Abbreviation

In the process of communication words & word-groups can be shortened. The causes of shortening can be linguistic & extra-linguistic. By extra-linguistic causes, changes in the life of people are meant. In Modern English many new abbreviations, acronyms, initials (начальное сокращение), blends (слово-гибрид, образованное путем контрактации двух основ (motel)) are formed because the tempo of life is increasing & it becomes necessary to give more & more information in the shortest possible time.

There are also linguistic causes of abbreviating words & word-groups, such as the demand of rhythm, which is satisfied in English by monosyllabic words. When borrowings from other languages are assimilated in English they are shortened. Here we have modification of form on the basis of analogy, e.g. the Latin borrowing fanaticus is shortened to fan on the analogy with native words: man, pan, tan etc.

There are two main types of shortenings: graphical & lexical.

                          Graphical abbreviations

 Graphical abbreviations are the result of shortening of words & word-groups only in written speech while orally the corresponding full forms are used. They are used for the economy of space & effort in writing.

The oldest group of graphical abbreviations in English is of Latin origin. In Russian this type of abbreviation is not typical. In these abbreviations in the spelling Latin words are shortened, while orally the corresponding English equivalents are pronounced in the full form, e.g. – for example (Latin exampli gratia), a.m. – in the morning (ante meridiem), No – number (numero), p.a. – a year (per annum), d – penny (dinarius), lb – pound (libra), i.e. – that is (id est). In some cases initial letters are pronounced, e.g. a.m., p.m. etc. In such cases they can be treated as lexical initial abbreviations.

Some graphical abbreviations of Latin origin have different English equivalents in different contexts, e.g. p.m. can be pronounced in the afternoon (post meridiem) & after death (post mortem).

There are also graphical abbreviations of native origin where in the spelling we have abbreviations of words & word-groups of the corresponding English equivalents in the full form. We have several semantic groups of them:

a) days of the week, e.g. Mon – Monday, Tue – Tuesday etc;

b) names of months, e.g. Apr – April, Aug – August, Sep – September etc;

c) names of countries in UK, e.g. Yorks – Yorkshire, Berks – Berkshire etc;

d) names of states in USA, e.g. Ala – Alabama, Alas – Alaska, Calif – California etc;

e) names of address, e.g. Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr etc;

f)  military ranks, e.g. capt – captain, col - colonel, sgt – sergeant etc;

g) scientific degrees, e.g. BA – Bachelor of Arts, DM – Doctor of Medicine. (Sometimes in scientific degrees we have abbreviations of Latin origin, e.g. MB – Medicinae Baccalaurus);

h) units of time, length, weight, e.g. f./ft – foot/feet, sec. – second, in. – inch, mg. – milligram etc.

The reading of some graphical abbreviations depends on the context, e.g. m can be read as: male, married, masculine, metre, mile, million, minute; l.p. can be read as long-playing, low pressure.

                              Initial Abbreviation

 Initialisms are the bordering case between graphical & lexical abbreviations. When they appear in the language, as a rule, to denote some new offices they are closer to graphical abbreviations because orally full forms are used, e.g. JV – joint venture. When they are used for some duration of time they acquire the shortened form of pronouncing & become closer to lexical abbreviations, e.g. BBC is, as a rule, pronounced in the shortened form [bi:bi:`si:].

In some cases, the translation of initialisms is next to impossible without special dictionaries. Initialisms are denoted in different ways. Very often they are expressed in the way they are pronounced in the language of their origin, e.g. ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, United States) is pronounced in Russian as АНЗУС; SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) was used in Russian as a phonetic borrowing (СОЛТ), now a translation loan (калька) is used (OCB – Договор об ограничении стратегических вооружений). This type of initialisms borrowed into other languages (UFO – НЛО, JV – СП) is preferable.

There three types of initialisms in English:

a) initialisms with alphabetical reading, such as UK (United kingdom), BUP (British United Press), CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament), PWA (a person with AIDS), HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) etc;

b) initialisms which are read as if they are words, e.g. UNESCO (United Nations Economic, Scientific, Cultural Organization), OPEC (The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries), etc;

c)  initialism which coincide with English words in their sound form. Such initialisms are called acronyms, e.g. CLASS (Computer-based Laboratory for Automated School System), NOW (National Organization of Women), AIDS (Acquired Immunity Deficiency Syndrome) etc.

Some scientists unite groups b) &c) into one group which they call acronyms.

