Substantivation as a type of foregrounding in modern english literary and newspaper texts

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Substantivation as a type of foregrounding in modern english literary and newspaper texts

Yemets O.V.

Summary

The article considers one of the major types of word-formation - conversion. Conversion involves the creation of one part of speech from another part of speech without affixation. It is emphasized that especially productive in the newspaper style and the style of fiction is such type of conversion as substantivation. Substantivation is characterized as the formation of new nouns from different parts of speech without derivation. The paper investigates the subtypes of substantivation in modern British and American newspaper articles as well as in literary texts from morphological and stylistic viewpoints. In the article special attention is paid to the verb-noun conversion which is realized in the frequent use of the substantivized modal verb must, the substantivized compound verbal predicates with modal verbs must and can, and the substantivized modal words.

It is stated in the article that besides being a new word form, the substantivized modal verbs perform the stylistic function of foregrounding. On the one hand, the substantivized verbs acquire some connotative evaluative meaning - either positive (can do) or derogatory (has-been) meanings in certain contexts. On the other hand, the creation of new nouns demonstrates the linguistic talent of the authors, especially when used in the titles (Theresa Maybe). The author stresses the interlingual aspect of substantivation which lies in the fact that the substantivized modal verbs and predicates are borrowed into the Ukrainian and Russian languages and are used today as literary words in the recipient languages. It is concluded in the article that the reasons of efficiency and popularity of these subtypes of conversion can be explained by the transparency of meaning of new coinages, the novelty of expression and the effect of foregrounding produced. The prospects of further research involve the investigation of other types of substantivation (adjective - noun, pronoun - noun) in the texts of these and other functional styles.

Key words: conversion, substantivation, foregrounding, interlingual aspect, substantivized modal verbs.

У статті розглядається один з основних типів словотвору - конверсія. Конверсія включає утворення однієї частини мови з іншої без афіксації. Підкреслено, що особливо продуктивним у газетному і художньому стилях є такий тип конверсії, як субстантивація. Субстантивація характеризується як утворення нових іменників із різних частин мови без деривації. у статті досліджуються підтипи субстантивації в сучасних британських і американських газетних статтях і в художніх текстах у морфологічному та стилістичному аспектах. Особлива увага статті приділяється конверсії «дієслово ^ іменник», яка реалізується в частому використанні субстантивованого модального дієслова must,субстантивованих складених дієслівних присудків і субстантивованих модальних слів.

у статті стверджується, що, крім того, що субстантиво- вані модальні дієслова є новою словоформою, вони виконують стилістичну функцію висунення (foregrounding). З одного боку, такі дієслова набувають конотативного оціночного значення - позитивного (cando) або негативного (has-been) в певних контекстах. З іншого боку, створення нових іменників демонструє лінгвістичний талант авторів, особливо коли ці слова використовуються в заголовках (TheresaMaybe). Автор підкреслює міжмовний аспект субстантивації, який полягає в тому, що субстантивовані модальні дієслова і складені дієслівні присудки стають запозиченнями в українській та російській мовах і використовуються в цільовій мові вже як літературні слова. У статті робиться висновок, що причини ефективності та популярності цих підтипів конверсії можна пояснити прозорістю значення нових словоформ, новизною вираження та створюваним стилістичним ефектом висунення. Перспективи подальших досліджень убачаємо у вивченні інших типів субстантивації (прикметник ^ іменник, займенник ^ іменник) у текстах цих та інших функціональних стилів.

Ключові слова: конверсія, субстантивація, висунення, модальне дієслово, субстантивоване модальне дієслово, складений присудок.

В статье рассматривается один из основных типов словообразования - конверсия. Конверсия включает образование одной части речи из другой части речи без аффиксации. Подчеркивается, что особенно продуктивным в газетном и литературном стилях является такой тип конверсии, как субстантивация. Субстантивация характеризуется как создание новых существительных из разных частей речи без деривации. в статье исследуются подтипы субстантивации в современных британских и американских газетных статьях и художественных текстах с морфологической и стилистической точек зрения. Особое внимание в статье уделяется конверсии «глагол ^ существительное», которая реализуется в частом использовании субстантивированного модального глагола must,субстантивированных глагольных сказуемых и модальных слов.

