WORD FORMATION PROCESSES

WORD FORMATION PROCESSES

BACK FORMATION
COMPUNDING
BLENDING
CLIPPING
ACRONYMS
ABBREVIATIONS
AFFIXATION


How are new words created?
A very common and productive process:
derivation
happy + ness happiness
print + able printable
em + balm embalm

What other processes are there????

The process of forming a new word by
extracting actual or supposed affixes from
another word; shortened words created from
longer words. Verb: back-form (itself a back-
formation).

Typically, a word of one type (usually a noun)
is reduced to form a word of another type
(usually a verb). The reduction process is
known as backformation (Yule, 2006, p. 56)
For example, the noun resurrection was
borrowed from Latin, and the verb resurrect
was then backformed(back formation)
hundreds of years later from it by removing the
-ion suffix.

This segmentation of resurrection into resurrect
+ ion was possible because English had many
examples of Latinate words that had verb and
verb+-ion pairs in these pairs the -ion suffix
is added to verb forms in order to create nouns
(such as, insert/insertion, project/projection,
etc.).

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Other examples

Hawk from hawker
Stoke from stoker
Swindle from swindler
Edit from editor
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Putting existing words together to create new
lexemes/words
When a new compound is formed , we already
know the meaning of its constituents, and the
only task is to find out about the semantic relation
between the two parts.

The creation of a new word out of several existing
ones,
e.g. bathroom, armchair, university degree

Modifier Head Compound
Noun Noun Football(noun)
Adjective Noun Blackboard(noun)
Verb Noun Breakwater(noun)
Preposition Noun Underwater(noun), out fox(verb) outwit somebody
Noun Adjective Snow white(noun)
Adjective Adjective Blue-green(adjective)
Verb Adjective/adverb Tumbledown(adjective)-dilapidated or ruined and falling down
Preposition Adjective Over-ripe(adjective)
Noun Verb Browbeat(verb)
Adjective Verb Highlight(noun,verb)best part;emphasize something
Verb Verb Freeze-dry(verb)
Preposition Verb Undercut(verb,noun)cut lower part of something or reduce;a cut
made in he lower part
Noun Preposition Love-in(noun)a relatively large gathering in which participants
experience feelings of love and mutual support
Adjective Preposition Forthwith(adverb) immediately;without delay
Verb Preposition Take-out(verb);stand by(verb);roll on(verb)
Preposition Preposition Without(preposition)
Adverb Verb Downsize(verb)make something smaller, upgrade(n,v,adj)
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What are the properties of compounds?
Compounds consist of
a head (the right element, carrying the principal
meaning)
and a modifier (the left element)

They are:
a. endocentric (syntactic and semantic head)
b. exocentric (syntactic but not semantic head)
c. copulative (no head-modifier relationship, both parts
are equal)
d. Appositional/Apposition

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Kinds of compounding:
1. Endocentric (karmadharava in Sanskrit )
consists of head ,i.e. the categorical part that
contains the basic meaning of the whole
compound , and modifiers , which restrict this
meaning.

E.g. doghouse-(house is the head and the dog is the
modifier) is understood as a house intended for a
dog.

(Backyard ,armchair ,girlfriend)

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2 . Exocentric(bahuvrihi) has head and its meaning often
cannot be transparently guessed from its constituents
parts

E.g.
Pickpocket is neither a kind of pocket nor a kind of
pick; its a kind of person.
White-collar is neither a kind of collar nor a white
thing(the collars color is a metaphor for socio-
economic status)

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3. Copulative(dvandra)a compound word made up
of two parts of equal status that would make
sense if joined by and instead of being
compounded.
No semantic head; relation of two constituents
is a relation of coordination

Example:
1. push and pull
2. buy and sell
3. prim and proper
4. the gods and demons
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4. Appositional/Apposition refers to lexemes that
have two contrary attributes

Example:

old news-familiar news
Industrial park-an area of land developed in
an orderly planned way for industry or
business
open secret-something that is supposed to
be secret but in actual fact is widely known


Similar to compounding, blending
also involves the combination of two
separate forms to produce a single
new term. However, blending is
typically accomplished by taking only
the beginning of one word and
joining it to the end of the other
word (Yule, 2006, p. 55).

Most blends are formed by one of the following
methods:

1. The beginning of one word is added to the end of the
other. For example, brunch is a blend of breakfast and
lunch. This is the most common method of blending.

2. The beginnings of two words are combined. For example,
cybora (a fictional being that is part human, part
robot) is a blend of cybernetic and organism.


Other Example

I. Smog(smoke and fog)
II. brunch(breakfast, lunch)
III. fanzine(fan, magazine)

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Clippings are created by shortening an exisiting
word
A word of more than one syllable is reduced
to a shorter form (Yule,2006,p55)
A process which consists in the reduction of a
word to one of its parts (Marchand: 1969).
Clipping mainly consists of the following types:
1. Back clipping
2. Fore-clipping
3. Middle clipping
1. Back clipping or apocopation is the most
common type, in which the beginning is
retained.

Examples are: ad (advertisement), cable
(cablegram), doc (doctor), exam
(examination), gas (gasoline), math
(mathematics), memo (memorandum), gym
(gymnastics, gymnasium), fax (facsimile), cap
(captain)
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2. Fore-clipping
Fore-clipping or aphaeresis retains the final part.
Examples are: phone (telephone), chute
(parachute), coon (racoon), gator (alligator), pike
(turnpike).
3. Middle clipping
In middle clipping or syncope, the middle of the
word is retained. Examples are: flu (influenza), tec
(detective), polly (apollinaris), jams (pyjamas),
shrink (head-shrinker).
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Acronyms are new words formed from
the initial letters of a set of other
words (Yule, 2006, p. 57)

The new form is pronounced as a word
EXAMPLES

AIDS-acquired immuno deficiency
syndrome
RADAR-radio detection and ranging
SCUBA-self-contained underwater
breathing apparatus
BOGOF-buy one get one free
LIFO-last in first out
LASER-light amplification by simulated
emission of radiation

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An abbreviation, according to the dictionary,
is defined as:
a making shorter
the fact or state of being made shorter
a shortened form of a word or phrase

Examples:
eg for example, lb for pound,



Adding morphemes to an existing
word is a common way of creating
new words.
Combination of bound affixes and
free morphemes are the result of
the process of affixation.

Affixation (using prefixes, infixes, and suffixes)

Derivation: Affixation with derivational morphemes
Inflection: Affixation with inflectional morphemes

Derivational morphemes form new words either
by changing the meaning of the base, or
by changing the part of speech (POS) .

Inflectional morphemes
do not change the grammatical class of the base



Some examples of English derivational
suffixes:

1. adjective-to-noun: -ness (slow slowness)
2. adjective-to-verb: -ize (modern modernize)
3. noun-to-adjective: -al (recreation
recreational)
4. noun-to-verb: -fy (glory glorify)
5. verb-to-adjective: -able (drink drinkable)
6. verb-to-noun: -ance (deliver deliverance)


Identify the process of word formation responsible for
each of the following words. Try to determine the process
a) happiness
b) determination
c) modem
d) lab
e) escalator
f) doghouse
g) honeymoon
h) Ph.D
i) Theyre vacationing in France
j) SMS
k) blacklist
l) He fathered my child

2. The words in column A have been created from
the corresponding words in column B. Indicate the
word formation process responsible for the
creation of each word in column A.

Column A Column B
(a)
stagflation stagnation + inflation
(b)
examination exam
(c)
bookie bookmaker
(d)
February Feb.
(e)
Amerindian American Indian
(f)
CD compact disc
(g)
RAM random access memory