G.

Yule – The Study of Language

Rozdział 5 – Word Formation

ETYMOLOGY
Etymology - The study of the origin and history of a word.

 There are many different ways in which new words can enter the language.
 These processes have been at work in the language for some time and a lot of words in daily use today were, at
one time, considered barbaric misuses (uważane za barbarzyńskie nadużycia) of the language.
 It is difficult now to understand the views expressed in the early nineteenth century over the “tasteless
innovation” of a word like handbook, or the horror expressed by a London newspaper in 1909 over the use of
the newly coined word aviation (lotnictwo).

Rather than act as if the language is being debased, we might prefer to view the constant evolution of new words and
new uses of old words as a reassuring sign of vitality and creativeness in the way a language is shaped by the needs of
its users.

COINAGE (Neologizm, innowacja językowa, tworzenie nowych wyrażeń)

Coinage – the invention of totally new terms. One of the least common processes of word formation in English.

The most typical sources are invented trade names for commercial products that become general terms (usually
without capital letters) for any version of that product.

Examples:

 Aspiryn,
 Nylon (typ materiału),
 Vaseline,
 Zipper,
 Granola (płatki śniadaniowe),
 Kleenex (chusteczki higieniczne Kleenex),
 Teflon (po prostu teflon – materiał patelni),
 Xerox.

It may be that there is an obscure technical origin (e.g. te(tra)-fl(uor)-on) for some of these invented terms, but after
their first coinage, they tend to become everyday words in the language.

EXAMPLE OF COINAGE: GOOGLE

Originally a misspelling for the word googol (= the number 1 followed by 100 zeros), in the creation of the word
Googleplex, which later became the name of a company (Google), the term google (without a capital letter) has
become a widely used expression meaning “to use the internet to find information.”

New products and concepts (ebay) and new activities (“Have you tried ebaying it?”) are the usual sources of coinage.

Nowe produkty i koncepcje (ebay) oraz nowe działania („Czy próbowałeś kupić to z ebay?”) to zwykłe źródła
NEOLOGIZMÓW.)
EPONYMS (eponimy) - New words based on the name of a person or a place.

Eponyms:

 Sandwich (from the eighteenth-century Earl of Sandwich who first insisted on having his bread and meat
together while gambling)
 Jeans (from the Italian city of Genoa where the type of cloth was first made)

Some eponyms are technical terms, based on the names of those who first discovered or invented things such as:

 Fahrenheit (from the German, Gabriel Fahrenheit),

 Volt (from the Italian, Alessandro Volta),
 Watt (from the Scottish inventor, James Watt).

BORROWING (Zapożyczanie)
One of the most common sources of new words in English is the process simply labeled borrowing.

Borrowing – the taking over of words from other languages. (Technically, it’s more than just borrowing because English
doesn’t give them back.)

The English language has adopted a vast number of words from other languages, including:

 Croissant (French),
 Dope (Dutch),
 Lilac (Persian),
 Piano (Italian),
 Pretzel (German),
 Sofa (Arabic),
 Tattoo (Tahitian),
 Tycoon (Japanese),
 Yogurt (Turkish),
 Zebra (Bantu).

Other languages:

 In the Japanese use of suupaa or suupaamaaketto (“supermarket”) and taipuraitaa (“typewriter”),

 Hungarians talking about sport, klub and futbal,
 The French discussing problems of le stress, over a glass of le whisky, during le weekend.

In some cases, the borrowed words may be used with quite different meanings, as in the contemporary German use of
the English words partner and look in the phrase im Partnerlook to describe two people who are together and are
wearing similar clothing. There is no equivalent use of this expression in English. (Nie ma równoważnego użycia tego
wyrażenia w języku angielskim.)

Loan-translation or calque - A special type of borrowing. In this process, there is a direct translation of the elements of a
word into the borrowing language. (bezpośrednie tłumaczenie elementów wyrazu na język zapożyczenia.)

Examples:

 The French term gratte-ciel, which literally translates as “scrape-sky,”

 The Dutch wolkenkrabber (“cloud scratcher”),
 The German Wolkenkratzer (“cloud scraper”).

All of which were calques for the English skyscraper.

  The English word superman is thought to be a loan-translation of the German U¨bermensch, and the term
loan-word itself is believed to have come from the German Lehnwort,
 The English expression moment of truth is believed to be a calque from the Spanish phrase el momento de la
verdad, though not restricted to the original use as the final thrust of the sword to end a bullfight,
 Nowadays, some Spanish speakers eat perros calientes (literally “dogs hot”) or hot dogs,
 The American concept of “boyfriend” was a borrowing, with sound modification, into Japanese as boyifurendo,
but as a calque into Chinese as “male friend” or nan pengyu.

COMPOUNDING (Złożenie – wyraz powstały przez połączenie co najmniej dwóch rdzeni lub
ich derywatów za pomocą międzyrostka)
Compounding - there is a joining of two separate words to produce a single form.

