Journalistic abbreviations are often occasioned by a desire to economize head-line space, as seen from the following example-"CND Calls Lobby to Stop MLF" ("Daily Worker"). This means that a mass lobby of Parliament against the Nato multilateral nuclear force (MLF) is being called by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
These regular developments are in some cases combined with occasional jocular or accidental distortions. The National Economic Development Council is facetiously termed Needy. Elementary education is colloquially referred to as the three R's — reading, writing and Vithmetic. Some kind of witty folk etymology is at play when the abbreviation C. B. for construction battalions in the navy is respect into sea bees. The two well-known Americanisms jeep and okay may be mentioned in this connection. Jeep meaning 'a small military motor vehicle' comes from g. p. ['dgi: 'pi:j (the initials of general purpose). Okay may be an illiterate misinterpretation of the initials in all correct. Various other historical anecdotes have been also offered by way of explanation of the latter.
It must be emphasized that initial abbreviation, no less than other types of shortening, retains the valiancy, i. e. the combining possibilities of the prototypes. The difference in distribution is conditioned only by a change of meaning (lexical or more rarely lexico-grammatical). Abbreviations receive the plural arid Possessive case inflexions: G. I.'s, M. P.'s, P.O. W.'s (from prisoner of war), also the verb paradigm: Okays, okayed, okaying. E. g. 4 hotel's no life for you... Why don't you come and P. G. with me? (A. WILSON) Here P. G. is an acronym for paying guest. Like all nouns they can be used attributively: BBC television, TV program, UN vote.
A specifically English word pattern absent in the Russian language must be described in connection with initial abbreviations in which the first element is a letter and the second a complete word. The examples are: A-bomb, A-terror, H-accident risk, H-blast, A-sub, If-test, where A stands for atomic or atomic bomb and H for hydrogen bomb. The pronunciation is alphabetic.
No stylistic or semantic generalization on this type seems possible, the examples being of different types. Alongside the examples of words in H- connected with nuclear weapons, there is the lady's H-bag (for handbag). Compare U standing for upper classes in such combinations as U-pronunciation, U-language (i. e. that of the upper classes). Non-U is its opposite. So Non-U speakers are those whose speech habits show that they do not belong to the upper classes. It will have been noted that all kinds of shortening are very productive in present-day English. They are especially numerous in colloquial speech, both familiar colloquial and professional slang. They display great combining activity and form bases for further word-formation and inflection However Henry Sweet and some other scientists say that these criteria are not characteristic of the majority of such units.
They consider the first component of such units to be a noun in the function of an attribute because in Modern English almost all parts of speech and even word-groups and sentences can be used in the function of an attribute, e.g. the then president (an adverb), out-of-the-way villages (a word-group), a devil-may-care speed (a sentence).
There are different semantic relations between the components of «stone wall» combinations. E.I. Chapnik classified them into the following groups:
1. time relations, e.g. evening paper,
2. space relations, e.g. top floor,
3. relations between the object and the material of which it is made, e.g. steel helmet,
4. cause relations, e.g. war orphan,
5. relations between a part and the whole, e.g. a crew member,
6. relations between the object and an action, e.g. arms production,
7. relations between the agent and an action e.g. government threat, price rise,
8. relations between the object and its designation, e.g. reception hall,
9. the first component denotes the head, organizer of the characterized object, e.g. Clinton government, Forsyte family,
10. the first component denotes the field of activity of the second component, e.g. language teacher, psychiatry doctor,
11. comparative relations, e.g. moon face,
12. qualitative relations, e.g. winter apples.
3.2. Abbreviations as the major type of shortenings.
In the process of communication words and word-groups can be shortened. The causes of shortening can be linguistic and extra-linguistic. By extra-linguistic causes changes in the life of people are meant. In Modern English many new abbreviations, acronyms, initials, blends are formed because the tempo of life is increasing and it becomes necessary to give more and more information in the shortest possible time.
There are also linguistic causes of abbreviating words and 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 and lexical.
Graphical abbreviations
Graphical abbreviations are the result of shortening of words and word-groups only in written speech while orally the corresponding full forms are used. They are used for the economy of space and 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), Ib - pound (libra), i. e. - that is (id est) etc.
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) and «after death» (post mortem). -—there are also graphical abbreviations of native origin, where in the spelling we have abbreviations of words and 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 etc.
c) names of counties in UK, e.g. Yorks - Yorkshire, Berks -Berkshire etc
d) names of states in USA, e.g. Ala - Alabama, Alas - Alaska 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. B.A. - Bachelor of Arts, D.M. - Doctor of Medicine . (Sometimes in scientific degrees we have abbreviations of Latin origin, e.g., M.B. - Medicinae Baccalaurus).
h) units of time, length, weight, e.g. f. / ft -foot/feet, sec. - second, in. -inch, mg. - milligram etc.[5]
The reading of some graphical abbreviations depends on the context, e.g. «m» can be read as: male, married, masculine, meter, mile, million, minute, can be read as long-playing, low pressure.
V Initial abbreviations
Initializes are the bordering case between graphical and 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. J.V. - joint venture. When they are used for some duration of time they acquire the shortened form of pronouncing and become closer to lexical abbreviations, e.g. BBC is as a rule pronounced in the shortened form.
