Список литературы и сетевых источников

1. Лексикология современного английского языка: Учебное пособие / И.В. Арнольд. – М.: Флинта, 2012. – 377с. // http://www.bibliorossica.com/book.html?currBookId=6969&ln=ru&search_query=%D1%84%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B5%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B8%D1%8F%20%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B3%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B9%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE%20%D1%8F%D0%B7%D1%8B%D0%BA%D0%B0

2. Алефиренко Н.Ф. Теория языка: вводный курс: учеб. пособие для студ, вузов / Н. Ф. Алефиренко. – 4-е изд., стер.. – М.: Академия, 2010. – 384 с.

3. Бабич Г.Н. Lexicology: A Current Guide. Лексикология английского языка [Электронный ресурс]: Уч. пособ. / Г. Н. Бабич. – 5-е изд. – М.: Флинта: Наука, 2010. – 200 с.

4. Гвишиани Н. Б. Современный английский язык. Лексикология = Modern English studies. Lexicology: учебное пособие для студентов высших учебных заведений, обучающихся по направлению 031000 и специальности 031001 – Филология: по специальности 033200 (050303) – Иностранный язык / Н. Б. Гвишиани. – 2-е изд., стер.. – М.: Академия, 2009. – 218 с.

5. Прохорова Н.М. Lecture on English Lexicology: Учебник / Н.М. Прохорова. – Красноярск: РИО КГПУ, 2003. – 208 с.

6. The Oxford Handbook of Compounding, eds. Lieber, Rochelle & Pavol Štekauer, 2009. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

7. Plag, Ingo: Word-formation in English, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2003. – на англ.яз.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_(linguistics)

Лекция 4.

WORD-BUILDING. CONVERSION.

Список вопросов

1. Introduction.

2. The Historical Development of Conversion.

3. The Problem of the First Component in ‘Stone Wall’.

4. Semantic Relations in Conversion.

Список терминов и определений

1. Conversion is a way of word-building through changes of paradigm and function of the word.

2. The ‘Stone Wall’ problem is: “Is the ‘stone wall’ a compound or a word combination. The answer depends on how the first component is treated. If it is understood as a noun stem then it is a compound. If the first component is an adjective it’s a word combination. The generally accepted point of view is that ‘stone wall’ is a specific type of compound, so called unstable compound.

3. Semantic relation is a relation between meanings.

4. Substantivization is the result of syntactical shortening when a word combination with a semantically strong attribute loses its semantically weak noun (man, person etc), e.g. «a grown-up person» is shortened to «a grown-up». In cases of perfect substantivization the attribute takes the paradigm of a countable noun , e.g. a criminal, criminals, a criminal’s (mistake) , criminals’ (mistakes). Such words are used in a sentence in the same function as nouns, e.g. I am fond of musicals. (musical comedies).

Содержание лекции

1. Introduction

The appearance of conversion in the English language is connected with some facts of the history of the English language.

Let us write down the following sentences, and analyse them:

1. I took a taxi. They taxied to the station.

2. They ran in and out. He knows the ins and outs of our town.

3. He went home then. The then world will be mad, they say.

4. Two noes make a yes. I will take no no for an answer.

5. She mothered Betty to a point of hysteria.

6. We tea at four.

7. There's a constant struggle between the haves and the havenots.

8. But me no buts and if me no ifs.

Pay attention to the words in italics, and answer the following questions:

1. What is the part of speech to which the word belongs? Why?

2. What is its function in the sentence?

3. How should we translate the word?

4. What is peculiar about the pointed out words?

5. How can it happen that a word of one part of speech can be used in the function of another part of speech?

6. What serves as the word-building means in this connection?

In all the given sentences you saw converted words.

The first scientific definition of conversion was given still in the 1950's by Prof. A.I. Smirnitsky. It was morphological.

The only word-building means in conversion, according to Prof. Smirnitsky is paradigm,

e.g.: taxi – to taxi, water – to water.

