BACK-FORMATION
Back-formation (also called reversion) denotes the derivation of new words by subtracting a real or supposed affix from existing words through misinterpretation of their structure. The phenomenon was already introduced in § 6.4.3 when discussing compound verbs.
The process is based on analogy. The words beggar, butler, cobbler, or typewriter look very much like agent nouns with the suffix -er/-or, such as actor or painter. Their last syllable is therefore taken for a suffix and subtracted from the word leaving what is understood as a verbal stem. In this way the verb butle ‘to act or serve as a butler’ is derived by subtraction of -er from a supposedly verbal stem in the noun butler. Butler (ME buteler, boteler from OFr bouteillier ‘bottle bearer’) has widened its meaning. Originally it meant ‘the man-servant having charge of the wine’. It means at present ‘the chief servant of a rich household who is in charge of other servants, receives guests and directs the serving of meals’.
These examples are sufficient to show how structural changes taking place in back-formation became possible because of semantic changes that preceded them. In the above cases these changes were favoured by contextual environment. The change of meaning resulted in demotivation, and this paved the way for phonic changes, i.e. assimilation, loss of sound and the like, which in their turn led to morphemic alternations that became meaningful. Semantic changes often influence the morphological structure by modifying the relations between stems and derivational affixes. Structural changes, in their turn, depend on the combined effect of demotivation and analogy conditioned by a higher frequency of occurrence of the pattern that serves as model. Provided all other conditions are equal, words following less frequent structural patterns are readily subjected to changes on the analogy of more frequent patterns.
The very high frequency of the pattern verb stem+-er (or its equivalents) is a matter of common knowledge. Nothing more natural therefore than the prominent part this pattern plays in back-formation. Alongside the examples already cited above are burgle v<burglar n; cobble v<cobbler n; sculpt v<sculptor n. This phenomenon is conveniently explained on the basis of proportional lexical oppositions. If
teacher = painter = butler teach paint x
then x = butle, and to butle must mean ‘to act as butler’.
The process of back-formation has only diachronic relevance. For synchronic approach butler : : butle is equivalent to painter : : paint, so that the present-day speaker may not feel any difference between these relationships. The fact that butle is derived from butler through misinterpretation is synchronically of no importance. Some modern examples of back-formation are lase v — a verb used about the functioning of the apparatus called laser (see p. 143), escalate from escalator on the analogy of elevate — elevator. Cf. also the verbs aggress, automate, enthuse, obsolesce and reminisce.
Back-formation may be also based on the analogy of inflectional forms as testified by the singular nouns pea and cherry. Pea (the plural of which is peas and also pease) is from ME pese<OE pise, peose<Lat pisa, pl. of pesum. The ending -s being the most frequent mark of the plural in English, English speakers thought that sweet peas(e) was a plural and turned the combination peas(e) soup into pea soup. Cherry is from OFr cerise, and the -se was dropped for exactly the same reason.
The most productive type of back-formation in present-day English is derivation of verbs (see p. 126) from compounds that have either -er or -ing as their last element. The type will be clear from the following examples: thought-read v<thought-reader n<thought-reading n; air-condition v<air-conditioner n < air-conditioning n; turbo-supercharge v < turbo-supercharger n. Other examples of back-formations from compounds are the verbs baby-sit, beachcomb, house-break, house-clean, house-keep, red-bait, tape-record and many others.
BLENDING
It has already been mentioned that curtailed words from compounds are few; cases of curtailment combined with composition set off against phrasal prototypes are slightly more numerous, e. g. ad-lib v ‘to speak without notes or preparation’ from the Latin phrase ad libitum meaning ‘at pleasure’; subchaser n from submarine chaser. A curious derivational compound with a clipping for one of its stems is the word teen-ager (see p. 35). The jocular and ironical name Lib-Labs (Liberal Labour MP’s, i.e. a particular group) illustrates clipping, composition and ellipsis and imitation of reduplication all in one word.
