Prefixation in the English language and its role in enriching the English vocabulary - Курсовая работа

Chapter I. Word-formation and its basic peculiarities Word-building is one of the main ways of enriching vocabulary. There are four main ways of word-building in modern English: affixation, composition, conversion, abbreviation. There are also secondary ways of word-building: sound interchange, stress interchange, sound imitation, blends, back formation. Affixation is one of the most productive ways of word-building throughout the history of English. It consists in adding an affix to the stem of a definite part of speech. Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation. In our research we analyzed the problems of prefixation in English and Uzbek languages. Word-formation is the process of creating new words from the material available in the language after certain structure and semantic formulas and patterns. For instance, the noun driver is formed after the pattern v -er, i.e. a verb-stem the noun-forming suffix -er. The meaning of the noun driver is related to the meanings of the stem drive and the suffix -er: a driver is one who drives (a carriage, motorcar, railway engine, etc.). A careful study of a great many suffixal and prefixal derivatives has revealed an essential difference between them. In Modern English suffixation is characteristic of noun and adjective formation, while prefixation is typical of verb formation. As a general rule, prefixes modify the lexical meaning of stems to which they are added. A prefixal derivative usually joins the part of speech the unprefixed word belongs to, e.g. unusual - cf. usual, indefinite - cf. definite, discomfort-cf. comfort, etc. In a suffixal derivative the suffix does not only modify the lexical meaning of the stem it is affixed to, but the word itself is usually transferred to another part of speech, e.g. care-less a - cf. care n; suit-able a - cf. suit v; good- ness n - cf. good adj., etc. Furthermore, it is necessary to point out that a suffix closely knit together with a stem forms a fusion retaining less of its independence than a prefix which is as a general rule, more independent semantically, cf. reading - «the act of one who reads»; ability to read; and to re-read - «to read again». Prefixation is the formation of words with the help of prefix. Although the terms «prefix» and «prefixation» are now firmly rooted in linguistic terminology, they are treated differently in linguistic literature. They are linguists, for instance, who treat prefixation as part of word - composition (or compounding); they believe that a prefix has the same function as the first component of a compound word. The majority of linguists, however, treat prefixation as an integral part of word - derivation regarding prefixes as derivational affixes which differ essentially from root-morphemes and stems. Some linguists think it necessary to distinguish between two types of prefixes: (1) those not correlated with any independent word (either notional or functional), e.g. un-, dis-, re-, etc; and (2) those correlated with functional words (prepositions or preposition - like adverbs), e.g. out-, over-, up-, etc.