In cases when a woman chairs a sitting, the official form of addressing her is madam Chairman. Chairwoman is also sometimes found unofficially and also chairperson.

The evolution of the element -man in the 70s provides an interesting example of the extra-linguistic factors influencing the development of the language. Concern with eliminating discriminatory attitudes towards women in various professions led to many attempts to degender, i.e. to remove reference to gender in the names of professions. Thus, cameraman is substituted by camera operator, fireman by firefighter, policeman by police officer or police person. Person is increasingly used in replacing the semi-affix -man to avoid reference to gender: houseperson, businessperson. The fact that the generic sense of ‘human being’ is present only in the word man ‘adult male’ but not in the word woman which is only ‘adult female’, is felt as a symptom of implicitly favouring the male sex.¹

A great combining capacity characterises the elements -like, -proof and -worthy, so that they may be also referred to semi-affixes, i.e. elements that stand midway between roots and affixes: godlike, gentlemanlike, ladylike, unladylike, manlike, childlike, unbusinesslike, suchlike. H. Marchand² points out that -like as a semi-affix is isolated from the word like because we can form compounds of the type unmanlike which would be impossible for a free form entering into combination with another free form. The same argument holds good for the semi-affix -worthy and the word worthy. Cf. worthy of note and noteworthy, praiseworthy, seaworthy, trustworthy, and unseaworthy, untrustworthy, unpraiseworthy.

H. Marchand chooses to include among the semi-affixes also the element -wise traditionally referred to adverb-forming suffixes: otherwise, likewise, clockwise, crosswise, etc.

Semi-affixes may be also used in preposition like prefixes. Thus, anything that is smaller or shorter than others of its kind may be preceded by mini-: mini-budget, mini-bus, mini-car, mini-crisis, mini-planet, mini-skirt, etc.

Other productive semi-affixes used in pre-position are midi-, maxi-, self- and others: midi-coat, maxi-coat, self-starter, self-help.

The factors conducing to transition of free forms into semi-affixes are high semantic productivity, adaptability, combinatorial capacity (high valency), and brevity.

20. Conversion. Typical semantic relations in a converted pair.

The flexibility of the English vocabulary system makes a word formed by conversion capable of further derivation, so that it enters into combinations not only with functional but also with derivational affixes characteristic of a verbal stem, and becomes distributionally equivalent to it. For example, view ‘to watch television’ gives viewable, viewer, viewing.

Conversion may be combined with other word-building processes, such as composition. Attributive phrases like black ball, black list, pin point, stone wall form the basis of such firmly established verbs as blackball, blacklist, pinpoint, stonewall. The same pattern is much used in nonce-words such as to my-dear, to my-love, to blue-pencil.

This type should be distinguished from cases when composition and conversion are not simultaneous, that is when, for instance, a compound noun gives rise to a verb: corkscrew n : : corkscrew v; streamline n : : streamline v.

A special pattern deserving attention because of its ever increasing productivity results as a combined effect of composition and conversion forming nouns out of verb-adverb combinations. This type is different from conversion proper as the basic forms are not homonymous due to the difference in the stress pattern, although they consist of identical morphemes. Thanks to solid or hyphenated spelling and single stress the noun stem obtains phonetical and graphical integrity and indivisibility absent in the verb-group, сf. to ‘draw ‘back : : a ‘drawback. Further examples are: blackout n : : black out v; breakdown n : : break down v; come-back, drawback, fall-out, hand-out, hangover, knockout, link-up, lookout, lockout, makeup, pull-over, runaway, run-off, set-back, take-off, takeover, teach-in.

The type is specifically English, its intense and growing development is due to the profusion of verbal collocations (see p. 120 ff) and con- or unchangeable, whether the meaning of the one element remains free, and,

more generally, on the interdependence between the meaning of the elements and the meaning of the set expression. Much attention is devoted to different types of variation: synonymic, pronominal, etc.

After this brief review of possible semantic classifications, we pass on to a formal and functional classification based on the fact that a set expression functioning in speech is in distribution similar to definite classes of words, whereas structurally it can be identified with various types of syntagmas or with complete sentences.

We shall distinguish set expressions that are nominal phrases: the wot of the trouble’, verbal phrases: put one’s best foot forward; adjectival phrases: as good as gold; red as a cherry; adverbial phrases: from head to foot; prepositional phrases: in the course of; conjunctional phrases: as long as, on the other hand; interjectional phrases: Well, I never! A stereotyped sentence also introduced into speech as a ready-made formula may be illustrated by Never say die! ‘never give up hope’, take your time ‘do not hurry’.

The above classification takes into consideration not only the type of component parts but also the functioning of the whole, thus, tooth and nail is not a nominal but an adverbial unit, because it serves to modify a verb (e. g. fight tooth and nail); the identically structured lord and master is a nominal phrase. Moreover, not every nominal phrase is used in all syntactic functions possible for nouns. Thus, a bed of roses or a bed of nails and forlorn hope are used only predicatively.

Within each of these classes a further subdivision is necessary. The following list is not meant to be exhaustive, but to give only the principal features of the types.