely, having	understandable, affable
-ate	showing, becoming	separate
-ous	given to	religious
ADJECTIVE OR NOUN SUFFIXES
-al	doer, pertaining to one	rival, autumnal
-an	belonging to	European, human
-ant	agent, showing	defendant, observant
-ic	style, pertaining to	classic, optimistic
-ive	one belonging to doing	detective, impressive
VERB
Old English
-en	cause, become	darken
Foreign
-ate	become, form	animate
-fy	make, cause	glorify
-ish	do, make, perform	punish, finish
-ize	make, cause to be	nationalize

As prefixes are indifferent to parts of speech they are characterized according to

1. their origin: Native, e.g. un-; Romanic, e.g. in-; Greek, e.g. sym-;

2. meaning, e.g. negative prefixes in-, un-, поп-, a-, dis-; prefixes of time and order ex-, neo-, after-, fore-, post-, proto-; prefix of repetition re-; reversal prefixes de-, un-, dis-; locative prefixes, such as extra-, pan-, super-, sub-, trans-; size and degree: hyper-, mega-, mini-, super-, sur-, ultra-, vice-, etc.;

3. productivity, i.e. the ability to make new words: e.g. un- is highly productive.

Some English derivational prefixes
Prefix	Meaning	Examples
Old English
a-	in, on, of, up	asleep, abroad
be-	away, about	behead
for-	off, from	forget
miss-	badly, not	misspell
un-	not, opposing	unhappy
Latin and Latin- French,
ab-	from, away	absent
bi-	two, twice	bimonthly
de-	away, from	defect
dis-, dif-	off, opposing	disobey, differ
ex-	away from, out	ex-wife
re-	again	redo
super-	over, extra	supervise
trans-	across, beyond	transport
ultra-	beyond	ultramodern

The main function of prefixes is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. However in Modern English there are prefixes that form one part of speech from another, e.g. en- (endanger), bе- forms verbs from adjective, verb and noun stems (belittle, behead, befriend), the prefix a- forms statives (asleep, apart, aboard, ajar).

To sum it up, affixation (prefixation and suffixation) is the formation of words by adding derivational affixes (prefixes and suffixes) to stems. There are a number of polysemantic, synonymous and homonymous affixes in English. The essential difference between suffixation and prefixation lies in the fact that the former is closely bound up with a certain part of speech, whereas the latter is, as a general rule, neutral to the distinctions between different parts of speech. Classifications of derivational affixes are based on different principles.