Semantic analysis of compound words and their transformations as an important component in foreign language competence formation

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Semantic analysis of compound words and their transformations as an important component in foreign language competence formation

N. V. Davydova

G. G. Dekusar

Dnipropetrovsk State University of Internal Affairs, Dnipro, Ukraine

The article investigates the word formation system of modern English. The authors of the article are trying to identify new, modern trends of word formation that have been tracing for the last decades. In addition, an attempt is made to differentiate theoretical material, which is to be introduced more actively into training programs for the development of foreign language competence. The basic criteria of a compound word have been determined and the degree of word formation importance in the English vocabulary replenishment has been identified. A thorough analysis of contemporary research and publications conducted by the authors of the article shows that the issue of semantic analysis of compound words and their transformations is still being explored by foreign and domestic scientists, which indicates the relevance of the chosen topic.

Key words: semantic analysis, word formation, compound words, transformations, derived words, morphology, language competence.

Давыдова Н. В., Декусар А. Г., Семантический анализ сложных слов и их трансформаций как важный компонент формирования иноязычной компетенции / Днепропетровский государственный университет внутренних дел, Днепр, Украина

В статье исследуется словообразовательная система современного английского языка. Авторы статьи пытаются выявить новые, современные тенденции словообразования, которые прослеживаются в последние десятилетия. Кроме этого, сделана попытка дифференцировать теоретический материал, чтобы более активно вводить его в программы обучения для развития иноязычной компетенции. Идентифицированы основные критерии сложного слова и определена степень значимости словообразования в пополнении словарного состава английского языка. Проведенный авторами статьи тщательный анализ современных исследований и публикаций свидетельствует, о том, что вопрос семантического анализа сложных слов и их трансформаций и в дальнейшем исследуется зарубежными и отечественными учеными, что указывает на актуальность тематики.

Ключевые слова: семантический анализ, словообразование, составные слова, трансформации, производные слова, морфология, языковая компетентия. word formation morphology language competence

Давидова Н. В., Декусар Г. Г. Семантичний аналіз складних слів та їх трансформацій як важливий компонент формування іншомовної компетенції / Дніпропетровський державний університет внутрішніх справ, Дніпро, Україна

У статті досліджено словотвірну систему сучасної англійської мови. Автори статті намагаються виявити нові, сучасні тенденції словотворення, що простежуються в останні десятиріччя. Крім цього, робиться спроба диференціювати теоретичний матеріал, який доцільно більш активно вводити в програми навчання для розвитку іншомовної компетенції. Розглянуті основні критерії складних слів та визначена ступінь значущості словотворення в поповненні словникового складу англійської мови. Проведений авторами статті ретельний аналіз сучасних досліджень і публікацій свідчить, що питання семантичного аналізу складних слів та їх трансформацій й надалі досліджується закордонними та вітчизняними вченими, що вказує на актуальність обраної тематики.

Ключові слова: семантичний аналіз, словотворення, складені слова, трансформації, похідні слова, морфологія, мовна компетенція.

Formulation of the problem

In recent years, Ukrainian and foreign linguistics have been increasingly paying attention to the analysis of the semantic structure of the word. Various techniques have been developed for considering the semantic structure that relate it to the morphological structure of the word, its syntactic use, or the semantic analysis of the entire group that is its source. Analysis of the psychology of the surrounding reality perception shows that among the qualities of the subject observer identifies one or a small number of qualities or characteristics as the most informative. He transforms several of these features into operational units of perception. The process of distinguishing features can be more or less conscious; it can be understood as an active dominant of consciousness. In our case, the presentation of the material will be about hearing and understanding the meaning of compound words, not by native English speakers, but by the learners who are learning it. The authors of the article aim not only to provide the minimum theoretical material necessary for learning about the semantic analysis of compound words in English, but also to justify the need for a motivational approach to presenting this topic to students, based on suggestions for methodological tools and techniques that can be offered for activation. Language is in constant development, and studying the change in the vocabulary of the language is an important task of linguistics. Contemporary English is characterized by the constant formation of new words; the most relevant is considered to be a productive word formation, and in particular word formation.

Actuality of theme

The vocabulary system of modern English has been actively and fruitfully studied by both domestic and foreign linguists; a considerable number of works has been written that deal with particular aspects of word formation. However, over time, language changes, its structure partly changes, but mainly changes the lexical composition of the language and the performance of word-forming models. Existing theoretical knowledge is not enough. Therefore, it is necessary to identify new, current trends that have been traced in recent decades. In addition, it is important to differentiate theoretical material, which is more appropriately introduced into training programs for the development of foreign language competence.

