Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Jan Štěrba Word-formation Processes in TV Series Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Naděžda Kudrnáčová, Csc. 2015 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Jan Štěrba I would like to thank my supervisor doc, PhDr. Naděžda Kudrnáčová, Csc., for her time, kindness and willingness to help. Table of Contents Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 6 1. Word-formation ............................................................................................................ 9 1.1 Definitions of Basic Terms ..................................................................................... 9 1.1.1 Lexeme, word-form, derivation and inflection ................................................. 9 1.1.2 Root, stem and base ........................................................................................ 10 1.2 Definition of Word-formation ............................................................................... 11 1.3 Productivity and Lexicalization ............................................................................ 12 2. Word-formation Processes in English ........................................................................ 13 2.1 Compounding ........................................................................................................ 13 2.1.1 Definition ........................................................................................................ 14 2.1.2 Compounds and phrases ................................................................................. 14 2.1.3 Distinguishing compounds from phrases ....................................................... 15 2.1.3.1 Stress ........................................................................................................ 16 2.1.3.2 Spelling and lexicalization ....................................................................... 16 2.1.3.3 Inflectibility ............................................................................................. 17 2.1.3.4 Inseparability and modification ............................................................... 18 2.1.3.5 Semantic criteria ...................................................................................... 18 2.1.4 Types of compounds ....................................................................................... 19 2.1.4.1 Primary and synthetic compounds ........................................................... 20 2.1.4.2 Syntactic and lexical compounds ............................................................. 20 2.1.4.3 Endocentric, exocentric, subordinate and coordinate compounds ........... 21 2.1.5. Neo-classical compounds. ............................................................................. 22 2.2 Affixation .............................................................................................................. 24 2.3 Conversion ............................................................................................................ 25 2.4 Clipping ................................................................................................................. 26 2.5 Blending ................................................................................................................ 26 2.6 Back-formation ..................................................................................................... 27 3. Analysis of the Corpus ................................................................................................ 28 3.1 Borderline Cases ................................................................................................... 30 3.2 General Overview ................................................................................................. 31 3.3 Compound Nouns .................................................................................................. 32 3.3.1 Noun + noun ................................................................................................... 33 3.3.2 Verb + noun .................................................................................................... 37 3.3.3 Adjective + noun ............................................................................................ 38 3.3.4 Particle + noun ................................................................................................ 40 3.3.5 Verb + particle ................................................................................................ 41 3.4 Compound Adjectives ........................................................................................... 42 3.4.1 Noun + adjective............................................................................................. 43 3.4.2 Adjective + adjective ...................................................................................... 44 3.4.3 Particle + adjective ......................................................................................... 45 3.4.4 Adverb + adjective ......................................................................................... 46 3.4.5 Noun + noun. .................................................................................................. 46 3.4.6 Adjective + noun ............................................................................................ 48 3.4.7 Particle + noun ................................................................................................ 48 3.4.8 Verb + verb ..................................................................................................... 49 3.4.9 Verb + particle ................................................................................................ 49 3.5 Compound verbs ................................................................................................... 50 3.5.1 Particle + verb................................................................................................. 51 3.5.2 Noun + verb .................................................................................................... 51 3.5.3 Particle + noun ................................................................................................ 51 3.6 Compound Adverbs .............................................................................................. 52 3.6.1. Particle + noun ............................................................................................... 52 3.6.2 Noun + adjective............................................................................................. 53 3.7 Phrasal Compounds ............................................................................................... 53 3.7.1 Phrasal nouns .................................................................................................. 54 3.7.2 Phrasal adjectives ........................................................................................... 54 3.8 Neo-classical Compounds ..................................................................................... 55 3.9 Comparing Friends and The Big Bang Theory ..................................................... 56 3.9.1 General comparison of the series ................................................................... 56 3.9.2 Comparison of characters ............................................................................... 58 3.10 Summary ............................................................................................................. 60 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 66 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 69 Resumé in English .......................................................................................................... 74 Resumé in Czech ............................................................................................................ 75 Introduction Word-formation is considered to be “the deepest, most secret part of language” (Bauer, 1983, p. 206). Therefore, it proves particularly interesting to study the English word-formation processes, which is also the topic of this thesis. This thesis will focus on one specific word-formation process, namely compounding. Compounding is regarded as the most productive English word-formation process (Kavka and Štekauer, 2006, p.52) and is thus the most difficult to delimit. The main aim of this thesis is to classify compound words which result from the process of compounding. The classification was done using contemporary British and American TV series where studies regarding compound words are rather rare. The choice of series relevant for this thesis was based on nature of the series and occurrence of compounding. Scope of the thesis was also taken into account. This thesis will cover Friends and The Big Bang Theory. These TV series are well-known and successful all over the world and their focus also seems to be slightly different and so they allow comparison and contrast. After going through transcripts of various episodes of these TV series, the first ten episodes of the first season were analyzed for each series. Corpus was created using the transcripts and is enclosed on