Minor Types of Lexical Opposition (Shortened Words)

MINISTRY OF HIGHER AND SECONDARY SPECIAL EDUCATION OFTHE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
GULISTAN STATE UNIVERSITY
The English and Literature department
Halimova Muborak’s qualification work on speciality5220100, English philology on the theme:
“Shortened words Minor types of lexical opposition”
Supervisor:
Gulistan-2006

CONTENTS
I. Introduction.
1.1. Commoncharacteristics of the qualification work
2.1. General definition ofhomonyms
II. The Main Part
1.2. Shortening of spokenwords
2.2. Graphicalabbreviations and acronyms
3.2. Abbreviations as themajor type of shortenings
4.2. Secondary ways ofshortening: sound interchange and sound imitating
5.2. Blendening of words
6.2. Back formation
7.2. Back formation as asource for shortening of words
III. Conclusion
1.3. Total review of thesubject discussed
2.3. The ways of applyingof the work
IV. Bibliography

Introduction
 
1.1 Common characteristics of the qualification work
The theme of my qualification work sounds as following: “Typeof shortening and their function in Modern English” This qualification work canbe characterized by the following:
The actuality of this work caused by several importantpoints. We seem to say that the shortening of the words is one of the maintrends in development of Modern English, especially in its colloquial layer,which, in its turn at high degree is supported by development of moderninformational technologies and simplification of alive speech. So thesignificance of our work can be proved by the following reasons:
a) Shortening of words is one of the developing branches oflexicology nowadays.
b) Shortening reflects the general trend of simplification ofa language.
c) Shortening is closely connected with the development ofmodern informational technologies.
d) Being a developing branch of linguistics it requires aspecial attention of teachers to be adequated to their specialization inEnglish.
 Having based upon the actuality of the theme we are able toformulate the general goals of our qualification work.
a) To study, analyze, and sum up all the possible changeshappened in the studied branch of linguistics for the past fifty years.
b) To teach the problem of shortening to young Englishlearners.
c) To demonstrate the significance of the problem for thosewho want to brush up their English.
d) To mention all the major of linguists’ opinions concerningthe subject studied.
If we say about the new information used within our work wemay note that the work studies the problem from the modern positions andanalyzes the modern trends appeared in this subject for the last ten years. Inparticular, the shorten language of computer chats was taken intoconsideration.
The practical significance of the work can be concluded inthe following items:
a) The work could serve as a good source of learning Englishby young teachers at schools and colleges.
b) The lexicologists could find a lot of interestinginformation for themselves.
c) those who would like to communicate with theEnglish-speaking people through the Internet will find a shortened language ofchats in our qualification work.
Having said about the linguists studied the material beforewe can mention that our qualification work was based upon the investigationsmade by a number of well known English, Russian and Uzbek lexicologists as A.I.Smirnitsky, B.A. Ilyish, N. Buranov, V.V. Vinogradov, O. Jespersen and someothers.
If we say about the methods of scientific approaches used inour work we can mention that the method of typological analysis was used.
The novelty of the work is concluded in including thelanguage of charts to one of the chapter of the qualification work.
The general structure of our qualification work looks asfollows:
The work is composed onto three major parts: introduction,main part and conclusion. Each part has its subdivision onto the specific thematicallyitems. There are two points in the introductory part: the first item tellsabout the general content of the work while the other gives us the generalexplanation of the lexicological phenomenon of shortening in a language. Themain part bears the eight points in itself. The first point explains theshortening of spoken words in particular. The second item analyzes thephenomenon of graphical abbreviations and acronyms. In the third point we studyabbreviations as the major way of shortening. In the fourth paragraph of thequalification work we deal with the secondary ways of shortening: soundinterchange and sound imitation. The fifth paragraph takes into considerationthe question of Blendening of words. The sixth item shows us the back formationexamples. The last paragraph of the main part analyzes the homonymy influenceonto the appearing of shortening.
The conclusion of the qualification work sums up the ideasdiscussed in the main part (the first item) and shows the ways of implying ofthe qualification work (in the second item).
2.1 General definition of homonyms
Word-building processes involve not only qualitative but alsoquantitative changes. Thus, derivation and compounding represent addition, asaffixes and free stems, respectively, are added to the underlying form.Shortening, on the other hand, may be represented as significant subtraction,in which part of the original word is taken away. The spoken and the writtenforms of the English language have each their own patterns of shortening, butas there is a constant exchange between both spheres, it is sometimes difficultto tell where a given shortening really originated.
SHORTENING OF WORDS AND MINOR WAYS OF WORD-FORMING
The shortening of words consists insub-of words Graphical a part for a whole. The process оf shortening is not confined only to words;many word-groups also become shortened in the pro­cess of communication.Therefore, the term «shortening of words» is to be regarded asconventional, as it involves the shortening of both words and word-groups.
Distinction should be made betweenshortening of words in written speech and in the sphere of oral intercourse.Shortening of words in written speech results in graphical abbreviations whichare, in fact, signs representing words and word-groups of high frequency ofoccurrence in various spheres of human activity; note, for instance, RD forRoad and St for Street in addresses on envelopes and in letters; to for tube, arefor aerial in Radio Engineering literature, etc. English graphicalabbreviations include rather numerous shortened variants of Latin and Frenchwords and word-groups, e. g. a. m. (L. ante meridian)—’in the morning, beforenoon’; p. m. (L. post meridian)—’in the afternoon, afternoon’; i.e. (L. widest)—’thatis’; R. S. V. P. (Fr. Repondez sil vous plait) — ‘reply please’, etc.
The characteristic feature ofgraphical abbreviations is that they 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 phrasesthat they represent, e. g., Dr.-doctor, Mr.-mister, Oct.-October, etc., theabbreviations of Latin and French words and phrases being usually read as theirEng­lish equivalents. It is only natural that in the course of languagedevelopment some graphical abbreviations should gradually penetrate into thesphere of oral intercourse and, as a result, turn into lexical abbreviations usedboth in oral and written speech. That is the case, for instance, with M. P.Member of Parliament, S.O.S. Save our Souls, etc. Lexical Shortened variants ofwords and shortening, phrases are used as independent lexical units with acertain phonetic shape and a semantic structure of their own. Some of themoccur both in oral and written speech, others only in oral colloquial speech,cf. bus, mike, phone, on the one hand, and trig, math’s, sis, on the other.
In most cases a shortened word existsin the vocabulary together with the longer word from which it is derived andusually has the same lexical meaning1 differing only in emotivecharge and stylistic reference. The question naturally aris­es whether theshortened forms and the original forms should be considered separate words.Some linguists hold the view that as the two units (e. g. exam and examination)do not differ in meaning but only in stylistic application, it would be wrongto apply the term word to the shortened unit. In fact, the shortened unit is aword-variant (e. g. exam is a word-variant of the word examination).
Other linguists contend that evenwhen the original word and its shortened form are generally used with «adifference in the implied tone of feeling» they are both to be recognizedas two distinct words. If this treatment of the process of word-shortening isaccepted, the essential difference between the shortening of words and theusual process of word-formation (such as affixation, compounding, etc.) shouldbe pointed out. It will be recalled that words built by affixation, forinstance, are of a more complex character both structurally and semantically,cf. teach—teacher, develop—s- development, usual-unusual, etc. It is not thecase with word-shortening; shortened words are structurally simple words and,as was mentioned above, in most cases have the same lexical meaning as thelonger words from which they are derived. Another peculiarity ofword-shortening if treated as a derivational process is that there are nostructural patterns after which new shortened words could be coined. At anyrate, linguistic research has failed to establish any so far.
Among shortenings of the lexical typedistinction should be made between lexical abbreviations and clippings- Lexicalabbreviations are formed by a simultaneous operation of shortening andcompounding, which accounts for the Russian term сложно-сокращенные слова universally applied tothem in Soviet linguistic literature. They are made up of the initial sounds orsyllables of the components of a word-group or a compound word usually of aterminological character. There are two ways to read and pronounce suchabbreviations:
(1)As a succession of the alphabeticalreadings of the constituent letters, e. g.
