CLIPPING AS MORPHONOLOGICAL DERIVATION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ENGLISH AND RUSSIAN TRUNCATION

Abstract

Clipping in English and усечение in Russian are frequently treated as simple shortenings motivated by speed and informality. However, the resulting forms are rarely arbitrary “pieces” of the base word. Instead, they behave like new lexical stems whose shape is regulated by morphonological constraints at the morphology–phonology interface. This article compares English and Russian truncation as a type of morphonological derivation shaped by prosody, stress, and phonotactic well-formedness. The analysis shows that English clippings typically converge on compact prosodic words, often one or two syllables (lab, exam, demo), reflecting strong pressure toward prosodic minimality and perceptual salience. Russian truncations display comparable compression, but they more clearly reveal the role of inflectional integration and frequent suffixal “packaging” in colloquial speech (универ, комп, общага). The comparison supports a unified interface account: truncation creates stems that satisfy language-specific prosodic and morphological requirements.