Semantic changes of english converted vocabulary

Abstract

У статті досліджуються деякі семантичні зміни, які відбуваються у результаті переходу лексичних одиниць англійської мови з одного морфологічного класу в інший. Автор розглядає явище конверсії як безафіксний, морфолого-синтаксичний шлях словотвору, що веде до морфологічних, лексичних та синтаксичних змін отриманого слова. Автор підходить до розгляду кожного конкретного випадку реалізації конвертованого слова як до єдиного цілого, тобто узгодженої сукупності елементів та взаємовідносин. Доводиться думка, що конверсія формується у процесі різноманітних семантичних переосмислень. У такому разі лексичні одиниці можуть мати різні семантичні відносини в конвертованих парах. The article examines the use of conversion in the modern English language. The author leads the major aim to discover the semantics of converted words as well as attempts to spell out the typical ways of transition from one part of speech into another by keeping or loosing general meaning of a word. The author proves that conversion goes near the consideration of every concrete case of realization of convertible word as to unique whole that the concerted aggregate of elements and mutual relations. According to authors point of view, conversion may be regarded as a specific feature of the English categories of parts of speech, which are supposed to be able to break through the rigid borderlines dividing one category from another, thus enriching the process of communication not by the creation of new words but through the sheer fiexibility of the syntactic structures. The language never remains as something frozen. It is obvious that the lexical unit itself is the main language of the utterances used to communicate between members of the society. In English, conversion is an extremely productive way of word formation. An analysis of the vocabulary shows the active transition of different parts of speech to another morphological class and the acquisition of similar semantics inherent in verbs. Many examples confirm that conversion has a high productivive way of word formation. Conversion occurs depending on the morphological characteristics of the original and derivative words. When the word is converted, it is formed a homonym, semantically associated with the original word. In order to understand the meaning of a new word we should take into account the meaning of the original word: e. g: The actor was hissed off the stage (hiss hissing, stitching). The author studies two types of conversions: Type I: if the original and derivative words (or one of them) morphologically change. The most typical conversion of this type is verbalization, substantivation and adjectivation. Type II: if the original and derivative words are morphologically unchanged. Conversion of type 2 consists of changing the syntactic function of the word and its lexical meaning. By this type the following words can be converted: adverbs (well), prepositions (before, after, up, down, on, off, in, up, down), conjunctions (and, if), pronouns (who, when, why, no), and even articles (a, an) and auxiliary words (do, don t, does, doesn t). Therefore, the author believes that the study of the semantics of convertible lexical units is based on the correlation between the values of derivative words and the value of the components of the creature basis.