(2) В. В. С,[‘bi:’bi:si:] = British BroadcastingCorporation; -T.V. [‘ti:’vi:] television; etc.
(3) as a succession of soundsdenoted by the constituent letters, i. e. as if the abbreviations were ordinarywords, e.g. UNO [‘ju:noy] = United Nations Organization; NATO [‘neitou] = NorthAtlantic Treaty Organization; laser
(4)[‘leiza] light amplificationby stimulated emission of radiation; etc.
As a rule, lexical abbreviations donot include functional words (prepositions, articles, etc.). although there aresome  exceptions, e. g. R. and D. [ ‘a:rsn’di:] research and developmentprogram.
In some cases only the firstcomponent of a two-member word-group or the first two components of a three-membergroup are shortened, the last one undergoing no change at all, e. g. V-dayr’vi: ‘dei]Victory Day; H-bomb r’eitj ‘bnm] hydrogen Domb; V.J.-Day [‘vi’dgei’dei]= Victory over Japan Day, etc.
As a general rule, lexicalabbreviations first make their appearance in written speech, mostly innewspaper style and in the style of scientific prose, and gradually find theirway into the sphere of oral intercourse.[1]
Clipping consists in the cutting off of one orseveral syllables of a word. In many cases the stressed syllable is preserved,e. g. sis from sister, Jap from Japanese, doc from doctor, etc. Diminutives ofproper names are often formed in this way, e. g. AH from Alfred, Ed from Edward,Sam from Samuel, etc. Sometimes, however, it is the unstressed syllable that remainse. g. phone from telephone, plane from airplane, dome from aerodrome, etc.Traditionally clippings are classified into several types depending on whichpart of the word is clipped:
1) Wordsthat have been shortened at the end—the so called apocope [‘opokop]—апокопа, е. g. ad from advertisement, lab from laboratory, etc.
2) Wordsthat have been shortened at the beginning—the so-called aphaeresis [a’fiansisj —аферезис, е. g. car from motor-car, phone from telephone,etc.
3) Wordsin which some syllables or sounds have been omitted from the middle—theso-called syncope [‘sinkapi] — синкопа,е.g. math’s frommathematics, pants from pantaloons specs from spectacles, etc.
4) Wordsthat have been clipped both at the beginning and at the end, e. g. flu from influenza,tic from detective, frig from refrigerator, etc.
It is typical of word-clipping in ModernEnglish that in most cases it is the nouns that are shortened. There are veryfew clipped adjectives all of them belonging to jargonize, e. g. add from ardent,dilly from delightful and some others. As for clipped verbs it is usually acase of conversion from clipped nouns, e. g. to taxi from taxi, to phone from phone,to perm from perm—’a permanent wave’, etc.
1) When performing in the sentence somepeculiarities the syntactical functions of ordinary of Clipped words andlexical Abbreviations, abbreviations take on grammatical inflections, e. g. exams,M. P. s (will attack huge arms bill), (Tory) M. P.’s (concern at), etc.
2)Thesetwo categories of shortened words may be used with the definite and theindefinite article, e. g. the В. В. С, a bike, the radar, etc.[2]
3)Theymay be combined with derivational affixes and also be used in compounding, e.g. Y. С L.-er— ‘member of the Y.C.L.’;M. P.-ess—’woman-member of Parliament’; hanky from handkerchief, nighttime fromnightdress (with the diminutive suffix -ie); radar man—оператор радиолокационой станции, etc.
4)Clippedwords are characteristic of colloquial speech. The number of clipped words usedin everyday speech is rather considerable and newly clipped words keep enteringthe vocabu­lary.
In the course of time many clippedwords find their way into the literary language losing their stylistic coloring,though not infrequently they still preserve the stamp of collo­quial words and,as a result, are restricted in use.
The term blending is used to de-§ 39.Blending signage the method of merging parts of words (not morphemes) into onenew word; the result is a blend, also known as a portmanteau word. The nounsmog is an example in point. It is composed of the parts of the nouns smoke andfog (smoke-Hog). Thus blending is in fact com­pounding by means of clipped words.The result of blending is an unanalyzed, simple word, for the parts of wordsblended by the word-coiner (for instance, sin and go in smog) are not morphemesat all in terms of the English language. Therefore a blend is perceived as asimple word unless speakers have re­ceived the extra-linguistic informationabout its composition. Many blends are short-lived. A fair proportion, however,have become established in the vocabulary, e. g. clash—clap H-crash or dash;flush = flash blush; brunch—breakfast-Ь lunch; 5language=slang-language; amaze smoke haze, etc. In most casesblends belong to the colloquial layer of words sometimes bordering on slang, e.g. amaze, brunch, language, politician pollute politician—грязный политикан, etc.There are numerous blends, however, in the terminological sector of thevocabulary, e.g. recon=radar beacon—радиолокационный маяк; transceiver = transmitter-receive—приемное-передающая станция; transistor=transfer resistor—транзистор, etc.
In considering the diachronic and theformation synchronic approach to language study (see ‘Introduction’, § 2)reference was made, in particular, to the verb to beg derived from the nounbeggar borrowed from Old French. The noun beggar was later presumed to havebeen derived from a shorter word on the analogy of the derivative correlationof the «speak—speaker» type. This process of word-formation is calledbackformation (or back-derivation) and has diachronic relevance only. It doesnot affect the derivative correlation for present-day speakers who do not feelany difference between the relationship «speak— speaker», on the onehand, and «beg—beggar», on the other. Examples of backformation arenumerous: to burgle from burglar; to edit from editor; to enthuse from enthusiasm;to sculpt from sculptor, to liaise from liaison, etc. At the present timebackformation combined with conversion seems to be active in the formation ofverbs from compound nouns mostly of a terminological character, e.g. toblood-transfuse from blood-trans fusion — переливание крови; to rush-develop from rush-development— быстрое проявление пленки; to finger-print from finger-printing— взятие отпечатков пальцев; to baby-sit from baby-sitter= приходящая няня, etc.
Sound-interchange is the gradation ofe.g. Sound- and stress- sounded occupying one and the same interchange. Placein the sound-form of one and the same morpheme in various cases of itsoccurrence. Both sound and stress-interchange may be regarded as ways offorming words only diachronically because in Modern English not a single wordcan be coined by changing the root-vowel of a word or by shifting the place ofthe stress. Sound-interchange as well as stress-interchange is absolutelynon-productive and in fact has turned into a means of distinguishing betweendifferent words, primarily between words of different parts of speech and assuch is rather wide-spread in Modern English, e.g. to sing—song, to live—life,to breathe—breath, etc. It also distinguishes between different word-forms,e.g. man—men, wife—wives, to know—knew, to leave—left, etc.
Sound-interchange naturally fallsinto two groups: vowel-interchange and consonant-interchange.
By means of vowel-interchange wedistinguish different parts of speech, e.g. full—to fill, food—to feed,blood-to bleed, etc. In some cases vowel-interchange is combined withaffixation, e.g. long—length, strong—strength, broad— breadth; nature—natural,nation—national, etc. Intransi­tive verbs and corresponding transitive oneswith 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 typicalof Modern English is the interchange of a voiceless fricative consonant in anoun and the corresponding voiced consonant in the cor­responding verb, e.g.: use—touse, mouth—to mouth, house-to house, advice—to advise, etc.
There are some particular cases ofconsonant-interchange: [k]—[tj]: to speak—speech; to break—breach; [s]—[dj:] defense—todefend; offence—to offend; [sj—ft]: evidence-evident; importance—important; etc.Consonant-interchange may be combined with vowel-interchange, e.g. bath—tobathe; breath—to breathe; life—to live, etc.
Many English verbs of Latin-Frenchorigin are distin­guished from the corresponding nouns by the position ofstress. Here are some well-known examples of such pairs of words: ‘export «—to exporto; ‘import n—to import v; ‘conduct n—to conduct v; ‘present n—to present v; ‘contrastn— to contrast u; ‘increase n—-to increase v, etc.
Stress-interchange is not restrictedto pairs of words con­sisting of a noun and a verb. It may also occur betweenother parts of speech, for instance, between adjective and verb, cf. ‘frequent adj—tofrequent v, ‘absent ad\— to absent v, etc.
