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Un-As The Most Productive Word-Formation Process

1. Affixation, especially with un-, de-, anti-, dis-, and -ize, was a highly productive way to form new words during the later modern period. 2. Compounding by joining free morphemes, such as in graveyard and airmail, also created new vocabulary if the meaning was non-compositional and stressed as a single word. Over time, compounds may undergo phonetic changes or alterations in stress that obscure their origins. 3. Conversion, deriving one word class from another without changes in form, as with market changing from a noun to a verb, was also very productive in expanding vocabulary during this period.

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45 views1 page

Un-As The Most Productive Word-Formation Process

1. Affixation, especially with un-, de-, anti-, dis-, and -ize, was a highly productive way to form new words during the later modern period. 2. Compounding by joining free morphemes, such as in graveyard and airmail, also created new vocabulary if the meaning was non-compositional and stressed as a single word. Over time, compounds may undergo phonetic changes or alterations in stress that obscure their origins. 3. Conversion, deriving one word class from another without changes in form, as with market changing from a noun to a verb, was also very productive in expanding vocabulary during this period.

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WORD-FORMATION AND ITS ROLE IN THE EXPANSION OF VOCABULARY IN

THE LATER STAGE OF THE MODERN PERIOD

1. Affixation:
un- as the most productive word-formation process
others: de-, anti-, dis-, -ize.

2. Compounding (formation of new words from free morphemes)


e.g. graveyard, offside, airmail
We treat it as a single word if: the meaning cannot be derived from the sum of the two words
and if the stress falls as if on a single word (compare black bird and blackbird)

When a compound becomes much used, it might undergo some phonetic changes. For
example, -MAN, which has even become an affix. In some cases, the pronunciation can
change so much that it is no longer recognized as the single word it has been.
e.g. –ly which originates from the OE word “lic” – similar, equal.

Over a long period of time, the stressed element of a compound may also change in
pronunciation, so that the origin of the word becomes obscured.
e.g. breakfast (break + fast);
holiday (holy + day);
woman (wife + man [OE: wifmann]

3. Conversion (the derivation of one word from another without any change of form)
e.g. market, which was first a noun (from Norman French)
Conversion has been highly productive in the later Modern English period. e.g. to audition, to
pinpoint, to service. Others: a handout, a walkout.

4. Others:
word-shortening (cab, photo, pub);
blending (brunch, smog, motel);
back-formation (beggar – from beg).

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