The object of this study is the word-forming system of English. The subject of the study is the peculiarities of word formation at the present stage.

Purpose: to explore the processes of word formation through word composition.

Task: to determine the degree of importance of word formation in replenishing the vocabulary of English; identify the main criteria of a compound word, consider it in opposition to other lexical units; trace the connection of word formation with other ways of word formation; consider the classification of difficult dreams in terms of different criteria; to highlight new, most productive models for creating new words; determine the semantic meaning of new words.

Main research methods used when writing the paper were the continuous sampling method, comparative method, component analysis, transformational method, word formation, analysis of vocabulary units, fiction and newspaper texts. The research material consists of 54 compound lexical units, selected by continuous sampling from modern lexicographic sources, including dictionaries of neologisms and texts of different styles.

Statement of basic materials

It took the word to name everything around. Our thought moves from subject to object. One aspect of nomination theory that studies naming laws is word formation. The word formation studies the structure of the word (what parts it consists of, what meaning these parts, what position they occupy in the word) and ways of word formation [9; p.7]. Vocabulary is associated with lexicology, since the newly formed words add to the vocabulary of the language and new words are formed on the basis of existing in the language words according to the models of the given language. In addition, without the lexical meaning, it is not possible to determine the direction of motivation in a word-forming pair.

Word formation is also associated with morphology, since the newly formed word is designed according to the grammatical laws of the language. The relation between word formation and syntax is manifested in the fact that syntactic transformations are conditioned by the wordforming potential of the word. Modern studies remind us that word formation is divided into synchronic and diachronic [6; p.8]. Synchronic word formation studies the relevant modern system, and diachronic (or historical) examines the word-forming connections of a word in its historical development. According to the level organization of language, words consist of lower-level units, first of all, with morphemes, which are in some way related to each other, are in a certain relationship and are of a certain structure. One of the most important tasks of word formation is to study the structure of a word, its components and the various relationships between them. The main task of word formation is to determine the difference between a derivative word and a non-derivative word. Another important task is to determine the way words are formed, because the method itself is the most important characteristic of the morphemic language system as a whole.

One of the most ancient and versatile ways of word formation is word addition. Word-formulation is one of the productive ways of wordformation, which is to combine two or more bases to form a compound word. A compound word is a vocabulary unit that consists of more than one base [11].

In recent decades, the role of word formation has increased in the English language. And if in the 60-70-ies the phrase was inferior to affixation, in the 80's it exceeded affixation. And the most widespread this method of word formation has received in recent decades. According to Zabotkina V.I. [8], compound words now account for more than one-third of all neoplasms in modern English. Neologisms, formed by combining existing words, appear at such a speed that they do not always have time to reach the dictionary before their spread. There are many short words in English, and when something new appears in life, it is easiest to take two monosyllabic words and get a new one from them to indicate a new phenomenon. This method has existed for a long time, but recently the number of such phenomena has increased considerably. Some independent nouns of the English dictionary, such as man, berry, land, often become the second element of words. In their characterization, they seem to be between complex and word-forming morphemes. As the meaning of these elements fluctuates between the base and the affix, the name "semi-affixes" was proposed for them, that is, intermediate type morphemes that correlate with independent words in the language system [4]. For example, man is by far the most commonly used semi-affix. A very long list could be made with this component: chairman, doorman, fireman, fisherman, gentleman, horseman, postman, workman, policeman, sportsman, salesman and many more. The second element - man is semantically generalized and implies the simple meaning of the suffix -er.

Likewise, semi-affixes include elements such as -like, -proof, - worthy, such as godlike, ladylike, childlike, businesslike, praiseworthy, trustworthy, waterproof, kissproof, fireproof.

Phrase posting is also limited by mixing. In the 1950s, mixing was not seen as an independent way of word formation. I.M. Beramn pointed out that mixing is one way or another one of the established types in word formation and shows a tendency to completely merge into one of them [12; p.95]. Similar different features of cross fading and word formation are described in the article by Khrushchev O.A. "Mixing in the word formation system".

The combination of word forms also creates a combination of tensions, which is a sign of semantic integrity that is a characteristic of both complex words and blends.

The first type is additive - a phrase of equivalent complete bases connected by the connector and: smash (smack + mash). Components can be synonymous and belong to a semantic field.

Positron (positive + electron) is a restrictive type in which the second component obeys the first one.