In some cases the translation of initializes is next to impossible without using special dictionaries. Initializes 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 given in Russian as AH3YC, SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) was for a long time used in Russian as COJIT, now a translation variant is used. This type of initializes borrowed into other languages is preferable, e.g. UFO - HJIO, CLI - JV etc.
There are three types of initializes in English:
a) initialisms with alphabetical reading, such as UK, BUP, CND etc
b) initialisms which are read as if they are words, e.g. UNESCO, UNO, NATO etc.
c) initialisms which coincide with English words in their sound form, such initialisms are called acronyms, e.g. CLASS (Computer-based Laboratory for Automated School System). (Some scientists unite groups b) and c) into one group which they call acronyms. Some initializes can form new words in which they act as root morphemes by different ways of word building: a) affixation, e.g. AWA Lism, ex-rafer, ex- POW, to warfare, AID So phobia etc. - J b) conversion, e.g. to raff, to fly IFR (Instrument Flight Rules), I cj composition, e.g. STOL port, USAF man etc.
4 (there are also compound-shortened words where the first component is an initial abbreviation with the alphabetical reading and the second one is a complete word, e.g. A-bomb. U -pronunciation, V -day some cases the first component is a complete word and the second T-component is an initial abbreviation with the alphabetical pronunciation, e.g. Three -Ds (Three dimensions) - Abbreviations 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 form the full form of the word. In such cases as »fantasy» and «fancy», «fence» and «defense» we have different lexical meanings. In such cases as «laboratory» and «lab», we have different styles.
Abbreviation does not change the part-of- speech meaning, as we have it in the 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 and professor is also a noun. Mostly nouns undergo abbreviation, but we can also meet abbreviation of verbs. such as to rev from to revolve, to tab from to tabulate etc. But mostly abbreviated forms of verbs are formed by means of conversion from abbreviated nouns, e.g. to taxi, to vac etc. Adjectives can be abbreviated but they are mostly used in school slang and are combined with suffixation, e.g. comfy, dilly, mizzy etc. As rule pronouns, numerals, interjections, conjunctions are not abbreviated. The exceptions are: fif (fifteen), teen-ager, in one's teens (aphaeresis 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 and 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 (discothèque), expo (exposition), intro (introduction) and 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). In other cases the beginning of the word is clipped. In such cases we have aphaeresis, e.g. chute (parachute), varsity (university), copter (helicopter), muse (enthuse) etc. Sometimes the middle of the word is clipped, e.g. mart (market), fanzine (fan magazine) math (mathematics). Such abbreviations are called syncope. Sometimes we have a combination of apocope with aphaeresis, when the beginning and the end 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 rule is observed in the following cases: fax (facsimile), tack (technical college), trunk (tranquilizer) etc. The final consonants in the shortened forms are substituted by letters characteristic of native English words.
4.2 SECONDARY WAYS OF WORDBUILDING SOUND INTERCHANGE
Sound interchange is the way of word-building when some sounds are changed to form a new word. It is non-productive in Modern English; it was productive in Old English and can be met in other Indo-European languages.
The causes of sound interchange can be different. It can be the result of Ancient Ablaut which cannot 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 which is the result of palatalizing the root vowel because of the front vowel 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 and consonant interchange. In nouns we have voiceless consonants and in verbs we have corresponding voiced consonants because in Old English these consonants in nouns were at the end of the word and in verbs in the intervocalic position, e.g. bath - to bathe, life - to live, breath - to breathe etc.
STRESS INTERCHANGE AND SOUND IMITATION
Stress interchange can be mostly met in verbs and nouns of Romanic origin: nouns have the stress on the first syllable and verbs on the last syllable, e.g. 'accent - to accent. This phenomenon is explained in the following way: French verbs and 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) and after that the stress in verbs was on the last syllable while in nouns it was on the first syllable. As a result of it we have such pairs in English as: to affix -'affix, to conflict- 'conflict, to export -'export, to extract - "extract etc. As a result of stress interchange we have also vowel interchange in such words because vowels are pronounced differently in stressed and unstressed positions. 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) sounds produced by human beings, such as : to whisper, to giggle, to mumble, to sneeze, to whistle etc.
b) sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, such as : to hiss, to buzz, to bark, to moo, to twitter etc.
c) sounds produced by nature and 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.
5.2 BLENDING OF WORDS
Blends are words formed from a word-group or two synonyms. In blends two ways of word-building are combined: abbreviation and composition. To form a blend we clip the end of the first component (apocope) and the beginning of the second component (aphaeresis). As a result we have a compound- shortened word. One of the first blends in English was the word «smog» from two synonyms: smoke and 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: languange, to hustle, gasohol etc. Mostly blends are formed from a word-group, such as : acromania (acronym mania), cinemadict (cinema adict), chunnel (channel, canal), dramedy (drama comedy), detectifiction (detective fiction), faction (fact fiction) (fiction based on real facts), informecial (information commercial), Medicare ( medical care), magalog ( magazine catalogue) slimnastics (slimming gymnastics), sociolite (social elite), slanguist ( slang linguist) etc.
6.2 BACK FORMATION
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 a borrowed word. Prof. 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 and Englishmen formed the verb «to beg» by dropping the end of the noun. Other examples of back formation 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 ( from reminiscence), to televise (from television) etc.