A. Those formed with the help of productive affixes

B. Those formed with the help of non-productive affixes.
Explain the etymology of each borrowed affix.

1. Willie was invited to a party, where refreshments were bountifully served.

"Won't you have something more, Willie?" the host­ess said.

"No, thank you," replied Willie, with an expression of great satisfaction. "I'm full."

"Well, then," smiled the hostess, "put some deli­cious fruit and cakes in your pocket to eat on the way home."

"No, thank you," came the rather startling response of Willie, "they're full too."

2. The scene was a tiny wayside railway platform and the sun was going down behind the distant hills. It was a glorious sight. An intending passenger was chat­ting with one of the porters.

"Fine sight, the sun tipping the hills with gold," said the poetic passenger.

"Yes," reported the porter; "and to think that there was a time when I was often as lucky as them 'ills."

3. A lady who was a very uncertain driver stopped her car at traffic signals which were against her. As the green flashed on, her engine stalled, and when she restarted it the colour was again red. This flurried her so much that when green returned she again stalled her engine and the cars behind began to hoot. While she was waiting for the green the third time the constable on duty stepped across and with a smile said: "Those are the only colours, showing today, ma'am."

4. "You have an admirable cook, yet you are always growling about her to your friends."

"Do you suppose I want her lured away?"

5. P a t i e n t: Do you extract teeth painlessly?
Dentist: Not always — the other day I nearly dislocated my wrist.

6. The inspector was paying a hurried visit to a slightly overcrowded school.

"Any abnormal children in your class?" he inquired of one harassed-looking teacher.

"Yes," she replied, with knitted brow, "two of them have good manners."

7. "I'd like you to come right over," a man phoned an undertaker, "and supervise the burial of my poor, departed wife."

"Your wife!" gasped the undertaker. "Didn't I bury her two years ago?"

"You don't understand," said the man. "You see I married again."

"Oh," said the undertaker. "Congratulations."

II. Explain the etymology and productivity of the affixes given below. Say what parts of speech can be formed with their help.

-ness, -ous, -ly, -y, -dom, -ish, -tion, -ed, -en, -ess, -or, -er, -hood, -less, -ate, -ing, -al, -ful, un-, re-, im (in)-, dis-, over-, ab-

 

III. Deduce the meanings of the following derivatives from the meanings of their constituents. Explain your deduc­tion. What are the meanings of the affixes in the words un­der examination?

 

Reddish, adj.; overwrite, v.; irregular, adj.; illegal, adj.; retype, v.; old-womanish, adj.; disrespectable, adj.; inexpensive, ady'.; unladylike, adj.; disorganize, v.; renew, v.; eatable, adj.; overdress, v.; disinfec tion, п.; snobbish, adj.; handful, п.; tallish, adj.; sandy, adj.; breakable, adj.; underfed, adj.

 

 

IV. In the following examples the italicized words are formed from the same root by means of different affixes. Translate these derivatives into Russian and explain the difference in meaning.