Some initialisms can form new words in which they act as root morphemes by different ways of wordbuilding:

a) affixation, e.g. AWOLism (Absent WithOut Leave) самовольные отлучки (AWOL – находящийся в самовольной отлучке), ex-rafer (Royal Air Force – англ. военно-воздушные силы), ex-POW (Prisoner of War), AIDSophobia etc;

b)  conversion, e.g. to raff (Royal Air Force), to fly IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) летать по приборам etc;

c)  composition, e.g. STOLport (Short Take-Off & Landing) аэродром для самолётов короткого взлёта и посадки, USAFMan (United States Air Force) Военнослужащий ВВС США etc;

d)  there are also compound-shortened words where the first component is an initial abbreviation with alphabetical reading & the second one is a complete word, e.g. A-bomb (атомная бомба), U-pronunciation, V-day etc. In some cases the first component is a complete word & the second component is an initial abbreviation with the alphabetical pronunciation, e.g. Three-Ds (Three dimensions (измерение)) – стереофильм.

 

                           Abbreviation of words 

Abbreviation of words consists in clipping a part of a word. As a result, we get a new lexical unit where either the lexical meaning or the style is different from the full form of the word. In such cases as fantasy (фантазия) & fancy (воображение), fence (забор) & defence (защита) we have different lexical meanings. In such cases as laboratory & lab, we have different styles.

Abbreviation doesn’t change the part-of-speech meaning, as in case of conversion or affixation, it produces words belonging to the same part of speech as the primary word, e.g. prof is a noun & professor is also a noun. Mostly nouns undergo (подвергаться) abbreviation, but we can also meet abbreviation of verbs, such as to rev from to revolve (вращать), to tab from to tabulate (сводить в таблицу) etc. But mostly abbreviated forms of verbs are formed by means of conversion from abbreviated nouns, e.g. to tax, to vac (проводить каникулы) etc. Adjectives can be abbreviated but they are mostly used in school slang & are combined with suffixation, e.g. comfy [`kumfi] (удобный), dilly (прилежный), mizzy etc. As a rule, pronouns, numerals, interjections, conjunctions are not abbreviated. The exceptions are: fif (fifteen) (apocope), teenager, in one’s teens (apheresis from numerals from 13 to 19).

Lexical abbreviations are classified according to the part of the word, which is clipped. Mostly the end of the word is clipped, because the beginning of the word in most cases is the root & expresses the lexical meaning of the word. This type of abbreviation is called apocope. Here we can mention a group of words ending in –o, such as disco (discotheque), expo (exposition), intro (introduction) & many others. On the analogy with these words there developed in Modern English a number of words where –o is added as a kind of a suffix to the shortened form of the word, e.g. combo (combination) – небольшой эстрадный ансамбль, Afro (African) – прическа под африканца etc.

In other cases, the beginning of the word is clipped. In such cases we have apheresis, e.g. chute (parachute), varsity (university), copter (helicopter – вертолет), thuse (enthuse – вызывать энтузиазм) etc. Sometimes the middle of the word is clipped, e.g. mart (market), fanzine (fan magazine), maths (mathematics). Such abbreviations are called syncope. Sometimes we have a combination of apocope with apheresis, when the beginning of the word are clipped, e.g. tec (detective), van (avanguard) etc.

Sometimes shortening influences the spelling of the word, e.g. “c” can be substituted by “k” before “e” to preserve pronunciation, e.g. mike (microphone), coke (coca-cola) etc. The same rules is observed in the following cases: fax (facsimile), teck (technical college), trank (tranquilizer – успокаивающее) etc. The final consonants in the shortened forms are substituted by letters characteristic of native English words.

                  Secondary Ways of Wordbuilding

                                Sound Interchange

 Sound interchange is the way of wordbuilding when some sounds are changed to form a new word. It is non-productive in Modern English; it was productive in Old English & can be met in other Indo-European languages.

 The causes of sound interchange can be explained by the phonetic laws during the period of the language development known to scientists, e.g. to strike – stroke, to sing – song etc. It can be also the result of Ancient Umlaut or vowel mutation (изменение) which is the result of palatalizing the root vowel because of the front vowel [i] or [j] in the syllable coming after the root (regressive assimilation), e.g. hot – to heat (hotian), blood – to bleed (blodian) etc.

                In many cases we have vowel & consonant interchange. In nouns we have voiceless (глухой) consonants & in verbs we have corresponding (соответствующий) voiced (звонкий) consonants because in Old English these consonants in nouns were at the end of the word & in verbs in the intervocal (интервокальный) position, e.g. bath – to bathe, life – to live, breath – to breathe etc. Sometimes it is combined with suffixation, e.g. strong – strength.

