Structural and Semantic Peculiarities of Verbal Derivatives of Onomasiological Categories

Abstract

During the last century, the development of word-forming issues has been investigated so intensely that today it is possible to state the existance of a number of approaches and its versatile study both in synchrony and diachrony. Some linguists have studied the issues of word formation within etymology, while others have considered the problems of word formation in the context of grammar, focusing on structural

analysis. Representatives of the lexical study described predominantly semantic relations between different structural units. Confirmation of the theory of interaction of different linguistic levels was the study of structural and semantic relations in oppositional pairs of «forming lexical unit - derivative».

The main task of historical and onomasiological research,  which  is the basis of our research is to reveal the nature of the semantic structure of the concept; to trace the basic tendencies of the historical development of the prefixal way of word formation in English, the change of its semantic boundaries and the basic structures from epoch to epoch. The linguistic form of content is a word in general and a derivative in particular.

The article presents an attempt to investigate the dynamics of efficiency of structural and semantic patterns of verbal prefixal derivatives within onomasiological categories during four periods of the English language development.