For example: Lehn and Wort are combined to produce Lehnwort in German.

This combining process is very common in languages such as German and English, but much less common in languages
such as French and Spanish.

Examples:

 Bookcase,
 Doorknob,
 Fingerprint,
 Sunburn,
 Textbook,
 Wallpaper,
 Wastebasket,
 Waterbed,
 Good-looking,
 Low-paid.

This very productive source of new terms has been well documented in English and German, but can also be found in
totally unrelated languages, such as Hmong (spokenin South East Asia) which combines:

 Hwj (“pot”) and kais (“spout”) to produce hwjkais (“kettle”).

 Recent creations are paj (“flower”) plus kws (“corn”) for pajkws (“popcorn”)
 Hnab (“bag”) + rau (“put”) + ntawv (“paper” or “book”) for hnabrauntawv (“schoolbag”).

BLENDING (Mieszanie)
Blending - The combination of two separate forms to produce a single new term. Blending is typically accomplished by
taking only the beginning of one word and joining it to the end of the other word.

For example, there’s a product that is used like gasoline, but is made from alcohol, so the “blended” word for referring
to this product is gasohol.

Smoke + fog = smog

In places where they have a lot of this stuff, they can jokingly make a distinction between smog, smaze (smoke + haze)
and smurk (smoke + murk).

In Hawai’i, near the active volcano, they have problems with vog.
Some other commonly used examples of blending are:

 bit (binary/digit),
 brunch (breakfast/lunch),
 motel (motor/hotel),
 telecast (television/broadcast).

The activity of fund-raising on television that feels like a marathon is typically called a telethon, while infotainment
(information/entertainment) and simulcast (simultaneous/ broadcast) are other new blends from life with television.

Some people talk about Franglais (French/Anglais) and Spanglish (Spanish/English). In a few blends, we combine the
beginnings of both words, as in terms from information technology, such as telex (teleprinter/exchange) or modem
(modulator/demodulator).

CLIPPING (Obcinanie, skracaniem)

Clipping - The element of reduction that is noticeable in blending is even more apparent in the process. This occurs
when a word of more than one syllable (facsimile) is reduced to a shorter form (fax), usually beginning in casual
speech.

Examples:

 Gas (gasoline),
 ad (advertisement),
 bra (brassiere),
 cab (cabriolet),
 condo (condominium),
 fan (fanatic),
 flu (influenza),
 perm (permanent wave).

English speakers also like to clip each other’s names, as in Al, Ed, Liz, Mike, Ron, Sam, Sue and Tom.

Other examples:

 arbi,
 exam,
 gym,
 lab,
 math,
 phys-ed,
 polysci,
 prof,
 typo.

Hypocorism – a word-formation process in which a longer word is reduced to a shorter form with –y or –ie at the end
(e.g. telly, movie).

 It has also produced:

 Aussie (“Australian”),
 arbie (“barbecue”),
 bookie (“bookmaker”),
 brekky (“breakfast”),
 and hankie (“handkerchief”).
 BACKFORMATION (Formowanie wsteczne)
Backformation – A word of one type (usually a noun) is reduced to form a word of another type (usually a verb).

Examples:

 The process whereby the noun television first came into use and then the verb televise was created from it,
 donate (from “donation”),
 emote (from“emotion”),
 enthuse (from “enthusiasm”),
 liaise (from “liaison”),
 babysit (from “babysitter”),
 when we use the verb backform (Did you know that “opt”was backformed from “option”?), we are using a
backformation.

One very regular source of backformed verbs in English is based on the common pattern worker – work. The
assumption seems to have been that if there is a noun ending in -er (or something close in sound), then we can create
a verb for what that noun -er does. Hence, an editor will edit, a sculptor will sculpt and burglars, peddlers and
swindlers will burgle, peddle and swindle.

CONVERSION (Konwersja, przekształcanie)

Conversion - A change in the function of a word, as for example when a noun comes to be used as a verb (without any
reduction). Other labels for this very common process are “category change” and “functional shift.”

A number of nouns such as:

bottle, butter, chair and vacation have come to be used, through conversion, as verbs:

We bottled the home-brew last night; Have you buttered the toast?; Someone has to chair the meeting; They’re
vacationing in Florida.

The noun impact being used as a verb, seem to impact some people’s sensibilities rather negatively.

The conversion can involve verbs becoming nouns, with guess, must and spy as the sources of a guess, a must and a
spy. Phrasal verbs (to print out, to take over) also become nouns (a printout, a takeover). One complex verb
combination (want to be) has become a new noun, as in He isn’t in the group, he’s just a wannabe.

Verbs (see through, stand up) also become adjectives, as in see-through material or a stand-up comedian. Or
adjectives, as in a dirty floor, an empty room, some crazy ideas and those nasty people, can become the verbs to dirty
and to empty, or the nouns a crazy and the nasty.

