Лексичні та синтактико-стилістичні зміни в сучасній англійській мові: вплив комп’ютерних технологій

Shortening results in new lexical items proper only in written speech.

E.g.: RD for road, St for street, Apt for apartment etc.

However, «in the process of language development many of the graphical abbreviations penetrate into the sphere of oral intercourse, for instance, a.m., p.m., SOS, etc.

Transformation of word-groups into words involve different types of lexical shortening:

Ellipsis or substantivasation;

Initial letter or syllable abbreviations (achronyms);

Blendings.

Substantivisation consists in dropping the final nominal member of a frequently used attributive word-group.

E.g.: the finals from the final examinations; a documentary from a documentary film.

Acronyms and letter abbreviations are lexical abbreviations of a phrase. They are regular vocabulary units spoken as words.

E.g.: BBC – British Broadcasting Corporation; radar – radio detection and ranging; V-day – Victory Day.

Blendings are the result of conscious creation of words by merging irregular fragments of several words.

E.g.: brunch from breakfast and lunch; radiotrician from radio and electrician; mike from microplane.

Borrowings are neologisms borrowed from foreign languages. «The distinction should be made between:

Direct adoption of foreign words. Loan-words of this type can undergo different degrees of accommodation or remain unadopted;

Making new words by derivation or composition, including elements of different origin;

New derivatives or new compounds created by translation of the lexical unit into another languafe.

A lexical unit created by loan-translation is called a calque.»

(Rayevska : 248)

The last decades of the 20-th century characterized by an intensive development of various sciences, technique, culture, and political life, has brought to Modern English a lot of new formations.

1.1.2.Semantic Extention

Semantic extention is the appearance of new meanings of already existing words in the given language. This process is caused by the following reasons:

Changes in social life of a community;

Changes of objects the names of which are retained;

Terminological use of words by people of various professional groups, where words modify their meaning acquiring a new sense;