Practical part

     Sound-interchange naturally falls into two groups: vowel-interchange and consonant-interchange.

     By means of vowel-interchange we distinguish different parts of speech, e.g. full—to fill, food—to feed, blood-to bleed, etc. In some cases vowel-interchange is combined with affixation, e.g. long—length, strong—strength, broad— breadth; nature—natural, nation—national, etc. Intransitive verbs and corresponding transitive ones with a causative meaning also display vowel-interchange, e.g. to rise—to raise, to sit—to set, to He—to lay, to fall—to fell.

     The type of consonant-interchange typical of Modern English is the interchange of a voiceless fricative consonant in a noun and the corresponding voiced consonant in the corresponding verb, e.g.: use—to use, mouth—to mouth, house-to house, advice—to advise, etc.

     There are some particular cases of consonant-interchange: [k]—[tj]: to speak—speech; to break—breach; [s]—[dj:] defense—to defend; offence—to offend; [sj—ft]: evidence-evident; importance—important; etc. Consonant-interchange may be combined with vowel-interchange, e.g. bath—to bathe; breath—to breathe; life—to live, etc.

     Many English verbs of Latin-French origin are distinguished from the corresponding nouns by the position of stress. Here are some well-known examples of such pairs of words: 'export «—to export o; 'import n—to import v; 'conduct n—to conduct v; 'present n—to present v; 'contrast n— to contrast u; 'increase n—-to increase v, etc.

     Stress-interchange is not restricted to pairs of words consisting of a noun and a verb. It may also occur between other parts of speech, for instance, between adjective and verb, cf. 'frequent adj—to frequent v, 'absent ad\— to absent v, etc.

     Relationship Sound-interchange in English is often Between sound (stress)- combined with a difference only in the interchange paradigm. Hence the question arises and conversion. Of the relativistic between sound-interchange and conversion. To investigate the problem the following three types of relations should be distinguished:

     1) Breath—to breathe

     As far as cases of this type are concerned, sound-interchange distinguishes only between words; it does not differentiate word-forms of one and the same word. Consequently it has no relation to the paradigms of the words. Hence, cases of this type cannot be regarded as conversion.

     2) Song—to sing

     In the given example the vowel in song interchanges with three different vowels, the latter interchanging with one another in the forms of the verb to sing:³ 

       

     Like the previous type, the words song—to sing is not related by conversion: song differs from to sing (sang, sung) not only in the paradigm, its root-vowel not occurring in the word-forms of the verb and vice versa.

     3) House—to house

     In such cases the type of sound-interchange used to distinguish the two words (verb and noun) is the same as that which distinguishes the word-forms of the noun, cf. house [haus]—houses [hauziz] and to house [hauz]. Consequently, the only difference between the two words lies in their paradigms, in other words, word-pairs like house—to house are cases of conversion. It is fairly obvious that in such cases as present—to present, accent—-to accent, etc. which differ in the position of stress the latter does not distinguish the word-forms within the paradigm of the two words. Thus, as far as cases of this type are concerned, the difference in stress is similar to the function of sound-interchange in cases like breath—to breathe. Consequently, cases of this type do not belong to conversion.

     1. Shortening of words and word summary groups is typical of present-day English a one occurring in various spheres of oral and written intercourse. Graphical abbreviations are restricted in use to written speech. Lexical abbreviations and especially clippings are peculiar to the sphere of oral communication

     The result of blending which is a compounding of clipped words is always a simple word. In most cases blends belong to the colloquial layer of words. There are, however, numerous blends in the terminological section of the vocabulary.

     The process of back formation is of diachronic relevance only.

     The function of sound-interchange and stress-inter change in Modern English is to distinguish between different words and word-forms. Sound-interchange is often accompanied by affixation.

 

      THE MAIN PART 

     2.1 SHORTENING OF SPOKEN WORDS 

     As a type of word-building shortening of spoken words, also called clipping or curtailment, is recorded in the English language as far back a& the 15th century.1 It has grown more and more productive ever since. This growth becomes especially marked in many European languages in the 20th century, and it is a matter of common knowledge that this development is particularly intense in English.