l. a)Sallie is the most amusing person, in the world — and Julia Pendleton the least so. b) Ann was wary, but amused. 2. a) He had a charming smile, al­most womanish in sweetness, b) I have kept up with you through Miss Pittypat but she gave me no information that you had developed womanly sweetness. 3. a) I have been having a delightful and entertaining conversation with my old chum, Lord Wisbeach. b) Thanks for your invitation. I'd be delighted to come. 4. a) Sally thinks everything is funny — even flunking — and Julia is bored at everything. She never makes the slightest ef­fort to be pleasant, b) — Why are you going to America? — To make my fortune, I hope. — How pleased your father will be if you do. 5. a) Long before he reached the brownstone house... the first fine care­less rapture of his mad outbreak had passed from Jerry Mitchell, leaving nervous apprehension in its place, b) If your nephew has really succeeded in his experi­ments you should be awfully careful. 6. a) The trouble with college is that you are expected to know such a lot of things you've never learned. It's very confusing at times, b) That platform was a confused mass of travel­lers, porters, baggage, trucks, boys with magazines, friends, relatives. 7. a) At last I decided that even this ratner mannish efficient woman could do with a little help, b) He was only a boy not a man yet, but he spoke in a manly way. 8. a) The boy's respectful manner changed noticeably, b) It may be a respectable occupation, but it sounds rather criminal to me. 9. a) "Who is leading in the pennant race?" said this strange butler in a feverish whisper, b) It was an idea peculiarly suited to her tem­perament, an idea that she might have suggested her­self if she had thought of it ...this idea of his fevered imagination. 10. Dear Daddy-Long-Legs. You only wanted to hear from me once a month, didn't you? And I've been peppering you with letters every few days! But I've been so excited about all these new adventures that I must talk to somebody... Speaking of classics, have you ever read Hamlet? If you haven't, do it right off. It's perfectly exciting. I've been hearing about Shakespeare all my life but I had no idea he really wrote so well, I always suspected him of going largerly on his reputation. (J. Webster)

V. Explain the difference between the meanings of the following words produced from the same root by means of different affixes. Translate the words into Russian.

Watery — waterish, embarrassed — embarrassing, manly — mannish, colourful — coloured, distressed — distressing, respected — respectful — respectable, exhaustive — exhausting — exhausted, bored — bor­ing, touchy — touched — touching.

VI. One of the italicized words in the following examples was made from the other by conversion. What semantic correlations exist between them?

1. a) "You've got a funny nose," he added, b) He be­gan to nose about. He pulled out drawer after drawer, pottering round like an old bloodhound. 2. a) I'd seen so many cases of fellows who had become perfect slaves of their valets, b) I supposed that while he had been va­leting old Worplesdon Florence must have trodden on his toes in some way. 3. a) It so happened that the night before I had been present at a rather cheery little supper, b) So the next night I took him along to supper with me. 4. a) Buck seized Thorton's hand in his teeth, b) The desk clerk handed me the key. 5. a) A small haify object sprang from a basket and stood yapping in the middle of the room, b) There are advantages, you see, about rooming with Julia. 6. a) "I'm engaged for lunch, but I've plenty of time." b) There was a time жп he and I had been lads about town together, lunching and dining together practically every day. 7. a) Mr. Biffen rang up on the telephone while you were in your bath, b) I found Muriel singer there, sit­ting by herself at a table near the door. Corky, I took it, was out telephoning. 8. Use small nails and nail the picture on the wall. 9. a) I could just see that he was waving a letter or something equally foul in my face. b) When the bell stopped, Crane turned around and faced the students seated in rows before him. 10. a) Lizzie is a good cook, b) She cooks the meals in Mr. Priestley's house. 11. a) The wolf was suspicious and afraid, b) Fortunately, however, the second course consisted of a chicken fricassee of such outstanding excellence that the old boy, after wolfing a plateful, handed up his dinner-pail for a second instalment and became almost genial. 12. Use the big hammer for those nails and hammer them in well. 13. a) "Put a rib­bon round your hair and be Alice-in-Wonderland," said Maxim. "You look like it now with your finger in your mouth." b) The coach fingered the papers on his desk and squinted through his bifocals. 14. a) The room was airy but small. There were, however, a few vacant spots, and in these had been placed a washstand, a chest of drawers and a midget rocker-chair, b) "Well, when I got to New York it looked a decent sort of place to me ..." 15. a) These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles... and furry coats to protect them from the frost. b) "Jeeves," I said, "I have begun to feel absolutely haunted. This woman dogs me."

 

VII. Explain the semantic correlations within the following pairs of words.

Shelter — to shelter, park — to park, groom — to groom, elbow — to elbow, breakfast — to breakfast, pin — to pin, trap — to trap, fish — to fish, head — to head, nurse — to nurse.