Relationship Sound-interchange inEnglish is often Between sound (stress)- combined with a difference only in theinterchange paradigm. Hence the question arises and conversion. Of therelativistic between sound-interchange and conversion. To investigate theproblem the following three types of relations should be distinguished:
1)      Breath—to breathe
As far as cases of this type areconcerned, sound-interchange distinguishes only between words; it does notdifferentiate word-forms of one and the same word. Consequently it has norelation to the paradigms of the words. Hence, cases of this type cannot beregarded as conversion.
2)      Song—to sing
In the given example the vowel insong interchanges with three different vowels, the latter interchanging withone another in the forms of the verb to sing:[3]
/>
Like the previous type, the wordssong—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-formsof the verb and vice versa.
3) House—to house
In such cases the type ofsound-interchange used to distinguish the two words (verb and noun) is the sameas that which distinguishes the word-forms of the noun, cf. house [haus]—houses[hauziz] and to house [hauz]. Consequently, the only difference between the twowords lies in their para­digms, in other words, word-pairs like house—to houseare cases of conversion. It is fairly obvious that in such cases as present—topresent, accent—-to accent, etc. which differ in the position of stress thelatter does not distinguish the word-forms within the paradigm of the twowords. Thus, as far as cases of this type are concerned, the difference instress is similar to the function of sound-interchange in cases like breath—tobreathe. Consequently, cases of this type do not belong to conversion.
1. Shortening of words and wordsummary groups is typical of present-day English a one occurring in variousspheres of oral and written intercourse. Graphical abbreviations are restrictedin use to written speech. Lexical abbreviations and especially clippings arepeculiar to the sphere of oral communi­cation
2.Theresult of blending which is a compounding of clipped words is always a simpleword. In most cases blends belong to the colloquial layer of words. There are,however, numerous blends in the terminological section of the vocabulary.
3.Theprocess of back formation is of diachronic relevance only.
4.Thefunction of sound-interchange and stress-inter change in Modern English is todistinguish between different words and word-forms. Sound-interchange is oftenaccompanied by affixation.

The Main Part
 
1.2 SHORTENING OF SPOKEN WORDS
As a type of word-building shortening of spoken words, alsocalled clipping or curtailment, is recorded in the English language as far backa& the 15th century.1 It has grown more and more productive ever since.This growth becomes especially marked in many European languages in the 20thcentury, and it is a matter of common knowledge that this development isparticularly intense in English.
Newly shortened words appear continuously; this is testifiedby numerous neologisms, such as dub v, a cinema term meaning ‘to make anotherrecording of sound-track in a film in a different language’ (from double); frigor fridge n from refrigerator; mike n from microphone; tellie, telly or T. V. nfrom 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 factorsshould 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 notethat a high percentage of English shortenings are involved into the process ofloan word assimilation. Monosyllabic goes farther in English than in any otherEuropean language, and that is why shortened words sound more like native onesthan their long prototypes. Curtailment may therefore be regarded as caused,partly at least, by analogical extension, i.e. modification of form on thebasis of analogy with existing and widely used patterns. Thus, the threehomonyms resulting from abbreviation of three different words, van ‘a largecovered 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 aclipping of the French word avant-garde; and van — a lawn tennis term, theshort 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 reductionof a word to one of its parts (whether or not this part has previously been amorpheme), as a result of which the new form acquires some linguistic value ofits own.
The part retained does not change phonetically, hence thenecessity of spelling changes in some of the examples above (dub:: double, mike:: microphone, etc.).
The change is not only quantitative: a curtailed word 2 isnot merely a word that has lost its initial, middle or final part. Nor is itpossible to treat shortening as just using a part for the whole as Hackettsuggests, because a shortened word is always in some way different from itsprototype in meaning and usage. Moreover, every kind of shortening differs’ fromderivation, composition and conversion in being not a new arrangement ofexisting morphemes, but often a source of new ones.
Shortening may be regarded as a type of root creation becausethe resulting new morphemes are capable of being used as free forms and combinewith bound forms. They can take functional suffixes: «Refs Warning WorksMagic» (the title of a newspaper article about a football match where thereferee 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, PastTense and Part. II — vacked. They also serve as basis for furtherword-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 coinmany special terms denoting instruments and processes which produce or recordresults 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 renderinga special new notion. This becomes obvious from the following simpletransformations: television — vision at a distance, tele(broad)«cast HO abroadcast at a distance,3 tele (broad) cast a television broadcast. In this newcapacity tele- enters many combinations: telefilm, tele-prompter (an electronicdevice that slowly unrolls the speaker’s text, in large print out of sight ofthe 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 ofgreat interest. Two possible developments should be noted:
1. The curtailed form may be regarded as a variant or asynonym differing from the full form quantitatively, stylistically andsometimes emotionally, the prototype being stylistically and emotionallyneutral, e. g. doc :: doctor; exam :: examination. Also in proper names: Becky::Rebecca, Frisco :: San Francisco, Japs :: the Japanese. The missing part can atall times be supplied by the listener, so that the connection between theprototype and the short form is not lost. The relationship between theprototype and the curtailment belongs in this case to the present-dayvocabulary system and forms a relevant feature for synchronistic analysis. Muchyet remains to be done in studying the complex relations between the prototypeand the clipping, as it is not clear when one should consider them two separatesynonymous words and when they are variants of the same word.
2. In the opposite extreme case the connection can be establishedonly 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 beoffended at being called a fanatic. A fanatic is understood to haveunreasonable and exaggerated beliefs and opinions that make him sociallydangerous, whereas a fan is a harmless devotee of a specified amusement. Therelationship between curtailed forms and prototypes in this second group isirrelevant 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 bytheir prototypes and show in this way a certain degree of interchangeability,the doublets are never equivalent lexically as there are no contexts where theprototype can replace the shortened word without a change of meaning.
The possibility of substitution in case of variants may beshown by the following example: if a newspaper article about a certainmusician2 is entitled „The Boss of the Tenor Sax“, there is nothing veryunusual in substituting saxophone for sax (»The Boss of the TenorSaxophone”). The prototype is stylistically neutral and therefore it canstand for the curtailed word. A similar example is furnished by the followingheading of a brief newspaper note about the prescription of eyeglasses forracing horses in Chicago. It runs as follows: «Racehorses Are Fitted withSpecs». The substitution of spectacles for specs would make the heading alittle less lively but not unacceptable.
This substitution, as a rule, can go only one way. It wouldbe, for instance, impossible to use mug for magazine in the following passageof literary criticism: The public he [Ch. Dickens] wrote for was largely a newpublic brought to consciousness by the industrial revolution, a public forwhich magazine proprietors had not catered before 1832… (W. ALLEN) Thespecific stylistic character of the clipped form greatly limits thepossibilities 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 thefirst group (variants) render one of the possible meanings of the prototypecreating by this very novelty a greater expressiveness, a colloquial or slangyshade and often emotional coloring as well. The following extract willillustrate this coloring: «Still, I suppose you want to find your room. Iwonder 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 ofthe secondary meanings of a polysemantic word. For instance the verb double maymean ‘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 loweroctave’. 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 mostlymono-semantic as, for example, lab, exam, and fan. Also they are oftenhomonymous: compare van and vac as treated above, also gym for gymnastics andgym for gymnasium, or vet for veteran and veterinary. Most of these byconversion produce verbs: to phone, to vac, to vet, etc., in which the semanticrelationship with the prototype remains quite clear.
Between the two groups of well-defined extreme cases, namelyvariants or synonyms and doublets, there exist numerous intermediate cases,where the classification is difficult. The appearance of a more complexsemantic structure in a word is a step towards its acquiring greaterindependence and thus becoming not a variant but a doublet of the prototype. Thisintermediate state is illustrated by the word polio which means not only theillness but also a person suffering from poliomyelitis, although the phrases apolio case or a polio victim are more often used.
The second extreme group, the etymological doublets, maydevelop semantic structures of their own. Very complex semantic cases likefancy with its many meanings and high valiancy are nevertheless rare.
