Ñòðàíèöà: 2/38
Bound lexical morphemes are affixes: prefixes (dis-), suffixes (-ish) and also blocked (unique) root morphemes (e.g. Fri-day, cran-berry). Bound grammatical morphemes are inflexions (endings), e.g. -s for the Plural of nouns, -ed for the Past Indefinite of regular verbs, -ing for the Present Participle, -er for the Comparative degree of adjectives.
In the second half of the twentieth century the English wordbuilding system was enriched by creating so called splinters which scientists include in the affixation stock of the Modern English wordbuilding system. Splinters are the result of clipping the end or the beginning of a word and producing a number of new words on the analogy with the primary word-group. For example, there are many words formed with the help of the splinter mini- (apocopy produced by clipping the word «miniature»), such as «miniplane», «minijet», «minicycle», «minicar», «miniradio» and many others. All of these words denote obects of smaller than normal dimensions.
On the analogy with «mini-» there appeared the splinter «maxi»- (apocopy produced by clipping the word «maximum»), such words as «maxi-series», «maxi-sculpture», «maxi-taxi» and many others appeared in the language.
When European economic community was organized quite a number of neologisms with the splinter Euro- (apocopy produced by clipping the word «European») were coined, such as: «Euratom» «Eurocard», «Euromarket», «Europlug», «Eurotunnel» and many others. These splinters are treated sometimes as prefixes in Modern English.
There are also splinters which are formed by means of apheresis, that is clipping the beginning of a word. The origin of such splinters can be variable, e.g. the splinter «burger» appeared in English as the result of clipping the German borrowing «Hamburger» where the morphological structure was the stem «Hamburg» and the suffix -er. However in English the beginning of the word «Hamburger» was associated with the English word «ham», and the end of the word «burger» got the meaning «a bun cut into two parts». On the analogy with the word «hamburger» quite a number of new words were coined, such as: «baconburger», «beefburger», «cheeseburger», «fishburger» etc.
The splinter «cade» developed by clipping the beginning of the word «cavalcade» which is of Latin origin. In Latin the verb with the meaning «to ride a horse» is «cabalicare» and by means of the inflexion -ata the corresponding Participle is formed. So the element «cade» is a combination of the final letter of the stem and the inflexion. The splinter «cade» serves to form nouns with the meaning «connected with the procession of vehicles denoted by the first component», e.g. «aircade» - «a group of airplanes accompanying the plane of a VIP» , «autocade» - «a group of automobiles escorting the automobile of a VIP», «musicade» - «an orchestra participating in a procession».
In the seventieths of the twentieth century there was a political scandal in the hotel «Watergate» where the Democratic Party of the USA had its pre-election headquarters. Republicans managed to install bugs there and when they were discovered there was a scandal and the ruling American government had to resign. The name «Watergate» acquired the meaning «a political scandal», «corruption». On the analogy with this word quite a number of other words were formed by using the splinter «gate» (apheresis of the word «Watergate»), such as: «Irangate», »Westlandgate», »shuttlegate», »milliongate» etc. The splinter «gate» is added mainly to Proper names: names of people with whom the scandal is connected or a geographical name denoting the place where the scandal occurred.
The splinter «mobile» was formed by clipping the beginning of the word «automobile» and is used to denote special types of automobiles, such as: «artmobile», «bookmobile», «snowmobile», «tourmobile» etc.
The splinter «napper» was formed by clipping the beginning of the word «kidnapper» and is used to denote different types of crimesters, such as : «busnapper», «babynapper», «dognapper» etc. From such nouns the corresponding verbs are formed by means of backformation, e.g. «to busnap», «to babynap», «to dognap».
Ðåôåðàò îïóáëèêîâàí: 21/06/2009