1.1. Word-Building

In English there exist four main ways and seven secondary ways of word-building. The four main ways are:

• conversion,

• derivation,

• composition,

• shortening.

The seven secondary ways of word-building in English are:

• sound interchange,

• stress interchange,

• sound imitation,

• reduplication,

• blending (contamination),

• back formation,

• redistribution.

2. Morpheme

Each word consists of morphemes. It is not an independent sense unit as a word or a sentence are, it is always used as a part of a word. There exist four types of morphemes.

The root expresses the lexical meaning of a word.

Affixes modify the meaning of the root. Affixes are divided into prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes stand before the stem, suffixes stand after the stem.

Prefixes modify the lexical meaning of the root (e.g. just- unjust).

Suffixes form a new part of speech: e.g. beauty n. – beautiful adj. Forming a new part of speech is the main function of suffixes.

Inflexions build new grammatical forms of the same word: pen – pens (singular/plural). Building new grammatical forms is the main function of inflexions.

The stem is the part of the word to which the latest affix is added: e.g. active = act (root/stem) +-ive (suffix), activity = activ (stem) + -ity (suffix).

Stems have part of speech characteristics, i.e. they belong to parts of speech, e.g. active – act (verb stem), beautiful – beauti (noun stem). Stems can be bound and free. The bound stem cannot be used as an independent word in the language (e.g. Irish = Ir (stem) + -ish (suffix)), the free stem can be used as an independent word in the language (e.g. childish = child (stem) + -ish suffix)).

3. Structural Types of English Words

There are four structural types of words in English.

3.1. Simple (root) words consist of a root, which is a stem at the same time:

to do, desk, lamp, to try.

We should draw attention to the fact that the difference between the root and the stem is not just structural. The root is understood as a stable part of the word, the stem is understood as the part of the word to which word-building elements are added to build this or that word. i.e. it is understood as the working mechanism of production of new words. There can he formal, structural coincidence of the root and the stem, but mostly they do not coincide.

3.2. Derived words consist of a stem and one or more affixes:

active = act (stem) +-ive (suffix), activity = activ (stem) + -ity (suffix).

3.3. Compound words include two or more stems in their structure:

blackboard = black (stem) + board (stem),

penny-in-the-slot = penny (stem) + in (stem) + the (stem) + slot (stem).

3.4. Compound-derived words consist of two or more stems and one or more affixes:

light-minded = light (stem) + mind (stem) + ed (suffix).

Sometimes the coincidence of the structural type of the word and the structural type of the stem can be noticed but it does not often happen:

to act – simple (root) word / simple (root) stem,

but: active – derived word / simple (root) stem,

activity –derived word / derived stem.

Adding an affix to the root changes the structural type of the word:

beauty –simple (root),

beautiful (suffix)-derived,

but: pen –simple,

pens (inflexion) –simple.

By adding an affix, a new word is built, the structure of which can be different, but in adding an inflexion, just the grammatical form of the same word itself is changed.

Lecture 3. Word-building. Conversion.