It has been specified in the definition of the process thatthe clipped part is not always a complete morpheme, so that the division isonly occasionally correlated with the division into immediate constituents. Forinstance, in phone for telephone and photo for photograph the remaining partsare 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 partof the word that remains to represent the whole. An interesting and convincingexplanation for this is offered by M. M. Segal, who quotes the results ofseveral experimental investigations dealing with informal! Vine parts of words.These experiments carried out by psychologists have proved very definitely thatthe initial components of words are imprinted in the mind and memory morereadily than the final parts. The signaling value of the first stressedsyllable, especially when it is at the same time the root syllable, isnaturally much higher than that of the unstressed final syllables with theirreduced vowel sounds.
As a rule, but not necessarily, clipping follows the syllabicprinciple of word division, e. g. pep (si.) ‘vigour’, ‘spirit’ from pepper, orplane from aero plane. In other instances it may be quite an arbitrary part ofthe prototype, e.g. prep (school.) ‘Homework’ is from preparation.
Unlike conversion, shortening produces new words in the samepart of speech. The bulk of curtailed words is constituted by nouns, Verbs arehardly ever shortened in present-day English, Rev from revolve and tab fromtabulate may be considered exceptions. Such clipped verbs as do occur are infact converted nouns. Consequently the verbs to perm, to phone, to taxi, tovac, to vet and many others are not curtailed words diachronically hut may beregarded as such by right of structure, from the synchronic point of view. Asto the verbs to pent, to mend, to tend and a few others, they were actuallycoined as curtailed words but not at the present stage of language development.
Shortened adjectives are very few and mostly reveal acombined effect of shortening and suffixation, e. g. comfy ‘.: comfortable,dilly :: delightful, imposes :: impossible, muzzy :: miserable, which occur inschoolgirl 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 mayhe offered. The generally accepted one is that based on the position of theclipped part. According to whether it is the final, initial or middle part ofthe word that is cut off we distinguish final clipping (or apocopate),2 initialclipping (or aphesis) 3 and medial clipping (or syncope) [4]
SHORTENED WORDS
1. Final clipping in which the beginning of the prototype isretained, 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 theprototype .are less numerous but much more firmly established as separatelexical units with a meaning very different from that of the prototype andstylistically 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 thecurtailed words are stylistically synonyms or even variants of their respectiveprototypes are very rare. Neologisms are few: e. g. chute:: parachute. It is inthis group that the process of assimilation of loan words takes place.
Final and initial clipping may be combined and result incurtailed words with the middle part of the prototype retained. These are fewand definitely colloquial: e. g. flu :: influenza, frig ox fridge ::refrigerator, tec :: detective. It is worthy of note that what is retained isthe stressed syllable of the prototype.
3. Curtailed words with the middle part of the word left outare equally few. They may be further subdivided into two groups: (a) words witha final-clipped stem retaining the functional morpheme: math:: mathematics,specs :: spectacles; (b) contractions due to a gradual process of elision underthe influence of rhythm and context. Thus fancy:: fantasy, ma’am :: madam maybe regarded as accelerated forms.
It is also possible to approach shortened words on the basisof the structure characterizing the prototype. Then the two mutually exclusivegroups are cases correlated with words and those correlated with phrases. Thelength of the word giving rise to a shortening might result from its being aderivative, a compound or a borrowing. The observation of language material,however, can furnish hardly any examples of the second type (compounds), allthe word prototypes being derivatives, either native or borrowed, as is shownby all the examples quoted in the above paragraphs.
The few exceptions are exemplified by tarmac, a technicalterm for tar-macadam, a road surface of crushed stone and tar originally namedafter 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, theprocess of shortening is here combined with derivation as in mightier fornightdress.
The group we have opposed to the curtailed forms of words isbased on clipped phrases, chiefly set expressions. These differ severable fromword clippings as they result from a combined effect of curtailment, ellipsisand substantiation.
E11ipsis is defined as the omission of a word or wordsconsidered essential for grammatical completeness but not for the conveyance ofthe intended lexical meaning, as in the following example: Police summonses arebeing served in an effort to stop the big sit down planned for September 17(«Daily Worker»), where sit-down stands for sit down demonstration, S.Ullmann following Broal emphasizes the social causes for these. Professionaland other communities with a specialized sphere of common interests are theideal setting for ellipsis. Open on for open fire on, and put to sea for putship to sea are of wartime and navy origin, and bill for bill of exchange comesfrom business circles; in a newspaper office daily paper and weekly paper werequite naturally shortened to daily and weekly. It is clear from the above examplesthat unlike other types of shortening, ellipsis always results in a change oflexico-gravimetrical meaning, and therefore the new word belongs to a differentpart of speech. Various other processes are often interwoven with ellipsis. Forinstance: finals for final examinations are a case of ellipsis combined with substantiationof the first element, whereas prelims for preliminary examinations results fromellipsis, substantivation and clipping. Cf. also modes (from Modern jazz).Other examples of the same complex type are perm :: permanent wave, pop ::popular music,2 prom :: promenade concert, i. e. a concert at which at leastpart of the audience is not seated and can walk about, pub :: public house —aninn or tavern, taxi :: taxi-cab, itself formed from taximeter-cab. Inside thisgroup a subgroup with prefixed derivatives as first elements of prototypephrases can do distinguished, e. g. co-ed ‘a girl student at a co-educationalinstitution’, co-op ‘co-operative store or society’, non-com ‘a noncommissionedofficer’, prefab ‘a prefabricated house or structure’; to prefabricate means’to manufacture component parts of buildings prior to their assembly on asite’.
It has already been mentioned that curtailed words fromcompounds are few; cases of curtailment combined with composition set offagainst phrasal prototypes are slightly more numerous, e. g. ad-lib v ‘to speakwithout notes or preparation’ from the Latin phrase add labium meaning ‘atpleasure’; sub chaser n from submarine chaser. A curious derivational compoundwith a clipping for one of its stems is the word teen-ager ‘a person between 13and 19’, i. e. ‘a person in his or her teens’. The-jocular and ironical nameLib-Labs (Liberal and Labor Party members) illustrates clipping, compositionand ellipsis and imitation of reduplication all in one word.
Among these formations there is a specific group that has attractedspecial attention of several authors and was even given several differentnames: blends, bleu dings, fusions airport an tea words. The last term is dueto Lewis Carroll, the author of «Alice in Wonderland» and«Through the Looking Glass». One of the most linguistically consciouswriters, he made a special technique of using blends coined by himself, such aschortle v
Compare also snob which may have been originally an abbreviationfor sine nobilities, written after a name in the registry of fashionableEnglish schools to indicate that the bearer of the name did not belong tonobility. One of the most recent examples is bit, the fundamental unit ofinformation, which is short for binary digit.
The analysis into immediate constituents is helpful in so faras it permits the definition of a blend as a word with the first constituentrepresented by a stem whose final part may be missing, and the secondconstituent by a stem of which the initial part is missing. The secondconstituent when used in a series of similar blends may turn into a suffix. Anew suffix on is, for instance, well under way in such terms as nylon, rayon, salon,formed from the final element of cotton.
Depending upon the prototype phrases with which they can becorrelated two types of blends can be distinguished. One may be termedadditive, the second restrictive. Both involve the sliding together not only ofsound but of meaning as well. Yet the semantic relations who are at work aredifferent. The first, i.e. additive type is transformable into a phraseconsisting of the respective complete stems combined by the conjunction and:e.g. smog smog; cf. alsoa new coinage amaze [ smog + haze: A Weath er Bureau official described thecondition as a kind of smog-like haze. „Call it amaze,“ he said.1Pakistan was made up of elements taken from the names of the five westernprovinces: the initials of Panjab, Afghanis, Kashmir, and Singh, and the finalpart of Baluchistan. Other examples are: brunch breakfast and lunch;transceiver transmitter and receiver, Niffles — Niagara Falls.