     Newly shortened words appear continuously; this is testified by numerous neologisms, such as dub v, a cinema term meaning 'to make another recording of sound-track in a film in a different language' (from double); frig or fridge n from refrigerator; mike n from microphone; tellie, telly or T. V. n from television set; vacun from vacuum cleaner, etc.

     Many authors are inclined to overemphasize the role of "the strain of modern life" as the mainspring of this development. This is, obviously, only one of the reasons, and the purely linguistic factors should not be overlooked. Among the major forces are the demands of rhythm, which are more readily satisfied when the words are monosyllabic.

     When dealing with words of long duration, one will also note that a high percentage of English shortenings are involved into the process of loan word assimilation. Monosyllabic goes farther in English than in any other European language, and that is why shortened words sound more like native ones than their long prototypes. Curtailment may therefore be regarded as caused, partly at least, by analogical extension, i.e. modification of form on the basis of analogy with existing and widely used patterns. Thus, the three homonyms resulting from abbreviation of three different words, van 'a large covered vehicle', 'a railway carriage', the short for caravan (by aphesis1); van 'the front of an army', the short of vanguard which in its turn is a clipping of the French word avant-garde; and van — a lawn tennis term, the short for advantage, all sound quite like English words. Cf. ban n and v, can, fan, man, ran (Past Tense of run), tan, etc.

     Shortening of spoken words or curtailment consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts (whether or not this part has previously been a morpheme), as a result of which the new form acquires some linguistic value of its own.

     The part retained does not change phonetically, hence the necessity of spelling changes in some of the examples above (dub:: double, mike :: microphone, etc.).

     The change is not only quantitative: a curtailed word 2 is not merely a word that has lost its initial, middle or final part. Nor is it possible to treat shortening as just using a part for the whole as Hackett suggests, because a shortened word is always in some way different from its prototype in meaning and usage. Moreover, every kind of shortening differs’ from derivation, composition and conversion in being not a new arrangement of existing morphemes, but often a source of new ones.

     Shortening may be regarded as a type of root creation because the resulting new morphemes are capable of being used as free forms and combine with bound forms. They can take functional suffixes: "Refs Warning Works Magic" (the title of a newspaper article about a football match where the referee called both teams together and lectured them on rough play). Cf. Sing. — bike, bod, 1 PI. — bikes, bodes, Inf. — to vac, 2 Part. I — vacking, Past Tense and Part. II — vacked. They also serve as basis for further word-formation: fancy n (from fantasy), fancy v, fancier n, fanciful adj, fancifully adv, fancifulness n, fancy-ball n, fancy-dress n, fancy-work n, etc.

     It is interesting in this connection to compare the morphemes “tele” in television and telecast. They are homonymous but not identical. Tele- in television is derived from “Grtele far”, it is a combining form used to coin many special terms denoting instruments and processes which produce or record results at a distance, such as telecommunication, telemechanics, telepathy, telephone, telescope and television itself. Tele- in telecast does not mean 'far', it is a new development — the shortened variant of television rendering a special new notion. This becomes obvious from the following simple transformations: television - vision at a distance, tele(broad)"cast HO a broadcast at a distance,3 tele (broad) cast a television broadcast. In this new capacity tele-enters many combinations: telefilm, tele-prompter (an electronic device that slowly unrolls the speaker's text, in large print out of sight of the audience), televiewer 'one who uses a television set', telestar (Anglo-American satellite used as television relay station).

     The correlation of a curtailed word with its prototype is of great interest. Two possible developments should be noted:

     1. The curtailed form may be regarded as a variant or a synonym differing from the full form quantitatively, stylistically and sometimes emotionally, the prototype being stylistically and emotionally neutral, e. g. doc :: doctor; exam :: examination. Also in proper names: Becky:: Rebecca, Frisco :: San Francisco, Japs :: the Japanese. The missing part can at all times be supplied by the listener, so that the connection between the prototype and the short form is not lost. The relationship between the prototype and the curtailment belongs in this case to the present-day vocabulary system and forms a relevant feature for synchronistic analysis. Much yet remains to be done in studying the complex relations between the prototype and the clipping, as it is not clear when one should consider them two separate synonymous words and when they are variants of the same word.

