ELEVATION

It is a transfer of the meaning when it becomes better in the course of time, e.g. «knight» originally meant «a boy», then «a young servant», then «a military servant», then «a noble man». Now it is a title of nobility given to outstanding people; «marshal» originally meant «a horse man» now it is the highest military rank etc.

DEGRADATION

It is a transfer of the meaning when it becomes worse in the course of time. It is usually connected with nouns denoting common people, e.g. «villain» originally meant «working on a villa» now it means «a scoundrel».

           HYPERBOLE

It is a transfer of the meaning when the speaker uses exaggeration,

e.g. «to hate»(doing something), (not to see somebody) «for ages».               

Hyperbole is often used to form phraseological units, e.g. «to make a mountain out of a molehill», «to split hairs» etc.

          LITOTES

 It is a transfer of the meaning when the speaker expresses affirmative with the negative or vica versa, e.g. not bad, no coward etc.

Compounding.

Compounding (composition) combining two or more stems in order to form a new word, e.g. motorway. The structural unity of a compound word depends on: the unity of stress; solid or hyphonated spelling; semantic unity; unity of morphological and syntactical functioning.

Ways of forming compound words:

1) reduplication (e.g. too-too, fifty-fifty);

2) reduplication + sound interchange (e.g. tip-top, walkie-talkie);

3) partial conversion from word-groups (e.g. can-do, make-up);

4) back formation from compound nouns or word-groups (e.g. to fingerprint, to baby-sit);

5) analogy (e.g. lie-in, brawn-drain).

Part-of-speech classification of compounds:

1) compound nouns (sunbeam, maid-servant);

2) compound adjectives (free-for-all);

3) compound verbs (baby-sit, mass-produce);

4) compound adverbs (nowhere, headfirst);

5) compound pronouns (somebody, nothing);

6) compound prepositions (into, within);

7) compound numerals (fifty-five).

Classification of compounds according to the way components are joined:

1) a neutral compound is a compound formed by joining together without a linking element (ball-point, to windowshop);

2) a morphological compound is a compound word whose components are joined by means of linking elements (astrospace, handicraft, sportsman);

3) a syntactical compound is a compound whose components are joined by means of form-word stems (here-and-now, do-or-die).

Structural classification of compounds:

1) compound words proper which are formed by joining together two s tems with or without a linking element (to job-hunt, door-step, street-fight);

2) derivational compounds which are formed by joining affixes to the stems (ear-minded, good-looking);

3) compound words of three or more stems (cornflower-blue, singer-songwriter);

4) compound-shortened which are formed by means of joining two stems one or both of which are shortened (boatel, Oxbridge).

Classification of compounds according to the relations between the components:

1) coordinative compounds with semantically equal components:

* reduplicative compounds made up by the repetition of the same stem (fifty-fifty, no-no);

* reduplicative compounds with sound interchange (chit-chat, clap-trap);

* additive compounds which are built on stems of the independently functioning words of the same parts of speech (singer-songwriter);

2) subordinative compounds whose components are neither structurally nor semantically equal, the second component dominating the first:

* comparative (e.g. honey-sweet, eggshell-thin);

* limiting (e.g. knee-deep, breast-high);

* emphatic (e.g. dog-cheap, dead-easy);

* objective (e.g. roleplay);

* subjective (e.g. foot-sore);

* cause (e.g. homesick);

* space (e.g. top-heavy);

* time (e.g. spring-fresh).

Classification of compounds according to the order of components:

1) a syntactic compound is a compound consisting of or noting morphemes that are combined in the same order as they would be if they were separate words in a corresponding construction, e.g. the word blackberry, which consists of an adjective followed by a noun, is a syntactic compound;

2) an asyntactic compound is a compound consisting of morphemes that are combined differently from their mode of combination as separate words in a phrase, as bookstore, which is an asyntactic compound, while the same elements are combined syntactically in store for books.

Classification of compounds according to the degree of idiomacy:

1) idiomatic compounds are those ones whose meaning cannot be described as a mere sum of its components:: a blackboard, to ghostwrite;

2) non-idiomatic compounds are those ones whose meanings can be described as the sum of the meanings of their components:: a sportsman, a swimming-pool, airmail.