The restrictive type is transformable into an attributivephrase, where the first element serves as modifier of the second:cinematographic panorama Cinerama. Other examples are: positron
Curtailed words arise in various types of colloquial speech,and have for the most part a pronounced stylistic coloring as long as theirconnection with the prototype is alive, so that they remain synonyms. When theconnection with the prototype is lost, the curtailed word may becomestylistically neutral: e. g. brig, cab, cello, and pram. Stylistically coloredshortened words may belong to any variety of colloquial style. They areespecially numerous in various branches of slang: school slang, service slang,sport slang, newspaper slang, etc. Familiar colloquial style gives suchexamples as bobby, cabbie, mac, and max from maximum, movies. Nursery words areoften clipped: grand, granny, hanky from handkerchief, ma, nigh tie fromnightdress, pinkie from pinafore. Stylistic peculiarity often goes hand in handwith emotional coloring as is revealed in the above diminutives. School andcollege slang, on the other hand, reveal some sort of reckless if not ironicalattitude to the things named: caf from cafeteria ‘self-service restaurant’,digs from diggings ‘lodgings’, ec, eco from economics, home ecs, lab, math’s,prelims, prep, prof, trig, undergrad, vac, varsity. Service slang is very richin clipped words; some of them penetrate the familiar colloquial style. A fewexamples are: demob from demobilize, divvy n from civilian, op n from operator,non-com n from non-combatant, corps n from corporal, serge n from sergeant.
The only types of clippings that belong to bookish style arethe poetical contractions, such as e’en, e’er, ne’er, o’er
2.2. GRAPHICAL ABBREVIATIONS. ACRONYMS
Because of the ever closer connection between the oral andthe written forms of the language it is sometimes difficult to differentiateclippings coined in oral speech from graphical abbreviations. The latter oftenpass into oral speech and become widely used in conversation.
During World War I and later the custom became very popularnot only in English-speaking countries, but in other parts of the world aswell, to call countries, governmental, social, military, industrial and tradeorganizations and officials not by their full titles but by initialabbreviations derived from writing: the USSR, the U. N., the U. N. O. Suchwords formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive partsor major parts of a compound term are called acronyms. Two possible types oforthoepic correlation between written and spoken forms should be noted:
1. If the abbreviated written form can be read as though itwere an ordinary English word it will be read like one. Many examples arefurnished by political and technical vocabulary. U. N. E. S. C. O., also Unesco[ju:’neskou] — United Nations Educational, Scientific and CulturalOrganization’, U. N. O., also Una [‘ju:nou] — United Nations Organization; U.N. R. R. A., also Unrra [an’ra:] — United Nations Relief and RehabilitationAdministration, etc. A few recent technical terms may also be mentioned toillustrate this type such as jato, laser, maser and a more than twenty yearsold radar. JATO or jato means’ jet-assisted take-off. Laser stands for lightamplification by stimulated emission radiation; maser for micro-waveamplification and stimulated emission radiation; l radar for radio detectionand ranging denotes a system for ascertaining direction and ranging ofaircraft, ships, coasts and other objects by means of the electro-magnetic waveswhich they reflect. One more military term might be added: sten fgun) as thename for a light weight machine gun derived from the initials of the inventors’surnames, Shepherd and Turpin + -en for England. Words belonging to this groupare often isolated from the prototypes.
2. The opposite subgroup consists of initial abbreviationswith the alphabetic reading retained. They also retain correlation withprototypes. The examples are well-known: B. B. C. [‘bi:’bi:’si:] — the BritishBroadcasting Corporation; G. I. [‘djii’aij — for Government Issue, a widelyspread metonymical name for American soldiers on the items of whose uniformsthese letters are stamped. The last abbreviation was originally an Americanismbut has been firmly established in British English as well. M. P. [’em ‘pi:] ismostly used as an initial abbreviation for Member of Parliament, also militarypolice, whereas P. M. stands for Prime Minister. These abbreviations are freelyused in colloquial speech as seen from the following extract, in which C. P.Snow describes the House of Commons gossip: They were swapping promises tospeak for one another: one was bragging how two senior Ministers were „inthe bag“ to speak for him. Rigger was safe, someone said, he’d give ahand. „What has the P. M. got in mind for Roger when we come back?“The familiar colloquial quality of the context is very definitely marked by theset expressions: in the bag, give a hand, get in mind, etc.
Other examples of initial abbreviations with the alphabeticalreading retained are: S.O.S. [‘es ‘ou ‘es] — Save Our Souls, a wirelesscode-signal of extreme distress, also figuratively, any despairing cry forhelp; T. V ‘. Or TV [‘ti: ‘vi:l — television; Y. C. L. [‘wai ‘si: ‘el] — theYoung Communist League. The names of English letters seem to favor this type ofabbreviation.
The term abbreviation may be also used for a shortened formof a written word or phrase used in a text in place of the whole, for economyof space and effort. Abbreviation is achieved by omission of letters from oneor more parts of the whole, as for instance abr. for abbreviation, bldg forbuilding, govt for government, cdr. for commander, doz or dz for dozen, ltd forlimited, B. A. for Bachelor of Arts, N. Y. for New York State. Sometimes thepart or parts retained show some alteration, thus oz denotes ounce and Xmasdenotes Christmas. Doubling of initial letters shows plural forms as forinstance pp for pages, U for lines or cc for chapters. These are in fact notseparate words but only graphic signs or symbols representing them.Consequently no orthopedic correlation exists in such cases and theunabbreviated word is pronounced: // [lainz], pp.
A specific type of abbreviations having no parallel inRussian is represented by Latin abbreviations which sometimes are not read asLatin words but substituted by their English equivalents. A few of the mostimportant cases are listed below: ad lib (Lat ad libitum) — at pleasure; a. m.(Lat ante meridian) — in the morning; cf. (Lat conferre) — compare; cp. (Lat comparer)— compare; e. g. (Lat exempli gratia) — for example; ib (id) (Lat ibidem) — inthe same place; i.e. (Lat id est) — that is; loc. cit. (Lat locus citato) -inthe passage cited; ob. (Lat obiit) — he (she) died; q. v. (Lat quod vide) —which see; p. m. (Lat post meridiem) — in the afternoon; viz (Lat videlicet) —namely An interesting feature of present-day English is the use of initialabbreviations for famous persons’ names and surnames. Thus George Bernard Shawis often alluded to as G. B. S. I’dji; ‘bi: ‘esf Herbert George Wells as H. G.The usage is clear from the following example: „Oh, yes… where wasI?“ ”With H. G.’s Martians,» I told him. (WYNDHAM)
Journalistic abbreviations are often occasioned by a desireto economize head-line space, as seen from the following example-«CNDCalls Lobby to Stop MLF» («Daily Worker»). This means that amass lobby of Parliament against the Nato multilateral nuclear force (MLF) isbeing called by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
These regular developments are in some cases combined withoccasional jocular or accidental distortions. The National Economic DevelopmentCouncil is facetiously termed Needy. Elementary education is colloquiallyreferred to as the three R’s — reading, writing and Vithmetic. Some kind ofwitty folk etymology is at play when the abbreviation C. B. for constructionbattalions in the navy is respect into sea bees. The two well-knownAmericanisms jeep and okay may be mentioned in this connection. Jeep meaning ‘asmall military motor vehicle’ comes from g. p. [‘dgi: ‘pi:j (the initials ofgeneral purpose). Okay may be an illiterate misinterpretation of the initialsin all correct. Various other historical anecdotes have been also offered byway of explanation of the latter.
It must be emphasized that initial abbreviation, no less thanother types of shortening, retains the valiancy, i. e. the combiningpossibilities of the prototypes. The difference in distribution is conditionedonly by a change of meaning (lexical or more rarely lexico-grammatical).Abbreviations receive the plural arid Possessive case inflexions: G. I.’s, M.P.’s, P.O. W.’s (from prisoner of war), also the verb paradigm: Okays, okayed,okaying. E. g. 4 hotel’s no life for you… Why don’t you come and P. G. with me?(A. WILSON) Here P. G. is an acronym for paying guest. Like all nouns they canbe used attributively: BBC television, TV program, UN vote.
