Affixation as a type of word formation belongs to

Word-formation
is the system of derivative types of words and the process of
creating new words from material, available in the language after
certain structural and semantic formulas and patterns. A distinction
is made between two principal types of word-formation:
word-derivation
and word-composition.
The basic ways of forming words in word derivation are affixation
and conversion.
Affixation is the formation of a new word with the help of affixes
(f.e.
heartless; overdo).
Conversion is the formation of a new word by bringing a stem of this
word into a different formal paradigm (f.e.
a private, to paper).
The basic form of the original and the basic form of the derived
words are homonymous.

Affixation
– the addition of the affix, is a a basic means of forming words in
English. It has been productive in all periods of the history of
English.

Linguists
distinguish three types of affixes: 1. An affix that is attached to
the front of its base is called a prefix,
whereas 2. an affix attached to the end of the base is called a
suffix.

Both
types of affix occur in English Far less common than prefixes or
suffixes infixes
— a type of affix that occurs within a base of a word to express
such notions as tense,
number,
or gender.
English has no system of infixes.

In
Modern English suffixation is characteristic of noun and adjective
formation, while prefixation is typical of verb formation. As a rule
prefixes modify the lexical meaning of stems to which they are added.
The prefixes of derivatives usually join the part of speech the
unprefixed word belongs: usual
– unusual.

The
suffix does not only modify the lexical meaning of the stem it is
added to, but the word itself is usually transferred to another part
of speech: e.g. care-careless.

The
process of affixation consists in coining a new word by adding an
affix or several affixes to some root-morpheme. Affixation is
generally defined as the formation of word by adding derivational
affixes to different types of bases.

Suffixes
and prefixes may be classified along different lines. The logical
classification of suffixes is according to:

1. their
   origin: from etymological point of view suffixes are subdivided
   into 2 main classes:

native
(-er, -ness, -dom) and borrowed
(latin: -ant,-ent,-ible,-able; romanic: -age,-ment,-tion; greek:
-ist,-ism,-ism).

1. meaning:
   -er – doer of the action: worker;

   • ess
     – denote gender: lion-lioness;

   • -ence/-ance
     – abstract meaning: importance;

   • -dom
     + -age – collectivity: kingdom.etc.

2. Suffixes
   part of speech they form:

   • noun-forming
     suffixes: -er, -ness, -ment, -th, -hood, -ing.

   • Adjective-forming
     suffixes: -ful, -less, -y, -ish, -en, -ly.

   • Verb-forming
     suffixes: -en (redden, darken)

4.
Productivity. By productive suffixes we mean the ability of being
used to form new occasional or potential words which take part in
deriving new words in this particular
period of languge development.

The
best way to identify productive affixes is to look for them among
neologisms.
Well most productive suffixes are: noun forming — -er,
-ness, -ing, -ism, -ist, -ance, -ancy;
adjective forming — -ish,
-able, -ion, -edd, -less;
adverb forming — -ly;
verb
forming — -ize,
-ise, -ate. By
non-productive affixes
we mean affixes which are not able to form new words in the period in
question. Non-productive affixes are recognized as separate morphemes
and posess clear-cut semantic characteristics. ( non-productive
suffixes are: noun forming —
-hood, -ship, adjective
forming — —ful,
-some,
verb forming — —en.
An
affix may lose its productivity and then become productive again in
the process of word formation. For ex. non-prod. noun forming
suffixes –dom,
-ship
centuries ago were considered as productive. The adjective forming
suffix –ish
which
leaves no doubt
to
its productivity nowadays has regained it after having been
non-prod. for many centuries. The productivity of an affix shouldn’t
be confused with its frequency of occurrence. The frequency of
occurrence is understood as the existence in the vocabulary of a
great number of words containing an affix in question. An affix may
occur in hundreds of words but if it isn’t used to form new words
it isn’t productive. For ex. adjective forming suffix –ful
(beautiful,
trustful) is met in hundreds of adjectives but no new words seem to
be built with its help. So it’s non-productive.

The
logical classification of prefixes. They are characterized according
their origin-native and borrowed. 1) be-, mis-(name), un-(selfish),
over-(do). 2) latin – pre-, ultra. Greec – anti-, sym. French –
en-. Also they classified according their meaning. 1)negative (in,
mis, un, non). 2)pr of time and order (after, post, proto) 3)pr of
repetitions (re) 4)location (extra, trance, super). 4)size and degree
meaning (mega, super, ultra). The main а
ща
зк
is to change the lexical meaning.

