Second edition

§ 9. Various Ways of Word-Creation

New words in different notional classes appear also as a result of various non-patterned ways of word creation. The two main types of non-patterned word-creation are: I. Various ways of transformation of a word-form into a word usually referred to as lexicalisation and II. Shortening which consists in substituting a part for a whole. Shortening comprises essentially different ways of word creation. It involves 1. transformation of a word-group into a word, and 2. a change of the word-structure resulting in a new lexical item, i.e. clipping.
I. Lexicalisation. Due to various semantic and syntactic reasons the grammatical flexion in some word-forms, most often the plural of nouns, as in, e.g. the nouns arms, customs, colours, loses its grammatical meaning and becomes isolated from the paradigm of the words arm, custom, look. As a result of the re-interpretation of the plural suffix the word-form arms, customs developed a different lexical meaning ‘weapons’ and ‘import duties’ respectively. This led to a complete break of semantic links with the semantic structure of the words arm, custom
¹ See ‘Word-Formation’, § 13, p. 123,
187
and thus to the appearance of new words with a different set of grammatical features. It must be noted that there is no unanimity of opinion on whether all such items should be viewed as new words or only as new meanings. Different approaches to the problem are connected with the border-line between polysemy and homonymy¹ and many individual cases are actually open to doubt.
Essentially the same phenomenon of lexicalisation is observed in the transition of participles into adjectives. The process is also known as adjectivisation. It may be illustrated by a number of adjectives such as tired, devoted, interesting, amusing, etc. which are now felt as homonymous to the participles of the verbs to tire, to marry, etc.
Lexicalisation is a long, gradual historical process which synchronically results in the appearance of new vocabulary units.
II. Shortening. Distinction should be made between shorten-” ing which results in new lexical items and a specific type of shortening proper only to written speech resulting in numerous graphical abbreviations which are only signs representing words and word-groups of high frequency of occurrence in various spheres of human activity as for instance, RD for Road and St for Street in addresses on envelopes and in letters; tu for tube, aer for aerial in Radio Engineering literature, etc. English graphical abbreviations include rather numerous shortened ‘ variants of Latin and French words and word-groups, e.g.: i.e. (L. id est) — ‘that is’; R.S.V.P. (Fr. — Repondez s'il vous plait) — ‘reply please’, etc.
Graphical abbreviations are restricted in use to written speech, occurring only in various kinds of texts, articles, books, advertisements, letters, etc. In reading, many of them are substituted by the words and phrases that they represent, e.g. Dr. = doctor, Mr.=mister, Oct.= October, etc.; the abbreviations of Latin and French words and phrases are usually read as their English equivalents. It follows that graphical abbreviations cannot be considered new lexical vocabulary units.
It is only natural that in the course of language development some graphical abbreviations should gradually penetrate into the sphere of oral intercourse and, as a result, turn into self-contained lexical units used both in oral and written speech. That is the case, for instance, with a.m. ['ei'em] — ‘in the morning, before noon’; p.m. ['pi:'em] — ‘in the afternoon’; S.O.S. ['es ‘ou ‘es] (=Save Our Souls) — ‘urgent call for help’, etc.
1. Transformations of word-groups into words involve different types of lexical shortening: ellipsis or substantivisation, initial letter or syllable abbreviations (also referred to as acronyms), blendings, etc.
Substantivisation consists in dropping of the final nominal member of a frequently used attributive word-group. When such a member of the word-group is dropped as, for example, was the case with a documentary film the remaining adjective takes on the meaning and all the syntactic functions of the noun and thus develops into a new
¹ See ‘Semasiology’, § 36, p. 42; ‘Various Aspects...’, § 12, p. 194 — 195, 188
word changing its class membership and becoming homonymous to the existing adjective. It may be illustrated by a number of nouns that appeared in this way, e.g. an incendiary goes back to an incendiary bomb, the finals to the final examinations, an editorial to an editorial article, etc. Other more recent creations are an orbital (Br. ‘a highway going around the suburbs of a city’), a verbal (‘a verbal confession introduced as evidence at a trial’), a topless which goes to three different word-groups and accordingly has three meanings: 1) a topless dress, bathing suit, etc., 2) a waitress, dancer, etc. wearing topless garments, 3) a bar, night-club featuring topless waitresses or performers.
Substantivisation is often accompanied by productive suffixation as in, e.g., a one-winger from one-wing plane, a two-decker from two-deck bus or ship; it may be accompanied by clipping and productive suffixation, e.g. flickers (coll.) from flicking pictures, a smoker from smoking carriage, etc.
Acronyms and letter abbreviations are lexical abbreviations of a phrase. There are different types of such abbreviations and there is no unanimity of opinion among scholars whether all of them can be regarded as regular vocabulary units. It seems logical to make distinction between acronyms and letter abbreviations. Letter abbreviations are mere replacements of longer phrases including names of well-known organisations of undeniable currency, names of agencies and institutions, political parties, famous people, names of official offices, etc. They are not spoken or treated as words but pronounced letter by letter and as a rule possess no other linguistic forms proper to words. The following may serve as examples of such abbreviations: CBW = chemical and biological warfare, DOD = Department of Defence (of the USA), 1TV = Independent Television, Instructional Television, SST = supersonic transport, etc. It should be remembered that the border-line between letter abbreviations and true acronyms is fluid and many letter abbreviations in the course of time may turn into regular vocabulary units. Occasionally letter abbreviations are given ‘pronunciation spelling’ as for instance dejay (= D.J. = disc jokey), emce (= M.C. = master of ceremonies) in which case they tend to pass over into true acronyms.
Acronyms are regular vocabulary units spoken as words. They are formed in various ways:
1) from the initial letters or syllables of a phrase, which may be pronounced differently a) as a succession of sounds denoted by the constituent letters forming a syllabic pattern, i.e. as regular words, e.g. UNO ['ju:nou] = United Nations Organisations; NATO ['neitou] = North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, UNESCO [ju:'neskou]; laser ['leisa] = = light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation; radar ['reidэ] = =radio detection and ranging; BMEWS ['bi:mju:z] = Ballistic Missile Early Warning System; b) as a succession of the alphabetical readings of the constituent letters as in, e.g., YCL ['wai’si:'el] = Young Communist League; BBC ['bi:'bi:’si:] = British Broadcasting Corporation; MP ['em'pi:] = Member of Parliament; SOS ['es'ou'es] = Save Our Souls.
189

2. 
   Acronyms may be formed from the initial syllables of each word of the phrase, e.g. Interpol = inter/national pol/ice; tacsatcom = Tactical Satellite Communications: Capcom = Capsule Communicator (the person at a space flight centre who communicates with the astronauts during a space flight).
   
3. 
   Acronyms may be formed by a combination of the abbreviation of the first or the first two members of the phrase with the last member undergoing no change at all, e.g. V-day = Victory Day; H-bomb = = hydrogen bomb; g-force = gravity force, etc.
   

All acronyms unlike letter abbreviations perform the syntactical functions of ordinary words taking on grammatical inflexions, e.g. MPs (will attack huge arms bill), M.P’s (concern at . . .). They also serve as derivational bases for derived words and easily collocate with derivational suffixes as, e.g. YCLer (= member of the YCL); MPess (= woman-member of Parliament); radarman, etc.