We now define the morphological and morphological features of the original components of the composite. By definition, word formation is a morphological connection of two or more bases. And the mixtures are characterized by the morphological characteristic of the connection of components: superimposition, cutting, inserting morphs. Example: camera = camera + caricature, both output elements are available phonetically and graphically in the structure [10; p.32].

The authors of this article propose to introduce the concept of a compound word by combining classic criteria for defining a compound word and modern scientific decisions. For those studying language, it is quite evident that a compound word is formed by the group of two or more bases in the process of morphological word formation [12; p. 59]. For example, toothache is toothache, a snowman is a snowman.

First, the approximation to a compound word can be given to students from different positions, such as a morphological one, which causes the following problem: recognizing a particular lexical entity with a complex word from a morphological point of view. The problem is that you can refuse if the status of a compound word is applied to the word-building analysis and vice versa.

The second problem for understanding lies in analytical language, which gives the right to distinguish the word base from the word that is different. The use of these features themselves has no well-founded criteria. Trying to apply one or the other characteristic or several characteristics at the same time, whereby one characteristic is recognized as the main or auxiliary characteristic, prompts us to apply certain criteria when analyzing a certain material - numerous lexical units. It is helpful for students to define and select these criteria.

Third, linguists who frequently study compound words and compare them with neighboring lexical units give them additional features, making it difficult to define a compound word [9].

Fourth, there are many opposites when choosing compound words, including: compound word - simple word; compound word - derived word; compound word - phrase. A word is a compound word, like a lexical unit, which is defined in a dictionary. Given this, we need to activate working with different types of vocabulary. The tasks of identifying a compound word often add to the knowledge of the object to be examined - the compound word. Sometimes attempts are unsuccessful, but we can safely say that they enable our students to improve their knowledge of compound words and their components.

Learning word history is a good idea for those who learn English. It is known that many morphological words have been simplified and morphologically simple in the past (woman => woman + man). Therefore, this problem is mostly etymological. Combination forms are language forms that are used as related forms in modern language, although they functioned as separate words in Greek and Latin, from which they were borrowed. For example, astron 'star' - astronomy, cars 'self' - automatically; Bios 'life' - biology, electron 'amber' - electronics; ge 'earth' - geology, graph-a 'write' - typography.

The question immediately arises as to whether they should be regarded as attachments that form the derived words or whether they are closer to the elements of word formation, since they had the status of a word in the language from which they originate. Lexicographers treated them differently, but now they are recognized almost everywhere and are a special type of language unit. Combined forms are particularly common in the specialist dictionaries of the arts and sciences. They have long been known in international scientific terminology. Many of them are widely spoken in everyday language, for example the Greek word bios - life, long known as internationalism - it is part of a series of words (biography) and in particular enables many branches of the knowledge trade with living organisms to be named: bioastronautics - biocosmonautics, biochemistry - biochemistry, bioecology - bioecology, biology - biology, bionics - bionics biophysics - biophysics. From these words, bioastronautics, bioecology and bionics are the latest and must therefore be clarified. Biocosmonautics examines human physical abilities and needs, and the means to achieve them in space. Bioecology is also an interesting example since the second part of the word "logos" - "logy" is used so often in the name of study areas: for example geology, geology, lexicology, lexicology, phonology, phonology. The 'eco' shape is also very interesting. This is already the case with duplicates. One of them is in economics - economics, economist, economizing, etc. Another one means "dealing with ecology". With this element, the problem of increasing pollution has spawned many new words: eco-climate, eco-activist, eco-type, ecocatastrophe, eco-development.

The phonetic criterion is one that receives little attention in connections and its transformation theory, which takes into account the fact that compound words are characterized by a single or a major and minor emphasis, as opposed to phrases where both components are equally striking. Therefore the students make many communication mistakes [15]. We insist on 3 models of connections.

a) a single stress on the first component in words like honeymoon, entrance; b) double stress if the main accent is on the first component and the additional accent is on the second component, e.g. blood vessel, crazy doctor, psychiatrist, washing machine. These two stresses patterns are most common in compound words and in many cases it is a feature that distinguishes compound words from word combinations, especially when the order of the compound word components is parallel to the word order of the phrase, hence greenhouse - a greenhouse for growing sensitive plants faces green house - a house painted green; dancing girl - a dancer and dancing girl - a girl who dances; a mad-doctor - a psychiatrist and a mad doctor - a doctor who is crazy.