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Lecture 3.
Word-building: affixation, conversion, composition, abbreviation.
THE WORD-BUILDING SYSTEM OF ENGLISH
1.
Word-derivation
2.
Affixation
3.
Conversion
4.
Word-composition
5.
Shortening
6.
Blending
7.
Acronymy
8.
Sound interchange
9.
Sound imitation
10. Distinctive stress
11. Back-formation
Word-formation is a branch of Lexicology which studies the process of building new
words, derivative structures and patterns of existing words. Two principle types of wordformation are distinguished: word-derivation and word-composition. It is evident that wordformation proper can deal only with words which can be analyzed both structurally and
semantically. Simple words are closely connected with word-formation because they serve as the
foundation of derived and compound words. Therefore, words like writer, displease, sugar free,
etc. make the subject matter of study in word-formation, but words like to write, to please, atom,
free are irrelevant to it.
WORD-FORMATION
WORD-DERIVATION
AFFIXATION
WORD-COMPOSITION
CONVERSION
1. Word-derivation.
Speaking about word-derivation we deal with the derivational structure of words which
basic elementary units are derivational bases, derivational affixes and derivational patterns.
A derivational base is the part of the word which establishes connection with the lexical
unit that motivates the derivative and determines its individual lexical meaning describing the
difference between words in one and the same derivative set. For example, the individual lexical
meaning of the words singer, writer, teacher which denote active doers of the action is signaled by
the lexical meaning of the derivational bases: sing-, write-, teach-.
Structurally derivational bases fall into 3 classes:
1. Bases that coincide with morphological stems of different degrees оf complexity, i.e.,
with words functioning independently in modern English e.g., dutiful, day-dreamer. Bases are
functionally and semantically distinct from morphological stems. Functionally the morphological
stem is a part of the word which is the starting point for its forms: heart – hearts; it is the part
which presents the entire grammatical paradigm. The stem remains unchanged throughout all
word-forms; it keeps them together preserving the identity of the word. A derivational base is the
starting point for different words (heart – heartless – hearty) and its derivational potential
outlines the type and scope of existing words and new creations. Semantically the stem stands for
the whole semantic structure of the word; it represents all its lexical meanings. A base represents,
as a rule, only one meaning of the source word.
2. Bases that coincide with word-forms, e.g., unsmiling, unknown. The base is usually
represented by verbal forms: the present and the past participles.
3. Bases that coincide with word-groups of different degrees of stability, e.g., blue-eyed,
empty-handed. Bases of this class allow a rather limited range of collocability, they are most
active with derivational affixes in the class of adjectives and nouns (long-fingered, blue-eyed).
Derivational affixes are Immediate Constituents of derived words in all parts of speech.
Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding derivational affixes to
different types of bases. Affixation is subdivided into suffixation and prefixation. In Modern
English suffixation is mostly characteristic of nouns and adjectives coining, while prefixation is
mostly typical of verb formation.
A derivational pattern is a regular meaningful arrangement, a structure that imposes
rigid rules on the order and the nature of the derivational base and affixes that may be brought
together to make up a word. Derivational patterns are studied with the help of distributional
analysis at different levels. Patterns are usually represented in a generalized way in terms of
conventional symbols: small letters v, n, a, d which stand for the bases coinciding with the stems
of the respective parts of speech: verbs, etc. Derivational patterns may represent derivative
structure at different levels of generalization:
- at the level of structural types. The patterns of this type are known as structural
formulas, all words may be classified into 4 classes: suffixal derivatives (friendship) n + -sf →
N, prefixal derivatives (rewrite), conversions (a cut, to parrot) v → N, compound words (musiclover).
- at the level of structural patterns. Structural patterns specify the base classes and
individual affixes thus indicating the lexical-grammatical and lexical classes of derivatives
within certain structural classes of words. The suffixes refer derivatives to specific parts of
speech and lexical subsets. V + -er = N (a semantic set of active agents, denoting both animate
and inanimate objects - reader, singer); n + -er = N (agents denoting residents or occupations Londoner, gardener). We distinguish a structural semantic derivationa1 pattern.
- at the level of structural-semantic patterns. Derivational patterns may specify semantic
features of bases and individual meaning of affixes: N + -y = A (nominal bases denoting living
beings are collocated with the suffix meaning "resemblance" - birdy, catty; but nominal bases
denoting material, parts of the body attract another meaning "considerable amount" - grassy,
leggy).
The basic ways of forming new words in word-derivation are affixation and conversion.
Affixation is the formation of a new word with the help of affixes (heartless, overdo).
Conversion is the formation of a new word by bringing a stem of this word into a different
paradigm (a fall from to fall).
2. Affixation
Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding derivational affixes
to different types of bases. Affixation includes suffixation and prefixation. Distinction between
suffixal and prefixal derivates is made according to the last stage of derivation, for example,
from the point of view of derivational analysis the word unreasonable – un + (reason- + -able) is
qualified as a prefixal derivate, while the word discouragement – (dis- + -courage) + -ment is
defined as a suffixal derivative.
Suffixation is the formation of words with the help of suffixes. Suffixes usually modify
the lexical meaning of the base and transfer words to a different part of speech.
Suffixes can be classified into different types in accordance with different principles.
According to the lexico-grammatical character suffixes may be: deverbal suffixes, e.d.,
those added to the verbal base (agreement); denominal (endless); deadjectival (widen,
brightness).
According to the part of speech formed suffixes fall into several groups: noun-forming
suffixes (assistance), adjective-forming suffixes (unbearable), numeral-forming suffixes
(fourteen), verb-forming suffixes (facilitate), adverb-forming suffixes (quickly, likewise).
Semantically suffixes may be monosemantic, e.g. the suffix –ess has only one meaning
“female” – goddess, heiress; polysemantic, e.g. the suffix –hood has two meanings “condition or
quality” falsehood and “collection or group” brotherhood.
According to their generalizing denotational meaning suffixes may fall into several