     2. In the opposite extreme case the connection can be established only etytnologically. The denotative or lexico-grammatical meaning, or both, may have changed so much that the clipping becomes a separate word. Consequently a pair of etymological doublets1 comes into being. Cf. chap:: chapmen 'a peddlers', fan 'an enthusiastic devotee' :: fanatic, fancy :: fantasy, miss -.-.mistress. A speaker who calls himself a football fan would probably be offended at being called a fanatic. A fanatic is understood to have unreasonable and exaggerated beliefs and opinions that make him socially dangerous, whereas a fan is a harmless devotee of a specified amusement. The relationship between curtailed forms and prototypes in this second group is irrelevant to the present-day vocabulary system, and is a matter of historic, i. e. diachronistic study.

     In both types the clipped forms (doc, exam, chap, fan, etc.) exist in the language alongside their respective prototypes. The difference, however, is that whereas words belonging to the first group can be replaced by their prototypes and show in this way a certain degree of interchangeability, the doublets are never equivalent lexically as there are no contexts where the prototype can replace the shortened word without a change of meaning.

     The possibility of substitution in case of variants may be shown by the following example: if a newspaper article about a certain musician2 is entitled "The Boss of the Tenor Sax", there is nothing very unusual in substituting saxophone for sax ("The Boss of the Tenor Saxophone"). The prototype is stylistically neutral and therefore it can stand for the curtailed word. A similar example is furnished by the following heading of a brief newspaper note about the prescription of eyeglasses for racing horses in Chicago. It runs as follows: "Racehorses Are Fitted with Specs". The substitution of spectacles for specs would make the heading a little less lively but not unacceptable.

     This substitution, as a rule, can go only one way. It would be, for instance, impossible to use mug for magazine in the following passage of literary criticism: The public he [Ch. Dickens] wrote for was largely a new public brought to consciousness by the industrial revolution, a public for which magazine proprietors had not catered before 1832... (W. ALLEN) The specific stylistic character of the clipped form greatly limits the possibilities of usage.

     The semantic status of the group of variants (or synonyms) and that of the group of doublets is also different. Curtailed words of the first group (variants) render one of the possible meanings of the prototype creating by this very novelty a greater expressiveness, a colloquial or slangy shade and often emotional coloring as well. The following extract will illustrate this coloring: "Still, I suppose you want to find your room. I wonder where they've put you. Half a mo — /'// come down and look on the board. You go and make the co//, Con" she called back as she came downstairs, "1 shan't be a jiff." Everything with her was an abbreviation. Striking a match by the notice board, she searched for the number of my room. "Presuming the Ass Mat's remembered" "The who?" "Assistant Matron, old Fanny Harriman..." (M. DICKENS)

     It is typical of the curtailed words to render only one of the secondary meanings of a polysemantic word. For instance the verb double may mean 'to multiply by two', 'to increase twofold', 'to amount to twice as much'; when used by musicians it means 'to add the same note in a higher or a lower octave'. In a military context the meaning is 'to move in double time or run'. As a nautical term it is synonymous to the expression 'to get round headland', etc. Dub, on the contrary, renders only one of the specific meanings (see p. 110).

     The curtailed words belonging to this type are mostly mono-semantic as, for example, lab, exam, and fan. Also they are often homonymous: compare van and vac as treated above, also gym for gymnastics and gym for gymnasium, or vet for veteran and veterinary. Most of these by conversion produce verbs: to phone, to vac, to vet, etc., in which the semantic relationship with the prototype remains quite clear.

     Between the two groups of well-defined extreme cases, namely variants or synonyms and doublets, there exist numerous intermediate cases, where the classification is difficult. The appearance of a more complex semantic structure in a word is a step towards its acquiring greater independence and thus becoming not a variant but a doublet of the prototype. This intermediate state is illustrated by the word polio which means not only the illness but also a person suffering from poliomyelitis, although the phrases a polio case or a polio victim are more often used.

     The second extreme group, the etymological doublets, may develop semantic structures of their own. Very complex semantic cases like fancy with its many meanings and high valiancy are nevertheless rare.