Among these formations there is a specific group that has attracted special attention of several authors and was even given several different names: blends, blendings, fusions or portmanteau words. The last term is due to Lewis Carroll, the author of “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass”. One of the most linguistically conscious writers, he made a special technique of using blends coined by himself, such as chortle v <chuckle+snort; mimsy a<miserable+flimsy; galumph v<gallop+triumph; slithy a< slimy+lithe.1 Humpty Dumpty explaining these words to Alice says “You see it’s like a portmanteau — there are two meanings packed up into one word.” The process of formation is also called telescoping, because the words seem to slide into one another like sections of a telescope. Blends may be defined as formations that combine two words and include the letters or sounds they have in common as a connecting element.
Compare also snob which may have been originally an abbreviation for sine nobilitate, written after a name in the registry of fashionable English schools to indicate that the bearer of the name did not belong to nobility. One of the most recent examples is bit, the fundamental unit of information, which is short for binary digit. Other examples are: the already mentioned paratroops and the words bloodalyser and breathalyser for apparatuses making blood and breath tests, slimnastics (blend of slim and gymnastics).
The analysis into immediate constituents is helpful in so far as it permits the definition of a blend as a word with the first constituent represented by a stem whose final part may be missing, and the second constituent by a stem of which the initial part is missing. The second constituent when used in a series of similar blends may turn into a suffix. A new suffix -on is, for instance, well under way in such terms as nylon, rayon,-silon, formed from the final element of cotton.
Depending upon the prototype phrases with which they can be correlated two types of blends can be distinguished. One may be termed additive, the second restrictive. Both involve the sliding together not only of sound but of meaning as well. Yet the semantic relations which are at work are different. The first, i.e. additive type, is transformable into a phrase consisting of the respective complete stems combined by the conjunction and, e. g. smog<smoke and fog ‘a mixture of smoke and fog’. The elements may be synonymous, belong to the same semantic field or at least be members of the same lexico-grammatical class of words: French+English> Frenglish; compare also the coinage smaze <smoke+haze. The word Pakistan was made up of elements taken from the names of the five western provinces: the initials of the words Panjab, Afghania, Kashmir and Singh, and the final part of Baluchistan. Other examples are: brunch<breakfast and lunch’, transceiver< transmitter and receiver; Niffles<Niagara Falls.
The restrictive type is transformable into an attributive phrase where the first element serves as modifier of the second: cine(matographic pano) rama>cinerama. Other examples are: medicare<medical care; positron<positive electron; telecast<television broadcast. An interesting variation of the same type is presented by cases of superposition, formed by pairs of words having similar clusters of sounds which seem to provoke blending, e. g. motel<motorists’ hotel: the element -ot- is present in both parts of the prototype. Further examples are: shamboo<sham bamboo (imitation bamboo); atomaniac<atom maniac; slanguage<slang +language; spam<spiced ham. Blends, although not very numerous altogether, seem to be on the rise, especially in terminology and also in trade advertisements.
The great majority of motivated words in present-day language are motivated by reference to other words in the language, to the morphemes that go to compose them and to their arrangement. Therefore, even if one hears the noun wage-earner for the first time, one understands it, knowing the meaning of the words wage and earn and the structural pattern noun stem + verbal stem+ -er as in bread-winner, skyscraper, strike-breaker. Sound imitating or onomatopoeic words are on the contrary motivated with reference to extra-linguistic reality, they are echoes of natural sounds (e. g. lullaby, twang, whiz.)
Sound imitation
(onomatopoeia or echoism) is consequently the naming of an action or thing by a more or less exact reproduction of a sound associated with it. For instance words naming sounds and movement of water: babble, blob, bubble, flush, gurgle, gush, splash, etc.
The term onomatopoeia is from Greek onoma ‘name, word’ and poiein ‘to make1 → ‘the making of words (in imitation of sounds)’.
It would, however, be wrong to think that onomatopoeic words reflect the real sounds directly, irrespective of the laws of the language, because the same sounds are represented differently in different languages. Onomatopoeic words adopt the phonetic features of English and fall into the combinations peculiar to it. This becomes obvious when one compares onomatopoeic words crow and twitter and the words flow and glitter with which they are rhymed in the following poem:
The cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing.
The small birds twitter,
The lake does glitter,
The green fields sleep in the sun (Wordsworth).