VIII. Which of the two words in the following pairs is made by conversion? Deduce the meanings and use them in con­structing sentences of your own.

star, n. — to star, v. age, n. — to age, v.

picture, n. — to picture, v. touch, n. — to touch, v.

colour, n. — to colour, v. make, n. — to make, v.

blush, n. — to blush, v. finger, n. — to finger, v.

key, n. — to key, v. empty, adj. — to empty, v.

fool, n. — to fool, v. poor, adj. — the poor, n.
breakfast, n. — to breakfast, v. pale, adj. — to pale, v.

house, n. — to house, v. dry, adj. — to dry, v.

monkey, n. — to monkey, v. nurse, n. — to nurse, v.

fork, n. — to fork, v. dress, n. — to dress, v.

slice, n. — to slice, v. floor, n. — to floor, v.

IX. Read the following joke, explain the type of word-building in the italicized words and say everything you can about the way they were made.

A successful old lawyer tells the following story about the beginning of bis professional life:

"I had just installed myself in my office, had put in a phone, when, through the glass of my door I saw a shad­ow. It was doubtless my first client to see me. Picture me, then, grabbing the nice, shiny receiver of my new phone and plunging into an imaginary conversation. It ran something like this:

'Yes, Mr. S!' I was saying as the stranger entered the office. 'I'll attend to that corporation matter for you. Mr. J. had me on the phone this morning and wanted me to settle a damage suit, but I had to put him off, as I was too busy with other cases. But I'll manage to sand­wich your case in between the others somehow. Yes. Yes. All right. Goodbye.'

Being sure, then, that I had duly impressed my pro­spective client, rhung up the receiver and turned to him. 'Excuse me, sir,' the man said, 'but I'm from the telephone company. I've come to connect your instru­ment.'

 

Lecture 7. Word-Building (continued)

Exercises

I. Find compounds in the following jokes and extracts and write them out in three columns: A. Neutral compounds. B. Morphological compounds. C. Syntactic compounds.

1. Pat and Jack were in London for the first time. During a tour of the shops in the West End they came to an expensive-looking barber's. "Razors!" exclaimed Pat. "You want one, don't you? There's a beauty there for twenty-five bob,1 and there's another for thirty bob. Which would you sooner have?" "A beard," said Jack, walking off.

 
 


Bob – a shilling (pl. bob) a free-for-all-a fight without rules

2. The children were in the midst of a free-for-all.2 "Richard, who started this?" asked the father as he came into the room. "Well, it all started when David hit me back."

3. That night, as they cold-suppered together, Barmy cleared his throat and looked across at Pongo with a sad sweet smile. "I mean to say, it's no good wor­rying and trying to look ahead and plan and scheme and weigh your every action, because you never can tell when doing such-and-such won't make so-and-so happen — while, on the other hand, if you do so-and-so it may just as easily lead to such-and-such."

4. When Conan Doyle arrived in Boston, he was at once recognized by the cabman whose cab he engaged. When he was about to pay his fare, the cabman said:

"If you please, sir, I should prefer a ticket to your lecture."

Conan Doyle laughed. "Tell me," he said, "how you knew who I was and I'll give you tickets for your whole family."

"Thank you, sir," was the answer. "On the side of your travelling-bag is your name."

5. An old tramp sailed up to the back door of a little English tavern called The George and Dragon and beck­oned to the landlady.

"I've had nothing to eat for three days," he said. "Would you spare an old man a bite of dinner?"

"I should say not, you good-for-nothing loafer," said the landlady and slammed the door in his face.

The tramp's face reappeared at the kitchen window. "I was just wonderin'," he said, "if I could 'ave a word or two with George."

6. "Where are you living, Grumpy?"

"In the Park. The fresh-air treatment is all the thing nowadays."

7. Arriving home one evening a man found the house locked up. After trying to get in at the various windows on the first floor he finally climbed upon the shed roof and with much difficulty entered through a second-sto­ry window. On the dining-room table he found a note from his absent-minded wife: "I have gone out. You'll find the key under the door mat."

