Information on the thesis

А  thesis  for  the  Candidate  Degree  in  Philology.  Speciality  10.02.04  –
Germanic  languages.  –  Ivan  Franko  National  University  of  Lviv.  Ministry  of
Education and Science of Ukraine, Lviv, 2015.
This  research  focuses  on  derivational  processes  in  contemporary  German
press by means of text-centred as well as functional and communicative approaches.
The  author  has  proven  that  the  principle  of  language  economy,  theme-rheme
progression, text pragmatics and logical emphasis are the factors that influence the
emergence of Textual Word-Formations (TWF). The lingual status of new coinages
amalgamates  the  motivated  combination  of  the  properties  of  referential  and
nominative verbal signs: on the one hand, TWF testify to the “defectiveness” of the
nominative  function,  proximity  to  pro-forms,  since  referential  and  conceptual
relatedness is usually realized by interacting with syntactic correlates; on the other
hand, they mark connotations and constitute a significant contribution to the style and
aesthetics of the text.
Combined  by  correlated  referentiality,  TWF  and  antecedents  explicate
anaphoric and cataphoric links in the text both in contact and distant locations. Left-
or right-sided orientation of relations signals the compression / decompression of a
syntactic  structure  in  the  new  coinage.  In  terms  of  communicative  processes,  the
summarization of a verbal phrase into an occasional composite or derivative may be
motivated by the necessity to transfer the predicate into the theme of the following
sentence.  Information  disclosure  and  predictable  theme-rheme  distribution  takes
place consequentially.
The  decomposition  of  TWF  is  connected  mainly  with  the  author’s
communicative  intention  to  provide  a  component  of  the  coinage  with  thematic  /
rhematic sense.
Semantic  features  of  coinages  are  analyzed  from  the  viewpoint  of  such
aspects  as  information  compression,  internal  form  of  nominations,  motivation  /
obscurity  of  meaning.  On  the  basis  of  TWF,  the  author  explores  how  semantic
compression is linked to the modelling of figurative speech. As signs of secondary
nomination,  TWF  help  reconsider  concepts  that  have  been  the  object  of  rational
evaluation. The internal form of coinages may correlate with the components of the
reconsidered  meaning  of  an  antecedent  and  be  motivated  by  features  that  are
associative parts of the semantic structure of the signified. Implication of additional
senses,  associations  leads  to  increasing  amounts  of  information,  thus  decoding  the
meaning of TWF depends on several factors, the crucial ones of which are context
and recipients’ background knowledge.
The  study  of  logical  and  semantic  correlation  between  new  coinages  and
antecedents  reveals  that the development  of  the  semantic  structure  of  TWF  causes
various  semantic  relations,  including  contextual  synonymy,  contextual  antonymy,
metaphorical and other semantic processes.
TWF demonstrate communicative significance while realizing the appellative
function  of  newspaper  and  magazine  comments,  because  they  partially  contain
components  that  form  the  pragmatics  of  this  text  type.  The  intensification  of
evaluative,  emotive  components  of  coinages  is  caused  by  the  influence  of  the
colouring  of  the  corresponding  derivational  stem,  contextual  conditions  and
properties of the word-formative type. The expressiveness of coinages arises from the
deviation  of  derivative  constraints,  lexical  combinability,  fusion  of  German  and
foreign words, of general vocabulary and dialect words and so on.
The  pragmastylistic  functions  of  TWF  depend  on  their  placement  in  the
composite  components  of  commentaries.  New  coinages,  which  are  used
cataphorically  in  headlines  and  subheadings,  perform  focusing  and  predictive
functions  of  influence.  In  the  main  text,  they  are  markers  of  microtopics,  and
generalization and summarization are the main functions of TWF in endings.
The  architectonics  of  newspaper  and  magazine  comments  record  semantic
and  structural  correlation  not  only  between  TWF  and  antecedents, but  also  among
lexical  coinages  which  form  isotopic  pairs  or  chains  and  provide  the  coherence  of
text.
The research contributes to the development of the theory of German word-
formation,  derivational  nomination,  since  it  explicates  factors  of  derivational
processes,  regularities  of  forming  the  meaning  of  lexical  coinages,  interrelations
between text and word formation.
Key  words:  Textual  Word-Formation,  word  formation,  text  linguistics,
semantic  compression,  theme-rheme  progression,  textual  and  pragma-stylistic
functions, German-language publicistic comment.