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Второстепенные способы словообразования (обратная деривация, звукоподражание, редупликация, чередование звуков и др.)
Sound interchange
Sound interchange may be defined as an opposition in which words or word forms are differentiated due to an alternation in the phonemic composition of the root. The change may affect the root vowel, as in food n : : feed v; or root consonant as in speak v : : speech n; or both, as for instance in life n : : live v. It may also be combined with affixation: strong a : : strength n; or with affixation and shift of stress as in 'democrat : : de'mocracy.
The process is not active in the language at present, and oppositions like those listed above survive in the vocabulary only as remnants of previous stages. Synchronically sound interchange should not be considered as a method of word-building at all, but rather as a basis for contrasting words belonging to the same word-family and different parts of speech or different lexico-grammatical groups. The causes of sound interchange are twofold and one should learn to differentiate them from the historical point of view. Some of them are due to ablaut or vowel gradation characteristic of Indo-European languages and consisting in a change from one to another vowel accompanying a change of stress. The phenomenon is best known as a series of relations between vowels by which the stems of strong verbs are differentiated in grammar (drink — drank — drunk and the like).
The other group of cases is due to an assimilation process conditioned by the phonemic environment. One of these is vowel mutation, otherwise calledumlaut, a feature characteristic of Germanic languages, and consisting in a partial assimilation to a succeeding sound, as for example the fronting or raising of a back vowel or a low vowel caused by an [i] or [j] originally standing in the following syllable but now either altered or lost. This accounts for such oppositions as full a : : fill v; whole a : : heal v; knot n : : knit v; tale n : : tell v.
The consonant interchange was also caused by phonetic surroundings. Thus, the oppositions speak v : : speech n; bake v : : batch n; or wake v : : watch n are due to the fact that the palatal OE [k] very early became [ts] but was retained in verbs because of the position before the consonants [s] and [θ] in the second and third persons singular.
Synchronically, it differentiated parts of speech, i.e. it may signal the non-identity of words belonging to different parts of speech: full a : : fill v; food n : : feed v; or to different lexico-grammatical sets within the same part of speech: fall intransitive v : : fell causative v; compare also lie : : lay, sit : : set, rise : : raise.
Derivation often involves phonological changes of vowel or consonant: strong SL : : strength n; heal v : : health n; steal v : : stealth n; long a : : length n; deepa : : depth n. Major derivative alternations involving changes of vowel and/or consonant and sometimes stress shift in borrowed words are as follows: delicacyn : : delicate a; piracy n : : pirate n; democracy n : : democrat n; decency n : : decent a; vacancy n : : vacant a; creation n : : create v; edify v : : edification n;organise v : : organisation n; agnostic a : : agnosticism n.
Some long vowels are retained in quality and quantity; others are shortened, and there seems to be no fixed rule, e.g. [a:] tends to be retained: artist n : :artistic а; [э:] is regularly shortened: ‘permit n : : per'mit v.
Distinctive stress
Some otherwise homographic, mostly disyllabic nouns and verbs of Romanic origin have a distinctive stress pattern. Thus, 'conduct n ‘behaviour’ is forestressed, whereas con'duct v ‘to lead or guide (in a formal way)’ has a stress on the second syllable. Other examples are: accent, affix, asphalt, compact (impact), compound, compress (impress), conflict, contest, contract (extract), contrast, convict, digest, essay, export (import, transport), increase, insult, object (subject, project), perfume, permit, present, produce, progress, protest, rebel, record, survey, torment, transfer. Historically this is probably explained by the fact that these words were borrowed from French where the original stress was on the last syllable Verbs retained this stress all the more easily as many native disyllabic verbs were also stressed in this way: be'come, be'lieve, for'bid, for'get, for'give. The native nouns, however, were forestressed, and in the process of assimilation many loan nouns came to be stressed on the first syllable. This stress distinction is, however, neither productive nor regular.
Sound imitation
Sound imitation (onomatopoeia or echoism) is consequently the naming of an action or thing by a more or less exact reproduction of a sound associated with it. For instance words naming sounds and movement of water: babble, blob, bubble, flush, gurgle, gush, splash, etc. It would, however, be wrong to think that onomatopoeic words reflect the real sounds directly, irrespective of the laws of the language, because the same sounds are represented differently in different languages. Onomatopoeic words adopt the phonetic features of English and fall into the combinations peculiar to it. The majority of onomatopoeic words serve to name sounds or movements. Most of them are verbs easily turned into nouns: bang, boom, bump, hum, rustle, smack, thud, etc. They are very expressive and sometimes it is difficult to tell a noun from an interjection. Consider the following: Thum — crash! “Six o'clock, Nurse,” — crash, as the door shut again. Whoever it was had given me the shock of my life (M. Dickens). Sound-imitative words form a considerable part of interjections. Сf . bang! hush! pooh!
Semantically, according to the source of sound, onomatopoeic words fall into a few very definite groups. Many verbs denote sounds produced by human beings in the process of communication or in expressing their feelings: babble, chatter, giggle, grunt, grumble, murmur, mutter, titter, whine, whisper and many more. Then there are sounds produced by animals, birds and insects, e.g. buzz, cackle, croak, crow, hiss, honk, howl, moo, mew, neigh, purr, roar and others.
Once being coined, onomatopoeic words lend themselves easily to further word-building and to semantic development. They readily develop figurative meanings. Croak, for instance, means ‘to make a deep harsh sound’. In its direct meaning the verb is used about frogs or ravens. Metaphorically it may be used about a hoarse human voice. A further transfer makes the verb synonymous to such expressions as ‘to protest dismally’, ‘to grumble dourly’, ‘to predict evil’.
Back-formation
Back-formation (also called reversion) is a term borrowed from diachronic linguistics. It denotes the derivation of new words by subtracting a real or supposed affix from existing words through misinterpretation of their structure. The process is based on analogy. The words beggar, butler, cobbler, or typewriter look very much like agent nouns with the suffix -er/-or, such as actor or painter. Their last syllable is therefore taken for a suffix and subtracted from the word leaving what is understood as a verbal stem. In this way the verb butle ‘to act or serve as a butler’ is derived by subtraction of -er from a supposedly verbal stem in the noun butler. Butler (ME buteler, boteler from OFr bouteillier ‘bottle bearer’) has widened its meaning. Originally it meant ‘the man-servant having charge of the wine’. It means at present ‘the chief servant of a rich household who is in charge of other servants, receives guests and directs the serving of meals’.
The very high frequency of the pattern verb stem + -er (or its equivalents) is a matter of common knowledge. Nothing more natural therefore than the prominent part this pattern plays in back-formation. Alongside the examples already cited above are burgle v <— burglar n; cobble v <— cobbler n; sculpt v <—sculptor n.
The process of back-formation has only diachronic relevance. For synchronic approach butler : : butle is equivalent to painter : : paint, so that the present-day speaker may not feel any difference between these relationships. The fact that butle is derived from butler through misinterpretation is synchronically of no importance. Some modern examples of back-formation are lase v — a verb used about the functioning of the apparatus called laser, escalate from escalator on the analogy of elevate — elevator. Cf. also the verbs aggress, automate, enthuse, obsolesce and reminisce.
The most productive type of back-formation in present-day English is derivation of verbs from compounds that have either -er or -ing as their last element. The type will be clear from the following examples: thought-read v <— thought-reader n <— thought-reading n; air-condition v <— air-conditioner n <— air-conditioningn; turbo-supercharge v <— turbo-supercharger n. Other examples of back-formations from compounds are the verbs baby-sit, beachcomb, house-break, house-clean, house-keep, red-bait, tape-record and many others.