A specifically English word pattern absent in the Russianlanguage must be described in connection with initial abbreviations in whichthe first element is a letter and the second a complete word. The examples are:A-bomb, A-terror, H-accident risk, H-blast, A-sub, If-test, where A stands foratomic or atomic bomb and H for hydrogen bomb. The pronunciation is alphabetic.
No stylistic or semantic generalization on this type seemspossible, the examples being of different types. Alongside the examples ofwords in H- connected with nuclear weapons, there is the lady’s H-bag (forhandbag). Compare U standing for upper classes in such combinations asU-pronunciation, U-language (i. e. that of the upper classes). Non-U is itsopposite. So Non-U speakers are those whose speech habits show that they do notbelong to the upper classes. It will have been noted that all kinds of shorteningare very productive in present-day English. They are especially numerous incolloquial speech, both familiar colloquial and professional slang. Theydisplay great combining activity and form bases for further word-formation andinflection However Henry Sweet and some other scientists say that thesecriteria are not characteristic of the majority of such units.
They consider the first component of such units to be a nounin the function of an attribute because in Modern English almost all parts ofspeech and even word-groups and sentences can be used in the function of anattribute, e.g. the then president (an adverb), out-of-the-way villages (aword-group), a devil-may-care speed (a sentence).
There are different semantic relations between the componentsof «stone wall» combinations. E.I. Chapnik classified them into the followinggroups:
1. time relations, e.g. evening paper,
2. space relations, e.g. top floor,
3. relations between the object and the material of which itis made, e.g. steel helmet,
4. cause relations, e.g. war orphan,
5. relations between a part and the whole, e.g. a crewmember,
6. relations between the object and an action, e.g. armsproduction,
7. relations between the agent and an action e.g. governmentthreat, price rise,
8. relations between the object and its designation, e.g.reception hall,
9. the first component denotes the head, organizer of thecharacterized object, e.g. Clinton government, Forsyte family,
10. the first component denotes the field of activity of thesecond component, e.g. language teacher, psychiatry doctor,
11. comparative relations, e.g. moon face,
12. qualitative relations, e.g. winter apples.
3.2. Abbreviations as the major type of shortenings.
In the process of communication words and word-groups can beshortened. The causes of shortening can be linguistic and extra-linguistic. Byextra-linguistic causes changes in the life of people are meant. In ModernEnglish many new abbreviations, acronyms, initials, blends are formed becausethe tempo of life is increasing and it becomes necessary to give more and moreinformation in the shortest possible time.
There are also linguistic causes of abbreviating words andword-groups, such as the demand of rhythm, which is satisfied in English bymonosyllabic words. When borrowings from other languages are assimilated inEnglish they are shortened. Here we have modification of form on the basis ofanalogy, e.g. the Latin borrowing «fanaticus» is shortened to «fan» on theanalogy with native words: man, pan, tan etc.
There are two main types of shortenings: graphical andlexical.
Graphical abbreviations
Graphical abbreviations are the result of shortening of wordsand word-groups only in written speech while orally the corresponding fullforms are used. They are used for the economy of space and effort in writing.
The oldest group of graphical abbreviations in English is ofLatin origin. In Russian this type of abbreviation is not typical. In theseabbreviations in the spelling Latin words are shortened, while orally thecorresponding English equivalents are pronounced in the full form, e.g. forexample (Latin exampli gratia), a.m. — in the morning (ante meridiem), No — number (numero), p.a. — a year (per annum), d — penny (dinarius), Ib — pound(libra), i. e. — that is (id est) etc.
Some graphical abbreviations of Latin origin have differentEnglish equivalents in different contexts, e.g. p.m. can be pronounced «in theafternoon)) (post meridiem) and «after death» (post mortem). -—there are alsographical abbreviations of native origin, where in the spelling we haveabbreviations of words and word-groups of the corresponding English equivalentsin the full form. We have several semantic groups of them:
a) days of the week, e.g. Mon — Monday, Tue — Tuesday etc
b) names of months, e.g. Apr — April, Aug — August etc.
c) names of counties in UK, e.g. Yorks — Yorkshire, Berks-Berkshire etc
d) names of states in USA, e.g. Ala — Alabama, Alas — Alaskaetc.
e) names of address, e.g. Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr. etc
f) military ranks, e.g. capt. -captain, col. — colonel, sgt — sergeant etc.
g) scientific degrees, e.g. B.A. — Bachelor of Arts, D.M. — Doctor of Medicine. (Sometimes in scientific degrees we have abbreviations ofLatin origin, e.g., M.B. — Medicinae Baccalaurus).
h) units of time, length, weight, e.g. f. / ft -foot/feet,sec. — second, in. -inch, mg. — milligram etc.[5]
The reading of some graphical abbreviations depends on thecontext, e.g. «m» can be read as: male, married, masculine, meter, mile,million, minute, can be read as long-playing, low pressure.
V Initial abbreviations
Initializes are the bordering case between graphical andlexical abbreviations. When they appear in the language, as a rule, to denotesome new offices they are closer to graphical abbreviations because orally fullforms are used, e.g. J.V. — joint venture. When they are used for some durationof time they acquire the shortened form of pronouncing and become closer tolexical abbreviations, e.g. BBC is as a rule pronounced in the shortened form.
In some cases the translation of initializes is next toimpossible without using special dictionaries. Initializes are denoted indifferent ways. Very often they are expressed in the way they are pronounced inthe language of their origin, e.g. ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, UnitedStates) is given in Russian as AH3YC, SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks)was for a long time used in Russian as COJIT, now a translation variant is used.This type of initializes borrowed into other languages is preferable, e.g. UFO- HJIO, CLI — JV etc.
There are three types of initializes in English:
a) initialisms with alphabetical reading, such as UK, BUP,CND etc
b) initialisms which are read as if they are words, e.g.UNESCO, UNO, NATO etc.
c) initialisms which coincide with English words in theirsound form, such initialisms are called acronyms, e.g. CLASS (Computer-basedLaboratory for Automated School System). (Some scientists unite groups b) andc) into one group which they call acronyms. Some initializes can form new wordsin which they act as root morphemes by different ways of word building: a)affixation, e.g. AWA Lism, ex-rafer, ex- POW, to warfare, AID So phobia etc. — J b) conversion, e.g. to raff, to fly IFR (Instrument Flight Rules), I cjcomposition, e.g. STOL port, USAF man etc.
4 (there are also compound-shortened words where the firstcomponent is an initial abbreviation with the alphabetical reading and thesecond one is a complete word, e.g. A-bomb. U -pronunciation, V -day some casesthe first component is a complete word and the second T-component is an initialabbreviation with the alphabetical pronunciation, e.g. Three -Ds (Threedimensions) — Abbreviations of words.
Abbreviation of words consists in clipping a part of a word.As a result we get a new lexical unit where either the lexical meaning or thestyle is different form the full form of the word. In such cases as »fantasy»and «fancy», «fence» and «defense» we have different lexical meanings. In suchcases as «laboratory» and «lab», we have different styles.
Abbreviation does not change the part-of- speech meaning, aswe have it in the case of conversion or affixation, it produces words belongingto the same part of speech as the primary word. e.g. prof. is a noun andprofessor is also a noun. Mostly nouns undergo abbreviation, but we can alsomeet abbreviation of verbs. such as to rev from to revolve, to tab from totabulate etc. But mostly abbreviated forms of verbs are formed by means ofconversion from abbreviated nouns, e.g. to taxi, to vac etc. Adjectives can beabbreviated but they are mostly used in school slang and are combined with suffixation,e.g. comfy, dilly, mizzy etc. As rule pronouns, numerals, interjections,conjunctions are not abbreviated. The exceptions are: fif (fifteen), teen-ager,in one’s teens (aphaeresis from numerals from 13 to 19).