     It has been specified in the definition of the process that the clipped part is not always a complete morpheme, so that the division is only occasionally correlated with the division into immediate constituents. For instance, in phone for telephone and photo for photograph the remaining parts are complete morphemes occurring in other words. On the other hand in ec or eco (from economics) the morphological structure of the prototype is disregarded. All linguists agree that most often it is either the first or the stressed part of the word that remains to represent the whole. An interesting and convincing explanation for this is offered by M. M. Segal, who quotes the results of several experimental investigations dealing with informal! Vine parts of words. These experiments carried out by psychologists have proved very definitely that the initial components of words are imprinted in the mind and memory more readily than the final parts. The signaling value of the first stressed syllable, especially when it is at the same time the root syllable, is naturally much higher than that of the unstressed final syllables with their reduced vowel sounds.

     As a rule, but not necessarily, clipping follows the syllabic principle of word division, e. g. pep (si.) 'vigour', 'spirit' from pepper, or plane from aero plane. In other instances it may be quite an arbitrary part of the prototype, e.g. prep (school.) 'Homework' is from preparation.

     Unlike conversion, shortening produces new words in the same part of speech. The bulk of curtailed words is constituted by nouns, Verbs are hardly ever shortened in present-day English, Rev from revolve and tab from tabulate may be considered exceptions. Such clipped verbs as do occur are in fact converted nouns. Consequently the verbs to perm, to phone, to taxi, to vac, to vet and many others are not curtailed words diachronically hut may be regarded as such by right of structure, from the synchronic point of view. As to the verbs to pent, to mend, to tend and a few others, they were actually coined as curtailed words but not at the present stage of language development.

     Shortened adjectives are very few and mostly reveal a combined effect of shortening and suffixation, e. g. comfy '.: comfortable, dilly :: delightful, imposes :: impossible, muzzy :: miserable, which occur in schoolgirl slang. As an example of a shortened interjection Shun! :: attention, the word of command may be mentioned,

     Various classifications of shortened words have been or may he offered. The generally accepted one is that based on the position of the clipped part. According to whether it is the final, initial or middle part of the word that is cut off we distinguish final clipping (or apocopate),2 initial clipping (or aphesis) 3 and medial clipping (or syncope) ⁴

     SHORTENED WORDS

     1. Final clipping in which the beginning of the prototype is retained, is practically the rule, and forms the bulk of the class: e. g. ad, advert :: advertisement, coke :: coca-cola, ed -.-.'editor, -fab :; fabulous, gym :: gymnastics or gymnasium, lab :; laboratory, mac :: mackintosh, vegs :: vegetables and many others.

     2. Initial-clipped words retaining the final part of the prototype .are less numerous but much more firmly established as separate lexical units with a meaning very different from that of the prototype and stylistically neutral doublets, e. g. cute adj, n (Am) :: acute, fend v :: defend, mend v :: amend, story n :: history, sport n :: disport, tend v :: attend. Cases like cello:: violoncello and phone :: telephone where the curtailed words are stylistically synonyms or even variants of their respective prototypes are very rare. Neologisms are few: e. g. chute:: parachute. It is in this group that the process of assimilation of loan words takes place.

     Final and initial clipping may be combined and result in curtailed words with the middle part of the prototype retained. These are few and definitely colloquial: e. g. flu :: influenza, frig ox fridge :: refrigerator, tec :: detective. It is worthy of note that what is retained is the stressed syllable of the prototype.

     3. Curtailed words with the middle part of the word left out are equally few. They may be further subdivided into two groups: (a) words with a final-clipped stem retaining the functional morpheme: math:: mathematics, specs :: spectacles; (b) contractions due to a gradual process of elision under the influence of rhythm and context. Thus fancy:: fantasy, ma'am :: madam may be regarded as accelerated forms.

     It is also possible to approach shortened words on the basis of the structure characterizing the prototype. Then the two mutually exclusive groups are cases correlated with words and those correlated with phrases. The length of the word giving rise to a shortening might result from its being a derivative, a compound or a borrowing. The observation of language material, however, can furnish hardly any examples of the second type (compounds), all the word prototypes being derivatives, either native or borrowed, as is shown by all the examples quoted in the above paragraphs.

     The few exceptions are exemplified by tarmac, a technical term for tar-macadam, a road surface of crushed stone and tar originally named after the inventor (J. L. Mc Adam, d. 1836); also cabbie for cabman. But then -man in such cases is most often a semi-affix, not a free form, and, besides, the process of shortening is here combined with derivation as in mightier for nightdress.