Abbreviations and acronyms in the english language abbreviation as a linguistic phenomenon

2 THE PLACE OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS IN THE WORD-FORMATION SYSTEM OF MODERN ENGLISH
Abbreviation raises many problems from the point of view of the theory of word formation. Until now, the question of how legitimate it is to consider abbreviation as one of the ways of word formation is being discussed. There is no complete unity on this issue. Most authors tend to recognize abbreviation as one of the ways of word formation, but significant reservations are made. To denote the process of formation of new vocabulary units using the abbreviation technique, the term “word-making” ( word-manufacturing ) is often used. As D. I. Alekseev rightly notes, “the abbreviation method of word formation is the most subjective, the most artificial among all methods known to the language. Numerous features of abbreviation are associated with this: trials and errors in creating names, variability and occasionality, the intensity of diachronic changes, susceptibility to regulation, weak national fixation and free permeability, etc., etc. ” .
The very fact of the close interaction of abbreviation with other word-formation methods, which will be discussed below, sufficiently indicates that it is included in the word-formation system.
There are also different points of view on the place of abbreviation in the system of word-formation methods. Some authors believe that abbreviation should be considered as a kind of compounding ( foundation ). Right, in our opinion, those researchers who consider abbreviation a special, separate way of word formation, with the help of which new words of a special structure are created.
Abbreviation actively interacts with other ways of word formation. Firstly, new words can be formed from abbreviations using traditional word-formation methods:
a) word formation: AWOL ( absent without official leave ) AWOLism - "unauthorized absences"; RAF (Royal Air Force) - Rafer - "a soldier of the British Air Force"; RAND (Research and Development Corporation) - RANDster - "an employee of the RAND Corporation"; morphologically complicated cases are possible, for example: UNESCO (United Nations Educational , Scientific and Cultural Organization) - Unescan - "related to UNESCO"; AFCEA ( Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association) - AFCEANS - “members of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association;
b) collocations: STOL ( short take off and landing ) + port - STOLport - "aerodrome for aircraft with short takeoff and landing"; USAF (United States Air Force) + man - USAFman - "a member of the US Air Force"; MATS ( military Air Transport Service) + man - MATSman - “military air transport service soldier”;
c) conversions: RAF (Royal Air Force) - to raff - "subject to attack from the air"; PX (Post Exchange) - to PX - “buy something in the military trade service store”; BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) - to boace - "fly or carry on aircraft of the British Overseas Airline"; IFR ( Instrument flight Rules - to fly IFR - "fly on instruments".
Secondly, the abbreviation can be combined with another way of word formation. With the help of the simultaneous action of abbreviation and suffixation, for example, the words are formed: blackie ( blacksmith - black-ie ) - “blacksmith”, brickie ( bricklayer > brick-fie ) - “mason”, postie ( postman > pо'st + ie ) - postman, etc.
In these cases, abbreviation creates special abbreviated morphemes (- black -, - brick -, - post -), which only formally coincide with the root morphemes that already existed in English - black -, - brick -, - post -. Wed Russian "food worker", "planner", "overalls".
The interaction of abbreviation and compounding led to the creation in modern English of a new structural type of partially abbreviated words: M- day ( mobilization day - "mobilization start day"); A- bomb ( atomic bomb - "atomic bomb"); E- boat ( enemy boat - ist. "German torpedo boat"; L- craft ( landing craft - “ landing craft”), etc. Abbreviation in such cases does not always come down to replacing the first component with an initial letter: compare, for example, H- bomb ( hydrogen bomb ), but H- bomber and H- test (not hydrogen bomber - "hydrogen bomber" and not hydrogen test - "hydrogen test", a bomber armed with hydrogen bombs - "bomber armed with hydrogen bombs" and test of thermonuclear weapons - "test of thermonuclear weapons").
Thirdly, abbreviation can participate in the further development of other ways of word formation.