В статье утверждается, что, кроме того, что субстантивированные модальные глаголы являются новой словоформой, они еще выполняют стилистическую функцию выдвижения (foregrounding). С одной стороны, такие глаголы приобретают коннотативное оценочное значение - позитивное (cando) или негативное (has-been) в определенных контекстах. С другой стороны, образование новых существительных демонстрирует лингвистический талант авторов, особенно когда эти слова используются в заголовках (TheresaMaybe). Автор подчеркивает межязыковый аспект субстантивации, который состоит в том, что субстантивированные модальные глаголы и составные глагольные сказуемые становятся заимствованиями в украинском и русском языках и используются в целевом языке уже как литературные слова. В статье делается вывод, что причины эффективности и популярности этих подтипов конверсии можно объяснить прозрачностью значения новых словоформ, новизной выражения и создаваемым эффектом выдвижения. Перспективы дальнейших исследований видим в изучении других типов субстантивации (прилагательное ^ существительное, местоимение ^ существительное) в текстах этих и других функциональных стилей.

Ключевые слова: конверсия, субстантивация, выдвижение, модальный глагол, субстантивированный модальный глагол, составное глагольное сказуемое.

Problem statement. Languages are undergoing constant changes. As David Crystal notes [3, p. 6], “languages have no existence apart from the people who use them. And because people are changing all the time, their language changes too, to keep up with them”. There are different reasons for language changes. First, the necessity to name a new object or notion, such as Google, blog, smartphone, etc. Secondly, the possibility to give a new name to the already known object or phenomenon, e. g. Ukraine's Joan of Arc (the title of the article about the former Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in the “Newsweek”), Frau Nein (the nickname of Angela Merkel, Germany's Chancellor). Such tendency is clearly manifested in modern literary texts and mass media. The third reason for language changes is the desire for novelty of expression, e.g. slang words.

The article aim. Language changes are particularly obvious in the fields of vocabulary and word-formation. Vocabulary is the area where we most often notice how language changes, because each year many new words appear in a language. conversion substantivation newspaper stylistic

The basic material. The major word-formation processes in modern English are considered to be affixation, compounding and, more recently, conversion. According to Yuriy Zatsny [2007, p. 165], in the last two decades, about 65 per cent of neologisms have been created by means of affixation and compounding. Unfortunately, there is no exact figure concerning conversion. At the same time, conversion in its different varieties is very characteristic of modern English and can be observed in the texts of the style of fiction and the newspaper style. As Vladimir Jovanovic justly notes, today conversion is in full swing, as journalists, TV reporters, writers, advertising agents, and pop musicians use conversion to create new words [6, p. 426].

Conversion is defined by Rochelle Lieber as “shifting the category, or part of speech, of an already existing lexeme without adding an affix” [8, p. 49]. Conversion in English is almost unlimited, as nearly all parts of speech can undergo conversion.

In particular, scientists agree that the major types of conversion are conversion to verbs and conversion to nouns [2, p. 8; 8, p. 49]. Generally, such word-formation process as conversion can be divided into four types: substantivation, verbalization, adjectivation and adverbialization.

Substantivation, or nominalization, is such type of word-formation which involves the creation of new nouns from different parts of speech without derivation. Substantivation can be stylistically characterized as language or speech (occasional) substantivation. The latter functions only in a certain context which will be demonstrated in our further analysis.

The most traditional types of substantivation are verb ^ noun and adjective ^ noun. The examples of the former process are numerous: to work ^ work; to study ^ study, etc. One of the recent examples of the verb-noun conversion is a frequent use of the substantivized modal verb must: His novel is a must for all readers (“Newsweek”). This shift can be observed in the language of mass media and in fiction; actually, the word has become part and parcel of modern English. Moreover, this neologism has been borrowed by other languages, in particular Ukrainian and Russian. In Ukraine, there are a number of the Russian-language newspapers, in particular “Segodnya”. One of the articles of the newspaper in summer 2018 contained this substantivized verb: Це плаття є must для модниць (This dress is a must for fashion-conscious women). Thus, the English spelling remains, the word is still treated as an alien word, but, according to our observations, it is often used in the speeches and conversations of art critics, writers and journalists.