groups: the agent of the action (baker, assistant); collectivity (peasantry); appurtenance
(Victorian, Chinese); diminutiveness (booklet).
Prefixation is the formation of words with the help of prefixes. Two types of prefixes can
be distinguished: 1) those not correlated with any independent word (un-, post-, dis-); 2) those
correlated with functional words (prepositions or preposition-like adverbs: out-, up-, under-).
Diachronically distinction is made between prefixes of native and foreign origin.
Prefixes can be classified according to different principles.
According to the lexico-grammatical character of the base prefixes are usually added to,
they may be: deverbal prefixes, e.d., those added to the verbal base (overdo); denominal
(unbutton); deadjectival (biannual).
According to the part of speech formed prefixes fall into several groups: noun-forming
prefixes (ex-husband), adjective-forming prefixes (unfair), verb-forming prefixes (dethrone),
adverb-forming prefixes (uphill).
Semantically prefixes may be monosemantic, e.g. the prefix –ex has only one meaning
“former” – ex-boxer; polysemantic, e.g. the prefix –dis has four meanings “not” disadvantage
and “removal of” to disbrunch.
According to their generalizing denotational meaning prefixes may fall into several
groups: negative prefixes – un, non, dis, a, in (ungrateful, nonpolitical, disloyal, amoral,
incorrect); reversative prefixes - un, de, dis (untie, decentralize, disconnect); pejorative prefixes
– mis, mal, pseudo (mispronounce, maltreat, pseudo-scientific); prefix of repetition (redo),
locative prefixes – super, sub, inter, trans (superstructure, subway, intercontinental,
transatlantic).
3. Conversion
Conversion is a process which allows us to create additional lexical terms out of those
that already exist, e.g., to saw, to spy, to snoop, to flirt. This process is not limited to one syllable
words, e.g., to bottle, to butter, nor is the process limited to the creation of verbs from nouns, e.g.,
to up the prices. Converted words are extremely colloquial: "I'll microwave the chicken", "Let's
flee our dog", "We will of course quiche and perrier you".
Conversion came into being in the early Middle English period as a result of the leveling
and further loss of endings.
In Modern English conversion is a highly-productive type of word-building. Conversion
is a specifically English type of word formation which is determined by its analytical character,
by its scarcity of inflections and abundance of mono-and-de-syllabic words in different parts of
speech. Conversion is coining new words in a different part of speech and with a different
distribution but without adding any derivative elements, so that the original and the converted
words are homonyms.
Structural Characteristics of Conversion: Mostly monosyllabic words are converted,
e.g., to horn, to box, to eye. In Modern English there is a marked tendency to convert
polysyllabic words of a complex morphological structure, e.g., to e-mail, to X-ray. Most converted
words are verbs which may be formed from different parts of speech from nouns, adjectives,
adverbs, interjections.
Nouns from verbs - a try, a go, a find, a loss
From adjectives - a daily, a periodical
From adverbs - up and down
From conjunctions - but me no buts
From interjection - to encore
Semantic Associations / Relations of Conversion:
The noun is the name of a tool or implement, the verb denotes an action performed by the
tool, e.g., to nail, to pin, to comb, to brush, to pencil;
The noun is the name of an animal, the verb denotes an action or aspect of behavior
considered typical of this animal, e.g., to monkey, to rat, to dog, to fox;
When the noun is the name of a part of a human body, the verb denotes an action
performed by it, e.g., to hand, to nose, to eye;
When the noun is the name of a profession or occupation, the verb denotes the activity
typical of it, e.g., to cook, to maid, to nurse;
When the noun is the name of a place, the verb will denote the process of occupying the
place or by putting something into it, e.g., to room, to house, to cage;
When the word is the name of a container, the verb will denote the act of putting
something within the container, e.g., to can, to pocket, to bottle;
When the word is the name of a meal, the verb means the process of taking it, e.g., to
lunch, to supper, to dine, to wine;
If an adjective is converted into a verb, the verb may have a generalized meaning "to be
in a state", e.g., to yellow;
When nouns are converted from verbs, they denote an act or a process, or the result, e.g.,
a try, a go, a find, a catch.
4. Word-composition
Compound words are words consisting of at least two stems which occur in the language
as free forms.
Most compounds in English have the primary stress on the first syllable. For example,
income tax has the primary stress on the in of income, not on the tax.
Compounds have a rather simple, regular set of properties. First, they are binary in
structure. They always consist of two or more constituent lexemes. A compound which has three
or more constituents must have them in pairs, e.g., washingmachine manufacturer consists of
washingmachine and manufacturer, while washingmachine in turn consists of washing and
machine. Compound words also usually have a head constituent. By a head constituent we mean
one which determines the syntactic properties of the whole lexeme, e.g., the compound lexeme
longboat consists of an adjective, long and a noun, boat. The compound lexeme longboat is a
noun, and it is а noun because boat is a noun, that is, boat is the head constituent of longboat.
Compound words can belong to all the major syntactic categories:
• Nouns: signpost, sunlight, bluebird, redwood, swearword, outhouse;
• Verbs: window shop, stargaze, outlive, undertake;
• Adjectives: ice-cold, hell-bent, undersized;
• Prepositions: into, onto, upon.
From the morphological point of view compound words are classified according to the
structure of immediate constituents:
• Compounds consisting of simple stems - heartache, blackbird;
• Compounds where at least one of the constituents is a derived stem -chainsmoker,
maid-servant, mill-owner, shop-assistant;
• Compounds where one of the constituents is a clipped stem - V-day, A-bomb, Xmas,
H-bag;
• Compounds where one of the constituents is a compound stem - wastes paper basket,
postmaster general.
Compounds are the commonest among nouns and adjectives. Compound verbs are few in
number, as they are mostly the result of conversion, e.g., to blackmail, to honeymoon, to
nickname, to safeguard, to whitewash. The 20th century created some more converted verbs, e.g.,
to weekend, to streamline,, to spotlight. Such converted compounds are particularly common in
colloquial speech of American English. Converted verbs can be also the result of backformation.
Among the earliest coinages are to backbite, to browbeat, to illtreat, to housekeep. The 20th
century gave more examples to hitch-hike, to proof-read, to mass-produce, to vacuumclean.
One more structural characteristic of compound words is classification of compounds
according to the type of composition. According to this principle two groups can be singled out:

