Word Formation

Word Formation

February 17, 2012

TLÜ Haapsalu Kolledž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

“Mary Poppins”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-WacNOvXxw&feature=related According to the film, it is defined as "something to say when you have nothing to say“.

Joke: "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is a very long word. Spell it.“ The longest word in a major dictionary: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust, causing inflammation in the lungs) TLÜ Haapsalu Kolledž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Major Word-Formation Processes Affixation is probably the most common word formation process in the English language. It is achieved by adding affixes: prefixes – are added at the beginning of a word, suffixes added to the end of a word, or infixes which are inserted inside a word, but infixes are unusual in English.

English prefixes include for example: re-, un-, mis-, pre-, dis-.

Suffixes include for instance: -ful, -less, -able, -or.

It seems that infixes in English are confined to curse words such as: abso-bloodylutely.

Derivation vs inflection: Derivation changes the meaning of the word, while inflection either does not or does so only with regard to a feature which is part of the grammar rather than the vocabulary of the language.

E.g. king – kingdom; boy - boys

TLÜ Haapsalu Kolledž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Major Word-Formation Processes Functional shift or conversion (zero derivation) is the change of category of a word without the addition of an affix.

Nouns start to be used as verbs like: a bottle – to bottle, bottling: I’m bottling the juice; butter – to butter, buttered: I’ve buttered the bread.

Also verbs can become nouns: must – a must: Watching this film is a must; guess – a guess: It was a lucky guess.

Adjectives can become verbs: empty – to empty: He emptied his glass; cool – to cool: Cool the wine before serving.

Conversion is sometimes accompanied by a change in stress: an increase – to increase, an insult – to insult, import – to import

TLÜ Haapsalu Kolledž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Major Word-Formation Processes Compounding is a process in which two different words are joined together to denote one thing.

E.g. flower-pot is a compound made of two words: flower and pot, but it does not denote two things, it refers to one object.

Windmill, waterfall, fingerprint, scarecrow

Some compounds are written with hyphens: full-time, goodlooking; some are written separately: bank account, mini skirt; and some can be written in both ways.

TLĂœ Haapsalu KolledĹž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Clipping Clipping is the shortening or reducing of a word by the deletion of phonological material.

It is very common in English, e.g., information is clipped to info, advertisement to advert or ad, influenza to flu, telephone to phone, laboratory to lab, doctor to doc, refrigerator to fridge, limousine to limo, legitimate to legit.

TLĂœ Haapsalu KolledĹž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Coinage Coinage (neologism) is the creation of a totally new word. This word formation process is not frequent; however, large corporations attempt to outdo one another to invent short eyecatching names for their products.

Some examples of these could include: aspirin, xerox, nylon, kleenex.

Sometimes the products that the companies want to sell simply take over the name of the creator or inventor. In such case the new word is called an eponym. Some well-known eponyms include: sandwich, or hoover. They are very frequently used in science where units of measurement are named after people, like: hertz, Celsius.

TLĂœ Haapsalu KolledĹž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Blending A blend is any word which is formed by fusing together elements from two other words and whose meaning shares or combines the meanings of the source words. The elements are normally the beginning of one and the end of the other.

E.g. Brunch = breakfast + lunch Motel = motor + hotel Smog = smoke + fog Electrocute = electricity + execute Oxbridge = Oxford + Cambridge Camcorder = camera + recorder Infomercial = information + commercial

TLĂœ Haapsalu KolledĹž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Borrowing Borrowing is taking a word from one language and incorporating it into another.

The English language has been very absorbent and has taken over words from all over the world, some of them include: kindergarten, hamburger, poltergeist – from German; jackal, kiosk, yogurt – from Turkish; pistol, robot – from Czech; alcohol, candy, caramel – from Arabic; piano, pizza, mafia – from Italian. These words are called loan words.

