History of word-formation with specific referance to the 15th-17th centuries

CONTENT

INTRODUCTION 3
CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL BASICS OF STUDYNG WORD-FORMATION 5
1.1 A brief history of the study of word-formation 5
1.2 Basic notion of word-formation 9
CHAPTER 2 PECULARIATIES OF WORD-FORMATION IN THE 15TH-17TH CENTURIES 12
2.1 Word-formation in the Early English Language 12
2.2 Semantic change 19
CONCLUSION 26
LIST OF THE LITERATURE 28

INTRODUCTION

Interest in word-formation is probably as old as interest in language itself. Many of the questions that scholars are asking now were also being asked in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, there is still little agreement on methodology in the study of word-formation or theoretical approaches to it: even the kind of data relevant to its study is open to debate.
Linguists have recently become increasingly aware of the relevance of word-formation to work in syntax and semantics, phonology and morphology – the topics, where word-formation has a contribution to make to other areas of linguistics and without pretending to provide a fully-fledged theory of word-formation.
The study of word-formation seems to be emerging from a fallow period. Suddenly word-formation is of central interest to theoretical linguists of all persuasions because of the light it throws on other aspects of language. Unfortunately, there is little agreement on the methodology or basic theoretical background for the study of word-formation, so that the field is currently a confused one. This is what brings the work to its topicality in the modern world. There is, at the moment, no single “theory of word-formation”, nor even agreement on the kind of data that is relevant for the construction of such a theory.
The problem of word formation with specific reference to th 15th-17th centuries has been studied by such scientists as Aarsleff H., Algeo J., Bennett J. A.W., Cassidy F. G., McCrum R., Cran W. and others.
The object of our research is the process of development of the Early Modern English grammar.
The subject of our research is peculiarities of word-formation in the 15th-17th centuries.
The aim of the research lies in describing peculiarities of word-formation in the 15th-17th centuries. To reach the aim we set such tasks:
– To make a short overview of history of the study of word-formation;
– to describe basic notion of word-formation;
– to analyse word-formation in the Early English Language in the period specified;
– to analyze semantic change in the 15th-17th centuries and make corresponding examples.
We used the following methods of research:
– Studying the linguistic literature;
– Synthesis and generalization of the material;
– The analyses of the texts;
– The method of lexical-semantic analyses.
Our research consists of the introduction, two chapters, conclusions and the list of the literature.