Vol.5, No 1, 2007pp. 19 - 30
UDC 811.111'366
DOMINANT SEMANTIC PROPERTIES OF
ADJECTIVAL COMPOUNDS IN ENGLISH
Vladimir Ž. Jovanović
English Department / Faculty of Philosophy, University of Niš
The paper is concerned with some of the most important semantic characteristics
of compound words in adjectival sentence positions in English. Its aim
is to study the morphemes and combining elements that make up such compounds,
more specifically compound adjectives and noun compounds in attributive
and predicative functions. This empirical research is predominantly based
on an analysis involving meaning implications of the combinatory elements
of adjectival compounds, both the initially and finally positioned ones.
The analysis has been conducted on authentic language material collected
for the purposes of a larger-scale research into a corpus incorporating
several works of different genres totalling around one million words. The
number of ACs examined is around 1600 words. More significant conclusions
reached in this inquiry would be those concerning the semantic fields these
elements most often belong to, the most productive morphemes, as well as
the characteristic types of semantic feature bundles.
Key Words: Compounds, adjectival position, meaning, the English
language, Morphology
DOMINANTNE SEMANTIČKE OSOBINE
ADJEKTIVALNIH SLOŽENICA U ENGLESKOM JEZIKU
Ovaj rad se tiče nekih od osnovnih semantičkih svojstava koje karakterišu
složenice na atributivnim funkcijama u rečenici. U njemu su analizirani
tvorbeni elementi koji ulaze u sastav oko 1600 adjektivalnih složenica
iz posebnog korpusa engleskog jezika. Na osnovu analize značenja utvrđeno
je da elementi sadrže najviše referenci na boju, zatim numeričke izraze,
ali i na mentalne i fizičke karakteristike ljudi i životinja. Posebno
produktivnu ulogu u formiranju ove vrste leksičkih jedinica pokazali su
elementi half-, self-, well-, ill- i, kao drugi, element -like. Osim toga,
u radu su razmatrani slučajevi formalne i značenjske međuzavisnosti
elemenata složenica, kao i pojedine morfološki uslovljene semantičke
promene kod parova adjektivnih složenica.
Ključne reči: složenice, adjektivali, značenje, engleski
jezik, morfologija