words which are formed by a mere juxtaposition without any connecting elements,
e.g., classroom, schoolboy, heartbreak, sunshine;

composition with a vowel or a consonant placed between the two stems. e.g.,
salesman, handicraft.
Semantically compounds may be idiomatic and non-idiomatic. Compound words may be
motivated morphologically and in this case they are non-idiomatic. Sunshine - the meaning here
is a mere meaning of the elements of a compound word (the meaning of each component is
retained). When the compound word is not motivated morphologically, it is idiomatic. In
idiomatic compounds the meaning of each component is either lost or weakened. Idiomatic
compounds have a transferred meaning. Chatterbox - is not a box, it is a person who talks a great
deal without saying anything important; the combination is used only figuratively. The same
metaphorical character is observed in the compound slowcoach - a person who acts and thinks
slowly.
The components of compounds may have different semantic relations. From this point of
view we can roughly classify compounds into endocentric and exocentric. In endocentric
compounds the semantic centre is found within the compound and the first element determines
the other as in the words filmstar, bedroom, writing-table. Here the semantic centres are star,
room, table. These stems serve as a generic name of the object and the determinants film, bed,
writing give some specific, additional information about the objects. In exocentric compound
there is no semantic centre. It is placed outside the word and can be found only in the course of
lexical transformation, e.g., pickpocket - a person who picks pockets of other people, scarecrow an object made to look like a person that a farmer puts in a field to frighten birds.
The Criteria of Compounds
As English compounds consist of free forms, it's difficult to distinguish them from
phrases, because there are no reliable criteria for that. There exist three approaches to distinguish
compounds from corresponding phrases:
Formal unity implies the unity of spelling

solid spelling, e.g., headmaster;

with a hyphen, e.g., head-master;