The difference in them is in the fact that they have different paradigms due to their belonging to different parts of speech: n taxi (sing), taxis (pl) – v to taxi, taxies, taxied, will taxi etc.

The modern definition of conversion combines the morphological definition and the change of function. As function in the language, or in the speech, is the problem of syntax, so the modern definition is morphologo-syntactical.

2. The Historical Development of Conversion

The causes that made conversion, this specific English way of word-building, appear, and become widespread are to be approached diachronically.

After the Scandinavian conquest, due to the fact that the conquerors and the conquered were people of the same origin, same cultural level, customs and traditions and their languages were akin, Scandinavians and Englishmen could easily communicate. The fact that the languages were akin made communication much easier for them: the roots as it happens to languages of the same origin were mostly alike and differences were in affixes and inflexions. While communicating the English and Scandinavians stressed the parts of words that were alike and neglected those which differed, so as we know in Middle English there began a 'levelling' of endings, one of the reasons of which was the Scandinavian conquest.

Old English lufian (v), lufu (n) –Modern English love (n, v),

More rarely it is the prefix that was dropped: Old English зemynd –Modern English mind.

Words borrowed from other languages underwent the same process, for example, French borrowings: Old French eschequier (v), eschec (n) –Modern English check (n, v),

Nowadays, new pairs of converted words are built on the analogy with those already in the word-stock: to phone, to wire, to can etc.

Prof. Yartseva considers it necessary to distinguish between homonymous word-pairs which appeared as a result of the loss of endings (she calls them cases of historical homonymy) and those formed on the analogy with those in the word-stock (she calls them cases of conversion proper). Prof. Smirnitsky is of the opinion that on a synchronic level there is no difference in correlation between such cases. He and Otto Jespersen consider that both cases should be united and called 'conversion' because their word-building foundation is the same. For practical purposes it is simpler and more convenient to use one and the same term lot both cases.

3. The Problem of the First Component in ‘Stone Wall’

In the theory of conversion, there exists the problem if the first component in word combinations of the 'stone wall' type (speech sound, rose garden, cannon ball, log cabin, price rise, etc.) is a noun in the function of an attribute or a converted adjective from a noun. In the latter case it would mean that conversion of nouns into adjectives is possible in English.

There are two points of view. Otto Jespersen and some other linguists consider that 'stone' is a converted adjective.

Prof. Yartseva, Prof. Ilyish, Prof. Zhigadlo and the English linguist Henry Sweet consider that 'stone' is a noun in the function of an attribute. They say that 'stone' is characteristic of English as it is poor in morphological forms.

The problem is not solved yet.

4. Semantic Relations in Conversion

As one of the two words in the converted pair is semantically derived from the other we should determine the semantic relations between those words.

1. Verbs converted from nouns (denominal verbs). This is the largest group of converted words. The lexical meaning of the verb converted from a noun can point out the instrument, the agent, the place, the cause, the result and the time of the action.

Verbs converted from nouns denoting some part of a human body have instrumental meaning: e.g. to eye (to watch), to finger (to touch with a finger), to elbow (to push one's way with elbows), to toe (to touch with a toe).

The same instrumental meaning can be observed in verbs formed from nouns denoting tools, machines, and weapons: e.g. to hammer, to knife, to machine-gun, to wheel, to pump, to saw, to spur.

Sometimes the noun from which the verb is formed names the agent of the action: e.g. to crowd, to flock, to ape, to dog, to monkey, to wolf (down).

Very often such verbs have metaphorical meanings.

With nouns denoting places, buildings, containers the meaning of the converted verb will denote the action performed at (he place expressed by the noun stem from which the verb originated: e.g. to bottle, to can, to corner, to floor, to garage, to park, to pocket.

With nouns denoting time the meaning of the converted verb will denote an action performed at the time expressed by the noun stem from which it originated: e.g. to honeymoon, to weekend, to winter.

