|
|
From irregular word formation: mechanical shortening and blending
Šimandl, Josef
After a survey of irregularities in the regular derivation, a survey of irregular ways is given, following Czech grammatographical tradition. Some remarks to the mechanical shortening follow. From specifically English ways to form new words, back derivation is mentioned; however, the main topic is blending. Czech equivalents to blending are estimated and the winner for now is přiklánění, “inclining”, because the notion of each single element continues in the blend and so does the form to a diverse extent. Examples are given how insufficient is to distinguish between “portmanteaux” and “telescops”, for there are more ways how to incline words closer to each other. A new term “hinting” is coined for the semantic side of blending: each blend hints its basic words. The frequency of mechanical shortenings and blends cannot be pinpointed, due to uniqueness of creatively formed words. The question, how broad is the periphery (not-formed words, words formed from an obsolete base or/and after obsolete models, mechanically shortened words, blended words ...) against the centre of regularly well-formed words, remains unanswered, but not forgotten.
|
|
|
The Verb Particle preč and the Prefix wot- in Older Upper Sorbian and their Role in the Grammaticalization of Aspect
Brankatschk, Katja
This paper deals with the Upper Sorbian verb particle preč in comparison to its synonymous prefix wot-. The question is raised, whether those two elements can form aspect pairs of the type preč hić (ipf.) – woteńć (pf.). On the basis of a corpus of an Older Sorbian Bible translation, about 100 examples of the particle preč and about 50 examples of the prefix wot- are examined. According to the examples from the examined text, it seems that the particle preč is as much integrated into the system of Sorbian word formation, as would be necessary to form such ipf. aspect partners systematically. In the corpus, there is only one potential aspect pair preč hić / (preč) woteńć. However, those verbs show only a low level of aspectuality. Where the particle preč is used in Older as well as in modern Upper Sorbian, the influence of the German equivalent of the verb and other lexical factors are of greater importance. In addition, verbal aspect in Older Upper Sorbian seems to be gramaticalized only to a low degree. Therefore the necessity to form an ipf. partner for a prefix verb does not occur very often. A question of debate remain those examples in narrative passages, where pf. (aorist) forms are combined with ipf. (imperfekt) ones. A larger corpus of narrative texts should show, whether the choice of aspect in those passages is given lexically or by co-accidence, or whether there is a functional distribution similarely as in Czech.
|
guest ::