The majority of onomatopoeic words serve to name sounds or movements. Most of them are verbs easily turned into nouns: bang, boom, bump, hum, rustle, smack, thud, etc.
They are very expressive and sometimes it is difficult to tell a noun from an interjection. Consider the following: Thum — crash! “Six o'clock, Nurse,” — crash] as the door shut again. Whoever it was had given me the shock of my life (M. Dickens).
Sound-imitative words form a considerable part of interjections. Сf . bang! hush! pooh!
Semantically, according to the source of sound, onomatopoeic words fall into a few very definite groups. Many verbs denote sounds produced by human beings in the process of communication or in expressing their feelings: babble, chatter, giggle, grunt, grumble, murmur, mutter, titter, whine, whisper and many more. Then there are sounds produced by animals, birds and insects, e.g. buzz, cackle, croak, crow, hiss, honk, howl, moo, mew, neigh, purr, roar and others. Some birds are named after the sound they make, these are the crow, the cuckoo, the whippoor-will and a few others. Besides the verbs imitating the sound of water such as bubble or splash, there are others imitating the noise of metallic things: clink, tinkle, or forceful motion: clash, crash, whack, whip, whisk, etc.
The combining possibilities of onomatopoeic words are limited by usage. Thus, a contented cat purrs, while a similarly sounding verb whirr is used about wings. A gun bangs and a bow twangs.
R. Southey’s poem “How Does the Water Come Down at Lodore” is a classical example of the stylistic possibilities offered by onomatopoeia: the words in it sound an echo of what the poet sees and describes.
Here it comes sparkling, And there it flies darkling ... Eddying and whisking, Spouting and frisking, ...
And whizzing and hissing, ...
And rattling and battling, ...
And guggling and struggling, ...
And bubbling and troubling and doubling,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping ...
And thumping and pumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing ...
And at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar,
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.
Once being coined, onomatopoeic words lend themselves easily to further word-building and to semantic development. They readily develop figurative meanings. Croak, for instance, means ‘to make a deep harsh sound’. In its direct meaning the verb is used about frogs or ravens. Metaphorically it may be used about a hoarse human voice. A further transfer makes the verb synonymous to such expressions as ‘to protest dismally’, ‘to grumble dourly’, ‘to predict evil’.
Reduplication
In reduplication new words are made up doubling a stem, either without any phonetic changes as in bye-bye (coll, for good-buy) or with a variation of the root-vowel or consonant as in ping-pong, chit-chat (this seconde type is called gradational reduplication ).
This type of word-building is greatly facilitated in Modern English by the vast number of monosyllables. Stylistically speaking, most words made by reduplication represent informal groups: colloquialisms and slang. E.g. walkie-talkie (a portable radio), riff-raff (the worthless or disreputable element of society), chi-chi (chic, chi-chi girl
In modern novel an angry father accuses his teehager son of of doing noyhing but dilly-dallying all over the town.
( dilly-dally – wasting time, doing nothing, loitering)
Another example of a word made by reduplication may be found in the following quotation from The Importance of Being Ernest by O. Wilde:
Lady Bracknell. I think it is high time that Mr. Bundury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shilly-shallying with yhe question is absurd.
( shilly-shallying – irresolution, indecision)
Sound interchange
may be defined as an opposition in which words or word forms are differentiated due to an alternation in the phonemic composition of the root. The change may affect the root vowel, as in food n : : feed v; or root consonant as in speak v : : speech n; or both, as for instance in life n : : live v. It may also be combined with affixation: strong a : : strength n; or with affixation and shift of stress as in 'democrat : : de'mocracy.
The process is not active in the language at present, and oppositions like those listed above survive in the vocabulary only as remnants of previous stages. Synchronically sound interchange should not be considered as a method of word-building at all, but rather as a basis for contrasting words belonging to the same word-family and different parts of speech or different lexico-grammatical groups.
The causes of sound interchange are twofold and one should learn to differentiate them from the historical point of view. Some of them are due to ablaut or vowel gradation characteristic of Indo-European languages and consisting in a change from one to another vowel accompanying a change of stress. The phenomenon is best known as a series of relations between vowels by which the stems of strong verbs are differentiated in grammar (drink — drank — drunk and the like). However, it is also of great importance in lexicology, because ablaut furnishes distinctive features for differentiating words. The examples are: abide v : : abode n; bear v : : burden n; bite v : : bit n; ride v : : road n; strike v : : stroke n.
