Adaptation of the borrowed morpheme -ing in Russian of the beginning of the 21st century

Abstract

The article deals with the process of integration of the borrowed morpheme -ing into the Russian word-formation system. It is a noun suffix with a processual meaning. Its special feature, in comparison with both English -ing and most Russian suffixes with similar semantics, is that nouns, not verbs, usually serve as the underlying stem. Actions/states are designated by a derivative noun through their objects, more rarely, subjects or adverbial modifiers. Processual semantics determines the systemic connections of such derivative words in families of words: correlation with the designations of the action and the actor. The features of the word- formation motivation of such nouns is that they are often created not so much according to the noun + -ing model, but by analogy with specific anglicisms with the -ing ending. Thematic groups of words that derivate as a result of such word-formation by analogy are defined: active recreation, extreme entertainment; hyponyms of the word miting (mass-meeting); events, situations related to a person or an object; pastime; economic crimes and methods of combating them. Word formation with the -ing formant is active, however, the words created according to this model are mainly caused by a language game and retain the properties of occasionalisms. Native speakers have a strong sense of the foreignness of this suffix.