Some compound nouns have assumed adjectival or verbal functions, exemplified by the ball park appearing in a ball-
park figure or asking someone to ball-park an estimate of the cost. Other nouns of this type are carpool, mastermind,
microwave and quarterback, which are all regularly used as verbs. Other forms, such as up and down, can also become
verbs, as in They’re going to up the price of oil or We downed a few beers at the Chimes.

It is worth noting that some words can shift substantially in meaning when they change category through conversion.
The verb to doctor often has a negative sense, not normally associated with the source noun a doctor. A similar kind of
reanalysis of meaning is taking place with respect to the noun total and the verb run around, which do not have
negative meanings. However, after conversion, if you total (= verb) your car, and your insurance company gives you the
runaround (= noun), then you will have a double sense of the negative.

ACRONYMS (Skrótowiec)
Acronyms are new words formed from the initial letters of a set of other words.

Examples:

 CD (“compact disk”)
 VCR (“video cassette recorder”)
 NATO
 NASA
 UNESCO
 laser (“light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”)
 radar (“radio detecting and ranging”)
 scuba (“self-contained underwater breathing apparatus”)
 zip (“zone improvement plan”) code
 snafu, which is reputed to have its origins in “situation normal, all fouled up,” though there is some dispute
about the appropriate f-word in there
 “mothers against drunk driving” (MADD)
 “women against rape” (WAR)
 ATM (“automatic teller machine”) and the required PIN (“personal identification number”)

DERIVATION (Derywacja)
Derywacja – proces słowotwórczy polegający na utworzeniu nowego wyrazu na podstawie innego poprzez zmianę jego
budowy morfologicznej.

Derivation - it is accomplished by means of a large number of small “bits” of the English language which are not
usually given separate listings in dictionaries. These small “bits” are generally described as affixes.

Some familiar examples are the elements:

 un-,
 mis-,
 pre-,
 -ful,
 -less,
 -ish,
 -ism
 -ness

which appear in words like unhappy, misrepresent, prejudge, joyful, careless, boyish, terrorism and sadness.

Prefixes and suffixes (Przedrostki i przyrostki)

We can see that some affixes have to be added to the beginning of the word (e.g. un-, mis-). These are called prefixes.

Other affixes have to be added to the end of the word (e.g. -less, -ish) and are called suffixes.

All English words formed by this derivational process have either prefixes or suffixes, or both. Thus, mislead has a prefix,
disrespectful has both a prefix and a suffix, and foolishness has two suffixes.

Infixes
Infix - it is an affix that is incorporated inside another word. It is possible to see the general principle at work in certain
expressions, occasionally used in fortuitous or aggravating circumstances by emotionally aroused English speakers:
Hallebloodylujah!, Absogoddamlutely! And Unfuckinbelievable! Singabloodypore! Godtripledammit!

Kamhmu

We could view these “inserted” forms as a special version of infixing in English. However, a much better set of examples
can be provided from Kamhmu, a language spoken in South East Asia.

From these examples, we can see that there is a regular pattern whereby the infix -rn- is added to verbs to form
corresponding nouns. If this pattern is generally found in the language and we know that the form krnap is the Kamhmu
noun for “tongs,” then we can work out the corresponding verb “to grasp with tongs.” According to Merrifield et al.
(2003), the source of these examples, it is kap.

Multiple processes
It is possible to trace the operation of more than one process at work in the creation of a particular word.

For example, the term deli seems to have become a common American English expression via a process of first
borrowing delicatessen (from German) and then clipping that borrowed form.

If someone says that problems with the project have snowballed, the final word can be analyzed as an example of
compounding in which snow and ball were combined to form the noun snowball, which was then turned into a verb
through conversion.

Forms that begin as acronyms can also go through other processes, as in the use of lase as a verb, the result of
backformation from laser.

In the expression waspish attitudes, the acronym WASP (“white Anglo-Saxon Protestant”) has lost its capital letters and
gained a suffix (-ish) in the derivation process.

An acronym that never seems to have had capital letters comes from “young urban professional”, plus the -ie suffix, as
in hypocorism, to produce the word yuppie (first recorded in 1984). The formation of this new word, however, was
helped by a quite different process, known simply as analogy, whereby new words are formed to be similar in some
way to existing words. Yuppie was made possible as a new word by analogy with the earlier word hippie and another
short-lived analogy yippie. The word yippie also had an acronym basis (“youth international party”) and was used for
some students in the USA who were protesting against the war in Vietnam.

Many of these new words can, of course, have a very brief life-span. Perhaps the generally accepted test of the “arrival”
of recently formed words in a language is their published appearance in a dictionary.

However, even this may not occur without protests from some conservative voices, as Noah Webster found when his
first dictionary, published in 1806, was criticized for citing words like advocate and test as verbs, and for including such
“vulgar” words as advisory and presidential.
It would seem that Noah had a keener sense than his critics of which new word-forms in the language were going to
last.