Tuning morphosemantic transparency
by shortening
A cross-linguistic perspective
The central claim of this paper is that, besides phonological optimization, a major function of shortening words by different techniques such as clipping or acronymy is a controlled reduction of morphosemantic transparency in lexical domains, where partly or entirely opaque words are preferred to completely transparent ones. E.g., the functions of uniquely identifying and individualizing a referent by a proper name are better fulfilled by opaque labeling than by a transparent descriptive nomination. In fact, a study of shortening techniques used for official and commercial proper names contrasted with non-onymic words from the general lexicon and certain jargons in German, Farsi and Standard Chinese, three languages extremely different with respect to linguistic type and writing system, reveals a clear contrast between highly transparent shortenings preferred in the non-onymic lexicon versus less transparent or even opaque ones in the proper names, although the preferred shortening techniques themselves vary from language to language.
References (29)
Bellmann, Günther
1980 “Zur Variation im Lexikon: Kurzwort und Original”.
Wirkendes Wort 30.369–383.
Balnat, Vincent
2011 Kurzwortbildung im Gegenwartsdeutschen. Hildesheim: Olms.
Cannon, Garland
1989 “Abbreviations and Acronyms in English Word-Formation”.
American Speech 64: 2.99–127.
Kobler-Trill, Dorothea
1994 Das Kurzwort im Deutschen: Eine Untersuchung zu Definition, Typologie und Entwicklung. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Lappe, Sabine
2007 English Prosodic Morphology. Berlin: Springer.
Marchand, Hans
1969 The Categories and Types of Present-Day English Word Formation. 2nd ed. München: C. H. Beck.
Majidi, Mohammad-Reza
1990 Strukturelle Grammatik des Neupersischen (Fārsi), vol. 2,
Morphologie. Hamburg: Helmut Buske.
Norman, Jerry
1988 [1936]
Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nübling, Damaris, Fabian Fahlbusch & Rita Heuser
2012 Namen. Eine Einführung in die Onomastik. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
Packard, Jerome L
2000 The Morphology of Chinese. A Linguistic and Cognitive Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ronneberger-Sibold, Elke
1992 Die Lautgestalt neuer Wurzeln. Kürzungen und Kunstwörter im Deutschen und Französischen. Postdoc dissertation. University of Freiburg i. Br.
Ronneberger-Sibold, Elke
2001 “On Useful Darkness: Loss and Destruction of Transparency by Linguistic Change, Borrowing, and Word Creation”.
Yearbook of Morphology 1999 ed. by
Geert Booij &
Jaap van Marle, 97–120. Dordrecht: Springer.
Ronneberger-Sibold, Elke
2010 “Word Creation: Definition – Function – Typology”,
Variation and Change in Morphology: Selected Papers from the 13th International Morphology Meeting, Vienna, February 2008 ed. by
Franz Rainer,
Wolfgang U. Dressler,
Dieter Kastovsky &
Hans Christian Luschützky, 201–216. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Seiler, Hansjakob
1975 “Die Prinzipien der deskriptiven und der etikettierenden Benennung. ” Linguistic Workshop III ed. by
Hansjakob Seiler, 2–57. München: Fink.
Steinhauer, Anja
2000 Sprachökonomie durch Kurzwörter. Bildung und Verwendung in der Fachkommunikation. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
Ungerer, Friedrich
1991 “Acronyms, Trade Names, and Motivation”.
Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 16.131–158.
Sources of the corpus. Catalogues Groups Iran’s Industries, Exports, and Minerals [sic]
1354–1955 /1975–1976. Tehrān: Rahnema Organization.
Duden. Rechtschreibung der deutschen Sprache und der Fremdwörter
1986 19th ed. Mannheim: Dudenverlag.
Ekrāmi, Mahmud
1385/2006
Mardomshenāsi. Estelāhāt-e khodemāni [Ethnology. Colloquial Idiomatics]. 3rd ed. Mashhad: Nashr-e ivār.
Farhangestān-e zabān va adabiyāt-e Fārsi. Goruh-e takhasosi-ye ekhtesārāt [Academy for Persian Language and Literature. Special Group for Abbreviations]
ed. 1378/1999
Osul va zavābet va raveshhā-ye ekhtesārsāzi [Principles, Conditions, and Methods of Abbreviation]. Tehrān: Farhangestān-e zabān va adabiyāt-e Fārsi.
Ling, Yuanzheng
2002 Xiandai hanyu suolüeyu [Abbreviations in Modern Chinese]. Beijing: Yuwen chubanshe [Publishing House for Language and Script].
Liu, Yaping
2007 Wangluo wenxue yuan de 'kuanghuanhua' tese [On the Peculiarities of the “ Tendency Towards Wit and Craziness” in the Language of Internet Literature].
Changchun gongye daxue xuebao. Shehui kexueban [Journal of Changchun University of Technology Social Sciences Edition] 19, Nr. 01, March 2007, 105–106.
Lötscher, Andreas
1992 Von Ajax bis Xerox. Ein Lexikon der Produktenamen. 2nd ed. Zürich: Artemis und Winkler.
Parchami, Mohebollāh
2004 Paskucheh?-ye Farhang [
Dark Alleys of Culture]. Tehrān: Farhang-e Mahrokh.
Sam?‘i, Mahdi
1383/2004
Farhang-o-loqāte zabāne makhfi [
Glossary of the Secret Language]. 3rd ed. Tehrān: Nashr-e markaz.
Shanghai Daily
ed. 2007 Chinese Buzzwords with English Explanations. Shanghai: Better Link.
Wildhagen, Karl
1972 Englisch-deutsches und deutsch-englisches Wörterbuch in zwei Bänden. Vol. 2:
Deutsch Englisch. 2nd ed. by
Will Héraucourt. Wiesbaden. (Appendix of current German abbreviations)
Xiandai hanyu cidian
[
Dictionary of modern Chinese]
2009 Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan yuyan yanjiusuo cidianbianji shi [Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Institute for Linguistic Research. Dictionary Section]. 5th ed. Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan [Commercial Press].
Cited by (2)
Cited by 2 other publications
Akbari, Fatemeh
2020.
Assessment of Iran’s Language Planning: Methodology. In
Iran’s Language Planning Confronting English Abbreviations [
SpringerBriefs in Linguistics, ],
► pp. 53 ff.
Akbari, Fatemeh
2020.
Assessment of Iran’s Language Planning: Discussions. In
Iran’s Language Planning Confronting English Abbreviations [
SpringerBriefs in Linguistics, ],
► pp. 79 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 june 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.