with a break between two components, e.g., head master.
Different dictionaries and different authors give different spelling variants.
Phonic principal of stress
Many compounds in English have only one primary stress. All compound nouns are
stressed according to this pattern, e.g., ice-cream, ice cream. The rule doesn't hold with
adjectives. Compound adjectives are double-stressed, e.g., easy-going, new-born, sky-blue.
Stress cannot help to distinguish compounds from phrases because word stress may depend on
phrasal stress or upon the syntactic function of a compound.
Semantic unity
Semantic unity means that a compound word expresses one separate notion and phrases
express more than one notion. Notions in their turn can't be measured. That's why it is hard to
say whether one or more notions are expressed. The problem of distinguishing between
compound words and phrases is still open to discussion.
According to the type of bases that form compounds they can be of :
1.
compounds proper – they are formed by joining together bases built on the stems
or on the ford-forms with or without linking element, e.g., door-step;
2.
derivational compounds – by joining affixes to the bases built on the word-groups
or by converting the bases built on the word-groups into the other parts of speech, e.g., longlegged → (long legs) + -ed, a turnkey → (to turn key) + conversion. More examples: do-gooder,
week-ender, first-nighter, house-keeping, baby-sitting, blue-eyed blond-haired, four-storied. The
suffixes refer to both of the stems combined, but not to the final stem only. Such stems as nighter,
gooder, eyed do not exist.
Compound Neologisms
In the last two decades the role of composition in the word-building system of English has
increased. In the 60th and 70th composition was not so productive as affixation. In the 80th
composition exceeded affixation and comprised 29.5 % of the total number of neologisms in
English vocabulary. Among compound neologisms the two-component units prevail. The main
patterns of coining the two-component neologisms are Noun stem + Noun stem = Noun;
Adjective stem + Noun stem = Noun.
There appeared a tendency to coin compound nouns where:
 The first component is a proper noun, e.g., Kirlian photograph - biological field of
humans.
 The first component is a geographical place, e.g., Afro-rock.
 The two components are joined with the help of the linking vowel –o- e.g.,
bacteriophobia, suggestopedia.
 The number of derivational compounds increases. The main productive suffix to coin
such compound is the suffix -er - e.g., baby-boomer, all nighter.
 Many compound words are formed according to the pattern Participle 2 + Adv =
Adjective, e.g., laid-back, spaced-out, switched-off, tapped-out.
 The examples of verbs formed with the help of a post-positive -in -work-in, die-in,
sleep-in, write-in.
Many compounds formed by the word-building pattern Verb + postpositive are numerous
in colloquial speech or slang, e.g., bliss out, fall about/horse around, pig-out.
ATTENTION: Apart from the principle types there are some minor types of modern wordformation, i.d., shortening, blending, acronymy, sound interchange, sound imitation, distinctive
stress, back-formation, and reduplicaton.
5. Shortening
Shortening is the formation of a word by cutting off a part of the word. They can be
coined in two different ways. The first is to cut off the initial/ middle/ final part:
 Aphaeresis – initial part of the word is clipped, e.g., history-story, telephone-phone;
 Syncope – the middle part of the word is clipped, e.g., madam- ma 'am; specs
spectacles
 Apocope – the final part of the word is clipped, e.g., professor-prof, editored, vampirevamp;
 Both initial and final, e.g., influenza-flu, detective-tec.
Polysemantic words are usually clipped in one meaning only, e.g., doc and doctor have
the meaning "one who practices medicine", but doctor is also "the highest degree given by a
university to a scholar or scientist".
Among shortenings there are homonyms, so that one and the same sound and graphical
complex may represent different words, e.g., vac - vacation/vacuum, prep —
preparation/preparatory school, vet — veterinary surgeon/veteran.
6. Blending
Blending is a particular type of shortening which combines the features of both clipping
and composition, e.g., motel (motor + hotel), brunch (breakfast + lunch), smog (smoke + fog),
telethon (television + marathon), modem , (modulator + demodulator), Spanglish (Spanish +
English). There are several structural types of blends:

Initial part of the word + final part of the word, e.g., electrocute (electricity +
execute);

initial part of the word + initial part of the word, e.g., lib-lab (liberal+labour);

Initial part of the word + full word, e.g., paratroops (parachute+troops);

Full word + final part of the word, e.g., slimnastics (slim+gymnastics).
7. Acronymy
Acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of parts of a word or phrase,
commonly the names of institutions and organizations. No full stops are placed between the
letters. All acronyms are divided into two groups. The first group is composed of the acronyms
which are often pronounced as series of letters: EEC (European Economic Community), ID
(identity or identification card), UN (United Nations), VCR (videocassette recorder), FBI
(Federal Bureau of Investigation), LA (Los Angeles), TV (television), PC (personal computer),
GP (General Practitioner), ТВ (tuberculosis). The second group of acronyms is composed by the
words which are pronounced according to the rules of reading in English: UNESCO (United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome), ASH (Action on Smoking and Health). Some of these pronounceable words are
written without capital letters and therefore are no longer recognized as acronyms: laser (light
amplification by stimulated emissions of radiation), radar (radio detection and ranging).
Some abbreviations have become so common and normal as words that people do not think
of them as abbreviations any longer. They are not written in capital letters, e.g., radar (radio
detection and ranging), laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) yuppie,
gruppie, sinbads, dinkies.
Some abbreviations are only written forms but they are pronounced as full words, e.g.,
Mr, Mrs, Dr. Some abbreviations are from Latin. They are used as part of the language etc. - et
cetera, e.g., (for example) — exampli gratia, that is - id est.
Acromymy is widely used in the press, for the names of institutions, organizations,
movements, countries. It is common to colloquial speech, too. Some acronyms turned into
regular words, e.g., jeep -came from the expression general purpose car.
There are a lot of homonyms among acronyms:
MP - Member of Parliament/Military Police/Municipal Police
PC - Personal Computer/Politically correct
8. Sound-interchange
Sound-interchange is the formation of a new word due to an alteration in the phonemic
composition of its root. Sound-interchange falls into two groups: 1) vowel-interchange, e.g., food
– feed; in some cases vowel-interchange is combined with suffixation, e.g., strong – strength; 2)
consonant-interchange e.g., advice – to advise. Consonant-interchange and vowel-interchange
may be combined together, e.g., life – to live.
This type of word-formation is greatly facilitated in Modern English by the vast number
of monosyllabic words. Most words made by reduplication represent informal groups:
colloquialisms and slang, hurdy-gurdy, walkie-talkie, riff-raff, chi-chi girl. In reduplication new
words are coined by doubling a stem, either without any phonetic changes as in bye-bye or with a
variation of the root-vowel or consonant as in ping-pong, chit-chat.
9. Sound imitation or (onomatopoeia)
It is the naming of an action or a thing by more or less exact reproduction of the sound
associated with it, cf.: cock-a-do-doodle-do – ку-ка-ре-ку.
Semantically, according to the source sound, many onomatopoeic words fall into the
following definitive groups: 1) words denoting sounds produced by human beings in the process of
communication or expressing their feelings, e.g., chatter; 2) words denoting sounds produced by
animals, birds, insects, e.g., moo, buzz; 3) words imitating the sounds of water, the noise of metallic
things, movements, e.g., splash, whip, swing.
10. Distinctive stress
Distinctive stress is the formation of a word by means of the shift of the stress in the
source word, e.g., increase – increase.
11. Back-formation
Backformation is coining new words by subtracting a real or supposed suffix, as a result
of misinterpretation of the structure of the existing word. This type of word-formation is not
highly productive in Modern English and it is built on the analogy, e.g., beggar-to beg, cobbler to cobble, blood transfusion — to blood transfuse, babysitter - to baby-sit.