Lexical abbreviations are classified according to the part ofthe word which is clipped. Mostly the end of the word is clipped, because thebeginning of the word in most cases is the root and expresses the lexicalmeaning of the word. This type of abbreviation is called apocope. Here we canmention a group of words ending in «o», such as disco (discothèque),expo (exposition), intro (introduction) and many others. On the analogy withthese words there developed in Modern English a number of words where «o» isadded as a kind of a suffix to the shortened form of the word, e.g. combo (combination).In other cases the beginning of the word is clipped. In such cases we have aphaeresis,e.g. chute (parachute), varsity (university), copter (helicopter), muse (enthuse)etc. Sometimes the middle of the word is clipped, e.g. mart (market), fanzine(fan magazine) math (mathematics). Such abbreviations are called syncope.Sometimes we have a combination of apocope with aphaeresis, when the beginningand the end of the word are clipped, e.g. tec. (detective), van (avanguard)etc.
Sometimes shortening influences the spelling of the word,e.g. «c» can be substituted by «k» before «e» to preserve pronunciation, e.g.mike (microphone), Coke (coca-cola) etc. The same rule is observed in thefollowing cases: fax (facsimile), tack (technical college), trunk(tranquilizer) etc. The final consonants in the shortened forms are substitutedby letters characteristic of native English words.
4.2 SECONDARY WAYS OF WORDBUILDING SOUND INTERCHANGE
Sound interchange is the way of word-building when somesounds are changed to form a new word. It is non-productive in Modern English;it was productive in Old English and can be met in other Indo-European languages.
The causes of sound interchange can be different. It can bethe result of Ancient Ablaut which cannot be explained by the phonetic lawsduring the period of the language development known to scientists; e.g. tostrike — stroke, to sing — song etc. It can be also the result of AncientUmlaut or vowel mutation which is the result of palatalizing the root vowelbecause of the front vowel in the syllable coming after the root (regressiveassimilation), e.g. hot — to heat (hotian), blood — to bleed (blodian) etc.
In many cases we have vowel and consonant interchange. Innouns we have voiceless consonants and in verbs we have corresponding voicedconsonants because in Old English these consonants in nouns were at the end ofthe word and in verbs in the intervocalic position, e.g. bath — to bathe, life- to live, breath — to breathe etc.
STRESS INTERCHANGE AND SOUND IMITATION
Stress interchange can be mostly met in verbs and nouns ofRomanic origin: nouns have the stress on the first syllable and verbs on thelast syllable, e.g. ‘accent — to accent. This phenomenon is explained in thefollowing way: French verbs and nouns had different structure when they wereborrowed into English; verbs had one syllable more than the correspondingnouns. When these borrowings were assimilated in English the stress in them wasshifted to the previous syllable (the second from the end). Later on the lastunstressed syllable in verbs borrowed from French was dropped (the same as innative verbs) and after that the stress in verbs was on the last syllable whilein nouns it was on the first syllable. As a result of it we have such pairs inEnglish as: to affix -‘affix, to conflict- ‘conflict, to export -‘export, to extract- «extract etc. As a result of stress interchange we have also vowelinterchange in such words because vowels are pronounced differently in stressedand unstressed positions. It is the way of word-building when a word is formedby imitating different sounds. There are some semantic groups of words formedby means of sound imitation
a) sounds produced by human beings, such as: to whisper, togiggle, to mumble, to sneeze, to whistle etc.
b) sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, such as: tohiss, to buzz, to bark, to moo, to twitter etc.
c) sounds produced by nature and objects, such as: tosplash, to rustle, to clatter, to bubble, to ding-dong, to tinkle etc.
The corresponding nouns are formed by means of conversion,e.g. clang (of a bell), chatter (of children) etc.
5.2 BLENDING OF WORDS
Blends are words formed from a word-group or two synonyms. Inblends two ways of word-building are combined: abbreviation and composition. Toform a blend we clip the end of the first component (apocope) and the beginningof the second component (aphaeresis). As a result we have a compound- shortenedword. 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 thebeginning is taken, from the second one the end, «o» is common for both ofthem. Blends formed from two synonyms are: languange, to hustle, gasohol etc.Mostly blends are formed from a word-group, such as: acromania (acronymmania), cinemadict (cinema adict), chunnel (channel, canal), dramedy (dramacomedy), detectifiction (detective fiction), faction (fact fiction) (fictionbased on real facts), informecial (information commercial), Medicare ( medicalcare), magalog ( magazine catalogue) slimnastics (slimming gymnastics),sociolite (social elite), slanguist ( slang linguist) etc.
6.2 BACK FORMATION
It is the way of word-building when a word is formed bydropping the final morpheme to form a new word. It is opposite to suffixationthat is why it is called back formation. At first it appeared in the languageas a result of misunderstanding the structure of a borrowed word. Prof.Yartseva explains this mistake by the influence of the whole system of thelanguage on separate words. E.g. it is typical of English to form nounsdenoting 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 Englishthe final syllable «ar» was pronounced in the same way as the English -er andEnglishmen formed the verb «to beg» by dropping the end of the noun. Otherexamples 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 ( fromreminiscence), to televise (from television) etc.
As we can notice in cases of back formation thepart-of-speech meaning of the primary word is changed, verbs are formed fromnouns.

7.2 BACK FORMATION AS A SOURCE FOR SHORTENING OF WORDS
 
The meaning of a word can change in the course of time.Changes of lexical meanings can be proved by comparing contexts of differenttimes. Transfer of the meaning is called lexico-semantic word-building. In suchcases the outer aspect of a word does not change.
The causes of semantic changes can be extra-linguistic andlinguistic, e.g. the change of the lexical meaning of the noun «pen» was due toextra-linguistic causes. Primarily « pen» comes back to the Latin word «penna»(a feather of a bird). As people wrote with goose pens the name was transferredto steel pens which were later on used for writing. Still later any instrumentfor writing was called « a pen».
On the other hand causes can be linguistic, e.g. the conflictof synonyms when a perfect synonym of a native word is borrowed from some otherlanguage one of them may specialize in its meaning, e.g. the noun «tide» in OldEnglish was polysemantic and denoted «time», «season», «hour». When the Frenchwords «time», «season», and «hour» were borrowed into English they ousted theword «tide» in these meanings. It was specialized and now means «regular riseand fall of the sea caused by attraction of the moon)). The meaning of a wordcan also change due to ellipsis, e.g. the word-group «a train of carriages» hadthe meaning of «a row of carriages)), later on «of carriages)) was dropped andthe noun «train)> changed its meaning, it is used now in the function andwith the meaning of the whole word-group.
Semantic changes have been classified by differentscientists. The most complete classification was suggested by a Germanscientist Herman Paul in his work «Prinzipien des Sprachgeschichte)). It isbased on the logical principle. Me distinguishes two main ways where thesemantic change is gradual (specialization and generalization), two momentaryconscious semantic changes (metaphor and metonymy) and also secondary ways:gradual (elevation and degradation), momentary (hyperbole and litotes).
SPECIALIZATION
It is a gradual process when a word passes from a generalsphere to some special sphere of communication, e.g. «case» has a generalmeaning «circumstances in which a person or a thing is». It is specialized inits meaning when used in law (a law suit), in grammar (a form in the paradigmof a noun), in medicine (a patient, an illness). The difference between thesemeanings is revealed in the context.
The meaning of a word can specialize when it remains in thegeneral usage. It happens in the case of the conflict between two absolutesynonyms when one of them must specialize in its meaning to remain in thelanguage, e.g. the native word (meat) had the meaning (food), this meaning ispreserved in the compound «sweetmeats)). The meaning (edible flesh)) was formedwhen the word «food)), its absolute synonym, won in the conflict of absolutesynonyms (both words are native). The English verb «starve) was specialized inits meaning after the Scandinavian verb «die» was borrowed into English. «Die»became the general verb with this meaning because in English there were thenoun «death)> and the adjective «dead». «Starve) got the meaning «to die ofhunger» meanings: in Russian we say, in English we use the verb «come» in thiscase. In English we use the verb «go» in the combinations: «to go by bus», «togo by train» etc. In Russian in these cases we use the verb.
The number of meanings does not correspond to the number of words;neither does the number of notions. Their distribution in relation to words ispeculiar in every language. The Russian has two words for the English «man»: « мужчина» and «человек». In English, however, «man» cannot be applied to a femaleperson. We say in Russian: In English we use the word «person»/ She is a goodperson»/ Development of lexical meanings in any language is influenced by thewhole network of ties and relations between words and other aspects of thelanguage.[6]
POLYSEMY
The word «polysemy» means «plurality of meanings» it existsonly in the language, not in speech. A word which has more than one meaning iscalled polysemantic.