                                                   Stress Interchange

         Stress interchange can be mostly met in verbs & nouns of Romanic origin: nouns have the stress on the first syllable (слог) & verbs on the last syllable, e.g. `accent (ударение) – to ac`cent (делать ударение). This phenomenon is explained in the following way: French verbs & nouns had different structure when they were borrowed into English; verbs had one syllable more than the corresponding nouns. When these borrowings were assimilated in English the stress in them was shifted to the previous syllable (the second from the end). Later on the last unstressed syllable in verbs borrowed from French was dropped (the same as in native verbs) & after that the stress in verbs was on the last syllable while in nouns it was on the first syllable (if the noun consisted of two syllables). As a result of it we have such pairs in English as: to af`fix (прикреплять) - `affix, to con`flict - `conflict, to ex`port - `export, to ex`tract (извлекать) - `extract (экстракт) etc. As a result of stress interchange in such words because vowels are pronounced differently in stressed & unstressed positions.

However, this is not regular, there are borrowed nouns & verbs with the stress on the first syllable, e.g. comment, exile, figure, preface, quarrel, focus, process, program, triumph etc.

 There is a large group of disyllabic loan words that retain the stress on the second syllable both in verbs & nouns: accord (согласие, предоставлять), account (счет, объяснять), advance (продвижение вперед, продвигаться), amount (количество, составлять), approach, attack, attempt, concern, defeat, distress (горе, причинять горе), escape, exclaim, research etc.

 

                              Sound Imitation

 It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by imitating different sounds. There are some semantic groups of words formed by means of sound imitation:

a) sound produced by human beings, such as: to whisper, to giggle, to mumble, to sneeze, to whistle etc;

b) sounds produced by animals, birds such as: to hiss, to buzz , to bark, to moo, to twitter;

c) sounds produced by nature & objects, such as: to splash, to rustle, to clatter, to bubble, to ding-dong, to tinkle etc.

The corresponding nouns are formed by means of conversion, e.g. clang (of a bell), chatter (of children) etc.

                                Blends

 Blends are words formed from a wordgroup or two synonyms. In blends two ways of word-building are combined: abbreviation & composition. To form a blend we clip the end of the first component (apocope) & the beginning of the second component (apheresis). As a result we have a compound-shortened word. One of the first blends in English was the word smog (smoke + fog), which means smoke mixed with fog. From the first component the beginning is taken, from the second one the end, “o” is common for both of them.

Blends formed from two synonyms are: slanguage (slang & language), to hustle (hurry & bustle), gasohol (gasoline & alcohol) etc. Mostly blends are formed from a word-group, such as: acromania (acronym mania), bit (binary digit – двузначная цифра), cinemaddict – киноман (cinema addict), Chunnel – название тоннеля под Ла-Маншем, который соединяет U.K. & France (channel tunnel), dramedy (drama comedy), detectifiction ( detective fiction), faction (fact fiction – fiction based on real facts), informercial (information commercial), Medicare (medical care), magalog (magazine catalogue), slimnastics (slimming gymnastics), sociolite (social elite), slanguist (slang linguist) etc.

 The analysis into immediate constituents of blends permits the definition of a blend as a word with a first constituent represented by a stem whose final part may be missing, & the second constituent by a stem of which the initial part is missing. The second constituent when used in series of similar blends may turn into a suffix. A new suffix –on is, for instance, well under way in such terms as nylon, rayon, silon, formed from the final element of cotton.

                  Back Formation (Disaffixation)

 It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by dropping the final morpheme to form a new word. It is opposite to suffixation, that is why it is called back formation. At first it appeared in the language as a result of misunderstanding the structure of borrowed word. Prof. V. Yartseva explains this mistake by the influence of the whole system of the language on separate words. E.g. it is typical of English to form nouns denoting the agent of the action by adding the suffix –er to a verb stem (speak – speaker). So when the French word beggar was borrowed into English the final syllable ar was pronounced in the same way as the English –er, & Englishmen formed the verb to beg by dropping the end of the noun. Other examples of backformation are: to accreditate (from accreditation), to bach (from bachelor), to collocate  (from collocation), to enthuse (from enthusiasm), to compute (from computer), to emote (from emotion), to reminisce – вспоминать (from reminiscence), to televise (from television) etc.

As we can notice, in cases of backformation the part-of-speech meaning of the primary word is changed, verbs are formed from nouns.