The status of suffixation as a word creating means



The language as a means of communication among people has its past, today and future. In this sense the language like any living beings changes, develops, grows and becomes perfect and rich. Language development depends on the life of the society. In other words all the changes taking place in social, cultural, economic and scientific life are registered in the language owing to the necessity of naming anything new. This process is called differently in world language (as we said before)

The major task of this branch is to study specific features (formal, semantic, stylistic, pragmatic, genetic) and laws of newly created lexemes.

They are not created by chance, but according to the basic models existing in the language. This also refers to the derived words (with suffixes) the basic general model for all of them is S+suf=NW1

In modern English one can differeniate the following methods of word creation: creation of new words for something new (sugar-came, underground), word compounding (hedgehog, blackmail, daydreamer, shortening (VIP-very important person, GM-General Motors, UFO- unknown Flying Object), conversion, adjectivization (harm-harmful, beauty- beautiful), substantivization (to play-player, act-actor), verbalization (wide-widen, deep-deepen)adverbialization(quick-quickly, deep=deeply), reversed word building (top-pot, tip-pit),

1. “S” for the stem, suf. for the suffix, NW for the new word lexical-semantic way (nose: (1)бурун 2) тумшуқ (самолёт, кема, қайиқ кабиларни олд (бурун) томони
2. hard: a) кучли, 2) қийин, 3) қаттиқ, 4) совуқ, 5)шиддатли, ўткир, қулоқни қоматга келтирадиган, 6) хасис, очкўз
3. change of sounds (cat-fat, mice-rice, tall-fall) change of word stress [‘mankind-эркак зоти], mankind- инсоният, одамзод, to ‘garage-гаражга қўймоқ,..ga’rage (n)-гараж), imitation (ding-dong, cuckoo, tick-tack). As we see they are thirteen of them.

All of them can be productive, less productive and minimum productive suffixes according to the degree of productivity.

Our analysis of the Oxford Dictionary of Current English (2006, Oxford University Press) by Catherine Sowns showed that new word creation and word compounding are productive (86 %), conversion, lexic-semantic way less productive, change of sounds and word stress change as the degree of minimum productivity (2 %)

The term productivity refers to word creating models and their meanings too.

We discovered the following models, that create different parts of speech:

Verb+suffix=NW (noun): teacher, sailor, development

Noun+suffix=NW(noun): childhood, mankind

Noun+verb+suffix=NW(noun): potatomasher, woodcutter

Adjective+ suffix=NW(adverb); clearly, perfectly, recently

Noun+suffix= NW (adverb): Southward, Northward

Noun+Verb+ suffix= NW (noun): baby-sitting, baby-jumper, baby-sitter, day-dreamer

Adjective+ suffix=NW (verb): to widen, to realize, to deepen

According to the number of stem and suffixes we discovered the following basic models:

One stem+ one suffix= NW: Kingdom, traitor, important;

Multistem+ one suffix= NW: stagemanager, day—dreamer;

One stem+ multisuffix= NW; reactionist, activity, heartless:

Multistem+ multisuffix=NW;multinationality, ballpointedness

Taking into consideration that suffixes stand after stems(stem+one (or more than) suffix) we discovered the following:

– ary+ly= fragmentarily (adv):

– less+ness= friendlessness (noun), heartlessness (noun):

– ible;-abli+ty: irresponsibility (noun);

– tion +ist: rreactionist (noun);

– ize+er+ fertilizer (noun);

– er+ship: membership (noun);

– iza+ tion: colonization (noun);

– iv+ity: activity (noun);

– ive+ness: activeness(noun);

– al+dom: officialdom (noun);

According to the degree of activeness or passiveness in a certain period of language development suffixes may be:

1) synchronic word creating suffixes: protector, spaceship;

2) diachronic word creating suffixes: kingdom, freedom;

To the first group belong- fy (clarify), -er(fighter), -ment,-en,-al, -ly, -we, -ity, — tion.etc.

The second group of suffixes arethose which were actively used in Old and Middle English but rarely occurring in Modern English. They are- dom, -aster, -ule, -esque,-us, -ia;

Some of the suffixes are specialized to form only one group of word classes, but others may be used to create more than one word classes. Accordingly they may have one or more than one meanings. According to these criteria we classify them into the following types:

a) momofunctional and monosemantic;

b) polysefunctional and polysemantic;

To the first group of suffixes belong:-ship, -ism, -ify, --let etc.