Compounding

Compounding is the process which probably characterises English the most.
Compounds are formed by combining two, or more, already existing words into a new
one. The graphical form of its constituents remains unaltered (which is not always the
case for their phonological form — changes often occur on the level of suprafixes, that
is regarding tone or stress): chairlift, ashtray, fast-food, dry-clean, sex symbol, sewage disposal works. English compounds very in their orthography and can be constructed
out of more than two constituents. They can be either spelled together, separately or be
hyphenised — the rules regarding a preferred form are not clearly internalised, although
there are some tendencies in frequency of particular forms ^[1].

Structure[edit | edit source]

What is common for compounds, however, is their structure. Each consists of a
head and a modifier. The head of a compound is the part that is more important than the
other in a way it determines the word-class of the whole word and takes inflectional
endings. It also follows the general rule of importance of meaning — that is, the more
meaningful or important a constituent is, the more likely it will be placed at the end of a
given structure. Hence, we can conclude that in English compounds are generally rightheaded
— in the example of fast-food, the whole word denotes ‘a kind of food’ rather
than any attempt to describe a way of ‘being fast’. Also, since the morpheme food is a
noun, the whole word belongs to the very same word-class. What remains is the lefthand
of a compound, namely the modifier. Modifiers are characterised by being applied
stress onto, which helps us distinguish them from other constructs — a ‘blackboard is ‘a
board that teachers write on’, while a black ‘board is any board that happens to be black
— which is not necessarily true for the former.

Productivity[edit | edit source]

The vast majority of English compounds are nouns ^[2]. However, the productivity of this process allows to create items that vary greatly in word classes they belong to — there exists a considerable number of combinations of grammatical categories one can choose from when merging them into compounds, and this is the basis for establishing the primary classification of compounds. There is a category of compounds, though, that contain constituents of a slightly different character. What is meant here is that they not only can be attached to bases like bound morphemes (affix-like behaviour), but can also be combined with themselves. These abound in the medical and scientific terminology and often stem from Greek or Latin, and some examples include astro-, electro-, hydro-, -ology, -photo, bio-. What is more, they often function on their own in the linguistic word, which effectively narrows the meaning of a newly-coined word that is created by combing these segments. Such constituents are labelled ‘combining forms’ and form a structure called neo-classical compounds.

References[edit | edit source]

Affixation

Affixation is a process which involves adding bound morphemes to roots which results in a newly-created derivative. Whereas we can distinguish many types of this process,
the English language generally makes use of two — prefixation and suffixation. The first is characterised by adding a morpheme that is placed before the base: mature — premature, do — undo, affirm — reaffirm, function — malfunction. In contrast, suffixation focuses on attaching a morpheme that rather follows the base than proceeds it: read — reader, friend — friendship, manage — management. What is also characteristic for this type of affixation is the fact that suffixes can be stacked on one another — this does not happen when it comes to prefixes: re-spect-ful-ness, friend-liness, un-help-ful-ness. It should be noted that affixes are divided into two main categories: while some of them are labelled as inflectional, a majority of them is known to be derivational.

Derivational affixes[edit | edit source]

Derivational affixes can change the word-class of the derivative and can be either prefixes or suffixes — therefore they can produce new lexemes.
However, the meaning they carry is not always fixed — eg. X-ise carries the meaning of either «put into X (computerise — ‘put into a computer’), make more X (modernise —
‘make more modern’ or provide with X (brotherise — ‘provide with a brother’).

