1. What are the minor types of word-formation?

Give a definition of minor types of word-formation and

enumerate them.
Minor types of word-formation – non-productive means of word formation in present-day English:
1) sound-interchange, is the way of word-building when some sounds are changed to form a new word.
2) stress-interchange, is one of the ways of word building, based on a shift of stress: ´conduct – to con
´duct, ´preset – to pre´sent, etc.
3)sound-imitation, is the way of word-building when a word is formed by imitating different sounds.
4)blending, Blends are words formed from a word-group or two synonyms.
5)back-formation. It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by dropping the final morpheme to
form a new word.
2. What is sound interchange? Give examples.
Sound interchange is the way of word-building when some sounds are changed to form a new word. . food
- to feed,), breath - to breathe, house [haus] - to house [hauz] – 1. поселить; 2. жить (в доме) deep -
depth
3. Is sound interchange productive or non-productive in Modern English? non-productive
4. Was sound interchange productive or non-productive in Old English? productive
5. What can the causes of sound interchange be? Explain.
1)It can be the result of Ancient Ablaut which cannot be explained by the phonetic laws during the period
of the language development known to scientists, e.g. to strike - stroke, to sing – song, etc. 2) It can be also
the result of Ancient Umlaut or vowel mutation which is the result of palatalizing the root vowel because of
the front vowel in the syllable coming after the root (regressive assimilation), e.g. hot - to heat (hotian),
blood - to bleed (blodian), etc.
6. Are voiceless or voiced consonants typical for nouns? Give examples.
voiceless consonants . bath life breath
7. Are voiceless or voiced consonants typical for verbs? Give examples.
corresponding voiced consonants (to bathe, to live)
8. What three groups of words can be distinguished among the words formed with the help of sound-
interchange? Speak about them and give examples.
1) Words formed by means of vowel interchange, e.g. food - to feed, blood - to bleed, gold - to gild; to
shoot - shot, to sing - song, to write - writ (oral писание);
2) Words formed by means of both vowel and consonantal interchange, e.g. bath - to bathe, grass - to
graze (пастись, щипать траву), breath - to breathe, cloth - to clothe, loss - to lose, life - to live, choice - to
choose, etc.
3) Words formed by means of consonantal interchange often accompanied by changes in spelling, e.g.
grease [gri:s] – сало, жир - to grease[gri:z] – смазывать (жиром); house [haus] - to house [hauz] – 1.
поселить; 2. жить (в доме) 3. вмещать; price [prais] – цена - to prize[praiz] – 1. высоко ценить; 2.
оценивать; advice [ә'dvais] - to advise [ә'dvaiz]; practice ['præktis] - to practice ['præktiz]; use [ju:s] - to
use [ju:z], etc.
9. Can sound-interchange sometimes be accompanied by affixation? Give examples.
It should be mentioned that sometimes sound-interchange is accompanied by affixation, [Link] - depth,
wide - width, broad - breadth, long - length, strong - strength, where vowel gradation is accompanied by
the addition of the -th suffix.
10. What is stress interchange? Give examples
Stress interchange is one of the ways of word building, based on a shift of stress: ´conduct – to con´duct,
´preset – to pre´sent, etc.
11. Is stress interchange productive or non-productive in Modern English?
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12. Was stress interchange productive or non-productive in Old English?
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13. Do nouns of Romanic origin have stress on the first syllable or the last syllable?
of Romanic origin: nouns have the stress on the first syllable
14. Do verbs of Romanic origin have stress on the first syllable or the last syllable?
and verbs on the last syllable, e.g. `accent - to ac`cent.
15. How can stress interchange be explained?
This phenomenon is explained in the following way: French verbs and nouns had different structure when
they were borrowed into English; verbs had one syllable more than the corresponding nouns. When these
borrowings were assimilated in English the stress in them was shifted to the previous syllable (the second
from the end). Later on, the last unstressed syllable in verbs borrowed from French was dropped (the same
as in native verbs) and after that the stress in verbs was on the last syllable while in nouns it was on the
first syllable.
16. Does stress interchange cause vowel interchange too? Explain and give examples.
As a result of stress interchange we have also vowel interchange in such words because vowels are
pronounced differently in stressed and unstressed positions. As a result of it we have such pairs in English
as : to af`fix -`affix, to con`flict- `conflict, to ex`port -`export, to ex`tract - `extract, etc.
17. What is sound imitation? Give examples
Sound imitation is the way of word-building when a word is formed by imitating different sounds. to
whisper, to twitter, to ding-dong.
18. Is sound imitation productive or non-productive in Modern English?
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19. Was sound imitation productive or non-productive in Old English?
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20. What are the semantic groups of words formed by sound imitation? Give examples.
a) sounds produced by human beings, such as: to whisper, to giggle, to mumble, to sneeze, to whistle, etc.
b) sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, such as: to hiss, to buzz, to bark, to moo, to twitter, etc.
c) sounds produced by nature and objects, such as: to splash, to rustle, to clatter, to bubble, to ding-dong,
to tinkle, etc.
21. How are nouns formed from the verbs created by sound imitation? Give examples.
The corresponding nouns are formed by means of conversion, e.g. clang (of a bell), chatter (of children)
etc.
22. What is blend? Give examples
Blends are words formed from a word-group or two synonyms. dramedy (drama comedy), detectifiction
(detective fiction), faction (fact fiction - fiction based on real facts), informecial (information commercial),
Medicare (medical care),
23. Is blending productive or non-productive in Modern English?
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24. Was blending productive or non-productive in Old English?
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25. In what verbs and nouns can stress-interchange be mostly met?
Stress interchange can be mostly met in verbs and nouns of Romanic origin
26. What two ways of word-building are combined in blends? Explain and give examples.
. In blends two ways of word-building are combined: abbreviation and composition.
To form a blend we clip the end of the first component (apocope) and the beginning of the second
component (apheresis). As a result we have a compound-shortened word. One of the first blends in English
was the word smog from two synonyms: smoke and fog which means smoke mixed with fog. From the first
component the beginning is taken, from the second one the end, o is common for both of them.
27. What are blends of addictive type? Explain and give examples
Blends of addictive type are transformable into a phrase consisting of two words combined by a
conjunction “and”. e.g. smog → smoke & fog
28. What are blends of restrictive type? Explain and give examples
Blends of restrictive type are transformable into an attributive phrase, where the first element serves as
modifier of a second. e.g. Positron – positive electron, Medicare – medical care
29. What is back formation? Give examples.
It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by dropping the final morpheme to form a new word.
It is opposite to suffixation that is why it is called back formation. examples of back formation are: to
accreditate (from accreditation), to bach (from bachelor), to collocate (from collocation), to enthuse (from
enthusiasm), to compute (from computer), to emote (from emotion) to reminisce (from reminiscence), to
televise (from television), etc.
30. Is back formation productive or non-productive in Modern English?
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31. Was back formation productive or non-productive in Old English?
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32. Do the words formed through back-formation change their part-of-speech meaning? Give examples.
Yes, verbs are formed from nouns.
e.g. to compute (from computer)
33. How did back formation first appear? Explain and give examples.
At first it appeared in the language as a result of misunderstanding the structure of a borrowed word.
Professor Yartseva V.N. explains this mistake by the influence of the whole system of the language on
separate words. E.g. it is typical of English to form nouns denoting the agent of the action by adding the
suffix -er to a verb stem (speak- speaker). So when the French word beggar was borrowed into English the
final syllable ar was pronounced in the same way as the English -er and Englishmen formed the verb to beg
by dropping the end of the noun.