8. One balmy, blue-and-white morning the old wom­an stood in her long, tidy garden and looked up at her small neat cottage. The thatch on its tip-tilted roof was new and its well-fitting doors had been painted blue. Its newly-hung curtains were gay... Bird-early next morn­ing Mother Farthing went into the dew-drenched gar­den. With billhook and fork she soon set to work clear­ing a path to the apple tree.

(From Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by R. Dahl)

II. Identify the neutral compounds in the word combina­tions given below and write them out in 3 columns: A. Simple neutral compounds. B. Neutral derived com­pounds. C. Neutral contracted compounds.

An air-conditioned hall; a glass-walled room; to fight against H-bomb; a loud revolver-shot; a high-pitched voice; a heavy topcoat; a car's windshield; a snow-white handkerchief; big A. A. guns; a radio-equipped car; thousands of gold-seekers; a big hunting-knife; a lightish-coloured man; to howl long and wolf­like; to go into frantic U-turns;1 to fix M-day2.

 

1 U-turn ['jftfen] — R. поворот "кругом".

2 M-day — the first day of mobilization.

 

III. Arrange the compounds given below into two groups:
A. Idiomatic. B. Non-idiomatic. Say whether the semantic change within idiomatic compounds is partial or total. Consult the dictionary if necessary.

Light-hearted, adj.; butterfly, п.; homebody, п.; cabman, п.; medium-sized, adj.; blackberry, п.; blue­bell, п.; good-for-nothing, adj.; wolf-dog, п.; highway, п.; dragon-fly, п.; looking-glass, п.; greengrocer, п.; bluestocking, п.; gooseberry, п.; necklace, п.; earth­quake, п.; lazy-bones, n.

 

IV. Say whether the following lexical units are word-groups or compounds. Apply the criteria outlined in the foregoing text to motivate your answer.

Railway platform, snowman, light dress, traffic light, railway station, landing field, film star, white man, hungry dog, medical man, landing plane, top hat, distant star, small house, green light, evening dress, top student, bluecoat,1 roughhouse,2 booby trap,3 black skirt, medical student, hot dog, blue dress, U-shaped trap, black shirt4.

V. Find shortenings in the jokes and extracts given be­low and specify the method of their formation.

1. В г о w n: But, Doc, I got bad eyes!
Doctor: Don't worry. We'll put you up front. You won't miss a thing.

2. "How was your guard duty yesterday, Tom?"
"O.K. I was remarkably vigilant."

"Were you?"

"Oh, yes. I was so vigilant that I heard at once the re­lief sergeant approaching my post though I was fast asleep."

3. "Excuse me, but I'm in a hurry! You've had that phone 20 minutes and not said a word!" "Sir, I'm talk­ing to my wife."

1 bluecoat — policeman.

2 roughhouse — play that has got out of hand and turned
into brawling (R. скандал, драка).

3 booby trap — a trap laid for the unawary as a practical
joke, often humiliating (R. ловушка).

4 black shirt — a fascist (black shirts were part of uniform
of the Italian Fascist party).

5 We'll put you up front.— R. 1. Мы пошлем вас на
передовую. 2. Мы посадим вас в первый ряд (игра слов).

 

Lecture 8. What is “Meaning”?

Exercises

I. Define the meanings of the words in the following sen­tences. Say how the meanings of the same word are asso­ciated one with another.