TLÜ Haapsalu Kolledž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Acronyms Acronymy vs initialism Acronym is a word formed from initial letters of a few words in a phrase or a name. They are pronounced as words, like NATO, NASA, laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation), AIDS, radar (radio detecting and ranging), scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus).

Abbreviations are like acronyms, but the names of the letters are pronounced, as in CD, DVD, IBM, FBI, BBC, btw, afk, omg.

TLĂœ Haapsalu KolledĹž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Backformation Backformation is a process in which a word changes its form and function by the removal of an affix.

Word of one type, which is usually a noun, is reduced and used as a verb.

E.g. the English word arms meaning weapons was backformed to arm to mean provide weapons, similarly edit was backformed from editor, typewrite from typewriter, televise from television.

We can only tell it is a backformation if we know the etymology of the words in question!

TLĂœ Haapsalu KolledĹž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Reduplication & Onomatopoeia Reduplication is the process of forming new words either by doubling an entire word (total reduplication) or part of a word (partial reduplication).

E.g. Humpty-Dumpty, itsy-bitsy, okey-dokey, hubble-bubble, teenyweeny, hocus-pocus (partial rhyming reduplication) fifty-fifty, bye-bye, pee-pee (total reduplication) criss-cross, zig-zag, chit-chat, ping-pong, flip-flop (ablaut reduplication) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TJJJ7Flu28 Onomatopoeia is a word that imitates the sound it is describing, e.g. click, oink, meow, slurp, boom http://www.teachingvideos.co.uk/index.php/videos/viewvideo/1214 /vocabulary/onomatopoeia

TLĂœ Haapsalu KolledĹž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Apophony Apophony or ablaut or internal modification is the creation of new (forms of) words by changing vowels in the base word: sing – sang, woman – women, sit – seat, louse – lice, rise – raise, fall – fell (as in to fell a tree).

TLÜ Haapsalu Kolledž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Bibliography

Crystal, D. (2003). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. CUP Word Formation Processes: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/wordtypes.html http://webdelprofesor.ula.ve/humanidades/azapata/materias/english_4/unit_1_type Word formation in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_formation Watch also these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFXko8MDwsg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DErpIaKvQl0 TLÜ Haapsalu Kolledž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Practice Name the word formation processes responsible for the words given below: a blog a pro to sleepwalk to tidy the room to carjack to beautify to enthuse a vet to bartend diesel an exam a boycott to quack AIDS boogie-woogie to beep chocolate a walk sauna a tazer Internet tip-top specs fiancé asap to sculpt TLÜ Haapsalu Kolledž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Affixation English does not use prefixes as heavily as it once did, but many English words come from Latin, which uses prefixes and suffixes quite extensively. E.g., the words "prefix," "suffix," and "affix" themselves are all formed from "fix" by the use of prefixes: • "ad" (to) + "fix" (attach) = "affix" • "pre" (before) + "fix" = "prefix" • "sub" (under) + "fix" = "suffix" Dictionary of Affixes: http://www.affixes.org/ TLÜ Haapsalu Kolledž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Affixation In English there are about 400 prefixes and 330 suffixes. The latter total includes dozens of forms which are rare in everyday conversation (except among specialists), such as –ectomy, -gynous, -ploid.

Affixes of this kind come and go: -nik became highly productive in the 1950s (beatnik, jazznik), following the launch of Sputnik 1, but its usage died out in the 1970s.

Inflectional suffixes, by contrast, do not come and go. There have been no changes since the Early Modern English period.

TLÜ Haapsalu Kolledž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Affixation Make up as many new words as you can, using the following noun suffixes: -ment – -ity – -ion – -th – -age – -ist –

TLÜ Haapsalu Kolledž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Affixation List some suffixes to make adjectives. Give examples.

List some suffixes to make verbs. Give examples.

List some prefixes to make adjectives with a negative meaning. Give examples.

TLÜ Haapsalu Kolledž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: kolledz@hk.tlu.ee; http://www.hk.tlu.ee