Inflectional affixes[edit | edit source]

Another type of affixes is labelled as inflectional. They differ from the other
type in the way that once attached, they will never change the word-class of a derivative. Also, their grammatical function is very much fixed: the plural -s suffix
always creates plural forms of nouns: dog — dogs, cat — cats. In fact, they do not produce new words in English, but rather provide the existing lexemes with new forms:

1. the plural [-s] — creates plural forms of nouns: dog — dogs, cat — cats, bush — bushes,
2. Saxon genitive [‘s] — indicates possession: Robert — Robert’s (clothes), children — children’s (toys), Jesus — Jesus’ (mercy),
3. the past tense [-ed] — creates past forms of regular verbs: walk — walked, delve -delved,
4. the third person singular [-s] — enforced by the English grammar in the Present Simple tense: She works there, The knife proves sharp,
5. the progressive [-ing] — used in progressive forms of verbs: go — going, see — seeing, ski — skiing,
6. the comparative [-er] — forms comparative adjectives: wide — wider, high — higher, far — farther,
7. the superlative [est] — forms superlative adjectives: wise — widest, high — highest, far — furthest.

Another type of affixation that can be encountered in either English or Polish
(though to a rather limited scope) is infixation, which involves putting a morpheme in
the middle of a word structure rather than taking lateral positions: al-bloody-mighty,
kanga-bloody-roo. In the English language this only serves as a tool of emotionally
colouring swear-words to give them greater an impact.

Yet another type of suffix are interfixes. They are used in Polish compounds and blends
to ensure phonological feasibility of a word: śrub-o-kręt, park-o-metr, lod-o-łamacz and are
meaningless phonemes that connect two bases. They do exist in English but due to the fact that
English compound-formation does not require such measures their number is scarce (eg. speedo-meter).

Internal modification

Internal modification occurs when a phoneme (or a group of phonemes) in a word is replaced by another one and thus creates a new item. Although the process itself is not very productive in English ^[3], a variety of changes can be introduced with it, like word-class change or tense change. There are several possibilities of swapping the phonological segments — these include replacing vowels, consonants or both the same time (mixed modifications). Replacing all the sound segments result in a phenomenon called suppletion, eg. człowiek (sg.) — ludzie (pl.). In English it is common to observe internal modification in the past verb forms (wind — wound, steal — stole, make — made) and in irregular plural forms of nouns (mouse — mice, woman — women, foot — feet). In contrast, the Polish language makes use of internal modification in creating augmentatives: nos — nochal, kluska — klucha.

References[edit | edit source]

Reduplication

Reduplication is a process that takes place when the root or stem is reduplicated and added to the existing one. The added morpheme might or might not be further modified and on the basis of this division one can distinguish partial and complete variants or reduplication. The latter of the two does not change the structure of the reiterated word.

Examples found in the Indonesian language^[4]:

• kitab — ‘book’,
• kitab kitab — ‘various books’,
• anak — ‘child’,
• anak anak — ‘various children’.

While these clearly show that the additional morpheme not only denotes ‘various X’ but also suggests plural, conversely English girly-girly and goody-goody represent derivatives whose meaning implies using irony or sarcasm.

Partial reduplication, in turn, takes advantage of morphemes that have been modified to a degree. This is where pseudomorphemes are introduced — such that have been modified in a way they remain as sound clusters that no longer carry meaning and serve as a tool of expressing stylisation or emotional involvement of the speaker: shillyshally, zig-zag. The presence of pseudomorphemes is an indicative of the word being an outcome of reduplication rather than compound-creation where meaningful morphemes are used.

References[edit | edit source]

Conversion

In contrast to reduplication which because of its nature is rather doubtful in being clearly labelled as a tool of non-concatenative morphology branch, conversion is an easily-defined word-formation process.

Conversion takes place when a given word changes its word-class, hence becoming a new one. Because this involves no extension at the level of the word’s internal structure, this process is also called zero-derivation or zero-affixation. It is argued that even though there is no visual representation of meaning-derivation, the so-called zero morpheme is added to the base as a justification for the change: [cook]v → [[cook]V + O ]N.

What can be exposed to modification, however, is the way the word is stressed (compare ‘import [n.] and im’port [v.]). Despite this being the only noticeable change, there are several ways to find out which one is the derivative of the other. These include the date of the word’s first appearance, frequency of the word’s occurrence in use and complexity of meaning. Because the word that appeared first tends to carry less content meaning-wise, the one whose meaning is extended is regarded to be a derivative. Although conversion seems to be a relatively free process and can produce derivatives of virtually any word-class ^[5], four certain types of this phenomenon seem to prevail in English ^[6]: noun-to-verb (a pilot [n.] — to pilot [v.]), verb-to-noun (to cook [v.] — a cook [n.]), adjective-to-noun (professional [a.] — a professional [n.]) and adjective-to-verb (empty [v.] — to empty [v.]). Also, one can distinguish between partial conversion and total conversion. Whereas total conversion deals with the transformation of the word into a new one following all its principles of grammatical suitability, partial conversion derivatives can differ from the original in a way (eg. advice — to advise, house — to house: /s/ is exchanged for /z/).

