Abstract:
This article deals with the word formation processes of transaffixation, i.e. of replacing a morpheme or a technically identical insignificant part of a motivating word with another morpheme. Transprefixation is typically used to convey a meaning opposite to that of a motivating word, e.g. отклеить ‘to unglue’ (i.e. отделить приклеенное ‘to remove something glued’). The verb отклеить cannot be interpreted literally, through the meaning of the base verb клеить ‘to glue’ without prefixes, cf.: ломать ‘to break’ - отломать ‘to break off’ (i.e. ломая, отделить ‘to separate a part of sth. while breaking it’). Transsuffixation may serve stylistic purposes (e.g. Standard Russian общежитие ‘dormitory’ - non-standard общежиха) or may be influenced by the stock of phonemes in a stem or a suffix (cf. безумный ‘insane, lunatic’ - безумствовать ‘to behave in an insane or lunatic manner’).
Another process, sometimes interpreted as transradixisation, or root replacement, is in fact used only to construct occasional words on the model of a given base word with which they are meant to interwine both stylistically and semantically. Cf.: «Дай выстрадать стихотворенье! Дай вышагать его» (D. Samojlov) ‘The poem should be suffered through, stridden through’, lit. “Let [ me] out-suffer the poem! Let [me] out-stride it”.