If the traditional way of forming a suffix is the gradual, evolutionary transformation of the root morpheme into a derivational one, then, starting from the 19th century, there are more and more cases when the truncated part of the word acts as a suffix. This phenomenon was noted by G. Marchand : “Special cases of word creation are the suffixes - ol and - yl in chemical terminology. The suffix - ol represents the last element 1) alcohol or 2) phenol , 3) sometimes it stands instead of the Latin ol ( eum ) - " oil" ... The suffix - yl represents the ancient Greek hyle - "substance", "substance". This specially created ( manufactured ) morpheme forms the names of radicals ..., for example carbonyl , salicyl , sulphuril , etc. This type was introduced into the scientific nomenclature by the German chemists Liebig and Wehler (circa 1830) ".
Currently, the use of truncated parts of words as suffixes is widespread not only in special terminology (cf. - onics from electronics in the words astrionics , avionics , bionics , environics , nucleonics , thermionics , etc.), but also in common vocabulary (cf. -rama from panorama in cyclorama , cinerama , colorama , vistarama or -burger from hamburger in cheeseburger , deerburger , buffaloburger ) . Such formations, often occasional, are created in large numbers over a certain period of time according to the model popular during this period; however, only a small part of them comes into common use and remains in the language.
One of the works devoted to neologisms in modern English notes “the tendency to isolate a part of some words and turn them into a separate word-forming morpheme, which is then widely used to create new words. So, for example, the element - thon was cut off from the word marathon and part of the meaning of the word marathon was transferred to it , as it were, namely: the concept of endurance, duration, resistance. e.g. talkathon, walkathon, meltathon , smearathon , readathon, speechathon , telethon, moviethon And others _ » .
Let us dwell on the question of the development of abbreviated models. It should be recognized that in the first period of their mass appearance in the English language (in the first decades of the 20th century), initial abbreviations, which often appeared on the basis of graphic abbreviations, did not have a definite structure and were, so to speak, formations of an individual structure. In many cases, apparently, there was no clear boundary between graphic and lexical abbreviations, which made it much more difficult to use the latter as units of communication and, to a certain extent, prevented the formation of abbreviation as a way of word formation. Typical abbreviations of the time, such as LCB ['el' ci :' bi :] - Liquor Control Board, MR [' em'o :] - Ministry of Reconstruction - “Ministry of Reconstruction”, OSC, [' ou'es'si :] - Overseas Settlement Committee - “Overseas Settlement Committee”, had significant shortcomings: their pronunciation did not correspond to the norms for pronouncing ordinary words, they did not have any typicality of the structure, there was no systematicity in their formation, except for the preservation of the order of the initial letters of the words of the original phrase. In short, this emerging type of words ran into internal, intuitive resistance of native speakers. Undoubtedly, all this had an impact on the linguistic understanding of abbreviations as facts of the language. New lexical formations begin to experience the leveling influence of the language system.
Rules for compiling complex abbreviated formations from standard abbreviated components, "blocks" are deliberately developed. The most successful initial abbreviations are beginning to be used as "role models", which also contributes to the typing of abbreviations. The discovery and widespread use of the principle of correlative abbreviation, which significantly contributed to the rapid development of acronyms - initial abbreviations that have the phonetic structure of ordinary words, was of paramount importance for the development of abbreviation.
We also note that in acronyms the problem of the producing unit is in a special way. In word formation, it is generally accepted that some real-life unit of communication acts as a generating unit (cf. the noun teacher is formed from the stem of the verb to teach by adding the suffix -er ) . In acronyms, combinations that do not themselves serve as units of communication, but are, so to speak, "imaginary values" can also act as a correlate. In acronymy, the center of gravity moves to the formula of the derivative, to the structural-semantic model, which, however, is also a unit of the language, like the “building material” from which the acronym is created.
Thus, the objective facts of the language show that abbreviation, of course, is included in the system of word-formation means. And entering the word-formation system, on the one hand, it cannot but be exposed to the action of stable, established elements of this system, and on the other hand, it cannot but exert its influence on them.
Even a cursory acquaintance with abbreviations reveals the non-standard, individuality of their structure, the specificity of their phonetic structure, which does not coincide with the norms of pronouncing ordinary words.