References[edit | edit source]

Back-formation

Back-formation, also known as back-derivation, forms new lexemes by means of suffix-like segment extraction. This means that not only suffixes can be deleted from the stem, but also structures that behave alike, as long as the cut is done at a boundary between corresponding morphemes. Taking these two possibilities into account, one may be presented not only with such examples as lecher — to lech, peddler — to peddle, sculptor — to sculpt, but also the lexeme to lase being a derivative of laser where the {-er} segment is a by-product of deconstructing an acronym rather than the agentive/instrumental suffix -er ^[7]. This type of word formation in English is by far dominated by creating derivatives that belong to the grammatical class of verb ^[8]. Back-derivation is often an outcome of linguistic productivity based on paradigms — it is safe to make an assumption that pairs edit — editor and exhibit — exhibitor were created in a similar manner by employing strategies speakers of the language know because of their linguistic competence.

References[edit | edit source]

Blending

Blending, or contamination, is the name of the process which occurs when at least two lexemes are shortened and joined together disregarding their initial boundaries. What is created in such a process can be called a blend, though other names are also found to operate — those being portmanteau or telescoped words.

A characteristic feature of contamination, and also the one that enables a speaker to coin blends freely is that the semantic content of the derivative most of the time carries some of the meaning of its constituents. There are few rules that govern blend-creation. The speaker is not restricted in any way from using part of any length of either of the constituents (the obvious cases would be the ability to pronounce such a word), thus distinguishing elements that add up to the derivative is not always an easy task. This leads to a conclusion that blends found in English are constructed according to various patterns.

Among others, one can find words that are constructed of two constituents, but only one of them is shortened, or even the two overlap each other:

Lexeme 1	Lexeme 2	Blend
breath	analyser	brethalyser
cable	telegram	cablegram
slang	language	slanguage

Acronymisation

The products of acronymisation are called acronyms. These word-structures are made of several other words’ initial segments that make up a whole and serve as a meaningful shortening of a longer phrase. This definition is also true for abbreviations.

The key to distinguish the two is the manner of pronunciation of either derivatives. Whereas acronyms are pronounced as a complete word, the other type rather as a series of separate letters. This being said, one will pronounce the acronym UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation) as [ju ˈnesk əʊ], and UFO which is an abbreviation as [ˌjuː ef ˈəʊ].

Clipping

Clipping occurs whenever a word is shortened but nevertheless still retains its original meaning and belongs to the same word-class.

Productivity[edit | edit source]

Clipping-productivity is governed by the condition of derivatives being phonologically well-formed, with morpheme-boundary cuts no longer being a requirement (this helps distinguish certain clipping products from back-formation where such mechanism exists). This being said, with the use of la langue one is more likely to derive cello from violoncello rather than *ncell since it does not represent a pronunciation that is common or even correct in the English language. Another principle that that applies^[9] is a product of clipping must be either one- or two-syllable long; also — first or primarily-stressed syllables are retained.

This indeed is the case: refrigerator — fridge, advertisement — ad, penitentiary — pen.

In some cases, the syllable structure may be altered (e-xa-mi-na-tion — e-xam). Because of the language’s tendency to adopt ways of expressing oneself in the most effective manner — that is convey as much meaning as possible in as little as possible — products of clipping tend to gain ground in slang words and become a tool used in relaxed, informal, every-day communication, which further solidifies their position in the language. They also indicate speaker’s familiarity towards the concept that is presented through the word.

What also has been noted to happen is once a product of clipping is derived, it may rival with the lexeme it was derived from and because of so undergo semantic changes. This is contradictive to the rule of meaning-retention, and once again proves that word-formation often produces lexemes that are uneasy to define. The examples include fanatic — fan, brandywine — brandy, caravan — van ^[10]. These show that discrepancies between the derivatives can exist, which can be further proved by the example of fanatic — fan — fanboy where both fanatic and the compound fanboy are semantically distant from each other.

Clipping types[edit | edit source]

There are four types of possible clipping processes, depending on which part of the word undergoes structural changes: back-clipping (temperature — temp, rhino — rhinoceros, gym — gymnasium), fore-clipping (helicopter — copter, telephone — phone, plane — aeroplane), mixed clipping (influenza — flu, refrigerator — fridge) and clipping-compounds (paratrooper — parachute + trooper).

References[edit | edit source]

1. ↑ Szymanek, Bogdan (1998). Introduction to Morphological Analysis. p. 41.
2. ↑ Bauer, Laurie (1983). English Word-Formation. p. 202.
3. ↑ Szymanek, Bogdan (1998). Introduction to Morphological Analysis. p. 76.
4. ↑ Szymanek, Bogdan (1998). Introduction to Morphological Analysis. p. 72.
5. ↑ Bauer, Laurie (1983). English Word-Formation. p. 226.
6. ↑ Plag, I (2007). Introduction to English Linguistics. p. 100.
7. ↑ Szymanek, Bogdan (1998). Introduction to Morphological Analysis. p. 93.
8. ↑ Stekauer, Pavol (2000). Rudiments of English Linguistics. p. 109.
9. ↑ Szymanek, Bogdan (1998). Introduction to Morphological Analysis. p. 97.
10. ↑ Štekauer, P (2000). Rudiments of English Linguistics. p. 111.