Besides creating new words, such forms of substantivation perform another function - the function of foregrounding. According to John Doughwaite [4, p. 93], foregrounding is the general linguistic technique by which a marked linguistic expression is produced to make that expression convey a different meaning that synonymic, equivalent unmarked construction would have conveyed. Foregrounding involves different linguistic techniques of attracting the reader's (listener's) attention to certain pragmatically important text fragments. Foregrounding is one of the universal linguistic techniques. Geoffrey Leech [7, p. 38] determines two aspects of foregrounding - qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative aspect concerns the deviation from the language code itself, i.e. some language norm, while the quantitative aspect implies the deviation from the expected frequency [7, p. 39]. Different scientists name different manifestations of foregrounding, among them neologisms, inversion, paradox, metaphor and other lexical, grammatical, stylistic devices.

The abovementioned example of the verb-noun shift must can be regarded as an instance of the qualitative aspect of foregrounding. The use of must as a noun creates certain novelty of expression.

Another well-known example is the shift from the Present Perfect form to noun; more exactly the verbal form has been: You are a has been (J. O'Hara). This substantivized unit is registered in dictionaries as colloquial and signifies a person or thing that is no longer famous, successful, and popular [5, p. 570]. The word is now used both in newspaper articles and in fiction. As early as in the 1990s the article in the “Newsweek” magazine about Yugoslavia was entitled “A Has- Been Country”. It meant that Yugoslavia was not only divided into several countries, it ceased to exist as an independent state.

In the novel of the modern writer Jeff Abbot, one of the characters is described in the following way: Celeste Brent was a has-been celebrity, but she was still a well-known name to many people. In both cases, has-been is used attributively, but we can state that it is a noun in the attributive function. This word has a negative, derogatory meaning. However, instead of has-been (country, celebrity, etc.) it is possible to use the adjective former. There arises a question about the difference in meaning. We can say that has-been is more stylistically colored and more pragmatically oriented, whereas former is stylistically neutral. Besides, due to the transparency of meaning and the connection with the source grammar form, this substantivized language unit implies the idea of loss, of negative change in the state of mind, in the social position.

One of the most widespread and modern subtypes of substantivation is the shift from compound verbal predicates to nouns. Most often, such predicates include modal verbs, must and can: There were three things he had to do that night - three MUSTDos (G. Braver). The verb must is mainly used with such notional verbs as see, read, have and do. These substantivized predicates are usually written through a hyphen: must-see, must-read, must- have. The verb must-see is used in newspapers, guidebooks to denote some films, performances or sights which are worth seeing: Notre Dame Cathedral. A must-see in Paris (the guidebook); I liked the film and it's definitely a must-see (The Internet site).

It is interesting to note that the Ukrainian and Russian languages borrowed not only the substantivized verb must but also the substantivized predicates must-see and must-have. They are used mainly in the language of mass media: Врубель- це абсолютний must-see жовтня («Українамолода») (Vroubel is an absolute must-see of October; here Vroubel is the name of an outstanding painter).

A more original is the substantivized form of the compound verbal predicate can do in the magazine article: America is full of “can do" people (“Newsweek”). This language unit performs an attributive function and can be treated either as a noun-attribute or an adjective. The unit becomes polysemantic, and the words are given in inverted commas, which implies that they have not been perceived as an independent language form in the style of mass media. The substantivized verb is used for creating positive evaluative characteristics and for attracting the reader's attention.