To the second group of suffixes belong:-ant, -ive, -an, -ea, -ly, -y,-er, -al, -ant, -ary, -ate, -ful, -etc.

Statistic analysis of the English-Uzbek dictionary by SH.Butayev (2013, 218–236 p.p) showed the degrees of activeness of derived words (belonging to this or that part of speech);

N	Word class	Suffixational words	%
1.	Nouns	343	56,9
2.	Adjective	157	25,9
3.	Adverbs	39	6.3
4.	Verbs	66	10,9
5.	The sum	605	100 %

As we see from the table noun forming suffixes are more productive than adjective forming suffixes.

There is a great difference between noun and verb forming suffixes.

The origin of suffixes can be morphemes or independent words.

From the stylistic point of view suffixes may classified into two groups:

a) stylistically neutral;

b) stylistically marked;

The first group of suffixes can be met in official style.

According to the position of word creating suffixes we divide into two groups. That’s why-ship, -hood, -ness, — -al, are absolutely postpositive suffixes (readership, heartlessness, abstractionism).

But –er, -less, -ive, -al, ous, areinterpositive suffixes.

We came across the following noun creating suffixes which precede other suffixes:

1. V+er+ship= Noun: leadership, sponsorship
2. V+iz(a))+tion=Noun: mechanism, legalization, popularization
3. N+iv+ity=Noun: activity, correlativity
4. N+ive+ ness= Noun: competitiveness
5. N+al+dom= Noun: officialdom
6. Stem+ibi+ity= Noun: possibility, responsibility

Adjective forming suffixes-ive, -ful, -less may precede –ly: attentively, beautifully, harmlessly.

Russian linguist P. M. Karashuk, in his book “”Word formation in English, devides derived nouns into nouns with agentive suffixes and noun with abstract suffixes”.

The suffix –er is productive. It is added to noun and verb stems and denote the doer of the activity (action) expressed in the stem: drinker, carter, writer. This agentive suffix can be found in old English texts as –ere. In Middle Ages it created builder, bookbinder, hatter, hunter, saddler, weaver. In this period-er gained a new meaning a resident of a place: Londoner, Englander, villager.

From time to time hand made machines and apparates started to do things. So –er was added to their names. This way –er gained the meaning of “ a tool”: a roller- валик, knocker- эшикзулфи(дверноемолотоk).

Nowadays –er can be added to adjectives and numerals too. Such words are made of the model: S+S+er=Noun;S+er=Noun: borderer- чегара худдудида яшовчи киши, villager- қишлоқда яшовчи киши, islander- оролда яшовчи киши etc.

Noun forming suffixes –er while added to a numeral means a man of that age: fifteeners orsixteeners- ўн беш ёки ўн олти ёшли ўсмирлар, fourty-niner қирқ тўққиз ёшли киши.

There are some examples that –er can be added to a prepositional verb phrase and nouns are formed: to look on-on looker, to come by- comer by, to dine out-diner out, to find out-finder out. But in English if a stem with –er expressing a noun is a noun, there is a tendency to use the latter: student-studier. This case is possible with homonymous stems created by-er: bettingman-better (one who bets)- гаров ўйновчи is used in place of it because it expresses the comparative degree of adjectives.

Its main reason is the necessity for the choice of correcting meanings, for correct understanding and use.

Noun forming –er can be found in jargons ((V+-er=N). To blight (умуман пучга чиқармоқ) –blighter (ёқимсиз, зерикарли киши) to bound (сакрамоқ, чопмоқ) –bounder (тарбиясиз, тўполончи, жанжалкаш киши), to cram (мияга қуймоқ, имтихонга мажбурлаб олиб бормоқ)-crammer (репeтитор, имтихонга тайёрловчи).

Out investigations showed that –er is used to create not only simple derived nouns but compound derived nouns too. can-opener (консерва очқич), icebreaker (муз ёрар кема), tooth-picker (тиш тозалагич), better-onder

(келишувчиликка бoрмайдиган киши), first nighter (премьерага қатнашувчи киши), three decker (уч палубали кема), twoseater (икки ўринли автомобил), six-bedder(олти ўринли хона).

As we see compound derived nouns are created by putting together two or more words and suffixes.

We think this way of creating lexemes should be considered as an independent means of word creation.

So, suffixation occupies the third position in word creation process after word creation and compounding means.

The following chapters of the work will be devoted to the study origin, morphology, semantics and functional characteristics of word creating suffixes.

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