1. I walked into Hyde Park, fell flat upon the grass and almost immediately fell asleep. 2. a) 'Hello', I said, and thrust my hand through the bars, whereon the dog became silent and licked me prodigiously, b) At the end of the long bar, leaning against the counter was a slim pale individual wearing a red bow-tie. 3. a) I began to search the flat, looking in drawers and boxes to see if I could find a key. b) I tumbled with a sort of splash upon the keys of a ghostly piano, c) Now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches a key higher, d) Someone with a positive man­ner, perhaps a detective, used the expression 'madman' as he bent over Welson's body that afternoon, and the authority of his voice set the key for the newspaper re­ port next morning. 4. a) Her mouth opened crookedly half an inch, and she shot a few words at one like peb­bles, b) Would you like me to come to the mouth of the river with you? 5. a) I sat down for a few minutes with my head in my hands, until I heard the phone taken up inside and the butler's voice calling a taxi, b) The minute hand of the electric clock jumped on to figure twelve, and, simultaneously, the steeple of St. Mary's whose vicar always kept his clock by the wireless began its feeble imitation of Big Ben. 6. a) My head felt as if it were on a string and someone were trying to pull it off. b) G. Quartermain, board chairman and chief executive of Supernational Corporation was a bull of a man who possessed more power than many heads of the state and exercised it like a king.

II. Copy out the following pairs of words grouping togeth­er the ones which represent the same meaning of each word. Explain the different meanings and the different us­ages, giving reasons for your answer. Use dictionaries if necessary.

smart, adj.

smart clothes, a smart answer, a smart house, a smart garden, a smart repartee, a smart officer, a smart blow, a smart punishment

 

stubborn, adj.

a stubborn child, a stubborn look, a stubborn horse, stubborn resistance, a stubborn fighting, a stubborn cough, stubborn depression

 

sound, adj.

sound lungs, a sound scholar, a sound tennis-player, sound views, sound advice, sound criticism, a sound ship, a sound whipping

 

root, n.

edible roots, the root of the tooth, the root of the matter, the root of all evil, square root, cube root

perform, v.

to perform one's duty, to perform an operation, to perform a dance, to perform a play

kick, v.

to kick the ball, to kick the dog, to kick off one's slip­pers, to kick smb. downstairs

III. The verb "to take" is highly polysemantic in Modern English. On which meanings of the verb are the following jokes based? Give your own examples to illustrate the other meanings of the word.

1. "Where have you been for the last four years?"
"At college taking medicine."

"And did you finally get well?"

2. "Doctor, what should a woman take when she is run down?"

"The license number, madame, the license number."

3. Proctor (exceedingly angry): So you confess that this unfortunate Freshman was carried to this frog pond and drenched. Now what part did you take in this disgraceful affair?

Sophomore (meekly): The right leg, sir.

IV. Explain the basis for the following jokes. Use the dictio­nary when in doubt.

1. Сa11er: I wonder if I can see your mother, little boy. Is she engaged?

W I l l I e: Engagedl She's married.

 

2. Booking C l e r k (at a small village station): You'll have to change twice before you get to York.

Villager (unused to travelling): Goodness me! And I've only brought the clothes I'm wearing.

3. The weather forecaster hadn't been right in three months, and his resignation caused little surprise. His alibi, however, pleased the city council.

"I can't stand this town any longer," read his note. "The climate doesn't agree with me."

 

4. Professor: You missed my class yesterday, didn't you?

Unsubdued student: Not in the least, sir, not in the least.

5. “A what?” "Papa, what kind of a robber is a page?"

"It says here that two pages held up the bride's train."

V. Read the following jokes. Analyse the collocability of the italicized words and state its relationship with the meaning.

1. L a d у (at party): Where is that pretty maid who was passing our cocktails a while ago?

Hostess: Oh, you are looking for a drink?

L a d y: No, I'm looking for my husband.

 

2. P e g g у: I want to help you, Dad. I shall get the dress-maker to teach me to cut out gowns.

D a d: I don't want you to go that far, Peg, but you might cut out cigarettes, and taxi bills.

3. There are cynics who claim that movies would be better if they shot less films and more actors.

4. К i 11 y: Is your wound sore, Mr. Pup?
M r. P up: Wound? What wound?

Kitty: Why, sister said she cut you at the dinner last night.

VI. Read the entries for the English word "court" and the Russian "суд" in an English-Russian and Russian-English dictionary. Explain the differences in the semantic struc­ture of both words.