When the substantivized unit, in this case a modal word, is used in the so-called strong position, i.e. in the title of the article or the literary text, the stylistic effect of foregrounding is stronger. The title of an article in “The Economist” (2017) about the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Theresa May, contains such stylistic device as antonomasia realized by the substantivized modal word: Theresa Maybe. The subtitle explains the evaluative meaning of the word: After six months, what Britain S new prime minister stands for is still unclear - perhaps even to her. Thus, the modal word is not simply substantivized, it is transformed into a proper name with ironic implication. It is not infrequent to come across such speaking names (antonomasia) as nicknames for famous politicians. The example is the nickname of Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany: Frau Nein. It is also the case of substantivation, the shift from the particle nein (not) to the noun. However, the example from “The Economist” testifies to the linguistic talent of the author because we see not only the novelty in word-formation and semantics but also the phonetic similarity between the Prime Minister's surname and the substantivized modal word. Such device increases the pragmatic effect of the grammar form as well as adds new shades of meaning.

The substantivation of pronouns can be observed mainly in literary texts. Especially if it concerns such personal pronouns as me and you. As in all cases of conversion, not only grammatical meaning changes, but also the semantics of pronouns undergoes changes. The substantivized pronoun you acquires the meaning of “personality” in the following fragment: I used to be someone, he thought. I used to be me, a regular guy, the anybody American with a home and a business and a life, and now I don't know who I am anymore. The old me died. The new me doesn't want to be born (J. Abbot). The main character contemplates on his life, on the transformations that occurred to him. The substantivized pronoun me is modified by two adjectives - old and new - which reflect contrast in the psychological state of the person.

The pronoun you which acquires similar meaning of “personality” is modified by the definite article and attribute in the following contexts from the novels of well-known writers: “Now he's playing the role of you - metaphorically speaking” (P. Cornwell); “Isyour new shirt in anyway related to the new you?” (N. DeMille). Other personal pronouns can also be converted into nouns, but such cases are more occasional.

In conclusion it can be said that the conducted investigation demonstrates that such type of conversion as substantivation is one of the most common and efficient word-formation processes in modern literary prose as well as in magazine and newspaper articles. Moreover, some scholars state that this and other types of conversion will become a more active process in future, because it is an easy and economical way of creating new words in English.

There arises a question: what is the reason of creating new substantivized words? In fact, such words are, to some extent, doublets of the existing nouns, e.g. must = necessity; has been = former, ex; must have = necessary thing; ifs = conditions, etc. This phenomenon can be explained by the transparency of meanings of the derived nouns, the ease with which they can be reproduced and included in the text. Another reason is the effect of foregrounding produced by such language units, the novelty of expression. These substantivized words demonstrate the creativeness and linguistic talent of the writers and journalists.

An interesting feature of substantivation is its interlingual influence. Such substantivized words are being borrowed now by the Ukrainian and Russian languages. There is a difference in the stylistic use of these words. While in English the substantivized verbs must, must-have are considered to be informal, in the Ukrainian language they belong to literary style and are used by literary and art critics, journalists and fashion designers.

Not only notional but nearly all functional parts of speech can be substantivized: prepositions, particles, conjunctions. But the degree of conversion can be different.

Besides being an important process of word-formation and a device of foregrounding, substantivation is a challenge for translators and interpreters. The meaning of the substantivized words is “perfectly comprehensible” and transparent, but the principles of rendering such language units into target texts have not received sufficient attention.

Conclusions

In our opinion, the prospects of further research of substantivation in modern English is promising, especially if morphological aspects of such research will be combined with stylistic and translation aspects.

References

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2. Balteiro I. On the Status of Conversion. Atlantis. XXIII (2). 2001. P 7-29.

3. Crystal D. A Little Book of Language. Yale: Yale University Press, 2010. 272 p.

4. Doughwaite J. Towards a Linguistic Theory of Foregraunding. Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orse, 2000. 403 p.

5. Hornby A. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English. 4^th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. 1580 p.

6. Jovanovic V. On Productivity, Creativity and Restrictions on Word Conversion in English. Fasta Universitatis Series: Linguisties and Literature 2000. № 2 (10). P 425-436.

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