they are really white, but they are not horses); jellyfish В«медузаВ» (the substance really resembles jelly, but it is not a fish); jail-bird В«арештантВ» (it is not a bird, but a person, though really kept in prison).
Totally non-motivated compounds are idiomatic, ie their meanings cannot be undestood from the meanings of their stems: butter-fingers (a реrson whose fingers cannot hold anything, cf. В«руки-крюкиВ»); lady-bird (it is neither a lady nor a bird); sweet-tooth В«ласунВ» (a реrson); sleepy-head В«соняВ» (a person); high-rise В«багатоповерховий будинокВ»; low-rise В«низьке будівляВ»; rubbernecks (tourists who can turn their necks to the right, to the left as if their necks were made of rubber).
10. Shortening of Words
Causes of Shortening.
Shortening is building new words by cutting off some part of the original words , eg laboratory> lab, sister> sis, professor> prof, telephone> phone, etc.the XX century shortening became extremely productive, eg: pop (
. The first cause is extra-linguistic: the tempo of modern life has increased considerably. p align="justify">. The second cause is linguistic, i.e. monosyllabism characteristic of the English vocabulary. Shortened words are more like native words than their longer prototypes. There is a strong tendency to shorten even proper names (cf. Gorbachev> Gorby). Russian shortening is not so productive. Compound words with an abbreviated stem of the type H-bomb, V-day, A-level do not exist in Russian at all.words and their long prototypes differ in stylistic colouring, cf. pop - popular, etc. The long prototype is usually bookish; its shortened stylistic synonym is used in army or in school jargon (maths from mathematics), in nursery speech (hankie/y from handkerchief). p align="justify"> Types of shortening.
There are two types of shortening: 1) clipping, 2) abbreviation.
1) Clipping.
Clippings are formed by reducing a few syllables to one or two , eg mackintosh> mac.to the position of the clipped part in the word three types of clipping are distinguished.
. Final clipping. Final clipping is the most productive type of clipping as most often in clipping the final unstressed part is clipped, while the initial stressed part is left. In most of the English words the first syllable is stressed, eg 'Microphone> mike.clipping is often combined with affixation, eg telly from television set, goalie from goal-keeper.of the clipping and its long prototype differ, cf. fanatic В«фанатикВ» - fan В«вболівальникВ».
. Initial clipping is less productive as fewer words have stress on the final syllable: violoncello
. Medial clipping is often caused by the rhythm of speech: ma am, e er, ne'er, o er. Medial clippings are often used in poetry. Medial clippings from nouns in which grammatical (form-building) morpheme is retained prevail in colloquial speech: specs from spectacles, maths from mathematics, hols from holidays.can result in homonymy of new words, cf. tec from technique and tec from detective.clipping can be combined with ellipsis (omission of a word), eg vac from vacuum cleaner, zoo from zoological garden, pop from popular music. In these cases ellipsis of the second word in the phrase is combined with final clipping of the first word (adjective) and with substantivation of this adjective.is a type of word-building in which one word (a blend, or a portmanteau word В« слово-портмоне В») is formed from two words; one of the words is clipped and two meanings are packed in one word, eg breakfast + lunch form brunch, smoke + fog form smog, etc.are used in army jargon, school jargon, in nursery speech.
Abbreviation.
Abbreviations UK, GB, CIS and the like are made up by initial letters of a few words. There are two kinds of abbreviations: lexical and graphical abbreviations. p align="justify">. Abbreviations with alphabetical reading of the letters and abbreviations read as words constitute a group of lexical abbreviations. Lexical abbreviations with alphabetical reading of the letters (USA, BBC, ITV, GI, etc...
