word formation

TLÜ Haapsalu Kolledž, Lihula mnt. 12, Haapsalu 90507; Tel: 472 0240; e-post: [email protected]; http://www.hk.tlu.ee

Word Formation

February 17, 2012

mailto:[email protected]






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)















Major Word-Formation ProcessesAffixation 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-bloody-

lutely.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















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















Major Word-Formation ProcessesCompounding 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, good-looking; some are written separately: bank account, mini skirt; and some can be written in both ways.















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.















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 eye-catching 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.















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 + lunchMotel = motor + hotelSmog = smoke + fogElectrocute = electricity + executeOxbridge = Oxford + CambridgeCamcorder = camera + recorderInfomercial = information + commercial















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.















Acronyms

Acronymy vs initialismAcronym 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.















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!















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, teeny-weeny, 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=8TJJJ7Flu28Onomatopoeia is a word that imitates the sound it is describing, e.g.

click, oink, meow, slurp, boomhttp://www.teachingvideos.co.uk/index.php/videos/

viewvideo/1214/vocabulary/onomatopoeia















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).















Bibliography

Crystal, D. (2003). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. CUP

Word Formation Processes:http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/wordtypes.htmlhttp://webdelprofesor.ula.ve/humanidades/azapata/materias/english_4/unit_1_types_of_words_and_word_formation_processes.pdf

Word formation in Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_formationWatch also these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFXko8MDwsg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DErpIaKvQl0














http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/wordtypes.html

http://webdelprofesor.ula.ve/humanidades/azapata/materias/english_4/unit_1_types_of_words_and_word_formation_processes.pdf

http://webdelprofesor.ula.ve/humanidades/azapata/materias/english_4/unit_1_types_of_words_and_word_formation_processes.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_formation


PracticeName the word formation processes responsible for the words given

below:a blog a proto sleepwalk to tidy the roomto carjack to beautifyto enthuse a vetto bartend dieselan exam a boycottto quack AIDSboogie-woogie to beepchocolate a walksauna a tazerInternet tip-topspecs fiancéasap to sculpt















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/














http://www.affixes.org/




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.















AffixationMake up as many new words as you can, using the following

noun suffixes:-ment –-ity –-ion –-th –-age –-ist –















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.














word formation

Documents