Different meanings of a polysemantic word may come togetherdue to the proximity of notions which they express. E.g. the word «blanket» hasthe following meanings: a woolen covering used on beds, a covering for keepinga horse warm, a covering of any kind /a blanket of snow/, covering all or mostcases /used attributively/, e.g. we can say «a blanket insurance policy».
There are some words in the language which are monosemantic,such as most terms, /synonym, molecule, bronchitis, some pronouns /this, my,both/, numerals.
There are two processes of the semantic development of aword: radiation and concatenation. In cases of radiation the primary meaningstands in the centre and the secondary meanings proceed out of it like rays.Each secondary meaning can be traced to the primary meaning. E.g. in the word«face» the primary meaning denotes «the front part of the human head» Connectedwith the front position the meanings: the front part of a watch, the front partof a building, the front part of a playing card was formed. Connected with theword «face» and it itself the meanings: expression of the face, outward appearanceis formed.
In cases of concatenation secondary meanings of a worddevelop like a chain. In such cases it is difficult to trace some meanings tothe primary one. E.g. in the word «crust» the primary meaning «hard outer partof bread» developed a secondary meaning «hard part of anything /a pie, acake/)), then the meaning harder layer over soft snow» was developed, then «asullen gloomy person)), then «impudence)) were developed. Here the lastmeanings have nothing to do with the primary ones. In such cases homonymsappear in the language. It is called the split of polysemy.
In most cases in the semantic development of a word both waysof semantic development are combined.
HOMONYMS
Homonyms are words different in meaning but identical insound or spelling, or both in sound and spelling.
Homonyms can appear in the language not only as the result ofthe split of polysemy, but also as the result of leveling of grammarinflexions, when different parts of speech become identical in their outeraspect, e.g. (care from «caru» and «care» from «carried). They can be alsoformed by means of conversion, e.g. (to slini) from «slim)). «(to waten) from (water)». They can be formed with the help of the same suffix from the same stem, e.g.«reader))/ a person who reads and a book for reading/.
Homonyms can also appear in the language accidentally, whentwo words coincide in their development, e.g. two native words can coincide intheir outer aspects: (to bean) from (beram)/to carry/ and «bear» from (bera) /ananimal/. A native word and a borrowing can coincide in their outer aspects,e.g. «fair» from Latin (feria) and (fair) from native (fager) /blond/. Twoborrowings can coincide e.g. «base» from the French «base) /Latin basis/ and«base» /low/ from the Latin «bas» /Italian «basso»/.
Homonyms can develop through shortening of different words,e.g. «cab» from «cabriolet», «cabbage), «cabin».
Walter Skeat classified homonyms according to their spellingand sound forms and he pointed out three groups: perfect homonyms that is wordsidentical in sound and spelling, such as: «school» — «косяк рыбы»and «школа» homographs, that iswords with the same spelling but pronounced differently, e.g. «bow» -/bau/ — «поклон)) and /bou/ — homophones that iswords pronounced identically but spelled differently, e.g. «night» — «ночь» and «knight» — «рыцарь».
V.N. Comissarov in his dictionary of antonyms classified theminto two groups: absolute or root antonyms /»Late» — «early»/ and derivationalantonyms / «to please1 — «to displease»/. Absolute antonyms have differentroots and derivational antonyms have the same roots but different affixes. Inmost cases negative prefixes form antonyms / un-, dis-, non-/. Sometimes theyare formed by means of suffixes -ful and -less.
The number of antonyms with the suffixes full- and -less isnot very large, and sometimes even if we have a word with one of these suffixesits antonym is formed not by substituting -full by less-, e.g. «successful» -»unsuccessful)), «selfless» — «selfish». The same is true about antonyms withnegative prefixes, e.g. «to mam) is not an antonym of the word «to unman», «todisappoint» is not an antonym of the word «to appoint)).
The difference between derivational and root antonyms is notonly in their structure, but in semantics as well. Derivational antonymsexpress contradictory notions; one of them excludes the other, e.g.«active»-«inactive». Absolute antonyms express contrary notions. If somenotions can be arranged in a group of more than two members, the most distantmembers of the group will be absolute antonyms, e.g. «ugly», «plain»,«good-looking)), «pretty», «beautiful», the antonyms are «ugly» and«beautiful».[7]
Leonard Lipka in the book «Outline of English Lexicology))describes different types of oppositeness, and subdivides them into threetypes:
a) complementary, e.g. male -female, married -single,
b) antonyms, e.g. good -bad,
c) converseness, e.g. to buy — to sell.[8]
In his classification he describes complimentarily in thefollowing way: the denial of the one implies the assertion of the other, andvice versa. «John is not married)) implies that «John is single)). The type ofoppositeness is based on yes/no decision. Incompatibility only concerns pairsof lexical units.
Antonym is the second class of oppositeness. It isdistinguished from complimentarily by being based on different logicalrelationships. For pairs of antonyms like good/bad, big/small only the secondone of the above mentioned relations of implication holds. The assertioncontaining one member implies the negation of the other, but not vice versa.«John is good» implies that «John is not bad)), but «.Ton is not good» does notimply that «John is bad». The negation of one term does not necessarily implythe assertion of the other.
An important linguistic difference from complementariness isthat antonyms are always fully gradable, e.g. hot, warm, tepid, and cold.[9]
Converseness is mirror-image relations or functions, e.g.husband/wife, pupil/teacher, precede /follow, above/below, before/after etc.
«John bought the car from Bill)) implies that «Bill sold thecar to John)). Mirror-image sentences are in many ways similar to the relationsbetween active and passive sentences. Also in the comparative form: »Y issmaller than X, and then X is larger than Y». L. Lipka also gives the typewhich he calls directional opposition up/down, consequence oppositionlearn/know, antipodal opposition North/South, East/West, (it is based oncontrary motion, in opposite directions.) The pairs come/go, arrive/departinvolve motion in different directions. In the case up/down we have movementfrom a point P. In the case come/go we have movement from or to the speaker.
L. Lipka also points out non-binary contrast or many-memberlexical sets. Here he points out serially ordered sets, such as scales / hot,warm, tepid, cool, cold/; color words / black, grey, white/; ranks /marshal,general, colonel, major, captain etc./ There are gradable examination marks /excellent, good, average, fair, poor/. In such sets of words we can have outerand inner pairs of antonyms. He also points out cycles, such as units of time/spring, summer, autumn, winter/. In this case there are no «outermost))members.
Not every word in a language can have antonyms. This type ofopposition can be met in qualitative adjectives and their derivatives, e.g.beautiful- ugly, to beautify — to uglify, beauty — ugliness. It can be also metin words denoting feelings and states, e.g. respect — scorn, to respect — toscorn, respectful — scornful, to live — to die, alive — dead, life — death. Itcan be also met among words denoting direction in space and time, e.g. here — there, up — down, now — never, before — after, day — night, early — late etc.
If a word is polysemantic it can have several antonyms, e.g.the word «bright» has the antonyms «dim», «sad».

CONCLUSION
1.3 Having analyzed the problem of shortening of words inModern English we could do the following conclusions:
a) The problem of shortened words in Modern English is veryactual nowadays.
b) There are several kinds of shortening: shortening proper,blending, abbreviations.
c) A number of famous linguists dealt with the problem ofshortening of words in Modern English. In particular, Profs. Ullmann and Broalemphasized the social reasons for shortening, L. Lipka pointed out non-binarycontrast or many-member lexical sets and gave the type which he calleddirectional opposition, V.N. Comissarov and Walter Skeat proved the link ofhomonymy influence with the appearing of shortened words, etc.
d) The problem of shortening is still waits for its detailinvestigation.
2.3. Having said about the perspectives of the work we hopethat this work will find its worthy way of applying at schools, lyceums andcolleges of high education by both teachers and students of English. We alsoexpress our hopes to take this work its worthy place among the lexicologicalworks dedicated to the types of shortening.

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