Because semantic changes in semantic transformations are formal- logical relationships between concepts, semantic transformations can only be identified or considered given the types of connections that reflect associations that can occur in the human mind [7]. Therefore, we consider it advisable to continue the theoretical introduction of the material and to explain the three types of relationships that are identified between the elements of compound words. Equivalence shows the importance of the value of each element in perception. First of all, this type of relationship can be observed in such compound words that emphasize nationality: Afro-American, Anglo-American, French-Canadian. And also in words that have a subordinate additional connection from a linguistic point of view: a secretary stenographer, a queen bee. When we perceive these words, we perceive the meaning of both components equally. A sectograph is both a secretary and a stenographer. When we hear this word, we do not think about the predominance of this or that occupation. The following process is reversed in values. In our case, this process is similarly based on the laws of psychological perception, most often represented by the narrowing of meaning: the transition from a generic concept to one type: bath towel, handiwork, sunglasses. This process is well followed by words that have the same second element. For example: long-legged; with crossed legs - the value narrows. For words that denote different types of professions, the topic is controversial here, since we can talk about narrowing or expanding the meaning as a certain qualification: secretary-stenographer.

It is advisable to offer students to systematize verbal units and to derive certain rules for writing complex words independently: separately, together, with hyphen. Identifying the variants of compound noun models; variants of compound verb models; variants of complex adjective models.

When teaching, it is very important to remind students to write numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine and complex adjectives, the first element of which is the number. It is advisable to use training exercises to remember words that are written using the dash: twenty-one, thirty-first, second rare film, windows on the third floor, ten-year-old bones, nineteenth-century novel, decades-old newspapers. Complex words, which in the attribute case consist of a number and a noun, have a separate spelling: weekly wages, working hours.

Adjectives that define colors are always written with a hyphen: a red- and-gold sunset, a cherry- red sweater. If the first element of such a compound adjective ends in -ish and precedes the noun, the compound adjective has a separate spelling. And if it is after the noun, then it is separated: a dark blue color, a red and gold sunset, the sky is reddish gold. The authors of the article believe that it is advisable to use a variety of training puzzles using computer technology to activate a topic that is considered minor but causes some difficulties.

The English language trainer must find ways to show that compound words are semantically motivated units: chess board, key board, school board; The basics can be completely different: footprint, foot pump, hold, foot bath, footwear, footnote, foot lights, foot stone, foot high, foot wide. The lexical meaning of the fundamentals is interconnected and forms a new semantic whole. For example: a handbag - a women's bag, a pants suit - a women's suit, a wheelchair - a chair for the disabled and a stroller - a chair for babies.

The level of motivation of compound words can vary.

1) Fully motivated words (the lexical meaning of these words is connected and represents the addition of the meanings of the components): sky blue, foot pump, tea taster.

2) Partially motivated words: a handbag, a flower bed, handcuffs, a castle builder 3) Non-motivated words (metonymically and metaphorically): eye wash, violin goats, an eye servant, a nightcap, a slow coach, a sweet-toot. It is often referred to the object already mentioned, but this gives it another non-user-defined name [14]. Another term can be interpreted as a semantic transformation of the former. Such words can very often be polysemantic. For example: a night cap 1. night cap; 2. drink overnight. When we speak of words such as killjoy, bittersweet, dull- witted, subordination relations give rise to two opposing semantic processes: extension and narrowing. Unmotivated connections and their transformations are the most difficult to understand and analyze.

To determine the type and linguistic status of compound words, all three components were based on their definitions: morphological structure, meaning and their syntactic function. Word formation is also linked to morphology, since the newly formed word was designed according to the grammatical laws of language. The relationship between word formation and syntax manifests itself in the fact that syntactic transformations are conditioned by the word formation potential of the word.

Conclusions

The English trainer emphasizes and provides the means to understand that compound words are semantically motivated units, the bases of which can be completely different since, when coupled, they form a new semantic entity. They are formed by connecting two or more root morphemes using an open, closed, or separate notation that depends on the historical origin of the word, the frequency of its use, and its function in the sentence. Studying of various semantic transformations in complex words is of great practical importance for the process of mastering a foreign language.

Therefore, this article highlights the main issues related to the concept of a compound word, its identification, criteria, and classification, the most common models of compound words and the semantic relationships of their components. In addition, complex words that were found in the vocabulary of new English words were analyzed. In the course of the analysis, the structural and semantic characteristics of various models of complex nouns and adjectives were examined, on the basis of which the considered units were described and classified. Recommendations were also made to improve the implementation of semantic analysis of complex words for foreign language skills enhancement.

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