The other group of cases is due to an assimilation process conditioned by the phonemic environment. One of these is vowel mutation, otherwise called umlaut, a feature characteristic of Germanic languages, and consisting in a partial assimilation to a succeeding sound, as for example the fronting or raising of a back vowel or a low vowel caused by an [i] or [j] originally standing in the following syllable but now either altered or lost. This accounts for such oppositions as full a : : fill v; whole a : : heal v; knot n : : knit v; tale n : : tell v. The process will be clear if we follow the development of the second element in each pair. ModE fill<OE fyllan; heal < hælan <*hailjan cognate to the OE hal; tell<OE tellan<*tallian; knit<OE cnyttan is especially interesting, as OE cnotta is akin to ON knūtr, knot, knötr ‘ball’ and to the Russian кнут which is ‘a lash of knotted things’.
The consonant interchange was also caused by phonetic surroundings. Thus, the oppositions speak v : : speech n; bake v : : batch n; or wake v : : watch n are due to the fact that the palatal OE [k] very early became [tS] but was retained in verbs because of the position before the consonants [s] and [θ] in the second and third persons singular.
A voiced consonant in verbs contrasting with an unvoiced one in nouns results from the fact that in ME verbs this final of the stem occurred in intervocalic positions which made it voiced, whereas in nouns it ended the word or was followed by a consonant ending. After the loss of endings the voicedness was retained and grew into a distinctive feature. There is a long series of cognate verbs and nouns and also some adjectives differing in this way. Observe, for example, the opposition of voiced and unvoiced consonants in the following: advise v : : advice n; bathe v : : bath n; believe v : : belief n; clothe v : : cloth n; glaze v : : glass n; halve v : : half n; live v : : life n; loathe v : : loath n and a; lose v : : loss n, loose a; prove v : : proof n and a; serve v : : serf n; shelve v : : shelf n; wreathe v : : wreath n.
As to the difference in the root vowels of these verbs and nouns, it is caused by the fact that the root syllable in verbs was open, whereas in nouns it was closed. Observe the analogy between plurals in [-vz] correlated with singulars in [-f] and verbs in [-v] correlated with nouns in [-f ]: shelf n sing. — shelves n pl. — shelve v.
It will be recalled in this connection that the systematic character of the language may manifest itself in the analogy between word-building processes and word inflection. It is worthy of note that not only are these processes similar, but they also develop simultaneously. Thus, if some method is no longer productive in expressing grammatical categories, we shall also observe a parallel loss of productivity in expressing lexical meaning. This is precisely the case with root inflection. Instances of root inflection in the formation of the plural of nouns (goose — geese, foot — feet, tooth—teeth) or the Past Indefinite and Participle II of verbs (sing — sang — sung, drive — drove — driven, tear — tore — torn) exist in the language as the relics of past stages; and although in the case of verbs the number of ablaut forms is still very great, no new verbs are inflected on this pattern.
The same may be said about word-building by sound interchange. The type is not productive. No new words are formed in this way, yet sound interchange still stays in the language serving to distinguish one long-established word from another.
Synchronically, it differentiated parts of speech, i.e. it may signal the non-identity of words belonging to different parts of speech: full a : : fill v; food n : : feed v; or to different lexico-grammatical sets within the same part of speech: fall intransitive v : : fell causative v; compare also lie : : lay, sit : : set, rise : : raise.
Derivation often involves phonological changes of vowel or consonant: strong sl : : strength n; heal v : : health n; steal v : : stealth n; long a : : length n; deep a : : depth n.
Major derivative alternations involving changes of vowel and /or consonant and sometimes stress shift in borrowed words are as follows: delicacy n : : delicate a; piracy n : : pirate n; democracy n : : democrat n; decency n : : decent a; vacancy n : : vacant a; creation n : : create v; edify v : : edification n; organise v : : organisation n; agnostic a : : agnosticism n.