R.S. Ginsburg, in summing up the findings of the linguists who have done research in this field, enumerates the following typical semantic relations in denominal verbs converted from nouns:

1) action characteristic of the object,

e.g. ape n. – ape v. – imitate in a foolish way;

2) instrumental use of the object,

e.g. whip n. – whip v. – strike with a whip;

3) acquisition or addition of the object.

e.g. fish n. – fish v. – catch or try to catch fish;

4) deprivation of the object,

e.g. dust n. – dust v. – remove dust from something.

So, as we see, summing up R.S. Ginsburg points out some semantic relations we did not speak about and does not point out some of the above-mentioned ones. So, points of view of linguists differ in this.'

2. Nouns converted from verbs (deverbal substantives). Such nouns can have the following meanings:

1) process, feeling, action: e.g. hiss, hunt, knock, whisper, sleep;

2) the result of the action expressed by the verb stem: e.g. burn, cut, offer;

3) the place where the action expressed by the verb stem occurs: e.g. drive, stand;

4) the doer of the action expressed by the verb stem (usually with the derogatory meaning): e.g. bore, cheat, flirt, scold, tease.

From the point of view of R.S. Ginsburg, the verb generally referring to an action, the converted noun, may denote:

1) instance of the action,

e.g. jump v. – jump n. – sudden spring from the ground;

2) agent of the action,

e.g. help v. – help 11. – a person who helps;

3) place of the action,

e.g. walk v. – walk n. – a place for walking;

4) object or result of the action,

e.g. peel v. – peel n. – the outer skin of fruit or potatoes taken off;

find v. – find n. – something found, especially something valuable or pleasant.

In the case of polysemantic words one and the same member of a conversion pair belongs to several of the above-mentioned groups, e.g. dust v. – can belong to group 4 of denominal verbs and to group 3 of denominal verbs: deprivation of the object and acquisition, addition of the object.

From the point of view of some linguists (see the previous paragraph on 'Stone Wall Problem' in this lecture) there not only exists conversion of verbs and nouns, but of other parts of speech, too. We share their opinion. Such linguists consider that verbs can be also converted from adjectives. In such cases they denote the change of a state:

e.g. to clean, to warm, to empty, to idle, to tame, to loose, to tidy, to total.

Care should be taken not to mix up cases of conversion with cases of substantivization of adjectives.

Some scientists (Otto Jespersen, Kruisinga and others) consider substantivization of adjectives to be cases of conversion. This is not correct from the point of view of some of our scholars (Arnold, Vinokurov, Ivanov and others), because substantivization of adjectives is characteristic of many languages, Russian included, where the morphological system is very rich. And conversion is characteristic of English where the system of morphological forms is poor. Substantivization of adjectives is not the result of changing the paradigm, it is the result of the slow process of changing the syntactical functions of a word.

In cases of substantivization of adjectives, we primarily have word combinations of an adjective with a noun, where the adjective is much stronger semantically because the noun expresses some general notion (e.g. a native man, a captive man, a conservative man). Later on, the noun is dropped as it is less important semantically, and the attribute is now used in the function and with the meaning of the whole combination:

e.g. a native man – a native, a captive man – a captive, a conservative man – a conservative, a criminal man – a criminal, a dear man – a dear, an equal man – an equal, a female being – a female, a grown-up person – a grown-up, an intellectual person – an intellectual, a male being – a male, a private soldier – a private, a general officer – a general.

A group of substantivized adjectives is only used with the definite article and denotes a class, a group of people or nationality. Having the meaning of the plural, they are used without the -s inflexion, but the verb used with them has the plural form:

e.g. the rich, the poor, the dead, the English, the French, etc. But if a single person is meant other words are used, not substantivized adjectives:

e.g. an Englishman, a Spaniard, a blind man, etc.

The problem of correlation of substantivization and conversion is a complicated one and demands further investigation.

As for the semantic relations in converted pairs of words belonging to other parts of speech, this problem is connected with different points of view on the 'stone wall' problem and has not yet been properly investigated and, therefore, requires further research.

The role of conversion in English word-building is extremely significant and cannot be overestimated. Conversion is highly productive in modern English.