Some long vowels are retained in quality and quantity; others are shortened, and there seems to be no fixed rule, e.g. [a:] tends to be retained: artist n : : artistic а; [э:] is regularly shortened: ‘permit n : : per'mit v.
DISTINCTIVE STRESS
Some otherwise homographic, mostly disyllabic nouns and verbs of Romanic origin have a distinctive stress pattern. Thus, 'conduct n ‘behaviour’ is forestressed, whereas con'duct v ‘to lead or guide (in a formal way)’ has a stress on the second syllable. Other examples are: accent, affix, asphalt, compact (impact),1 compound, compress (impress), conflict, contest, contract (extract), contrast, convict, digest, essay, export (import, transport), increase, insult, object (subject, project), perfume, permit, present, produce, progress, protest, rebel, record, survey, torment, transfer.2 Examples of words of more than two syllables are very few: 'attribute n : : a'ttribute v. Historically this is probably explained by the fact that these words were borrowed from French where the original stress was on the last syllable. Thus, ac'cent comes through French from Latin ac'centus. Verbs retained this stress all the more easily as many native disyllabic verbs were also stressed in this way: be come, be'lieve, for'bid, for'get, for'give. The native nouns, however, were forestressed, and in the process of assimilation many loan nouns came to be stressed on the first syllable.
A similar phenomenon is observed in some homographic pairs of adjectives and verbs, e.g. ‘absent a : : ab’sent v; ‘frequent a : : fre'quent v; ‘perfect a : : per'fect v; ‘abstract a : : ab’stract v. Other patterns with difference in stress are also possible, such as arithmetic [э'riθ-mэtik] n : : arithmetical) [эпθ'metik(эl)] a. The fact that in the verb the second syllable is stressed involves a phonemic change of the vowels as well: [э/ае] and [э/i].
This stress distinction is, however, neither productive nor regular. There are many denominal verbs that are forestressed and thus homonymous with the corresponding nouns. For example, both the noun and the verb comment are forestressed, and so are the following words: exile, figure, preface, quarrel, focus, process, program, triumph, rivet and others.
There is a large group of disyllabic loan words that retain the stress on the second syllable both in verbs and nouns: accord, account, advance, amount, approach, attack, attempt, concern, defeat, distress, escape, exclaim, research, etc.
A separate group is formed by compounds where the corresponding combination of words has double stress and the compound noun is forestressed so that the stress acquires a word-building force: ‘black ‘board : : ‘blackboard and ‘draw'back : : ‘drawback.
It is worth noting that stress alone, unaccompanied by any other differentiating factor, does not seem to provide a very effective means of distinguishing words. And this is, probably, the reason why oppositions of this kind are neither regular nor productive.
Shortening
This comparatively new way of word-building has achived a high degree of productivity nowadays, especially American English.
Shortening are producted in two different ways. The first is to make a new word from syllable of the original word. The latter may lose its beginning ( as in phone made from telephone, fence from defence), its ending ( as in hols from holidays, vac from vacation
, props from properties, as from advertisement) or both the beginning and ending ( as in flu from influenza, fridge from refridgerator).
The second way of soterning is to make a new word from the initial letters or a word group: U.N.O.(United Nations Organization), B.B.C.(British Broadcasting Corporation), M.P.(Member of Parliament). This type is called initial shortenings. They are found not only among formal wordas, such as the ones above, but also among colloquialisms and slang. So, g.f. is a shortened word made from the compound girl-friend.
It commonly believed that the preference for shortenings can be explained by their brevity (краткость) and is due to the ever-increasing tempo of modern life. Yet, in the conversation does not in the least contribute to the brevity of the communication: on the contrary, it takes the speaker some time to clarify misunderstanding. Confusion and ambiguousness are quite natural consequences of the modern overabundance of shortening, and initial shortenings are often especially enigmatic and misleading.
Both types of shortenings are characteristic of informal speech in general and of uncultivated speech particularly. The history of the American okay seems to be rather typical. Originally this initial shortening was spelt O.K. and was supposed to stand for all correct. The purely oral manner in which sounds were recorded by letters resulted in O.K. whereas it should have been A.C. or aysee. Indeed, the ways of words are full of surprise.
